By the way, make sure that you look at the art and the artifacts and various illustrations in your book. We will do much this year to connect art, history, and literature.
Who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People?
Approximately when was it written?
Which race of people overcame the Celts and the Picts?
Christianity in the British Isles was ______________-based Christianity.
What kind of culture best describes Medieval Britain?
Which culture began to have a great influence on British culture in the 13th century?
What happened in 1066?
______________ humanism began to influence the Britons as they neared the end of the Middle Ages.
Medieval art and Medieval literature are stridently religious and allegorical. If you look at a Medieval painting, it has not been signed by the artist, because it is not about the artist. It's about doing God's work, and not glorifying the self. An allegory is a symbolic story. Characters represent concepts like love, death, faith, and charity, to name a few. Everything in a Medieval painting is there for a reason. The most important figures are largest. They are also symbolically dressed. The Virgin Mary, for example, is almost always in blue. This is because blue was made from lapis lazuli, which was the most expensive ingredient in colored paint. Other figures or animals or items appear in Medieval painting, not for the purpose of creating a pleasing composition, but for the purpose of getting out a particular message. Often you will see a skull below Jesus' cross. The skull represents fallen man, or Adam.
Medieval humans were supposed to focus not on this world, but on the next. They were not to seek glory for themselves, but for God. That is one reason that there were not a lot of discoveries--in science or globally--because the focus was inward and upward. Suffering was good; it got you closer to God. Lavishing money upon yourself was considered sinful.
The art and the literature of the Middle Ages reflected that. You don't see much portraiture until you get to the end of the era. That would have been a vanity. If you look at the faces of the various Biblical characters depicted in a work of art, they show humility or suffering or old-fashioned piety. The emotional contexts were pretty much limited to these.
You also have to remember that the Church ran everything, including much of the government. You could not become a lawyer without going through a church-run school.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, writers and painters became more interested in expressing their humanity in their work. Works were still somewhat allegorical, but characters and figures expressed a wider range of human emotion. This is partly what is meant by humanism.
Know what the book says about Medieval society: "rigidly hierarchical, feudal, and Church-dominated."
The Old English Period: 700-1066
The Middle-English Period: 1066-1500
The Celts:
The recorded history of Britain actually begins in ________________ and in _____________.
The Celts migrated to Britain around ____________________.
Which emperor's conversion to Christianity brought Christianity to Europe?
How were the Goidelic Celts different from the Britons?
"The Irish converted to Christianity early but slowly, without the pressure of a Christianized colonizer. When the great Irish monasteries flourished in the sixth century, their extraordinary Latin scholarship seems to have developed alongside the traditional learning preserved by the rigorous schools of vernacular poetry" (5).
The Roman Church sent many of its best scholars to Ireland. Thus, while most of Europe was in the Dark Ages, Ireland was experiencing a kind of Renaissance. The church-scholars translated, interpreted, and documented church-texts, but they also preserved elements of the pagan culture. They wrote down many of the stories (myths) that had only been told orally. Many of the stories have what I call "pagan" endings but others also have acceptably Christian endings. These scholars also wrote down the histories and preserved and protected ancient artifacts and structures.
In 597, Pope Gregory the Great sent __________________ to expand Christianity in England.
In England, there were disputes over the Roman v. the Celtic ways of worship. The Roman eventually won, but the Pagan craftsmanship shows up in art that expressed the faith, particularly in the Illuminated Manuscripts.
What elements of Pagan craftsmanship can be seen in the Illuminated Manuscripts?
The Germanic Migrations:
Which part of Great Britain never Romanized?
What was going on between the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes?
Bede viewed Britain's conversion to Christianity "as part of a divine plan."
In what way does pagan culture (particularly that of the Germanic Barbarians) show up in "Beowulf"?
Tacitus called this ___________________.
What quality was valued most?
What was just beneath that?
What was a warrior supposed to do when his leader was slain?
Besides loyalty to a tribe, what other kind of loyalty was important?
Pagan and Christian: Tension and Convergence
Most texts from the Latin period focus on __________________ subjects.
How was vernacular literature expressed?
How did the pagan values conflict with Christian values?
How did the pagan culture regard treasure?
How did the Christian culture regard treasure?
Primary Poetic Modes: Heroic and Elegiac
Describe the Heroic:
How is the elegiac mode different? Give several examples.
Oral Poetry, Written Manuscripts:
What is a scop?
What else does the scop do?
"In Celtic areas, oral poets had even greater status. The ancient class of learned Irish poets were honored servants of noblemen and kings...."
A fili was the highest class of Irish oral poet. He or she had to know hundreds of stories by heart. He or she also kept the history of kings and peoples alive. A poet or storyteller had great power. A satirized king could lose his job.
"...the fili also carried out some functions of spells and divination inherited from the pagan priestly class--the druids."
"Possession of the word bestows tremendous, even magical power" (9).
Christianity brought with it the religious story. Augustine and Jerome were two of the pioneers of this genre.
The Norman Conquest
In what year did it occur?
What famous woven work of art expresses this?
How did the culture and language change?
What is the Domesday Book?
Which king is responsible for that book?
How did the feudal system work?
The Normans brought a stronger central government. Know that the Church also became more centralized through _______________ law.
What happened between Henry II and Thomas Becket?
How did this end in 1170?
Where did the event take place?
What is Hagiography?
Continental and Insular Cultures
Schools were expanding in many ways. "Along with biblical and theological study, schools revived an interest in Latin writing, ___________________ philosophy, and science deriving from _________________."
Women, Courtliness, and Courtly Love
Many images during this time were of which two women?
Women (nuns) were somewhat literate--certainly more so than the masses.
Know about Eleanor of Aquitaine and Marie de France.
What is Mariolatry?
How did Ovid's works come into play during this era?
Romance
Women were also seen "as agents of disaster"--and the catalysts of "transgressive love."
