The Medieval Latin Literature of Germany As German Literature

PMLA ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-30
Author(s):  
Edwin H. Zeydel

In the vast body of medieval literature written in what is called the Germanic area of Europe—and in the Middle Ages that included parts of present-day France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland—there is an immense amount of writing in a non-vernacular language known as Medieval Latin, in German Mittellateinisch—a term not coined by Wilhelm Meyer in 1882, as Karl Langosch claimed. It was used as early as 1838 by Jacob Grimm in the epoch-making Lateinische Gedichte des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts, prepared in collaboration with Andreas Schmeller. Mittellateinisch, among other things the medium of the Roman Catholic Church, is a language apart, growing not directly out of that of Cicero and Vergil, but rather originating from the late Latinity of Antiquity in its dying stages, and under the influence of tendencies present in the vernacular tongues.

1999 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 333-344
Author(s):  
Peter Raedts

One of the strongest weapons in the armoury of the Roman Catholic Church has always been its impressive sense of historical continuity. Apologists, such as Bishop Bossuet (1627-1704), liked to tease their Protestant adversaries with the question of where in the world their Church had been before Luther and Calvin. The question shows how important the time between ancient Christianity and the Reformation had become in Catholic apologetics since the sixteenth century. Where the Protestants had to admit that a gap of more than a thousand years separated the early Christian communities from the churches of the Reformation, Catholics could proudly point to the fact that in their Church an unbroken line of succession linked the present hierarchy to Christ and the apostles. This continuity seemed the best proof that other churches were human constructs, whereas the Catholic Church continued the mission of Christ and his disciples. In this argument the Middle Ages were essential, but not a time to dwell upon. It was not until the nineteenth century that in the Catholic Church the Middle Ages began to mean far more than proof of the Church’s unbroken continuity.


1991 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jennifer Bloxam

The cult of saints exerted a profound influence on the liturgy and plainsong of the Roman Catholic church in the later Middle Ages, as individual churches evolved local traditions of liturgy and plainsong to celebrate saints held dear by certain communities. Sacred polyphonic composition during this period also reflects the stimulation to musical creativity engendered by the veneration of special saints. This study explores a particularly fine example of the intersection of liturgy, chant, and polyphony inspired by the adoration of saints in the late Middle Ages. The introduction of a new local saint, Livinus, to the liturgy of the Flemish city of Ghent during the eleventh century provides the starting point for the investigation, which introduces a newly-discovered body of plainsong in his honor, notably a rhymed Office, preserved in manuscripts spanning the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. From this corpus of plainsong the composer Mattheus Pipelare (c. 1450-c. 1515?) selected no fewer than sixteen chants for inclusion in his four-voiced Missa Floruit egregiis infans Livinus; the identification of these heretofore unknown cantus firmi prompts a fresh look at the provenance, style and structure of this remarkable Mass, which proves to be a musical historia akin to other multiple cantus firmus Masses of the period, notably those by Jacob Obrecht. The essay concludes with an examination of the Missa de Sancto Job by Pierre de la Rue, whose debt to Pipelare's Missa de Sancto Livino is elucidated through a discussion of its background and compositional technique.


Author(s):  
Leen Spruit

This chapter tackles three issues: (1) how was Catholic psychological orthodoxy set in a battle against pagan philosophies and heterodox Christian doctrine in antiquity and the Middle Ages; (2) how was it reset in early modern times in the battle against the ‘re-born’ heresies; (3) how did censors reply to the conflation of scholastic psychology with new philosophical and scientific findings? After the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church launched a campaign against early modern alternatives to or criticisms of the scholastic building of learning, including its psychological section. Although Catholic censors assumed orthodox truth claims over or against non-scholastic views, there were also processes of mutual interaction, adaptation, and framing between the Church and early modern psychology.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1020 ◽  
pp. 736-740
Author(s):  
Peter Krušinský ◽  
Eva Capková

The truss above the nave and presbytery was managed to date to the year 1409d and is one of the few well-preserved medieval structures in this region. This truss has a rafter structure with collar tie and lengthwise binding of the Central frame. At the time of the truss creation the geometry had an important significance, as evidenced by its position in the system of education, since it was a part of seven liberal arts. The part of seven liberal arts was Music and Musica Humana (the theory of proportions) as well, based mainly on Pythagorean theory of proportions. In the Middle Ages geometry substituted complicated static calculations by using the mutual geometric and harmonic spatial connections. The result of our research is the geometric analysis with logical dependencies and a description of a process in the truss design, pointing to evaluative relations came out from especially the Pythagorean Geometry. The typical main roof truss was analyzed and a central longitudinal frame truss as well. Our results point to the use of one of musical ratios: harmonic and irrational proportion. On the basis of the mutual interdependence of the transverse links and central geometrical frame stool we can determine the sequence of key points and reciprocal relationships. Key points create important intersections, which determine the location of the various elements and their mutual carpentry joints. The result is the knowledge of a geometric procedure of a static scheme medieval truss dependent on knowledge of harmonies and ratios.


Author(s):  
Mykhailo Babii

Abstract. The article is devoted to the idea of freedom of conscience, the processes of developing its understanding in the Middle Ages, the opposition of various approaches, which are represented by thinkers of the Western and Eastern Christian tradition. These traditions were formed and developed within the framework of interpretive assessments of the relationship between the state and the church, known as Caesaropapism and Papоcaesarism. The peculiarities of Western Christian and Eastern Christian approaches to issues of freedom of conscience, which were formed by the nature of state power and its relations with the church, are analyzed. The Catholic understanding of relations was based on the independence of the church from the state, on its freedom, on the opposition of the spiritual and the earthly, on the supremacy of the former over the latter. It is claimed that the Roman Catholic Church has always claimed complete control over the secular state. According to the Orthodox view, the "spiritual and secular" should be integrated into one "symphonic" system with the leading role of the state. The church "gave its freedom" to the Caesars. The mechanism of the emergence of religious alternatives to the official teachings of the church, in particular heresies, sectarianism, schism, which served as a breeding ground for the emergence of religious freedom, freedom in the church. The role of the rationalist and anti-church component, philosophical and theological concepts, which were determined by a significant increase in scientific knowledge and the development of philosophical teachings, which also led to ideas of freedom of conscience, is emphasized. During this period, the genesis of the idea of freedom of conscience was played by the substantiation of the idea of human rights, in particular, the right to freedom of conscience and religion. The Middle Ages are presented as a specific era, which is associated with previous periods in the intellectual - philosophical and theological - understanding of freedom of conscience, in which despite all the negative socio-political, religious processes, persecution of freethinkers, formed principles of freedom of conscience and theoretical justification future paradigm. During this period, it was mainly about freedom of religious conscience, about the freedom of the church, about conscience, freedom of will, and not about freedom of conscience. It was important to substantiate the idea of the right of the autonomous mind, the doctrine of "natural light", the distinction between the concepts of "sacred" and "secular". At the same time, freedom of religious conscience can be said only for Christian believers, all others - infidels, "schismatics", heretics - were outlawed, society considered them as enemies of the state and the church. Heretical movements, which originated in the bosom of the Christian church and were determined by the context and events of the Middle Ages, became the environment where the ideas of freedom of conscience, including freedom of religious conscience, religious tolerance received "energy" for their development and manifestation as a public demand.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-364
Author(s):  
Kristin Norget

This article explores new political practices of the Roman Catholic Church by means of a close critical examination of the beatification of the Martyrs of Cajonos, two indigenous men from the Mexican village of San Francisco Cajonos, Oaxaca, in 2002. The Church’s new strategy to promote an upsurge in canonizations and beatifications forms part of a “war of images,” in Serge Gruzinski’s terms, deployed to maintain apparently peripheral populations within the Church’s central paternalistic fold of social and moral authority and influence, while at the same time as it must be seen to remain open to local cultures and realities. In Oaxaca and elsewhere, this ecclesiastical technique of “emplacement” may be understood as an attempt to engage indigenous-popular religious sensibilities and devotion to sacred images while at the same time implicitly trying to contain them, weaving their distinct local historical threads seamlessly into the fabric of a global Catholic history.


2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 405-424
Author(s):  
Alina Nowicka -Jeżowa

Summary The article tries to outline the position of Piotr Skarga in the Jesuit debates about the legacy of humanist Renaissance. The author argues that Skarga was fully committed to the adaptation of humanist and even medieval ideas into the revitalized post-Tridentine Catholicism. Skarga’s aim was to reformulate the humanist worldview, its idea of man, system of values and political views so that they would fit the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church. In effect, though, it meant supplanting the pluralist and open humanist culture by a construct as solidly Catholic as possible. He sifted through, verified, and re-interpreted the humanist material: as a result the humanist myth of the City of the Sun was eclipsed by reminders of the transience of all earthly goods and pursuits; elements of the Greek and Roman tradition were reconnected with the authoritative Biblical account of world history; and man was reinscribed into the theocentric perspective. Skarga brought back the dogmas of the original sin and sanctifying grace, reiterated the importance of asceticism and self-discipline, redefined the ideas of human dignity and freedom, and, in consequence, came up with a clear-cut, integrist view of the meaning and goal of the good life as well as the proper mission of the citizen and the nation. The polemical edge of Piotr Skarga’s cultural project was aimed both at Protestantism and the Erasmian tendency within the Catholic church. While strongly coloured by the Ignatian spirituality with its insistence on rigorous discipline, a sense of responsibility for the lives of other people and the culture of the community, and a commitment to the heroic ideal of a miles Christi, taking headon the challenges of the flesh, the world, Satan, and the enemies of the patria and the Church, it also went a long way to adapt the Jesuit model to Poland’s socio-cultural conditions and the mentality of its inhabitants.


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