The Rudolf Steiner Archive

History of the Middle Ages Up to the Great Inventions and Discoveries I

[ 1 ] Goethe said that the best thing about history is the enthusiasm it arouses, which in turn inspires people to perform similar deeds. In a certain deeper sense, all knowledge and insight can only attain their true value when they are put into practice. It is necessary to look far back in history to find the causes of later developments. Just as we must bear in mind—in order to understand individual aspects of the external development of human culture, such as bridge and road construction—that these are the fruits of achievements in the individual sciences, physics, and mathematics, so too do we see everywhere in history itself the fruits of earlier events. What finds expression in our lives has its roots in times long past.

[ 2 ] We have traced the beginnings of civilization and its development in Greek and Roman culture. In this historical overview, we are approaching the present. We will now examine a period that many are reluctant to look back on—one they would prefer to erase from history as the “Dark Ages.” And yet we stand before an important chapter in history: barbarian peoples, who know nothing of civilization or art, enter the stage of history. These tribes are driven from their homes in what is now Russia by Mongol peoples and advance far to the west. We will trace the struggles and fates of these peoples; then our journey will continue on to the discovery of America, to that point where the Middle Ages and the modern era converge, to the age of great inventions and discoveries—the era in which the invention that arguably had the most profound significance took place: the invention of the printing press; that era in which Copernicus gave us a new worldview. This development of humanity has led from the Migration Period to the discoveries of the modern era.

[ 3 ] In history, it is far more difficult to demonstrate the connection between cause and effect than in chemistry and physics; for cause and effect are often far apart.

[ 4 ] It is only today that mutual tolerance of diverse creeds is regarded as a necessity for culture. And yet, as early as the 3rd century B.C., such mutual respect and tolerance for the most varied creeds already existed in India, as evidenced by a memorial stone of King Ashoka. The Christian mindset that emerged in the later Roman Empire exerted its influence throughout the entire Middle Ages; however, its origins lie neither in the Roman Empire nor in Germania, but in a lost sect of the small Jewish people in Palestine: the Essenes. Given the relatively broad scope of this topic, it is not possible to address every point in detail here. In a sense, we must first sketch a charcoal drawing, the lines of which will then need to be further developed. We must first grasp what has come down to us from the Middle Ages if we are to understand the impact this era must have on us. An outstanding Roman writer, Tacitus, has preserved for us in his Germania a picture of those tribes that had settled in what is now Germany. He describes them as separate tribes, distinguished by their language; and while they regarded themselves as different peoples, they appeared very similar to him, the outsider. He identified what they had in common and gave them the collective name “Germans.”

[ 5 ] When we examine the national character of these Germanic peoples, the difference between them and the Greeks and Romans becomes apparent. There is a significant temporal difference in the development of these spiritual qualities. Greek culture, with its incomparable art, marks a special point in human development. There, prior to the conquest by the Hellenes who later invaded, we saw an ancient people—roughly equivalent to the later Germanic tribes—the Pelasgians, who lived in a community of free people. Then, following the migration of the Hellenes, we found two social classes: the conquerors and the conquered—this contrast between the free and the unfree. Greek rule emerged from the migration of peoples and the conquest. It follows from this that only a small portion of the population shared in the benefits of culture. It also follows from this the low regard for labor; even artistic labor was deemed unworthy of the free Greek citizen. Greece perished because of this contempt for labor. The Greek culture—unmatched in many respects—was a culture that was possible only among conquerors. The Roman character was forged during conquest; the history of the Roman Empire is a history of continuous conquests; when it could conquer no more, it fell.

[ 6 ] The Germanic character took shape in all its essential aspects before the conquest, and it did not allow itself to be subjugated by contact with other peoples. Its development was firmly established before the conflict. Thus, we see the formation of the national spirit taking place among the Greeks after, among the Romans during, and among the Germanic peoples before the great historical conflicts. If we are to examine these character traits, we will have to distinguish more precisely among these ethnic groups in Central Europe. Three peoples come into consideration. In Spain, France, Ireland, and southern Germany, we first find the ancient Celtic people. They were driven from most of their settlements by the Germanic peoples. From the east, the Slavs advanced and pushed the Germanic peoples further back. Thus, among the Germanic peoples—who were surrounded by the other two peoples—we find a strong intermingling of Celtic and Slavic blood. This mixture of Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic elements also influenced the entire culture of the Middle Ages.

[ 7 ] If we look back to ancient times, we see a great and remarkable culture of the ancient Celts. Active, energetic, intellectually vibrant, and prone to revolutionary impulses—this is how Celtic blood continued to manifest itself even in later times. We owe magnificent poetry, songs, and scientific concepts to the Celtic people. The Celts provided the inspiration for the legends that were adapted by German poets in the late Middle Ages—Roland, Tristan, Parzival, and so on.

[ 8 ] The main characteristics of the Germanic character are bravery, a love of travel, and a strong connection to nature. Within this character, domestic and martial virtues develop, along with practical competence and activities focused on utility. The main occupations of the Germanic peoples are hunting and livestock breeding. The Germanic peoples possess few simple poetic works, which were adopted from an earlier people. The Germanic character retains its fundamental traits from barbaric prehistory. Within the Germanic element, the driving forces of opposing developments arise. A remarkable transformation takes place during the Middle Ages. Greece had its high art; Rome had developed its legal system and concept of the state. The simple legal views of the Germanic peoples were based on entirely different premises. In Rome, property relations—especially with regard to land—were the decisive factor. The complex legal concepts of the Roman state arose from the effort to bring harmony between free citizens and landowners. All the struggles between the plebeians and the patricians, the struggles of the Gracchi, and even the factional strife of the later Republic were struggles for the rights of free citizens against those who, by virtue of their land ownership, also held power. Formally, every Roman citizen was entitled to the same rights within the state. Indeed, even in the later periods of the Empire, the emperors nominally held the right to the state, in that they united the rights of all free citizens in their person and exercised them in their stead.

[ 9 ] Such sophisticated legal concepts were foreign to the simple legal views of the Germanic peoples. The special value of the free citizen received no legal recognition. What developed from these views was the law of the jungle, the right of the stronger; the powerful were those who could assert their rights through force. At first, it was physical strength that prevailed; everyone had to submit to the stronger party—and did so. However, the fruit of what had been taking shape during the Germanic era later emerged as the right of the free individual, whose status was determined by nothing other than self-earned merit. This is reflected in the founding of cities. This culture of the cities, which took shape throughout Western Europe in the 11th century, represents a significant phenomenon. How did they come into being? They arose because those who felt oppressed by their landlords sought a place where they could enjoy, undisturbed, the fruits of their labor and personal skill. The free citizen of ancient Rome was based on a title. Whoever possessed it thereby held the right. In the Middle Ages, it was not a title of citizenship that counted, but only what one earned. The struggles that the cities waged against princes and knights for their freedom and independence expressed nothing other than the struggle of the free individual. This was not the case in ancient Greece, nor in ancient Rome. This was a significant transitional stage.

[ 10 ] What, then, was the reason people gathered in the cities? At first, it was material interest—the desire to be free from oppression; thus, their activities were initially directed toward utility and material gain.

[ 11 ] It is also from urban culture—though not from these new foundations—in Italy, the setting of an ancient, dying culture, that the towering poetic figure of the Middle Ages, Dante, emerged. In the Germanic cities, practical inventions first emerged: the compass, gunpowder, and eventually the significant event of the invention of the art of printing. All of this, which led to a complete transformation of conditions, was born out of what had been achieved in practical terms. This may seem far-fetched at first glance, but, as already emphasized, cause and effect lie far apart in history. Let this example illustrate the point:

[ 12 ] Franz Palacký, the Czech historian, referred in 1846 in his work on the Czech people in the 15th century to the reform movements of the Middle Ages—movements that, long before the so-called Reformation, sought to reshape the Church. He draws attention to these currents particularly in the Hussite movement, which Palacký—who himself played an active role in the 1848 Revolution—treated with great sympathy. In a very distinctive way, he characterizes in them what had taken shape in the hearts of people within urban culture. It is a trait common to the Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes. We understand this when we consider the legends and songs of these peoples. They differ from ancient Greek and Roman legends in that they depict what the human heart can suffer and what can redeem it.

[ 13 ] This is the sense of the tragic. Among the Greek and Roman peoples, the hero of the legend was the one who triumphed outwardly, not the one who kept his soul intact. The hearts of the people were always with those who were outwardly favored by fortune. It was different among the Germanic peoples. The hearts of the Germanic and Slavic peoples beat for heroes who perish outwardly but keep their souls upright. They live on in the soul, in the spirit. Heroes such as Siegfried and Roland, or the prince Marko, are celebrated in the poetry of these peoples. It is not the outward victory of these heroes that is celebrated, but their courage in suffering and defeat, their unbroken spirit. Everything else takes a back seat to the rights of the spirit and the soul. In the Roman Empire we see bravery and a sense of justice flourish; in Greece, art flourishes; among the Germanic peoples, the life of the soul comes to meet us. They had no images of their gods; unlike with the Greeks, we are not met by magnificent, three-dimensional depictions of their divine forms. Their souls worked to create the images of their gods; deep within their hearts, the Germans formed their own gods.

[ 14 ] The Reformation movement also sprang from this popular sentiment. These peoples demanded to play an active role in shaping what their faith should be. A hundred years before Luther, Wycliffe had initiated a Reformation movement in England. The spirit of the people demands that they take the Bible into their own hands. The Hussite movement also stemmed from this spirit. Even in the early Middle Ages, there were early signs of this trend. Emperor Henry II, of Saxon descent—whom the Catholic Church later named “the Saint”—called for an “ecclesia non romana.” Militsch, the underappreciated scholar who languished in a Prague dungeon, wrote his book on the Antichrist. To him, the Roman Church, with its external organization, was the Antichrist. What came to light in such demands and movements—the liberation from external coercion, the inner deepening—Palacký claims for the Slavic people; he sees the idea of humanity, as expressed by Herder, embodied in the Moravian Church as it developed on Bohemian soil. It is deeply rooted in our people to regard a non-coercive organization as an ideal.

[ 15 ] It was not after or during the conquest that its national character was formed, but rather the trait that lay within it prior to that time persisted through this stage and finally developed into this ideal. The idea of freedom took shape during the Middle Ages, despite all the oppression and despite all the countercurrents that characterize what is called the “Dark Ages.” Although the Middle Ages may seem to many today as a dark time, it was during this period that what poets would later seek took shape: the consciousness of freedom, for which the 18th century could find little more than a definition, for which the 19th century fought bitterly, and to which the struggles of the present are dedicated.

[ 16 ] We must free ourselves from the conditions of oppression to which people are still bound today. The awareness that all people are equal in terms of their sense of freedom has become increasingly widespread. People have come to understand that, legally speaking, no one can be a slave or a serf. Legally, people today feel free. But another form of bondage has persisted: material bondage. In ancient Greece, the oppressed, the vanquished, and the slaves were unfree. In ancient Rome, those who did not belong to the citizenry and had no share in the state were unfree. In the Middle Ages, people were unfree due to physical violence. None of these forms have survived; only economic bondage has endured.

[ 17 ] The striving for the full liberation of the individual is becoming increasingly evident. The ancient Greeks valued the nobility of the race, while the Romans valued the nobility of the individual. For the Germanic peoples, the value lay in the power and strength of the individual. Modern man places value on capitalism, on the appearance of wealth. Thus, the course of development shows us that the barriers that externally constrain the individual are increasingly falling away. Then the ground will be clear for the new ideal. History teaches us that the free individual derives a new value from the spirit. The person fulfilled by this ideal will be the one who is liberated from all these forms of oppression, who, freed from the weight of the earth, can turn his gaze upward. Only then will Hegel’s words become the full truth: “History is the progress of humanity toward the consciousness of freedom!”