Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

Mediaeval Culture

In this semi-independent kingdom there developed a civilization and culture of hot-house growth, precocious in its appreciation of the less violent pleasures of life, such as love, art, music, literature, but often corrupt in their enjoyment. The gay court of Toulouse paid no heed to St. Augustine’s hell, whose fears haunted the rest of Europe in its more thoughtful moments. Joyous and inconsequent, it lived for the passing hour, and out of its atmosphere of dalliance and culture was born a race of poet-singers. These troubadours (trouvers = discoverers) sang of love, whose silken fetters could hold in thrall knights and fair ladies; and their golden lyrics, now plaintive, now gay, were carried to the crowded cities of Italy and Spain, or found schools of imitators elsewhere, as in Germany amongst her thirteenth-century minnesingers (love-singers). In the north of France and in England appeared minstrels also, but their themes were less of love than of battle; and audiences revelled by castle and camp-fire in the ‘gestes’ or ‘deeds’ of Charlemagne and his Paladins, the chivalry of Arthur and his Knights, or in stirring Border ballads such as Chevy Chase.

Mediaeval Universities

The market-place, the camp, and the baronial hall, where were sung or recited these often imaginary stories of the past, were the schools of the many unlettered; just as the conversation of Arabs and Jews around the desert fires had stimulated the imagination of the young Mahomet; but for the few who could afford a sounder education there were the universities—Paris, Bologna, Oxford, to name but three of the most famous.

The word universitas implied in the Middle Ages a union of men; such a corporation as the ‘guilds’ formed by fishmongers and drapers to protect their trade interests; and the universities had indeed originated for a similar purpose. Cities to-day that have universities in their midst are proud of the fact, and welcome new students; but in early mediaeval times an influx of young men of all ages from every part of Europe, many of them wild and unruly, some so poor that they must beg or steal their daily bread, was at first sight a very doubtful blessing. Street fights between nationalities who hated one another on principle, or between bands of students and citizens, were a common occurrence in the towns that learning honoured with her presence, and had their usual accompaniment of broken heads, fires, and looting. But for the universitas formed by masters and students to control and protect their members, these centres of education would probably have been stamped out by indignant tradesmen: as it was they had to fight for their existence.

Municipalities looked with no lenient eye upon a corporation that seemed to them a ‘state within a state’, threatening their own right to govern all within the city. It was not until after many generations that they understood the meaning of the word co-operation, that is, the possibility of assisting instead of hindering the work of the universitas. Sometimes a king like Philip Augustus insisted on toleration by granting to his students the ‘privilege of clergy’, but as the University grew it became able to enforce its own lessons. In the thirteenth century the Masters of Paris closed their lecture-halls and led away their flock, in protest for what they considered unfair treatment by the city authorities during a riot, and their absence taught Parisians that, in spite of head-breakings, the students were an asset, not a loss, to municipal life. Under the protection therefore of a papal ‘bull’, they returned a few weeks later in triumph to the Latin Quarter.

It was only by degrees that colleges where the students could live were erected, or that anything resembling the elaborate organization of a modern university was evolved. Students lodged where they could, and ‘masters’ lived on the goodwill of those who paid their fees, and starved if their popularity waned and with it their audience. The life of both teacher and pupil was vague and hazardous, with a background of poverty and crime lurking at the street corners to ruin the unwary or foolish. Nor was the period of study a mere ‘passing sojourn’ like some modern ‘terms’: the Bachelor of Arts at Oxford or Paris must be a student of five years’ standing, the Master of Arts calculated on devoting three years more to gaining his final degree, a Doctor of Theology would be faced with eight years’ hard work at least. It might almost be said that higher education under these circumstances became a profession.

To Bologna, the greatest of Italian universities, went those who wished to study Roman law at the fountain-head. This does not mean to stir up the legal dust of a dead empire out of a student’s curiosity, but to master a living system of law that barbarian invaders had gradually grafted on to their own national codes. In the eleventh century the laws of Justinian[21] were as much or more revered than in his own day. We have seen that Frederick Barbarossa set the lawyers of Bologna to work to justify from old legal documents the claims he wished to establish over Lombardy; and when they had succeeded to his satisfaction he rewarded them with gifts and knighthood, showing what value he put on their achievement. This is a very good example of the respect felt by mediaeval minds for the laws and title-deeds of an earlier age, even though the tyranny that resulted led the ‘Lombard League’ to dispute such claims.

Mediaeval Papal Government

Still more closely allied than the civil codes of Europe to the old Roman legal texts was the ‘Canon’ law of the Church that had been directly based upon classic models; and with the rise of Hildebrand’s world-wide ambitions its decisions assumed a growing importance and demanded an enormous army of trained lawyers to interpret and arrange them. For youths of a practical and ambitious turn of mind here was a course of study leading to a profession profitable in all ages; and a text-book was provided for such budding lawyers in the decretum of Gratian, a monk who in the twelfth century compiled a full and authoritative text of Canon law.