The years 1050-1250 have been dubbed the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’ by many scholars. They have also been characterized as a period of humanism. How valid are these terms, and, even more importantly, how useful are they to convey the essential character of the central Middle Ages?
If ‘Renaissance’ is taken to mean the rebirth or reawakening of a period that seeks to bridge a gap of time in order to reconnect with classical antiquity, then it is clear that the term is far better suited to the Italian Renaissance (fourteenth-sixteenth centuries) than to the central Middle Ages. We have seen how important tradition was for the people of this period; they were not turning their backs on the centuries lying between them and the heyday of classical culture. Indeed, this survey has consciously reached back to c.1000 to give an account of the background from which new forms of intellectual or cultural activity arose. But, if the term is used to encapsulate the palpable excitement people experienced as they became aware of the treasures of antiquity, the term is apt. Classical ideas were not just revived; they were enthusiastically reinterpreted in the light of existing traditions and used to develop new areas of thought. Closing c.1300 has given us the opportunity to explore scholarly activity some fifty years beyond the time by which the full Aristotelian corpus had been uncovered. However, ‘Renaissance’ must not be used to convey
The false impression that cultural aspects of the whole period can be typified by facile, chronologically defined classifications. As we have seen, there were many variations. This is especially true in the area of architecture. Romanesque and Gothic styles were adopted in special ways at various times in different regions. Having said that, the new Gothic forms, which Abbot Suger chose for Saint-Denis in order to manipulate light to make the church seem more like heaven, bring out a fundamental feature of this period’s human creativity. A prelate like Suger might muse about how his church might ‘brighten the minds [of people] so that they may travel through the true lights to the True Light where Christ is the true Door’,47 but others had to acquire advanced human skills to construct the required building.
This brings us to the term ‘humanism’. We have already seen that the term ‘humanism’ in the sense of studying classical texts for their own sake would not appropriately characterize this period; nor would ‘humanism’ in the sense of concentration on human beings without regard to the divine. Severing the human from the divine was unthinkable. An essential aspect of this period is the interest people had in their own personal humanity and the human condition within the context of their understanding of God and the communities in which they lived. But, if ‘humanism’ is nuanced to take this into account, the term does become useful. For this kind of interest in humanity rather than stark individuality was definitely a phenomenon of 1000-1300. Although individualized pictorial representations exist, such as the mid-twelfth-century bronze likeness of Frederick Barbarossa and the thirteenth-century statues of the founders of Naumburg Cathedral, these do seem to be exceptions. More representative is one of the miniatures in Herrad of Hohenbourg’s Hortus Deliciarum, picturing Herrad with her nuns. To be sure, all but two women are named, but the pictures of the nuns are remarkably similar. What Herrad was setting out to depict was not women who were free agents; she was displaying individual nuns within a vibrant monastic community. This period’s interest in the self was wedded to a strong consciousness of the importance of the concept of community, whether in the widest sense of universal human fellowship or (as far as Christians were concerned) universal Christian fellowship, or in narrower terms of collectivities such as the peoples of a specific kingdom, inhabitants of a town, members of an extended family, court, order, or scholarly community. ‘Frameworked individuality’ typifies the intellectual and cultural creativity of the period better than personal individualism.
World History
