The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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

[ 1 ] If you pick up any of the standard school textbooks or other common accounts of the Middle Ages covering the period we are about to discuss—the 8th or 9th century—you will find that the figure of Charlemagne occupies an extraordinary amount of space in them. But you will understand little of what actually constitutes the significance of this era if you follow Charlemagne’s conquests and deeds in this way. All of that was merely an outward expression of much deeper events in the Middle Ages, which will emerge as the interplay of many significant factors. If we are to examine these, we must touch upon matters we have already touched on in order to shed light on them.

[ 2 ] If you recall the description of conditions in Europe immediately following the Migration Period, when, here and there, Germanic peoples had settled down after those events, you must bear in mind that these peoples brought their long-established institutions, their customs, and traditions with them to their new homes and developed them there. In doing so, we see that they preserved a distinctive feature: a kind of social order consisting of the division between private and communal property. They originally lived in small social units—village communities, and later hundreds and districts—and in all of them, there was communal ownership of everything that could be communal property: forests, meadows, water, and so on. And only what the individual could cultivate—the individual plot of land, the “Hufe”—was allocated to the private family and became hereditary. Everything else remained communal property.

[ 3 ] We have now seen how the leaders of such tribes were allotted larger territories during the conquest, and how this gave rise to certain power structures, particularly in Gaul, where much land still needed to be cultivated. To cultivate these lands, they relied partly on members of the former population and partly on Roman colonists or prisoners of war. This gave rise to certain legal relationships. The large landowner was not accountable for his actions within his estate; he could not be held responsible for the decisions he made. Consequently, he was able to enact laws and police regulations for his estate. Thus, we do not find a unified monarchy in the Frankish Empire; what is called the Merovingian Empire was nothing more than such a large estate. The Merovingians were one of the landowning families; having emerged from private-law relationships, their rule expanded ever further out of the struggle for survival. New territories were constantly being incorporated. The large landowner was not a king in the sense to which we have become accustomed since the 13th and 14th centuries—and even into the 16th century—but rather, private lordly relationships gave way to legal relationships.

[ 4 ] He transferred certain parts of his territory to others who were less well-off—because he could not cultivate it all himself—and, along with them, his rights; this was called “immunity”: that judicial authority which had arisen from the lack of accountability in such circumstances. In return, the person concerned had to pay taxes and provide troops to the king in times of war. In this expansion of land ownership, the Merovingian dynasty emerged victorious over others, so that we must adhere to the following formulation: the old Frankish kingdom arose from relationships governed purely by private law.

[ 5 ] And once again, the transition from the Merovingians to the Carolingian dynasty—from which Charles Martel was descended—took place in the same way, under the same circumstances. The Carolingians were originally administrators of the Merovingian estates, but had gradually become so influential that Pepin the Short succeeded in confining the foolish Childeric to a monastery and, with the help of the Pope, deposing him. His successor, Charlemagne, was descended from him. We can only briefly touch upon the external events, for they are of no particular significance. Charlemagne waged war against the surrounding Germanic tribes and expanded certain spheres of influence. This empire cannot yet be called a state. He waged long battles against the Saxons, who clung with great tenacity to the old village constitution, the old customs and traditions, and the old Germanic faith. The conquest took place after protracted wars, which were fought with extraordinary cruelty on both sides.

[ 6 ] Among tribes such as the Saxons, a particular individual would often stand out and become their leader. This time it was a duke with vast estates and a powerful military retinue, Widukind, whose bravery offered the fiercest resistance. He was subdued with the utmost cruelty and was forced to submit to the rule of Charlemagne. What does such rule mean? It means the following: If Charlemagne had withdrawn again, nothing out of the ordinary would have happened. Such tribes, who had been forced to be baptized by the thousands, would have continued to live in the same way as before.

[ 7 ] The means of establishing a relationship of domination here was the form that Charlemagne had given the Church in this region. These territories were subjugated through the power of the Church. Dioceses and monasteries were founded and granted large estates that had previously belonged to the Saxons. The bishops and abbots oversaw the development of the land; in this way, the Church assumed the role that had otherwise been filled by secular landowners protected by immunity—namely, the exercise of judicial authority. If the Saxons did not comply, they were forced to do so by new invasions led by Charlemagne. Thus, the same thing happened as in the Western Frankish Kingdom: the smaller landowners could not hold their own as individuals, so they donated what they had to the monasteries and bishoprics in order to receive it back as fiefs.

[ 8 ] One aspect of this situation was that large estates belonged directly to the Church, as was the case with the newly established dioceses of Paderborn, Merseburg, and Erfurt, where the land was cultivated for the bishop by his subjects. But even those who still held estates of their own took them as fiefs and were required to pay ever-increasing tributes to the respective dioceses and abbeys. This established Charlemagne’s rule here, creating a balance of power through the great influence gained by the Church, of which he was the supreme ruler.

[ 9 ] Just as he did here, Charlemagne also expanded his power into other regions. In Bavaria, he succeeded in breaking the power of Duke Tassilo, confining him to a monastery, and thereby bringing Bavaria under his rule. The Bavarians had allied themselves with the Avars, a people who can be described as descendants of the Huns. Charlemagne emerged victorious in this conflict and fortified a strip of land as a border march against the Avars—the Avar March, the ancestral homeland of present-day Austria. In exactly the same way, he also established a border march against the Danes.

[ 10 ] He fought against the Lombards in Italy—who were causing concern for the Pope—just as Pippin had done; he emerged victorious and once again established his rule there. He also took on the Moors in Spain. He emerged victorious almost everywhere. We see Frankish rule taking root across the European world of that time—a rule we cannot call a state, but one that merely contained the seeds of future state power.

[ 11 ] Counts were also appointed to these newly conquered regions to exercise judicial authority. In regions where Charlemagne held court on a rotating basis, at secure locations called palaces, it was the palatine counts—mostly large landowners—who received certain taxes from the surrounding areas. But they received not only revenue from land but also proceeds arising from the administration of justice. If someone had been murdered, the district or palatine count would convene a public court. A relative, or someone closely related to the murdered person, would bring the charges. At that time, a certain blood money could be paid for murder—the amount varied between freemen and serfs—a specific sum that was paid partly to the murdered person’s family and partly to the Gau or Palatine Count; a portion had to be remitted to the royal central treasury. For communal affairs—which were essentially limited to matters related to taxes and defense—and for oversight, landgraves were appointed who traveled from one region to another; they served as ambassadors without specific functions.

[ 12 ] Under these circumstances, what might be called a conflict increasingly emerged between the new landowning nobility and the serfs, as well as those freemen who, though still personally free, found themselves in a state of acute dependence because they were required to pay heavy taxes and perform military service. These conditions became increasingly acute; secular and ecclesiastical estates continued to expand, and soon—in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries—we see the people in a state of severe dependence, and we already encounter minor uprisings and revolts as precursors to what we know as the Peasants’ Wars. You will understand that, at the same time, material culture was developing in an increasingly productive manner. Before the Migration Period, many Germanic tribes had not yet practiced agriculture but had earned their livelihood through livestock raising; now they were increasingly turning to agriculture; mainly oats and barley were cultivated, but also wheat and flax, and so on. This is the essential factor that gave the earlier culture its significance. True craftsmanship did not yet exist at that time; it was only beginning to develop beneath the surface. Weaving, dyeing, and so on were mostly carried out at home by women; blacksmithing and goldsmithing were the first crafts to emerge. Trade was even less significant.

[ 13 ] True cities began to develop starting in the 10th century. This paved the way for a historic event. But what originated in these cities—trade—was of no significance at that time; at most, Israelite merchants engaged in trade in precious goods from the Orient. Commercial practices were virtually nonexistent, even though Charlemagne had already had coins minted. Almost everything was barter, in which livestock, weapons, and similar items were exchanged.

[ 14 ] This is how we must imagine the material culture of those regions, and now we will understand why their intellectual culture, too, had to take on a very specific character. Nothing that we would consider intellectual culture existed in these regions, neither among free people nor among serfs. Hunting, warfare, and farming were the occupations of the landowners. A sign of this is that not only the peasants, but also landowners, princes, dukes, kings, and even poets—unless they were clergy—rarely knew how to read or write. Wolfram von Eschenbach had to dictate his poems to a cleric and have him read them back to him, and Hartmann von der Aue boasts that he could read books as a special quality. And among all those who were responsible for secular culture, there was no mention of their ability to read and write.

[ 15 ] Only within the innermost recesses of the monasteries were science and the arts cultivated. Everyone else was dependent on the instruction and sermons offered to them by the clergy. And that necessitated their dependence on clergy and monks; it meant the dominance of the Church.

[ 16 ] When we read today about what is commonly referred to as the “Dark Ages,” the persecution of heretics, and witch trials, we must be clear that we are speaking of conditions that did not begin until the 13th century. In earlier times, nothing of the sort existed. The Church exercised no authority other than that of secular large-scale landownership. Either the Church went hand in hand with secular rule, serving merely as a part of it, or it strove to develop Christian scholarship and theology.

[ 17 ] Until the wave of Arab intellectual influence arrived, all intellectual pursuits were cultivated only within the monasteries; what the monks did there was something completely unknown to the outside world. Outside, people knew only of sermons and a kind of spiritual instruction that took place in primitive schools.

[ 18 ] The Church’s dominance was also fostered by the fact that the clergy performed all tasks requiring knowledge themselves. The monks were the master builders; they adorned the churches with sculptures, and they transcribed the works of the classics in ornate script. Even the higher-ranking officials—the imperial chancellors—were, for the most part, monks.

[ 19 ] Now, let us turn to what happened in the monasteries. One form of education cultivated there was Scholasticism; a later one was mysticism. This Scholasticism, which flourished until the middle of the 14th century, accomplished something tremendous; it was able to foster a rigorously trained way of thinking, at least among one social class. That is the great difference from what came later. There were difficult exams to pass; no one could advance without undergoing rigorous tests of absolutely logical training in thinking; only those who could truly think logically could participate in intellectual life. This is not valued today. But in fact, it was this logical, consistent thinking that, when Moorish-Arab culture came to Europe, ensured that science encountered a tradition of trained thinking. The forms of thought with which science works today were found there; very few conceptual forms do not originate from that tradition.

[ 20 ] The concepts still used today in fields such as chemistry, medicine, and philosophy—such as “subject” and “object”—were developed during that period. A form of mental training unlike any other in world history was cultivated there. Today’s sharp-minded thinker owes what now flows through the veins of his mind to that training, which was practiced between the 5th and 14th centuries. Now, some may find it unjust that the vast majority of people at that time had no part in any of this, but the course of world history does not follow justice or injustice; rather, it follows the great law of cause and effect. Thus we see two strictly parallel currents here as well: first, the material culture outside, characterized by absolute unscientificness, and second, a finely chiseled culture among a select few within the Church. And yet urban culture was based on this strictly scholastic way of thinking. The men who brought about the great upheaval came from it: Copernicus was a canon, Giordano Bruno a Dominican, and so on. Their education—and that of many others—their formal training was rooted in this spirit of the Church. It was not the powerful, not the bishops and wealthy abbots, but simple monks who carried on the tradition of science—poor monks who lived in the past and who often felt the pressure of those in power.

[ 21 ] The Church, having allied itself with secular powers, was forced to become materialistic; it was compelled to secularize its doctrine and its very essence. In the earliest times up to the 12th century, there was nothing more sublime or solemn for Christians than the Lord’s Supper. It was meant to be a sacrifice of thanksgiving, a symbol of the internalization of Christianity. Then came that secularization, that lack of understanding of such lofty, spiritual realities—especially with regard to the feasts. In the 9th century, a very significant Christian monk from Ireland, Scotus Erigena, lived in the land of the Franks at the court of Charles the Bald. In his book On the Division of Nature, we find a wealth of spirit and profundity—though certainly not of the kind that the 20th century understands as science. He had to contend with a hostile movement within the Church. He defended the ancient teaching that the Eucharist symbolized the supreme sacrifice. Another, materialistic view existed—and was supported by Rome—that bread and wine are truly transformed into flesh and blood. Under the influence of the ongoing trend toward materialism, the dogma of the Eucharist emerged, but it did not become official until the 13th century.

[ 22 ] Scotus was forced to flee to England and, at the instigation of the Pope, was murdered in his own monastery by fellow monks. These are struggles that do not take place within the Church, but rather as a result of the intrusion of secular influence. You see, what constituted spiritual life was limited to a select few and hidden from the masses, who were under ever-increasing pressure from secular and ecclesiastical landowners. In this way, discontent grew steadily. It was inevitable that discontent would accumulate among people dependent on both sides. Out in the countryside, on the farms, new causes for discontent were constantly arising. No wonder that the small towns—such as those already existing along the Rhine and the Danube—grew larger and larger, and new ones sprang up as people who could no longer endure life in the countryside flocked there. The driving force behind the transformation of these conditions was the exodus of a population thirsting for freedom.

[ 23 ] Urban culture arose from a purely material impetus. Intellectual culture remained unaffected for the time being; many cities also developed around bishoprics and monasteries. Urban culture gave rise to everything that laid the foundation for trade and commerce in the Middle Ages and subsequently brought about entirely different conditions.

[ 24 ] The need for the immediate expression of the human personality gave rise to the founding of cities. This was a powerful step on the path to freedom, just as, in Hegel’s words, history signifies the education of the human race toward freedom.

[ 25 ] And if we continue to trace the history of the Middle Ages, we will see that this foundation of urban culture represents not a small but a major step forward along this path.