chapter 12 christianity and the medieval mind. medieval drama mystery play miracle play morality...
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Chapter 12
Christianity and the Medieval
Mind
Medieval DramaMystery playMiracle playMorality play
Mystery play Medieval religious drama based on
stories from the Bible. Mystery plays were performed around the time of church festivals. A whole cycle running from the Creation to the Last Judgment was performed in separate scenes on mobile wagons.
http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/may/images/mystery_plays.jpg
The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood
At the beginning, God tells Noah that he will put an end to all the people on earth because of their violent and evil deeds. Noah is the only one good man whom god believes, so he is told to build an ark and, besides his family, he has to take into a male and a female of every kind of animals and bird.
The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood
In the Bible, Noah takes his family and the creatures into the ark without any problem; however, in the play, he gets problems to get his wife into the boat because she can not leave her friends alone and just goes away.
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/medievalplays/newpage3.htm
The Chester's Play of Noah's Flood
Then, the rain fell on the earth for forty days and nights. The flood destroys all the creatures on earth and only those on the ark survive. The play end with the dove’s returning to Noah with an olive leaf in its break and the promise of God that flood will never destroy all living beings on earth any more.
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_99F/medieval_lit/medievalplays/newpage3.htm
The Second Shepherd's Play from the Wakefield Mystery Cycle
http://www.headlandview.co.uk/tower/plays/1963/p6309.htm
The angel seizes Abraham's sword. Scene from the York Play of Abraham and Isaac. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_medieval_and_early_modern_studies/v031/full/31.3frantzen_fig02f.jpg
Miracle play Also called saint’s play; presents
a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles, or martyrdom of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint.
http://www.srvc.net/engl154/html_files/T-2.htm
Here we see the suffering and death of one of the early saints persecuted by the Romans.
Morality play An allegorical drama in
which the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral lessons are taught.
Contemplation, Perseverance, Imagination, and Free Will. From the morality play Hickscorner. http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/drama/moralities.html
Everyman
15th–century A morality play A motif: memento mori (Keep dea
th before your eyes!)
You better watch out You better not cry Better not pout I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town He's making a list And checking it twice; Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice Santa Claus is coming to town He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake! O! You better watch out!
Everyman
Themes: (1) Life is a pilgrimage. (2) Death is inevitable. (3) Medieval theology: It is
not faith that will save Everyman; his or her willingness to learn (Knowledge), act (Good Deeds), and convert (Confession) will make the difference between salvation and damnation.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
The Divine Comedy
Structure
Inferno: Dante travels through the nine levels of hell, starting from the outermost ring, limbo. This ring is inhabited by those who lead blameless lives, but were not baptized. As he progresses to the central circle the sins of the damned become more serious as are their sufferings.
http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy
Structure
Purgatorio: Dante ascends the seven terraces of Purgatory. Each terrace represents one of the seven deadly sins which must be overcome by the sinner before entering heaven.
http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy
Structure
Paradiso: Dante is guided through the nine spheres of heaven, based roughly on Aristotelean cosmology. He then meets God, who grants him the understanding of human nature.
http://cunnan.sca.org.au/wiki/Divine_Comedy
Inferno Circle 1: The virtuous pagans Circle 2: The lascivious Circle 3: The gluttonous Circle 4: The greedy and the wasteful Circle 5: The wrathful Circle 6: The heretics Circle 7: The violent against others, self, God, nature,
and art Circle 8: The fraudulent (10 classes) Circle 9: The lake of the treacherous against kindred,
country, guests, lords and benefactors. Satan is imprisoned at the center of this frozen lake.
Virgil and Dante meeting Homer
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Dante And Virgil In Hell (1850) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_Dante_And_Virgil_In_Hell_(1850).jpg
Purgatory Ante-Purgatory: the excommunicated, the lazy, t
he unabsolved, negligent rulers The Terraces of the Mount of Purgatory
The proud The envious The wrathful The slothful The avaricious The gluttonous The lascivious
The Earthly Paradise
Paradise The Moon: The faithful who were inconstant Mercury: Service marred by ambition Venus: Love marred by lust The Sun: Wisdom; the theologians Mars: Courage; the just warriors Jupiter: Justice; the great rulers Saturn: Temperance; the contemplatives and mystics The Fixed Stars: The Church Triumphant The Premum Mobile: The Order of Angels The Empyrean Heavens: Angels, Saints, The Virgin, and t
he Holy Trinity
Illustrations to the Divine Comedy
by Gustave Doré http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu/images/dore/inf.html
Dante astray in the Dusky Wood
The Lion suddenly confronts Dante
Phlegyas ferries Dante and Virgil across the Styx
Harpies in the Forest of the Suicides
Lucifer, King of Hell
The Sinners passing through the Fire
The Sparkling Circles of the Heavenly Host
The Saintly Throng in the Form of a Rose
Medieval University
England: Oxford and Cambridge
France: University of Paris Italy: University of Bologna
Medieval University
Developed in the late 12th and early 13th centuries along with the emergence of city life.
The word “universitas” originally meant “a guild or corporation.”
Medieval Scholasticism
Scholasticism The school of philosophy taught by
the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100 - 1500. Scholasticism attempted to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholastic
Thomas Aquinas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274) Summa Theologica Philosophical tradition: Aristot
le
Thomas Aquinas Central concern: How does one
harmonize those things that are part of human learning (reason) with those supernatural truths revealed by God in the Bible and through the teaching of the church (revelation)?
High Middle Ages
Two characteristics Hierarchical Synthetic
The End