Copper played a major role in the Middle Ages, both as part of the economy and as a marker of cultural exchange. Copper of course had been mined and used for centuries. Although not nearly as hard as iron and thus not as good for weapons (though copper can become hard and sharp if mixed with tin to become bronze), it is a very useful metal and relatively easy both to mine and to shape into tools. It has been used for at least 10,000 years.
In the Middle Ages, copper was used for coins (coppers--modern pennies are an alloy today but used to be copper). Silver was officially the main form of currency, but in practice most monetary exchange was in copper. It was also used for all sorts of bowls, lamps, pots, pipes, jewelry, and the like, as well as for roofs and for decoration. (Health tip: a copper bracelet will not cure arthritis.) It transmits heat very well (as well as electricity), meaning it's good for cook pots, and barnacles won't grow on it, meaning it is prized for cladding ships.
Sicily became a major medieval center of copper usage under Norman rule (eleventh-twelfth centuries). Sicily itself did not have much in the way of copper mines--the main Mediterranean source of copper was Cyprus, which gave its name to copper (the Romans called the metal aes cyprium, the metal of Cyprus). But the Sicilians both worked the metal extensively and imported all sorts of small useful objects from the Middle East, much of which they resold.
Arabic scientists had worked out a lot of the details on how copper could be worked and made into alloys. The Sicilians both read these treatises and figured out on their own how to work and shape the metal. They also absorbed a lot of Arabic ideas on alchemy.
Although we now think of "alchemy" as involving lead and gold, and being a bunch of nonsense, it was a major intellectual thread in Arabic and Christian thought in the Middle Ages. It was a way of thinking about the nature of the physical world, how it's put together, how different kinds of material substances relate to each other. (The word alchemy, like algebra, is from the Arabic, as are many other words that start al-.)
One of the ways that the Sicilians used copper was to make major decorated church doors, some of which still survive. The Temple in Jerusalem was supposed to have had copper doors, and the idea had a great deal of appeal. The Sicilian church doors were incised with alchemical symbols and ideas.
Copper, which starts as almost golden in color and becomes green as it is exposed to oxygen (verdigris), was seen as a symbol of one important theological discussion: the relationship of God to His creation. It was argued by many that God had created the earth, set it in motion, then stood back to see how it would do. Copper symbolized this, starting as bright and golden, like God's initial creation, then becoming green, like the earth covered with growing plants. Medieval thinkers loved metaphors and analogies.
Note: Many of the ideas in this post were inspired by the work of Robin Reich of Columbia University.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Monday, November 6, 2017
The Protestant Reformation
Last week was the official 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther (after whom the civil rights leader Martin Luther King was named, don't confuse them) nailed what he called "95 Theses" to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Although he had no idea at the time that he was starting a whole new branch of Christianity, in retrospect it was decided that this was the beginning of Protestantism.
(It's a little tricky to do modern "anniversaries" of long-ago events, because they were still on the Julian Calendar, rather than our Gregorian Calendar, which puts specific dates at a slightly different distance from the solstice.)
The 95 Theses were a list of things that Luther objected to in the church of his day, both theologically and practically. He was himself a monk and a professor of theology at the local university, a member of the church. Although the events of 1517 are now seen as a thorough break with medieval Christendom (one of the reasons the end of the Middle Ages is usually put around the year 1500), in many ways Luther was the last of the medieval reformers who thought the organized church was headed in the wrong direction and tried to drag it back.
Luther's main concern in 1517 was so-called indulgences. People who worried about their sins (that is, almost everyone) were encouraged to show their penitence by making a gift to the church. Their penitence would be rewarded by being "indulgently" granted a reprieve from much of their expected time in purgatory. Luther thought the pope would agree that although this might make theological sense--popes had ruled that the saints had created a "treasury of merit," excess virtuous deeds on which ordinary Christians might draw--it had been seriously abused. Pardoners were wandering through Europe, promising forgiveness for a payment, missing the whole nuance. "As the coin drops in the box, the soul rises up!"
In practice, the pope was not impressed. After councils and extensive discussion, Luther was excommunicated in 1521. Rather than wanting to be rejoined to the church, Luther, like all good people who break with orthodoxy, decided that he was right and the organized church was the real heretic. His real point, which he developed as his movement spread and gained many followers, was that people were saved by "faith," not by deeds. That is, of course one had to try to be the best person one could, but one could not count on being saved just by doing rote activities, like buying an indulgence or taking part in sacraments. One could not "earn" one's own salvation he argued, but rather had to receive it, if one were saved at all, as a gift from God.
Protestantism (so-called because the followers were "protesting" things in the organized church) spread rapidly, its ideas spread by pamphlets and leaflets printed on the recently developed printing press. New versions of Protestantism quickly developed (such as Calvinism), theologically different from Luther's version. In England, Henry VIII broke with the pope because he wanted a divorce, then essentially declared his own version of Protestantism (Anglicanism). In Germany, which at the time was divided into many small principalities, the duke or count or prince of each territory declared which religion was to be followed in his region. Protestants and Catholics went to war with each other, making the sixteenth century a particularly bloody time. Everyone persecuted the Mennonites for being non-violent.
The big schism between the two versions of western Christianity was never healed, although they no longer treat each other as heretics. Protestants still have many versions, but they differ from Catholics in reducing sacraments, allowing priests to marry (as they had in the early church--Luther himself went on to marry a former nun), rejecting purgatory, having people read the Bible in their own language (Luther translated the Bible into German, though Catholics stuck with the Latin Bible until the 1960s), and jettisoning most of the saints and relics. One really only can speak of Catholicism in the aftermath of the rise of Protestantism, when it became the other version of western Christianity, to be distinguished from eastern (Greek) orthodoxy (and such versions as Russian orthodoxy). In the aftermath of Luther, the Catholic church did a great deal of reforming itself (like getting rid of pardoners), even though never admitting Luther had a point.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on the medieval church, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
(It's a little tricky to do modern "anniversaries" of long-ago events, because they were still on the Julian Calendar, rather than our Gregorian Calendar, which puts specific dates at a slightly different distance from the solstice.)
The 95 Theses were a list of things that Luther objected to in the church of his day, both theologically and practically. He was himself a monk and a professor of theology at the local university, a member of the church. Although the events of 1517 are now seen as a thorough break with medieval Christendom (one of the reasons the end of the Middle Ages is usually put around the year 1500), in many ways Luther was the last of the medieval reformers who thought the organized church was headed in the wrong direction and tried to drag it back.
Luther's main concern in 1517 was so-called indulgences. People who worried about their sins (that is, almost everyone) were encouraged to show their penitence by making a gift to the church. Their penitence would be rewarded by being "indulgently" granted a reprieve from much of their expected time in purgatory. Luther thought the pope would agree that although this might make theological sense--popes had ruled that the saints had created a "treasury of merit," excess virtuous deeds on which ordinary Christians might draw--it had been seriously abused. Pardoners were wandering through Europe, promising forgiveness for a payment, missing the whole nuance. "As the coin drops in the box, the soul rises up!"
In practice, the pope was not impressed. After councils and extensive discussion, Luther was excommunicated in 1521. Rather than wanting to be rejoined to the church, Luther, like all good people who break with orthodoxy, decided that he was right and the organized church was the real heretic. His real point, which he developed as his movement spread and gained many followers, was that people were saved by "faith," not by deeds. That is, of course one had to try to be the best person one could, but one could not count on being saved just by doing rote activities, like buying an indulgence or taking part in sacraments. One could not "earn" one's own salvation he argued, but rather had to receive it, if one were saved at all, as a gift from God.
Protestantism (so-called because the followers were "protesting" things in the organized church) spread rapidly, its ideas spread by pamphlets and leaflets printed on the recently developed printing press. New versions of Protestantism quickly developed (such as Calvinism), theologically different from Luther's version. In England, Henry VIII broke with the pope because he wanted a divorce, then essentially declared his own version of Protestantism (Anglicanism). In Germany, which at the time was divided into many small principalities, the duke or count or prince of each territory declared which religion was to be followed in his region. Protestants and Catholics went to war with each other, making the sixteenth century a particularly bloody time. Everyone persecuted the Mennonites for being non-violent.
The big schism between the two versions of western Christianity was never healed, although they no longer treat each other as heretics. Protestants still have many versions, but they differ from Catholics in reducing sacraments, allowing priests to marry (as they had in the early church--Luther himself went on to marry a former nun), rejecting purgatory, having people read the Bible in their own language (Luther translated the Bible into German, though Catholics stuck with the Latin Bible until the 1960s), and jettisoning most of the saints and relics. One really only can speak of Catholicism in the aftermath of the rise of Protestantism, when it became the other version of western Christianity, to be distinguished from eastern (Greek) orthodoxy (and such versions as Russian orthodoxy). In the aftermath of Luther, the Catholic church did a great deal of reforming itself (like getting rid of pardoners), even though never admitting Luther had a point.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on the medieval church, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Latrines
All societies have to figure out what to do with the end-products of digestion. We're not cows, who just let it fly wherever they are, or dogs, who won't foul their own den but consider the outdoors their rightful place to do what needs to be done (including making a scent-statement for other dogs).
(Interesting side point: if beings from another planet were watching dog-walkers, and noticed that the dogs being walked just did what they wanted, while the humans cleaned up after them, who would the aliens decide was the true Master?)
The Middle Ages had chamber pots and latrines. We have no idea how lucky we are to have city sewers and septic systems. Push the flush lever, and you never have to think about it again. Medieval people didn't have it so easy. They preferred not to think about such things, but being clean and odor-free was a lot harder.
On a farm, the manure pile would serve for the family's use as well. In a town house, there would often be a privy in the back yard, built over a deep hole. In a castle, there generally wasn't a handy manure pile, and you didn't really have the option of stepping out of the building. (In fact the stables would have a manure pile, but the number of humans living in a castle would overwhelm the pile's ability to absorb human waste along with that of the horses. And castle folk thought of themselves as much more refined than to use the manure pile anyway.)
Castles had latrines, located off main rooms, where one could go to do one's business and where chamber pots could be dumped. They were rather discreetly located, and there were generally different sets for the noble family and for the warriors and workers.
Latrines might be built in the outer walls, letting things dribble down the wall, but from the thirteenth century onward castle builders were very careful not to put the latrines in any sort of defensible wall. Everyone remembered what happened at Château Gaillard in Normandy (pictured below), where the attackers got into the castle by climbing up through the latrines.
In addition of course no one wanted their castle to be stinky, so things dribbling down a wall, especially an interior wall, would be frequently cleaned. One sometimes hears that a castle's moat functioned as a sewer, but this is not true, although it would certainly not be savory. Being surrounded by a sewer was not something any medieval lord would put up with (besides, most castles didn't have moats).
Alternately, a cesspit could be constructed within a wall. It would be made with an easy way to clean it out. Cesspits became the standard in cities during the early modern period, when urban growth made the backyard with its privy an expensive use of real estate.
The stench of a badly maintained latrine or cesspit was considered theologically a reminder of the weakness of human flesh, something that evoked both death and the powers of evil. Miracle stories are full of demons lurking in latrines and emitting foul odors.
The picture below shows a high-end two-seater in a fourteenth-century castle.
Miscellaneous fun fact: There is no actual name for that big white porcelain thing in the bathroom that is neither a sink nor a tub. Americans usually call it a "toilet," but this is a euphemism. It used to be that people would "make their toilet," meaning comb, brush, put on makeup, get properly dressed, and someone "stepping away" would be said to be going to the "toilet room," even if they were already dressed and brushed. The Brits still call the room, not the fixture, the toilet. ("Toilet water," mild perfume, still keeps the original meaning, in spite of a lot of adolescent sniggering.)
Brits call the fixture the "loo," a shortening of "lavabo," but that means sink, a place to wash up. Or they call it a WC, short for "water closet," the small room (closet) with plumbing. You will also see the term WC on the Continent. The Germans may even refer to the "wasser," but that just means water. You may see the term "commode," which is French for useful--an arch way of saying you need to use the "useful object." Even more arch is the term "facilities," as in "the facilities of modern civilization."
Even the room is referred to euphemistically. "I have to go to the bathroom." You need to take a bath? Really? "The ladies' room." "The gentlemen's room." No indication in the term of what the ladies and gentlemen will be up to. I had a teacher in elementary school who referred to the "cloakroom," though no cloaks were involved.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval hygiene, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages, available from Amazon and other ebook platforms.
(Interesting side point: if beings from another planet were watching dog-walkers, and noticed that the dogs being walked just did what they wanted, while the humans cleaned up after them, who would the aliens decide was the true Master?)
The Middle Ages had chamber pots and latrines. We have no idea how lucky we are to have city sewers and septic systems. Push the flush lever, and you never have to think about it again. Medieval people didn't have it so easy. They preferred not to think about such things, but being clean and odor-free was a lot harder.
On a farm, the manure pile would serve for the family's use as well. In a town house, there would often be a privy in the back yard, built over a deep hole. In a castle, there generally wasn't a handy manure pile, and you didn't really have the option of stepping out of the building. (In fact the stables would have a manure pile, but the number of humans living in a castle would overwhelm the pile's ability to absorb human waste along with that of the horses. And castle folk thought of themselves as much more refined than to use the manure pile anyway.)
Castles had latrines, located off main rooms, where one could go to do one's business and where chamber pots could be dumped. They were rather discreetly located, and there were generally different sets for the noble family and for the warriors and workers.
Latrines might be built in the outer walls, letting things dribble down the wall, but from the thirteenth century onward castle builders were very careful not to put the latrines in any sort of defensible wall. Everyone remembered what happened at Château Gaillard in Normandy (pictured below), where the attackers got into the castle by climbing up through the latrines.
In addition of course no one wanted their castle to be stinky, so things dribbling down a wall, especially an interior wall, would be frequently cleaned. One sometimes hears that a castle's moat functioned as a sewer, but this is not true, although it would certainly not be savory. Being surrounded by a sewer was not something any medieval lord would put up with (besides, most castles didn't have moats).
Alternately, a cesspit could be constructed within a wall. It would be made with an easy way to clean it out. Cesspits became the standard in cities during the early modern period, when urban growth made the backyard with its privy an expensive use of real estate.
The stench of a badly maintained latrine or cesspit was considered theologically a reminder of the weakness of human flesh, something that evoked both death and the powers of evil. Miracle stories are full of demons lurking in latrines and emitting foul odors.
The picture below shows a high-end two-seater in a fourteenth-century castle.
Miscellaneous fun fact: There is no actual name for that big white porcelain thing in the bathroom that is neither a sink nor a tub. Americans usually call it a "toilet," but this is a euphemism. It used to be that people would "make their toilet," meaning comb, brush, put on makeup, get properly dressed, and someone "stepping away" would be said to be going to the "toilet room," even if they were already dressed and brushed. The Brits still call the room, not the fixture, the toilet. ("Toilet water," mild perfume, still keeps the original meaning, in spite of a lot of adolescent sniggering.)
Brits call the fixture the "loo," a shortening of "lavabo," but that means sink, a place to wash up. Or they call it a WC, short for "water closet," the small room (closet) with plumbing. You will also see the term WC on the Continent. The Germans may even refer to the "wasser," but that just means water. You may see the term "commode," which is French for useful--an arch way of saying you need to use the "useful object." Even more arch is the term "facilities," as in "the facilities of modern civilization."
Even the room is referred to euphemistically. "I have to go to the bathroom." You need to take a bath? Really? "The ladies' room." "The gentlemen's room." No indication in the term of what the ladies and gentlemen will be up to. I had a teacher in elementary school who referred to the "cloakroom," though no cloaks were involved.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval hygiene, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages, available from Amazon and other ebook platforms.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Medieval travel and tourism
When people today are asked about retirement plans, they very frequently say, "I hope to travel." Being a tourist, traveling around to interesting places, is considered fun and worthwhile, even if only really available to those with leisure time (one wonders if those whose jobs require a great deal of travel have the same attitude toward retirement).
As I have discussed previously, travel in the Middle Ages was a lot harder than it is now. With human power (walking) the chief form of transport, much of the population might spend most of their lives within a twenty-mile radius. Horses were for the well to do, and carts, made to transport goods, would have been very uncomfortable to ride in over any distance.
Yet people did travel. The aristocracy especially traveled a lot. It was easier to move people than to move food, so large courts would frequently move from place to place, eating up the food at one palace before moving on to the next. Without modern communication, the only easy way to tell what was happening somewhere was to go there, so kings, dukes, counts, and landlords were constantly on the move, checking things out, passing judgments, hearing complaints, collecting revenue. And of course you had armies marching back and forth and young men traveling to tournaments.
Tourism as we know it did not exist in the Middle Ages. Our version really began in the nineteenth century, when well to do young men (rarely women) would undertake a Grand Tour. Young English gentlemen would travel around the Continent for months, even a few years, picking up culture and art, admiring the scenery, and visiting places of historical significance. The very word "tourism" comes from taking the Tour.
But modern tourism essentially began with the automobile, after World War I. It is much, much easier to go visit interesting places when one can hop in the car. In France, after the Armistice, people wanted to visit the battlefields where so many of their young men had died. The automobile made this possible, and Michelin especially (maker of car tires) started putting out helpful booklets to let people figure out where to go and what to see.
So modern tourism is a combination of "broadening one's mind" by being exposed to different scenes and ideas, of entertainment by seeing lovely and interesting places, and of education, by learning about history and other useful subjects. The museums where all this educational information was made available developed along with tourism.
Something that looks like tourism certainly existed in the Middle Ages, but its purpose was very different from broadening one's mind or being entertained or educated. It was called pilgrimage.
One traveled places to improve one's soul, and the difficulties of the journey were supposed to help improve it, by shaking one out of lethargy or luxury. The best pilgrimage goal was always Jerusalem, the scene of the Crucifixion, but most Europeans would choose more accessible places to go.
Rome was always a place for pilgrims, full of the bones of early martyrs, the graves of Saints Peter and Paul, and of course the papacy. Many other spots became pilgrimage centers, from Vézelay in Burgundy (pictured above) to Santiago in northern Spain (and a pilgrimage route ran between these two). Pilgrims were always interested in lovely architecture, important relics, and holy men (hermits could be visited as part of the pilgrim experience), but they do not seem to have paid as much attention to scenery.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval travel, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
As I have discussed previously, travel in the Middle Ages was a lot harder than it is now. With human power (walking) the chief form of transport, much of the population might spend most of their lives within a twenty-mile radius. Horses were for the well to do, and carts, made to transport goods, would have been very uncomfortable to ride in over any distance.
Yet people did travel. The aristocracy especially traveled a lot. It was easier to move people than to move food, so large courts would frequently move from place to place, eating up the food at one palace before moving on to the next. Without modern communication, the only easy way to tell what was happening somewhere was to go there, so kings, dukes, counts, and landlords were constantly on the move, checking things out, passing judgments, hearing complaints, collecting revenue. And of course you had armies marching back and forth and young men traveling to tournaments.
Tourism as we know it did not exist in the Middle Ages. Our version really began in the nineteenth century, when well to do young men (rarely women) would undertake a Grand Tour. Young English gentlemen would travel around the Continent for months, even a few years, picking up culture and art, admiring the scenery, and visiting places of historical significance. The very word "tourism" comes from taking the Tour.
But modern tourism essentially began with the automobile, after World War I. It is much, much easier to go visit interesting places when one can hop in the car. In France, after the Armistice, people wanted to visit the battlefields where so many of their young men had died. The automobile made this possible, and Michelin especially (maker of car tires) started putting out helpful booklets to let people figure out where to go and what to see.
So modern tourism is a combination of "broadening one's mind" by being exposed to different scenes and ideas, of entertainment by seeing lovely and interesting places, and of education, by learning about history and other useful subjects. The museums where all this educational information was made available developed along with tourism.
Something that looks like tourism certainly existed in the Middle Ages, but its purpose was very different from broadening one's mind or being entertained or educated. It was called pilgrimage.
One traveled places to improve one's soul, and the difficulties of the journey were supposed to help improve it, by shaking one out of lethargy or luxury. The best pilgrimage goal was always Jerusalem, the scene of the Crucifixion, but most Europeans would choose more accessible places to go.
Rome was always a place for pilgrims, full of the bones of early martyrs, the graves of Saints Peter and Paul, and of course the papacy. Many other spots became pilgrimage centers, from Vézelay in Burgundy (pictured above) to Santiago in northern Spain (and a pilgrimage route ran between these two). Pilgrims were always interested in lovely architecture, important relics, and holy men (hermits could be visited as part of the pilgrim experience), but they do not seem to have paid as much attention to scenery.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval travel, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Black and white in the Middle Ages
Medieval people would most certainly not be considered inclusive and welcoming of diversity by today's standards. Anyone who wasn't an orthodox Christian (i.e. not a heretic), or who didn't know how to speak the local language, was treated at best with suspicion. But skin color was not nearly as big a factor as it is in the modern US.
In part this was because western Europe had a great range of skin and hair colors anyway, with more light-skinned blonds in Scandinavia and Celtic areas like Ireland, and more swarthy skin and black hair along the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean had been a melting pot since at least the early days of the Roman Empire, with African, Middle Eastern, and European ethnic groups all intermixing. In the late Empire, a freed slave became a citizen, and his children might marry the descendants of people who had never been slaves. Frescos from ancient Rome show a progressive darkening of Romans' skin over the generations, as more African genes mixed with the original Roman Celtic genes.
Spain and Italy especially had populations that mingled genes from all over the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as from northern Europe. Think about "Spanish eyes," dark and flashing. They didn't get them from the Visigoths.
So medieval Europeans were happy to deal with people with a great range of skin tones without trying to identify them by "race." Blond and blue-eyed, however, remained the default definition of beauty, as indeed it still is the US—notice how actresses and even TV personalities are far more likely to be blond than the frequency of light hair in the general population would warrant.
Light skin was not just a marker of beauty but a marker of wealth and status. These days, when most people have indoor jobs, getting a tan makes a Caucasian stand out among the pale-skinned. In the Middle Ages, when most of the population was involved in farming and thus were outdoors a lot, having pale skin was good, because it meant you weren't a peasant.
(In the modern US, it seems that getting a tan from a day at the beach or from a tanning salon is good. Getting a tan from your ancestral genes is bad. I don't get it either.)
It was very rare that a European saw a sub-Saharan African, someone with very dark, essentially black skin. They knew however that such people existed. The Romans had mentioned them, and the Queen of Sheba in the Bible was described as "dusky." (It seems most likely that she was from what is now Ethiopia.)
In the medieval story of "Parzival," Parzival father had lived in the Middle East for years with a woman as dark as the Queen of Sheba. He never married her, however, according to the story, not because of her skin color but because she was not a Christian. They had a son who eventually came to Europe and met Parzival, his half-brother. This mixed-race son was described as spotted, black and white.
Medieval people didn't think through where the range of European skin tones had come from. But they knew that if you bred a black and a white cow, or a black and a white horse, you'd get offspring with black and white spots. Humans must be the same. It all made sense.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
In part this was because western Europe had a great range of skin and hair colors anyway, with more light-skinned blonds in Scandinavia and Celtic areas like Ireland, and more swarthy skin and black hair along the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean had been a melting pot since at least the early days of the Roman Empire, with African, Middle Eastern, and European ethnic groups all intermixing. In the late Empire, a freed slave became a citizen, and his children might marry the descendants of people who had never been slaves. Frescos from ancient Rome show a progressive darkening of Romans' skin over the generations, as more African genes mixed with the original Roman Celtic genes.
Spain and Italy especially had populations that mingled genes from all over the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa, as well as from northern Europe. Think about "Spanish eyes," dark and flashing. They didn't get them from the Visigoths.
So medieval Europeans were happy to deal with people with a great range of skin tones without trying to identify them by "race." Blond and blue-eyed, however, remained the default definition of beauty, as indeed it still is the US—notice how actresses and even TV personalities are far more likely to be blond than the frequency of light hair in the general population would warrant.
Light skin was not just a marker of beauty but a marker of wealth and status. These days, when most people have indoor jobs, getting a tan makes a Caucasian stand out among the pale-skinned. In the Middle Ages, when most of the population was involved in farming and thus were outdoors a lot, having pale skin was good, because it meant you weren't a peasant.
(In the modern US, it seems that getting a tan from a day at the beach or from a tanning salon is good. Getting a tan from your ancestral genes is bad. I don't get it either.)
It was very rare that a European saw a sub-Saharan African, someone with very dark, essentially black skin. They knew however that such people existed. The Romans had mentioned them, and the Queen of Sheba in the Bible was described as "dusky." (It seems most likely that she was from what is now Ethiopia.)
In the medieval story of "Parzival," Parzival father had lived in the Middle East for years with a woman as dark as the Queen of Sheba. He never married her, however, according to the story, not because of her skin color but because she was not a Christian. They had a son who eventually came to Europe and met Parzival, his half-brother. This mixed-race son was described as spotted, black and white.
Medieval people didn't think through where the range of European skin tones had come from. But they knew that if you bred a black and a white cow, or a black and a white horse, you'd get offspring with black and white spots. Humans must be the same. It all made sense.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Why do bad things happen?
Why do bad things happen to good people? This is a vexing theological question if one assumes a loving God. It has come up again in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane season, Harvey and Irma and Maria and Nate, which did serious damage to the US and the Caribbean. Most of the victims were doubtless good people.
In some ways this is what they call a "First World Problem." People in much of the world even today, and people in most of the pre-modern world, wouldn't have had philosophical discussions about why bad things happen. Bad things happen, they would say, because bad things always happen: fire, flood, disease, accident, war, betrayal, hunger, quarrels, loss … The list goes on for quite a while.
Even in the modern US, where most of us (when we are not evacuating from hurricanes) can imagine we're fairly good people leading fairly good lives, bad things happen to everybody. One interviewer I heard said she can always get a perhaps reluctant person to talk by saying, "Tell me about a time you were treated unfairly." Then she couldn't get them to shut up!
I guess if someone were born into privilege and had every want catered to, and died unexpectedly and painlessly before anyone they loved died, then maybe nothing bad happened to them during their life (until they died of course).
But it's still a good theological question. Medieval thinkers in monasteries and universities came up with answers, as they did for so many other theological questions. They may not be our answers, but these people were smart and tried to figure things out.
The most obvious answer was one derived from the Old Testament, that everyone was to be punished for the sins of the few. Thus one reads in the Bible about "the sins of the father" being punished in all his descendants. God destroying the earth with floods because of some bad actors, or wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah because some people there threatened His angels, certainly suggest that one can suffer for someone else's fault. Even today, there is talk in some circles of God bringing about hurricanes because the US is not strict enough against sexual sinning.
Medieval thinkers, however, would not have agreed. For the most part, they rejected the idea of the many suffering for the few. Medieval Christianity put the New Testament ahead of the Old, with its emphasis on individual rather than collective responsibility.
So why did good people experience pain and sorrow? The answer was easy to medieval theologians. There were no good people! Everybody was stained with original sin and deserved suffering in this life and damnation in the next. Only because of God's completely undeserved mercy did anyone make it to Heaven at all.
(Medieval Christianity was not "comforting." See more on this here.)
The only really good people were the saints, and they suffered the most of all. All the early martyr-saints had had horrible things done to them for their faith, like being slowly cooked on a griddle (Saint Lawrence). This suffering, for medieval theologians, burned away the sin in them, strengthening them and making it possible for them to become saints. People who wanted to emulate the saints deliberately sought out extremely unpleasant experiences, if not actual martyrdom.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval religion, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
In some ways this is what they call a "First World Problem." People in much of the world even today, and people in most of the pre-modern world, wouldn't have had philosophical discussions about why bad things happen. Bad things happen, they would say, because bad things always happen: fire, flood, disease, accident, war, betrayal, hunger, quarrels, loss … The list goes on for quite a while.
Even in the modern US, where most of us (when we are not evacuating from hurricanes) can imagine we're fairly good people leading fairly good lives, bad things happen to everybody. One interviewer I heard said she can always get a perhaps reluctant person to talk by saying, "Tell me about a time you were treated unfairly." Then she couldn't get them to shut up!
I guess if someone were born into privilege and had every want catered to, and died unexpectedly and painlessly before anyone they loved died, then maybe nothing bad happened to them during their life (until they died of course).
But it's still a good theological question. Medieval thinkers in monasteries and universities came up with answers, as they did for so many other theological questions. They may not be our answers, but these people were smart and tried to figure things out.
The most obvious answer was one derived from the Old Testament, that everyone was to be punished for the sins of the few. Thus one reads in the Bible about "the sins of the father" being punished in all his descendants. God destroying the earth with floods because of some bad actors, or wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah because some people there threatened His angels, certainly suggest that one can suffer for someone else's fault. Even today, there is talk in some circles of God bringing about hurricanes because the US is not strict enough against sexual sinning.
Medieval thinkers, however, would not have agreed. For the most part, they rejected the idea of the many suffering for the few. Medieval Christianity put the New Testament ahead of the Old, with its emphasis on individual rather than collective responsibility.
So why did good people experience pain and sorrow? The answer was easy to medieval theologians. There were no good people! Everybody was stained with original sin and deserved suffering in this life and damnation in the next. Only because of God's completely undeserved mercy did anyone make it to Heaven at all.
(Medieval Christianity was not "comforting." See more on this here.)
The only really good people were the saints, and they suffered the most of all. All the early martyr-saints had had horrible things done to them for their faith, like being slowly cooked on a griddle (Saint Lawrence). This suffering, for medieval theologians, burned away the sin in them, strengthening them and making it possible for them to become saints. People who wanted to emulate the saints deliberately sought out extremely unpleasant experiences, if not actual martyrdom.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval religion, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
Friday, September 1, 2017
Olive oil and butter
People on diets these days (i.e. almost everyone, at least at some point) try to "cut back" their fat. Modern nutrition guidelines specify that only a certain percentage of one's calories should be from fat. But in all premodern societies, including the Middle Ages, it was hard to get enough fat, which one actually needs (at least in moderation). One also needs it for cooking, especially in a pre-Teflon era.
The main medieval choices were olive oil and butter. There was no soybean oil, canola oil, or margarine. Lard was the third way (and some cooks still insist lard is best for pie crusts--I wouldn't know.)
Olive oil had been the Roman choice, as it had been for the Greeks. The "anointing with oil" events in the Bible were all examples of olive oil. It could also be used to burn for light. And athletes in antiquity, without today's "refreshing shower gel," got rid of the sweat by smearing themselves with olive oil, sprinkling on sand, and scraping it all off.
Olive trees grow well around the Mediterranean, providing both their fruit and oil. Southern Europe continued throughout the Middle Ages to rely on olive oil as the major source of fat.
Olive trees, however, do not grow well further north, although the oil certainly traveled on the trade routes. For northern Europe, butter (made from churning cream) was the chief source of fat in the Middle Ages. If salted and kept cool, butter will keep quite a while. In Scandinavia, butter might be stored for over a year.
When the Germanic people first came wandering into the Roman Empire, bringing their cows with them, the Romans reacted with disgust to this source of fat. But then the Germans weren't totally impressed with olive oil.
Butter works well for greasing the pan, mixing with flour for baking, and making dry food more palatable. But it doesn't work nearly as well for lamps, anointing, or scraping off the sweat.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval food, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
The main medieval choices were olive oil and butter. There was no soybean oil, canola oil, or margarine. Lard was the third way (and some cooks still insist lard is best for pie crusts--I wouldn't know.)
Olive oil had been the Roman choice, as it had been for the Greeks. The "anointing with oil" events in the Bible were all examples of olive oil. It could also be used to burn for light. And athletes in antiquity, without today's "refreshing shower gel," got rid of the sweat by smearing themselves with olive oil, sprinkling on sand, and scraping it all off.
Olive trees grow well around the Mediterranean, providing both their fruit and oil. Southern Europe continued throughout the Middle Ages to rely on olive oil as the major source of fat.
Olive trees, however, do not grow well further north, although the oil certainly traveled on the trade routes. For northern Europe, butter (made from churning cream) was the chief source of fat in the Middle Ages. If salted and kept cool, butter will keep quite a while. In Scandinavia, butter might be stored for over a year.
When the Germanic people first came wandering into the Roman Empire, bringing their cows with them, the Romans reacted with disgust to this source of fat. But then the Germans weren't totally impressed with olive oil.
Butter works well for greasing the pan, mixing with flour for baking, and making dry food more palatable. But it doesn't work nearly as well for lamps, anointing, or scraping off the sweat.
© C. Dale Brittain 2017
For more on medieval food, see my ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
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