Cultural areas:

religion: defining factor in shaping culture => the sacred languages ----> languages of the state (official languages) => cultural areas:

1. Latin area - Roman Catholic Christianity
                     - Latin

2. Byzantine area - Greek Orthodox Christianity
                            - Greek

3. Slavonic area - (Greek) Orthodox Church
                          - Old Church Slavonic

4. Islamic area - Islam
                        - Arabic

Medieval Renaissance:

- Middle Ages = age of faith => reason without faith is dangerous => early scholarly endeavors - primarily theological

12th C:
    - network of parishes (1 church for every 200 inhabitants) in Western Europe => the church could influence the daily life of people
    - monasteries lost the monopoly on education and literacy => as the rise of cities created new educational needs => new schools + universities
    - cathedrals - became the centers of learning => cathedrals schools were designed to respond to the needs of local townspeople => teaching masters associated themselves into guilds (Paris) => the rise of Universities (universitas = the whole (of the teaching body), the guild)
    - Universities - applied a curriculum used since Carolingian times:
    * human knowledge was broken-down into separate subject areas => liberal arts (7):
        trivium (three paths): grammar, rhetoric, dialectic (producing proficiency in reading and writing Latin)
        quadrivium (four paths): arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy
    * greatly improved after the discovery of Arab translations and commentaries on Euclid

- the trivium - was the most important part of the curriculum => use of ancient models (Virgil, Cicero) for teaching good Latin
- dialectic: studied the construction of arguments and techniques of logical inference => emphasis on good reasoning (scholasticism)
- medieval philosophy => reconciling faith with reason = to understand with one's mind what one believed in one's heart

- dialecticians attacked the problem of words referring to classes of items (universals):
        - some argued that classes of objects existed apart from the individual members of these classes (genera without species ) (REALISTS)
        - others claimed that classes were just nomina (names), concepts invented by the human mind to bring order among real individual things (NOMINALISTS)

BUT: if classes are real, they had to accept the idea that all classes are ultimately reduced to one supreme entity => God => no distinction exists between Creator and creation (pantheism) => heresy

==>> dialectic became a danger for faith => Bernard of Clairvaux condemned attempts to approach God by rational inquiry => faith is emotion, not intellect

Bernard attacked one of the best intellectuals of the 12th C. - Peter Abelard:
    - taught in Paris (established the school - later known as the Sorbonne)
    - hired as tutor to 17 year old Heloise, the niece of a wealthy church official
    - they fell in love => Heloise became pregnant => they married in secret in order to avoid destroying Peter's reputation => their child taken to Brittany
    - Heloise's uncle => hired a man to have Peter castrated => Heloise + Peter => entered monasteries

Abelard => applied critical reasoning to sacred texts => emphasized the role of logical inquiry
==> he was accused of heresy => dragged through church courts => died before he was able to defend himself

* Aristotle's work on dialectic - discovered => the path broken by Abelard => followed by others

Saint Thomas Aquinas => attempted to synthesize Aristotelianism with the divine revelation of Christianity
    - revealed truth: 1. believes whose truth can be demonstrated by reason
                               2. believes that reason cannot prove to be either false or true

Aquinas: asserted the importance of physical reality as revealed through the senses
- affirming the importance of knowledge of the social order and the physical world Aquinas altered the Augustinian tradition => The City of Man was not merely a sinful place from which people tried to escape in order to enter the City of God => it was worthy of investigation and understanding

The scientific movement (13 and 14th C.):

- Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) - wrote on geology, chemistry, botany, and zoology
- Robert Grosseteste - declared that the roundness of earth could be demonstrated by reason; mathematics - necessary to understand the physical world

Literature:

- the Latin literature : religious hymns, dramas depicting the life of Christ and saints
- the vernacular literature (High Middle Ages):
        - French epic poems => chansons de geste (northern France)
       - Germany => Nibelungenlied (heroic epic)
       - the roman => storytellers blended Christian concepts with old legends and chivalric ideas => the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table
       - poetry - dealt with the romantic glorification of women => poems sung by troubadours (nobles), popular in southern France
      - Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales => portraits of twenty-nine pilgrims on their way from London to a religious shrine at Canterbury
      - Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy - a journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise => gave us the medieval understanding of the purpose of life

Architecture:

2 styles: Romanesque + Gothic

Romanesque: the church, built low, with thick walls and dark interiors
Gothic: vaulted ceilings and huge stained glass windows => feeling of soaring grace