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History 104A, November 4: Learning the Hard Way!

We're going to talk about the agricultural growth in medieval

Europe in what's called the high middle ages. Basically from 1347 we

saw a dramatic growth in food production and population and health and

life expectancy. But of course 1347 devastated much of that growth.

What happened in 1347? The so called black plague, the bubonic plague

that was caused by?

A Rats.

THE PROFESSOR: It wasn't caused by rats.

A The fleas on the rats.

THE PROFESSOR: The fleas on the rats. And that plague was to be

intermittent in Europe until the end of the 17th century. And the

reason it disappeared finally, we're not exactly sure. The black rat

that was the host for the fleas began to be replaced by a brown rat

where the fleas didn't live very well on. And it helped supposedly to

wipe out the continuous rebirth or reappearance of the plague. We

still see bubonic plague sometimes -- there was a case a few years ago

found in Yosemite. It appears, but today at least we have means of

treating within limitations or finding it and getting rid of it

rapidly.

So our period of time in a sense -- well, I got start dealing

with the growth economically and the tremendous increase in

agricultural production that came with the so called high middle ages.

And that also meant learning and the knowledge of education to the

extent that the 1100 period, the 12th century is known as the 12th

century renaissance, the renaissance being a rebirth. Of course it's

never really a full rebirth. We're talking about the culture,

learning, knowledge, trade. So the 12th century is seen as the first

of a renaissance period. Of course the fourth century begins the era

that we historically call the renaissance. The waning of the middle

ages begins after 1347. And as I say, there was not only the

devastation that came about there from the plague, but the tremendous

warfare, including the 100 years war that began to basically

exterminate the population in Europe, some areas two-thirds of the

people died.

I did promise you an exam question for Wednesday's exam. I do

want to distribute this. However, I may need to do some explanation.

Candidly, I just could not come up with the wording I wanted. I kept

changing it and changing it and changing it. Maybe I should at least

try and explain it. The picture of the ship there is probably a

little after our period, in fact, maybe a lot after. I was looking

for something that sort of fit the question in my clip art. This sort

of did it. We got enough? Any extras? Okay. The first millennium

CE. Give me a translation of this making sure we all understand those

first words? What does that say in plain English?

A The first 1,000 years in the common era.

THE PROFESSOR: Of the common era, yeah. In other words, after

what Christians call the birth of Christ saw the emergence of complex

societies throughout much of the world. Again, I pulled this stuff

out of basically the chapters in the textbook and to a large extent,

it applies to seven and eight.

What is in a sense meant by when the textbook author uses the

term "complex societies"? If you recall, since I see a lot of blank

stares, the authors basically refer to complex societies synonymously

as civilization. So in a sense, this is the high advancement of

civilization is what they're referring to. And I put in throughout

much of the world that included migration, movement, trade, and the

spread of belief systems, excluding Europe, because that's western

civilization and the other two questions that I make up will deal with

western Europe.

Using specific examples, describe these defining events. This

probably should be the defining event. These works, defining events

and the formation of these complex societies. So as I say, obviously

we're dealing with other areas of the world as they begin to expand

into more advanced civilizations, probably would have worded it that

way, but I wanted to use closer to the wording of the book so that

when you were looking in the book, you could locate certain concepts

that came out of the Earth and its peoples.

Questions about the question? Any of you need clarifications? I

know it's going to take a little thought for those of you who chose to

do it. I think about one-third of you, somewhere between a quarter

and a third took the take-home question last time. Some of you

planned to until you saw my other questions and decided they were

easier, I think.

A Pretty much.

THE PROFESSOR: Don't promise that this time. As I say, since

the questions that I give you to take home are more complex because

you have the resources, I think that's only fair to sort of make the

ones that are given in class a little more, a little clearer or a

little more specific. Questions on this question? All right. If you

have any after you read it, you still have Monday to ask it, so read

through it. If anything arises during the weekend, don't hesitate.

If you've got a question, you can rest assure that five or six other

people have the same but their afraid to ask it because they don't

want the look dumb or whatever. If you're going to bend down in front

of me you have to go way down because I'm so short.

Okay, then let's pick up where I left off a few minutes go

before -- the period again that we're going to touch on deals with the

topic universal truths. And if you look at your outline, again, the

topic's going to deal with disruption and renewal, revealed knowledge,

faith and reason, guilded and the crusading spirit. There's a lot

there actually, and we'll see how far we can go with it. Before

getting into the crusades, let's deal with the development of the era

itself.

And in a sense, what we're seeing during this era is a

redevelopment of, as I said, agriculture, wealth -- we're beginning to

see capitalism expanding. It's not formal. But by the end of the

medieval period, we're moving into the era known a as bullionism where

power rests in gold and silver that extends into mercantilism, where

nations believe that they will get their wealth from the

manufacturing, selling things, and they use colonies for raw

materials. And finally, into capitalism where individuals begin to

profit if they can produce things that people are willing to buy. But

certain elements of capitalism also begin to appear during this era,

including banking systems and bookkeeping and accounting to make it

perhaps a more profitable era in and of itself.

Tied of course to capitalism in a way is the rise of cities. The

cities are going to move from entities that are controlled by the

church as in the early medieval period. And the beginning of the high

medieval period, you see the center of the city as the cathedral,

specifically the Gothic cathedral represents this high middle ages.

One of my professors once described it as the hand of God coming down

and holding people in. In a sense, it really does create the image

because the Gothic cathedral is different from the Romanesque. In

Romanesque, they're solid and built strong and round, thick walls and

in part they reflect that expansion that existed in Europe with the

invasion of the Norsemen, the earlier Germanic tribal invasions and of

course the expansion into parts of southern Europe. The Gothic

cathedral is light, the stained glass windows, and they take hundreds

of years to build. And that's why in some cases they're very

different in different sections of the cathedrals themselves. Because

different architects are involved in their construction, but their

high ceiling, arches that bring you up towards the heavens. And

they're built often in a crucifix basilica kind of pattern. So again,

the earlier part of the period, the center of the community is the

church.

By the 14th century, the cities are now going to be surrounded,

are going to surround the guild houses, the guild buildings. And in

the center of the guild buildings which are in a sense the craftsman

organizations, the skilled worker organizations, in the center of

those are the city halls. The city hall now becomes the center of the

city where the burghermeister, the burgher being the businessmen, the

bourgeoisie that are emerging, the emerging entrepreneurs. The

burghermeister is the mayor. And now, we're beginning to see

something coming out of the 13th century, the tower with the clock on

it. And so the center of the city looks like building five over here

with our clock tower right in the center of the community, very much

reflective I think of, in a sense, that late medieval architecture.

The emergence of cities becomes a vital area. And the reason

they can emerge out of the manner system is because the invaders of

Europe, those dastardly Vikings, Norsemen, Muslims, Germanic peoples

settle down. They become basically rather than migrating, they settle

in various areas. And so cities begin to move back to the waterways.

The waterways are no longer threats. And of course trade resumes with

the people. Part of the reason for the wealth of capitalism

developing is, we're now beginning to see the fairs and development of

fairs where goods and services are trades where people from all over

come to sell their wares or to buy objects. Trading fairs are on the

water. They start out for short periods of time, once or twice a

year; but as the population increases, the fairs are there in a

permanent basis. Of course many of you have visited the renaissance

fair. I'm not sure if people go to the renaissance fair as often

anymore now that it's up in Fairfax or something. How many of you

have been to the renaissance fair? Years ago when it was up in

Novato, almost all my students used to go. It was a thing to do. I

guess they had to move it out of there, quote/unquote, black forest.

Something else that came with the expansion of the cities that

we're going to talk about when we go into it a little further is in a

sense freedom. It's not only that a serf can live in the city for a

year and a day and be declared a freeman from being unfree, but the

cities themselves, different from anywhere else in the world, are

actually independent units now. They're like the ancient Greek city

states. How do they become independent? Because what's happening is

that the merchants who are producing these cities, if you will, the

town halls the merchant buildings.

The burgers have wealth. And the kings begin to realize that

with that wealth, if they had some way to get it, they could hire

professional soldiers. They didn't to have rely on obligations

through feudalism. And they do that by giving the burghers in the

city contracts, in a sense, charters. These charters give them

freedom to run their own community in return for wealth given to the

king. Now, the king could take all the money if he wanted, but then

the money would be gone and so would the entrepreneur. You would tax

them out of business. What you had was a deal. You have to freedom

to do what you want. You can run the city however you want, just

produce a certain amount of wealth for me each year. So rather than

40 days and 40 nights of service, what we now have is a payment. Call

it a bribe or whatever you want, but it was a payment for a charter.

That charter, that contract provided the wealth of the new emerging

king to go take over power from the nobles. And this new merchant

class slowly created an aggressive economic system that we know as

capitalism.

Also developing, especially in the high middle ages, is the

technological development. Some of it was known by the Romans but

wasn't used. As I made the point before, the Romans used slave labor.

They didn't need the technology. So what we began to see was the use

of windmills, water mills, technology that came forth for the

production of goods and services but a different form of technology as

well. The heavy plow that could break the lands, frozen land in

northern Europe, to be able to produce, break down the soil so things

could be planted. That technology played a role. Of course later in

the medieval era, the development of the sailing ships with the rudder

to direct them. And of course early in the medieval period, the use

of the compass came in to direct people into getting a little off from

going around the coast and having to stay close to land. And of

course also from the Arab world, the astrolabe, the ability to be able

to read latitude as sailors went out to sea. Of course, as I

indicated, the mechanical clock. And now we had a sense of time. And

a sense of time had a lot to do with some of the change in Europe that

deal with when things are done, how they're done, and we'll get into

that at another point.

With the expansion of the cities, with the expansion of wealth,

we see a greater element of secularization. Secularization means

worldliness, moving away to some extent from religious domination. A

full separation of church and state, but a separation of church and

nature, meaning that now, it was possible to study theology separately

from the physical world around us, which opened the door to not only

agricultural advances and technological advances, but the foundation

from these, of what's going to be known as science, experimentation.

Rational interpretation are going to come about through certain

religious scholars as well because they're separating the world of the

heavens from the nature and the world that we live in. And that

really is, in a sense, a form of secularization.

We're seeing the expansion of new political institutions that I

spoke about or alluded to. We're moving from that world of the feudal

rulers, the lords, the vassals, the knights in shining armor, if you

will, to a different world where you now have kings who have

professional armies and they bring in large numbers of people who do

not need armor, if you will, because -- for example in England, the

development of the longbow where the common soldier becomes important

in battle, not just the knight with the horse. And there is a

territorial expansion as well.

Europe begins to expand throughout much of the world beginning

with -- and in contact with the rest of the world. And I didn't

mention this. The climate changes as well. It is said that the

reason the Norsemen or Vikings, if you will, the Danes can get to

Iceland, Greenland, and the Americas is because the area has become

warmer. There's a greater ability to move. And so there's an

expansion out and a settlement into north Europe. And with that, the

missionaries appear. And by the 12th century, northern Europe becomes

Christian as well. A new intellectual development I alluded to

earlier which brings in that beginnings of science, so we're going to

go back to the early years of that development and talk about the

conflict between faith and reason and the attempt to bring together

faith and reason. So these are some of the themes that we're going to

deal with. They include, if you will, as I define it, by the end of

the medieval period, the death of the unicorn. The unicorn symbolized

the Catholic church. It symbolized the unity, the purity, the honesty

of one world government. And the enemy, the natural enemy of the

unicorn was the lion. The lion dealt with his own selfish control,

his own selfish pride, if you will, the pride being the women

lionesses who protected his territory in a sense. We now see the

emergence of nation states, each creating their own religion in some

ways coming out of that era. The unicorns reflecting the one horn of

Christ, reflecting the goodness of one faith. And during the medieval

period, unicorn horns were worth a fortune. They used to break them

down into little powders and sell them to people to cure disease and

to help you get to heaven. I know many of out are saying, unicorns,

did they really exist? Of course we know the unicorn song and most of

us think that Noah forget the unicorn.

A No, sing it.

THE PROFESSOR: No. I can't remember the words basically. It

was done by --

A The Clancey Brothers.

THE PROFESSOR: It was written by Shell Silverstein, the guy who

did a couple of books you probably read when you were probably kids.

What was the name of the book? This is not bringing back anything?

A Keep talking. It sounds familiar.

THE PROFESSOR: He started out as a cartoonist for Playboy and

then he went on from there to doing some music and he wrote a number

of children's books.

A In Napoleon's castle in Italy, he had a big stature of a unicorn.

THE PROFESSOR: Well, in a sense, the unicorn was symbolizing a

unity that Napoleon was attempting to create by bringing back total

control from the little lions or the nations making everyone pure like

the French, ha ha. The way the unicorn could gets caught for the sale

of their horns by these wicker hunters is that they would find a pure

woman, that is to say, a virgin. They would sit her down under a tree

in the nude and the unicorn would approach because of respect and

purity. But if the woman turned out not to be pure, the unicorn would

get angry and run her through with his horn. Now, you say what

happened to the unicorns? Well, I think it's pretty obvious. They

can't get anybody to trap them today. Sorry.

Also, dealing as long as we are with heraldry and mythology, the

symbol of pegasus raises a symbol. Some of you remember the flying

horse that came from the head of the medusa when Perseus slew the

medusa. Remember medusa had all of those little snake hairs and

Perseus reflected his shield and so she cut off her own head and out

of that flew a beautiful white horse who flew away. Men can do all

sorts of things, and you can even kill the medusa if you will.

All right. Let's go back and let's move into the realm of

education as well. We had some small renaissance periods, progress,

knowledge, and learning. We mentioned one earlier, the Careligeon.

We identified that during the Charlomaine period, from 800 on, we saw

a birth of schools even though Charlomaine himself was illiterate. We

saw the beautiful calligraphy and the illuminated manuscripts and a

number of schools opening to deal with the liberal arts on that area.

And with that, it expands into the 9th century. We mentioned the

Ottoman renaissance there. But it's in the 11th century that we begin

to see through a conflict, the real expansion of learning and

questioning that's going to lead us into the 13th century era of

scholasticism. And this is a battle that occurs between two groups

known as the nominalists and the rationalists, nominalists and

rationalists. The nominalists were basically, if you will,

Aristotelian. The rationalists were more Platonism, Plato. I did

deal a little about Aristotle and Plato earlier, so we'll sort of

expand on it.

The first of a nominalists -- and by the way, rationalists in

several terms would be directed towards faith. By rationalists here,

we're dealing with people who have faith and learning and knowledge is

revealed by God through authority, through the church fathers. And

you do not question that authority because those church fathers know

better because the knowledge has been revealed to them directly by

God; versus the nominalists who are more leaning towards rational

interpretation, even though they're not called rationalists because

they're looking at more of the particulars. They're examining through

inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning meaning examining through

the particulars to come to a conclusion.

Deductive reasoning refers to taking a theorem, an idea, a

priority from its wording itself and coming to a conclusion from the

words. Accepting by faith what truth is and rationally, logically,

deriving further truth from the original truth. And education

basically is going to be expanding on that sort of rationalist

concept. People are taught and continue to be taught in the middle

ages how to use logic rather than investigative knowledge.

The first of the nominalists is a man named Roscellinus,

R-O-S-C-E-L-L-I-N-U-S. He lived from 1050 to 1125 CE. And he

questions the whole issue of universals. The issue is, is there an

individual thing as an apple or do we have this idea of an apple that

let's us know it's an apple? In other words, is there a general

apple? Or is there just a specific particular apple? Do we have

knowledge of this universal apple and therefore we know an apple

because it's been revealed to us? Or do we know apples because we

examine all the different species of apples? Can an apple exist apart

from these particular apples? Or do the apple concept only exist

because we've examined particular apples? Is the concept of an apple

is a thing or is it above the universe? Roscellinus argued that the

universals concepts themselves are nothing but names. They are

nothing more than sounds. He refused to recognize the existence of a

universal. And this certainly seemed to question the existence of

God. Were we created in God's image or do we know God because we

examine ourselves and look for the perfect in us and therefore create

a thing that does not exist called God? Hell of an argument in the

12th, 11th, and 12th century when you think about it. And it almost

seems to separate into three Gods: Father, son, and holy spirit. How

can they both be one? It makes so sense.

Well, a very famous -- A-N-S-E-L-M. Who was the abbe of Beck and

later became the arch bishop of Canterbury. What country?

A England.

THE PROFESSOR: Denounced Roscellinus because he felt that

Roscellinus was directly opposed to the fathers of the church and to

revealed truth. Anselm said, I do not seek to know that I may

believe, but I believe so that I may know. So we don't search

knowledge; we believe and knowledge comes to us. Roscellinus, under

the threat of burning at the stake, recanted some of his views, copped

out I guess.

However, the individual whose best known in a sense for the

nominalist's thesis and who continues to come down in history is a man

called Abelard, A-B-E-L-A-R-D. And of course we also -- many times

historically we see the famous love story, one of those unrequited

love tales between Abelard and Heloise, H-E-L-O-I-S-E. Anybody know

the story of Abelard and Heloise? Abelard was born at the end of the

11th century and died at the middle of the 12th century, 1079 to 1142,

not that you need to know them, but I'm throwing them at you. As a

young man, he was a brilliant scholar, brilliant memorization scholar,

not in a sense of research, but memorizing the books of St. Augustine,

et cetera, and would propound and discuss and deal with the church

fathers. And because of that, at a very young age, in his early

twenties, he was recognized as a teacher under the cathedral in Paris

at Notre Dame, which began the development of the educational system

of the university -- but before it became bound within four walls,

what generally happened is, people who were renounced would hold

classes. He would stand on a street corner in warm weather and they

would lecture to the throng, to the crowd which would then give them

money. Or in cooler weather, they would rent an apartment and invite

in students. Now obviously education was mainly directed towards the

men, but every now and then some women would sneak into the crowd and

many groupies to the rock singers of their age. And among a groupie

to Abelard was a young 16-year-old woman named Heloise. And Abelard

made the dastardly mistake that teachers should know better, he slept

with his student. They later got married secretly because marriages

had to be approved. She was only 16. He was in his early 20s,

statutory rape, et cetera. Parents found out. Heloise's father, his

uncle, his brother, her brother waylaid Abelard one night and

castrated him. He hampered in him in a lot of different ways to say

the least. When you're a dynamic speaker and your voice changes and

you start talking like this, it kills your lecture. Sorry about that.

I couldn't resist. Obviously it ruined his ability to marry. He was

a priest. He wasn't supposed to marry anyway. Heloise went off to a

convent, a nunnery -- get thee to a nunnery -- and Abelard continued

his writings, his philosophizing. They communicated throughout life,

wrote back and forth. They may have seen each other once later on in

life, if the movie has any accuracy to it. I don't know. The fact is

that the love letters between the two and his own writings about his

suffering without her reflect that unrequited love, love for afar.

For 40 years that love continued yet they were not together. They

were not married. So why the hell do we need same sex marriage? Why

the hell do we even need marriage? Keep it from afar? Of course we

would have no population left, I guess. Sorry. Playing with the

weather.

That story is one side and the one that's well-known mainly

because Abelard was such a trouble maker, a free thinker. His famous

book SIC ET NON -- translated from the Latin: Yes or no. You know

folks, now that he finally arrives --

A Jessica told me we don't have class today.

THE PROFESSOR: You listened to Jessica? Don't go anywhere

because I've got something to tell you. I'm going to put the exam off

until Friday of next week. The reason is I don't --

A Friday is a holiday.

THE PROFESSOR: Here?

A Veterans day.

THE PROFESSOR: We're off at Ohlone? I didn't know we were off.

I don't like holidays.

A Monday.

THE PROFESSOR: All right. The exam is put off until Monday.

You get a weekend to study. That means you don't get the exams back

right away. I have too much material I want to cover here with my

stories. I'll finish it up. It's only right. The exam will be

Monday, November 14th. Thanks for cluing me in.

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