Allegory: A type of narrative, popular throughout the Middle Ages, in which characters represent ideas.
Artillery: Cannons and other heavy firepower.
Archbishop: The leading bishop in an area or nation.
Buttress: An exterior supporting structure.
Chateau: Originally a type of feudal castle in France, but later a name for a large country house.
Classical: Referring to ancient Greece and Rome.
Coat of arms: A heraldic emblem representing a family or nation.
Courtly love: An idealized form of romantic love, usually of a knight or poet for a noble lady.
Heraldry: The practice of creating and studying coats of arms and other insignia.
Intellectual: A person whose profession or lifestyle centers around study and ideas.
Moat: A large deep trench, filled with water, that surrounds a castle.
Page: The first step in training for knighthood, usually undertaken by young boys who performed menial tasks for a knight or feudal lord.
Penance: An act ordered by the church to obtain forgiveness for sin.
Reason: The use of the mind to figure things out; usually contrasted with emotion, intuition, or faith.
Squire: The middle stage in training for knighthood, usually undertaken by teenaged boys who became a knight's personal assistant.
Troubadour: A type of poet in Provence who composed in French rather than Latin, and whose work chiefly concerned courtly love.
Trinity: The three persons of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—which according to Christian theology are also a single entity.
This was Anselm (c. 1034-1109), who quarreled first with William and later with his younger brother Henry I (ruled 1100-1135)—a much more competent ruler—over the powers of the church versus those of the king. Finally Henry and Anselm reached a compromise in 1105.
Anselm and Abelard (c. 10791144), two of the medieval world's greatest philosophers, worked to reconcile reason with religious faith. Like Anselm, Abelard was a cleric; indeed, there was simply no other place for an intellectual. His position in the church, however, had not stopped him from engaging in a celebrated love affair with his young student Heloi'se (EL-uh-eez; c. 1098-1164). They conceived a child and were secretly married, but their relationship angered her uncle, a powerful church official, who arranged to have Abelard castrated. Abelard entered a monastery, while Heloise joined a convent, and they became a symbol of enduring, if tragic, love. During this time he wrote a work in which he questioned established teachings about the Trinity, or the three-part nature of God.
Abelard was an early proponent of Scholasticism, a philosophical movement that attempted to bring together Christian faith, classical learning, and knowledge of the world. It marked the first stirrings of an intellectual reawakening in Europe. More typical of the medieval mind, however, was Bernard of Clairvaux (klair-VOH; 1090-1153), a Cistercian who perceived reason as a threat to religion. This made him an outspoken critic of Scholasticism in general, and of Abelard in particular.
Heloi'se and Abelard. Abelard was one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages, but he is also remembered for his tragic love affair with Helo'i'se. Reproduced by permission of the Library of Congress.
World History
