Chapter 12

Christianity and the Medieval

Mind

Medieval DramaMystery playMiracle playMorality play

Mystery play Medieval religious drama based on

stories from the Bible. Mystery plays were performed around the time of church festivals. A whole cycle running from the Creation to the Last Judgment was performed in separate scenes on mobile wagons.

http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/may/images/mystery_plays.jpg

The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

At the beginning, God tells Noah that he will put an end to all the people on earth because of their violent and evil deeds. Noah is the only one good man whom god believes, so he is told to build an ark and, besides his family, he has to take into a male and a female of every kind of animals and bird.

The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

In the Bible, Noah takes his family and the creatures into the ark without any problem; however, in the play, he gets problems to get his wife into the boat because she can not leave her friends alone and just goes away.

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/medievalplays/newpage3.htm

The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood

Then, the rain fell on the earth for forty days and nights. The flood destroys all the creatures on earth and only those on the ark survive. The play end with the dove’s returning to Noah with an olive leaf in its break and the promise of God that flood will never destroy all living beings on earth any more.

http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/medievalplays/newpage3.htm

The Second Shepherd's Play from the Wakefield Mystery Cycle

http://www.headlandview.co.uk/tower/plays/1963/p6309.htm

The angel seizes Abraham's sword. Scene from the York Play of Abraham and Isaac. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_medieval_and_early_modern_studies/v031/full/31.3frantzen_fig02f.jpg

Miracle play Also called saint’s play; presents

a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles, or martyrdom of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint.

http://www.srvc.net/engl154/html_files/T-2.htm

Here we see the suffering and death of one of the early saints persecuted by the Romans.

Morality play An allegorical drama in

which the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral lessons are taught.

Contemplation, Perseverance, Imagination, and Free Will. From the morality play Hickscorner. http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/drama/moralities.html

Everyman

15th–century A morality play A motif: memento mori (Keep dea

th before your eyes!)

You better watch out You better not cry Better not pout I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town He's making a list And checking it twice; Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice Santa Claus is coming to town He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake! O! You better watch out!

Everyman

Themes: (1) Life is a pilgrimage. (2) Death is inevitable. (3) Medieval theology: It is

not faith that will save Everyman; his or her willingness to learn (Knowledge), act (Good Deeds), and convert (Confession) will make the difference between salvation and damnation.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

The Divine Comedy

Structure

Inferno: Dante travels through the nine levels of hell, starting from the outermost ring, limbo. This ring is inhabited by those who lead blameless lives, but were not baptized. As he progresses to the central circle the sins of the damned become more serious as are their sufferings.

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

Structure

Purgatorio: Dante ascends the seven terraces of Purgatory. Each terrace represents one of the seven deadly sins which must be overcome by the sinner before entering heaven.

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

Structure

Paradiso: Dante is guided through the nine spheres of heaven, based roughly on Aristotelean cosmology. He then meets God, who grants him the understanding of human nature.

http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy

Inferno Circle 1: The virtuous pagans Circle 2: The lascivious Circle 3: The gluttonous Circle 4: The greedy and the wasteful Circle 5: The wrathful Circle 6: The heretics Circle 7: The violent against others, self, God, nature,

and art Circle 8: The fraudulent (10 classes) Circle 9: The lake of the treacherous against kindred,

country, guests, lords and benefactors. Satan is imprisoned at the center of this frozen lake.

Virgil and Dante meeting Homer

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Dante And Virgil In Hell (1850) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_Dante_And_Virgil_In_Hell_(1850).jpg

Purgatory Ante-Purgatory: the excommunicated, the lazy, t

he unabsolved, negligent rulers The Terraces of the Mount of Purgatory

The proud The envious The wrathful The slothful The avaricious The gluttonous The lascivious

The Earthly Paradise

Paradise The Moon: The faithful who were inconstant Mercury: Service marred by ambition Venus: Love marred by lust The Sun: Wisdom; the theologians Mars: Courage; the just warriors Jupiter: Justice; the great rulers Saturn: Temperance; the contemplatives and mystics The Fixed Stars: The Church Triumphant The Premum Mobile: The Order of Angels The Empyrean Heavens: Angels, Saints, The Virgin, and t

he Holy Trinity

Illustrations to the Divine Comedy

by Gustave Doré http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/images/dore/inf.html

Dante astray in the Dusky Wood

The Lion suddenly confronts Dante

Phlegyas ferries Dante and Virgil across the Styx

Harpies in the Forest of the Suicides

Lucifer, King of Hell

The Sinners passing through the Fire

The Sparkling Circles of the Heavenly Host

The Saintly Throng in the Form of a Rose

Medieval University

England: Oxford and Cambridge

France: University of Paris Italy: University of Bologna

Medieval University

Developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries along with the emergence of city life.

The word “universitas” originally meant “a guild or corporation.”

Medieval Scholasticism

Scholasticism The school of philosophy taught by

the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100 - 1500. Scholasticism attempted to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholastic

Thomas Aquinas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) Summa Theologica Philosophical tradition: Aristot

le

Thomas Aquinas Central concern: How does one

harmonize those things that are part of human learning (reason) with those supernatural truths revealed by God in the Bible and through the teaching of the church (revelation)?

High Middle Ages

Two characteristics Hierarchical Synthetic

The End