The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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

[ 1 ] We are in the middle of the Middle Ages and will be examining the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. This period is significant and important because it allows us to study the emergence of great empires. We have also learned about large political entities in antiquity—Persia, the Roman Empire, and so on—but they are so distant from us that it is difficult to make a genuine, historical assessment of them. In the Middle Ages, however, we see how, from small beginnings, structures developed that included a common army, judiciary, and constitution—things that did not exist in Germany at the time. Even in the 13th and 14th centuries, these regions were still fragmented into separate territories.

[ 2 ] It was not until the reign of Henry III that something occurred that contributed to the unification of the imperial territories, as the emperor succeeded in transforming the individual tribal dukes into a kind of imperial official. Previously, they had emerged as sovereign entities from tribal autonomy; now they had become what are known as ministerials, servants of the emperor. Gradually, the lower vassals—who had also become servants of the emperor from their status as freemen—came to be placed on an equal footing with the ministerials. Over time, they formed what is known as the lower nobility, from which the knighthood was recruited—the class that played such a major role in the Crusades. Even during the reign of Henry IV, the knighthood played a major role.

[ 3 ] When Gregory VII excommunicated the emperor, the German princes only partially sided with the emperor, while others, under the influence of the pope, elected various rival kings. None of these conflicts are particularly significant; what is important, however, is that the knighthood acquired special significance as a result of these various disputes. Knights and cities were lured first by the Pope, then by the king. Constant feuds and wars raged; brutality increased steadily. The peasantry suffered greatly during the raids. The last free peasants could no longer hold their ground and were absorbed by the lords and dukes, who in turn were absorbed by the kings. From this disheartening process, we see emerge what we know as the “Empire.”

[ 4 ] In this regard, there was no difference between secular and ecclesiastical rulers; however, there was a great difference between the secular clergy and those in the monasteries. The clergy, governed by the bishops, were mostly uneducated, could neither read nor write, and exploited their vassals. The bishop was preoccupied with the administration of his estates and was just as uneducated as the knights and peasants; nothing of what we would today call an education existed. Thus, it was possible for Rome to increasingly consolidate the political position of the Church.

[ 5 ] The situation was different in the monasteries. Here, men and women worked diligently. Deep scholarship could be found here; all education of that time originated solely from the monasteries. In this regard, too, they refused to allow themselves to be made dependent on the political power of Rome, which rested on the secular power of the clergy. What came from Rome must be judged in a variety of ways. A certain struggle was to be waged against the brutality and the law of the jungle among the German peoples. A zeal for spiritual goods and the desire to spread the influence of medieval thought throughout the world—these were the goals pursued by Rome. In any case, Rome’s intentions were more noble than those of the German princes. It is in this sense that one must understand what Gregory VI intended when he demanded celibacy and when he refused to tolerate secular princes presuming to influence the appointment of bishops: it was a stand against the rampant brutality in the German lands. Thus, Henry IV’s conflicts with the Saxons were not only nearly as bloody as Charlemagne’s wars against the Saxons had once been, but they were also waged with a particularly blatant disregard for good faith.

[ 6 ] All these conflicts increasingly undermined prosperity. Out of the turmoil of the times arose a deeply religious movement that escalated into fanaticism, as I described to you in connection with the year 1000. This religious fanaticism repeatedly drove the masses to make pilgrimages to the East.

[ 7 ] Originally, the Christian religion had not adhered to any dogma. What mattered was the content of the ideas, not their outward form. You have seen how the idea of Christ was freely developed in the Heliand, and how the poet, in doing so, transposed the life of Christ into Old Saxon circumstances for his countrymen. In doing so, he interpreted the external details quite freely—details that could just as easily have taken place here in Germany as in Palestine.

[ 8 ] As conditions became increasingly externalized, the outward expression of faith became a matter of life and death for the Church. It could no longer leave it up to the tribes to decide how they wished to interpret Christ. Alongside political power, dogmas, too, became fixed and rigid.

[ 9 ] The princes sought to use the Church’s secular power to their own advantage; bishoprics were filled with younger brothers who seemed physically or mentally unfit for other roles. Gradually, conditions changed, and the old era gave way to a new one.

[ 10 ] This is how the Crusades came about—an event we can understand only psychologically, in light of the prevailing mood of the Middle Ages. The prevailing religious fervor made it easy for the Pope to incite the people to join the Crusades through his own agents, such as Peter of Amiens and others. Added to this was the fact that a large number of people had become completely destitute. Thus, it was not only religious motives that played a role. More and more free people had become serfs; others had been forced to leave their property and had become vagrants, possessing nothing but the clothes on their backs. Among these vagrants, who came from all walks of life, including the nobility, there was a large number who had nothing to do and were ready for any undertaking, including a crusade.

[ 11 ] This leads us to understand that a large number of factors were at work: religious fervor, rigid dogma, and material oppression. We can see just how powerful these causes were from the fact that, when the First Crusade was launched, half a million people set out for the East. The initial external impetus for this was the poor treatment of numerous pilgrims by the Saracens. Yet deeper causes lay at the root of it. There existed a rigid dogma to which people submitted. But those who do not understand how deeply people were devoted to religion with their hearts and souls in those days know nothing of the Middle Ages. A sermon could have a powerful effect on people if it struck the right chord. Many believed they would find help through such an undertaking; others sought to obtain forgiveness for their sins. From our modern perspective, it is difficult to form an accurate picture of this phenomenon of the Middle Ages; we are dealing here with many intangible causes.

[ 12 ] It is not the causes, but rather the effects of the Crusades that have become particularly significant for subsequent developments. Soon after they began, one of these effects became apparent: namely, a much closer exchange between the individual countries. Until then, Germany had generally remained quite unfamiliar with the Romance-speaking countries; now, through the brotherhood of arms, they were brought closer together. Moorish scholarship, too, only truly gained a foothold through this channel. Previously, university chairs had existed only in Spain, Italy, and France; in Germany, they were not established until after the Crusades. It was only then that the influence of true scholarship from the East began to be felt. Until then, the East had been completely closed off and had preserved great treasures of learning in the writings of the Greek classics. Strictly speaking, scholarship only emerged through contact with the East.

[ 13 ] The vague impulse toward religious fervor had taken on a specific form; it had become what is known as medieval science. I would like to describe this science to you briefly.

[ 14 ] Above all, two schools of thought had emerged that made their mark on scholarly life in the Middle Ages. Scholastic thought split into two currents: realism and nominalism. It may seem like an abstract topic when I speak of nominalism and realism, but for the Middle Ages—and indeed for later periods as well—this debate took on profound significance. Theological and secular scholars were divided into these two camps. Nominalists are those who believe in names, while realists are those who believe in reality. Realists, in the medieval sense, were those who believed in the reality of thought and in a real meaning to the world. They assumed that the world has a meaning and was not formed by chance. From the standpoint of materialism, this may be regarded as a foolish position; but anyone who does not consider thought to be an empty figment of the imagination must admit that the idea of a universal law—which one seeks and finds within oneself—also has significance for the world.

[ 15 ] The nominalists were those who did not believe that thoughts are real; they saw in them only names, mere coincidences, things of no significance. All those who believe that what human thought achieves consists only of blind coincidences—such as Kant, and also Schopenhauer, who conceives of the world as a representation—are an offshoot of medieval nominalism.

[ 16 ] These movements divided the monastic community into two camps. On such important matters, it is remarkable how the Church exercised no coercion and, as far as scholarship was concerned, was able to calmly allow the question to be raised as to whether the Holy Trinity might not be merely a name and thus not a reality. At any rate, you can see from this a great degree of freedom in the medieval Church. It was not until the end of this period that the persecution of heretics began, and it is significant that the first inquisitor in Germany, Konrad von Marburg, was killed by the people. It was only then that the persecution of opinions began. This marks an important turning point. You can see just how free ecclesiastical thought was beforehand in the great teacher and thinker Albertus Magnus. He was an outstanding scholar who delved deeply into all fields of knowledge: he mastered ecclesiastical scholarship, Arabic learning, the natural sciences, physics, and philosophy; yet the people regarded him as a sorcerer. Scholarly learning and popular superstition—which was exploited by the secularized clergy—clashed sharply.

[ 17 ] Now the cities are rising. In the cities, we see a powerful bourgeoisie emerging. The crafts are flourishing and organizing themselves into guilds. The craftsman no longer needs to bow to the oppression of a feudal lord, as he once did as a serf. Soon, kings and princes formed alliances with the medieval cities. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa fought for years against the cities of northern Italy. Among the bourgeoisie, a strong sense of freedom and an appreciation for one’s own personal worth developed. Thus, on the one hand, we see in the countryside a religious mindset amid increasing external pressure; in the cities, a free bourgeoisie—admittedly bound by a strictly regulated guild system, yet it was precisely through this that the freedom of the cities flourished at that time; in the countryside, however, a withering way of life, the law of the jungle, and brutality. After the Crusades, the knighthood descended into an empty, courtly life leading nowhere. The knights occupied themselves with feuds, tournaments, and armed combat; their customs took on increasingly crude forms. In particular, the courtly love tradition took on the most ridiculous forms over time. Those knights who could write poetry composed verses for their ladies; the rest courted them in other ways. This courtly life was accompanied by profound ignorance. The men were almost all completely uneducated; the women, however, had to be able to read and write. Women occupied a very peculiar position; on the one hand, they were idolized; on the other, they were enslaved. A kind of barbarism prevailed—an unrestrained way of life that led to the right of hospitality being used to dishonor women.

[ 18 ] Meanwhile, in the cities, the foundations were being laid for what would later be called culture. What had to happen happened there, for new things take shape where they have the opportunity to develop freely. True intellectual progress takes place where economic life is not constrained. Intellectual life does not spring from material progress; rather, true intellectual progress is found where economic life is not oppressed or restricted.

[ 19 ] Thus, a rich culture flourished in the cities of that time; almost everything we have been given in the fields of painting, architecture, and invention is attributable to this era of urban culture. Dante, too, emerged from such a rich Italian urban culture. In Germany, too, we find significant intellectual achievements influenced by this urban culture. Although the first major poets were knights—such as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Straßburg, and others—these achievements would not have been possible without the support provided by the cities. During this period, when a spirit of freedom prevailed in the cities, university life also began to take shape. Initially, Germans who sought higher learning had to travel to Italy, France, and elsewhere. Now the first universities were emerging in Germany, such as Prague in 1348, Vienna in 1365, and Heidelberg in 1386. The spirit of freedom did away with medieval arrogance.

[ 20 ] The secular clergy, like the princes, was embroiled in selfish power struggles, and the Church had adopted this attitude. Anyone who follows the course of events will understand that the new spiritual movement—German mysticism—could only have arisen in stark opposition to the secular clergy. This movement, to which men such as Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, and others belonged, spread particularly along the Rhine, in Cologne, Strasbourg, and in southern Germany. They had made themselves independent of the Roman clergy; for this, they were declared heretics, and their lives were made difficult in every way. A spirit of inwardness runs through their writings; they had withdrawn into the human heart to come to terms with themselves. These monks, who had broken away, spoke to the hearts of the people in their own language. The German language was ennobled in a way that is difficult to grasp today unless one reads the writings of a Meister Eckhart, Tauler, or the author of Theologia deutsch. The beauty of the language was imbued by mysticism, and the translations of that time far surpassed later ones in linguistic beauty. This development of the German

[ 21 ] Language was abruptly disrupted when Luther created the German Bible in the most pedantic, philistine dialect of the time, from which modern High German has evolved. All of this took place in opposition to the clergy. What was intended back then has still not been achieved in many areas today. I have described many things to you differently than you are accustomed to hearing. It is always claimed that something unprecedented happened as a result of Luther’s Bible translation; but you can see how much greater achievements had already been made beforehand. I have sketched out a framework for what will occupy us in the time to come.

[ 22 ] We are approaching the Renaissance period. The consolidation of power that took place essentially consisted of ever-larger territories coming under the rule of the princes. A large part of the medieval freedom of the cities was also absorbed by the constitutional structures of the large states; after all, every coin has two sides. People today will certainly find much of this repulsive, and there is much talk today about the arbitrariness that prevailed back then. Freedom, of course, has its downside, and it is not yet freedom if one is restricted by the arbitrariness of others.

[ 23 ] For example, in the Middle Ages, a language could be used at universities to resist the arbitrariness of secular rulers—as perhaps only Fichte did later on. The documents from the universities of that time preserve for us the words of the free thinkers of that era. Today, not only secular rule but also scholarship has been nationalized.

[ 24 ] I have described these times to you without using the buzzwords of the present to paint a black-and-white picture. I sought to focus on the areas where real progress has been made. If we want to be free people, we must have compassion for those who strove for freedom before us. We must understand that other eras, too, had people who valued freedom.

[ 25 ] History is the story of humanity’s journey toward freedom, and to understand it, we must study freedom in all its highest expressions.