The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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

[ 1 ] The history of the Middle Ages is so extraordinarily important from a human perspective because we are dealing with a period that we are already better able to study, one in which we can trace human development from its humble origins to the emergence of what we call states. Furthermore, we see here an interplay of the most diverse factors. Within simple circumstances, a fully formed cultural entity—such as Christianity—takes root. From a state of barbarism, we increasingly witness the development of what appears as the flowering of medieval culture—what we recognize as inventions.

[ 2 ] Among these peoples, who had been jumbled together during the Great Migration, we see—through a complex series of detours—the emergence of what we today call “science.” The Middle Ages had inherited a great legacy. Admittedly, nothing remained of what we have come to know as Greek culture except for a few traditions traceable to Plato and viewed through the lens of Christian perspectives. On the other hand, a powerful legacy from the time of the Roman Empire had survived: the mighty state structure, with its administration and judicial system, possessed a unity and coherence never before seen in world history—nor do we find its like throughout the entire Middle Ages; it is only in the modern era, which otherwise prides itself so much on its freedom, that we encounter such an expansion of state power. This, combined with that other idealistic cultural movement which had gradually permeated and been absorbed by the Roman Empire, reached peoples who had no similar education whatsoever and who, moreover, had been uprooted by the Migration Period. All these tribes—the Goths, Heruls, Lombards, Franks, Saxons, and so on—were something entirely different, having remained completely in a state of infancy compared to those Romans.

[ 3 ] They led a primitive existence, limited to hunting and warfare, without any fixed laws or regulations. A major transformation now took place in the circumstances and views of these peoples, who lived together in small groups.

[ 4 ] What held these individual tribes together? The memory of some ancestor who had given the tribe its name, of powerful lineages that had distinguished themselves in ancient battles or during the conquest of new lands, and that had provided the tribe with what are known as counts, princes, and dukes.

[ 5 ] This transition is now expressed in the fact that people love the land they share. They begin to place greater value on the common ownership of the land than on blood ties.

[ 6 ] Tribal affiliation is replaced by what we call a village community. The entire material life is based on the land. Trade and commerce do not yet exist. Whatever these people need in this regard is provided incidentally by the women, the young people, and the slaves. The majority of the population knew nothing other than farming and frequent military campaigns. They had no concept of what we today call culture, nor of what we regard as its primary requirement: reading and writing. Charlemagne is credited with the particular merit of having made an effort to learn to read and write in his old age. Whatever education existed was in the hands of the Roman population in the regions that had been conquered. The civil service emerged from among them, hence the influence of Roman legal concepts. Such was the case in the western regions; the situation was different in the east. There, in what are now German territories, the original Germanic character had remained free from these influences. The unbroken strength of the Thuringian and Saxon tribes was a force that everyone in the Middle Ages had to reckon with.

[ 7 ] The only thing that brought education to this region was Christianity. However, true science—such as mathematics, natural science, and so on—was not included in it. It brought moral and religious education. The credit for introducing moral and ethical concepts goes to Christianity. Particularly within the most favored Frankish tribe, the influence of the clergy—especially the arriving, learned Celtic monks—was immense. In this tribe, which, thanks to favorable circumstances, was led into a free land where it could live out its distinct character in regions that were still largely undeveloped, we see most clearly how this transformation took place. The transition from smaller to larger communities took place here. Counts and princes continually conquered new territories and enfeoffed small landowners with portions of their estates. As a result, the power of the large landowners expanded ever further. A form of jurisdiction and constitution emerged from the transfer of what were originally purely private-law relationships. What originally drove the Irish and Scottish monks was holy zeal for the faith—the idea of working for the salvation of humanity. All of that changed. The Franks could conceive of Christianity only as a means of power.

[ 8 ] Charlemagne, in particular, used the Church to expand his territory. Any bishop he appointed was usually intended to be an instrument of his rule. At first, the Church was guided solely by religious zeal and genuine conviction; later, under the influence of external power, it sought to establish a balance of power for itself. Thus, the bishop was at first a servant of the Church, but later became a ruler and landowner in his own right. This is how the Middle Ages appear to us, roughly during the time of Charlemagne. But we must not speak of an “empire of Charlemagne” in the same way we speak of empires today. Large-scale land ownership made it possible to transfer landholdings to others. New territories were conquered, creating new opportunities to expand power through further transfers. This is how court officials came into being. The old district courts were replaced by court courts presided over by imperial counts or, when appointed by bishops, by bailiffs.

[ 9 ] In between, there were still independent tribes that remained loyal to their old dukes and their self-appointed courts.

[ 10 ] This was still the case at the time of Charlemagne’s death, and it remained so under his son Louis the Pious. We see this in his relationship with his three sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; he divided his empire among the three as if it were his private property. And when he had another son from a second marriage and proceeded to divide the empire once more, his older sons rose up against him, defeated him in the Battle of Lügenfelde, and forced him to abdicate the throne so that their share of the inheritance would not be diminished. We can clearly see what a state of that time was really like. We also see what a false picture is presented by what is usually recounted in the history of that era. The conflicts that took place at that time were purely private legal disputes; while the actual peoples were indeed disturbed and unsettled by the massive armies during such campaigns, none of these conflicts in the post-Carolingian era held any real significance for the progress of humanity.

[ 11 ] What really mattered, however, was the contrast that had emerged between the Frankish Empire and the empire that encompassed Germany and Austria. In the Western Empire, a struggle had gradually arisen between the secular nobility and the ruling ecclesiastical power. The educated clergy provided what had previously been drawn from the remnants of the Roman population: the higher court officials, the clerks in the courts, and so on. They all possessed a completely uniform education derived from the monasteries. — Alongside this educated clergy, there was a large uneducated mass that was entirely dependent on the clergy trained in this way. — The entire education of that time had emerged from what was taught in the monastic schools. Christian theology encompassed seven branches of learning: three minor and four major.

[ 12 ] Thus, out in the countryside, we see a people engaged solely in warfare and agriculture; in churches, schools, and government offices, the traditions stemming from monastic schools endure. Here in the clerical schools, these sciences are taught; the three lower ones were: grammar, logic, and dialectic. Grammar was the study of language; logic, the study of thought, which was preserved in the same form from ancient Greece through the monasteries of the Middle Ages all the way into the 19th century, whereas today it is considered superfluous. Following logic came dialectic, which has completely disappeared from the realm of modern science. Medieval education was founded on dialectic; anyone who wished to achieve anything in intellectual life had to learn and master it. Dialectic is the art of defending a truth in a proper manner against attacks. One must know the laws of reason in order to do this. One could not rely on specious arguments when it came to defending a truth over the long term; this was not the age of newspapers, where today’s arguments are valid only until tomorrow.

[ 13 ] Dialectics gives rise to what might be called a scientific and scholarly conscience, and everyone who wishes to engage in scholarship should possess it. Not everything can be defended in a rational manner; therein lay the great significance of this training: to distinguish conscientiously in such matters. Later, this gradually degenerated, so that by the late Middle Ages, for example, it could come to pass that someone would volunteer to defend a certain truth for twenty-four hours against the attacks of all the professors, students, and laypeople in Paris.

[ 14 ] Those who entered the legal profession, having been trained in dialectics, were not so much the presiding judges as those who drafted the judgments.

[ 15 ] When Goethe has him say at the beginning of Faust, “True, I am wiser than all those fools, doctors, masters, scribes, and priests,” he is thereby identifying the titles and offices that were attained at that time through an academic education. A “doctor” was someone who could apply his knowledge independently. A “magister” was someone who was permitted to teach at universities. “Schreibers” were all those employed in secular service, regardless of whether they held higher or lower positions. “Pfaffen” were all members of the clergy. In those days, the word “Pfaffe” was not yet a term of derision, but rather a title of honor. Even in the 14th century, Meister Eckhart referred to Plato as the great Greek “Pfaffe.”

[ 16 ] The four higher sciences were geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music.

[ 17 ] Geometry is the study of space. Arithmetic is advanced calculation, and astronomy, too, corresponded roughly to what we understand by the term today. Music, however, was not the same as what we call it today. Music was the science of the harmony of the universe. It was believed that the entire universe stood in harmonious relationships to its individual components. People sought to discover all these relationships, which were expressed through numbers. Just as, in fact, colors, tones, and so on are based on specific numbers. People thus sought everywhere in music the laws of harmony, the rhythmic relationships; the harmony of the laws of the universe was taught.

[ 18 ] Thus, I have attempted to give you an idea of what the educated ruling class was up to. This education increasingly gained the upper hand in the Western Empire, which we now call France. The situation was different in Germany. These tribes had remained unbroken; they had preserved their simple customs and, for the most part, retained their freedom. The downside of these primitive conditions, however, was that the clergy here was uneducated and could therefore be used as a tool of power in the hands of the dukes and emperors.

[ 19 ] The Carolingians retained control of the Western Kingdom. However, the rulers from this dynasty became increasingly incompetent. The incompetence of these Carolingian rulers became particularly evident when warlike pirates from the north—the Normans—began to disrupt the country. These Normans invaded the country from the mouths of the Elbe and Weser rivers, plundering the coasts everywhere, especially in France, where they occupied the northern regions and advanced as far as Paris. At that time, Charles II was ruling, and he proved completely incapable of taking any action against this people. Consequently, it was all too easy for an obscure duke in Austria, Arnulf of Carinthia, to put an end to Carolingian rule and seize power for himself. At first, he enjoyed great prestige, as he succeeded in defeating the Normans. But the jealousy among the princes was so great that Arnulf was forced to turn to the Church and form an alliance with it. He had to make a campaign into Italy and, in many respects, submit to its authority. The result is that, after his death, we see how the Church exercises its power. Not a secular prince or count, but Archbishop Hatto of Mainz becomes the guardian of his son, Louis the Child. He thereby assumes all the rights of sovereignty, and from that point on we see the foundation laid for the rule of the Church, which is no longer merely exploited by secular rulers but increasingly integrates itself into secular rule and exercises secular jurisdiction. The result was that the struggle between secular and ecclesiastical power began to loom on the horizon, thus ushering in that important period of history: the struggle between the emperor and the pope.

[ 20 ] It is wrong for conventional historical accounts to portray these two powers as entirely distinct from one another. They are merely rivals in the struggle for external power. They are equal powers working toward the same end. We are not dealing with a conflict between spiritual and secular power, but with a conflict between the Church—which has become secular—and secular power. We see two expanding spheres of influence, and as a third, we see the emergence of the “free cities,” which are spreading throughout Europe.