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Volume 5 · 1988
Essays in Medieval Studies 5
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Scotus' Ethics
Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M.
Scotus' ethics may
be one of the least well known aspects of his philosophy because of the status
of the critical
Duns Scotus on the
Will and Morality1 was an attempt to remedy this with a source book of Latin
texts corrected mainly on the basis of the renowned Assisi manuscript, regarded
by the Scotistic Commission as containing the closest possible version of the
original "Liber Scoti." Only four of the 34 often lengthy selections
the book contains are presently available in the
The most frequent misunderstanding of Scotus' ethical system, it seems, stems from what he says of the role of God's will and in summary accounts of his philosophy, it frequently obscures entirely the rationality of his approach to morality. One contributor to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy even dismissed his ethics with this single statement2: "Things are good because God wills them,3 and not vice versa, so moral truth is not accessible to natural reason." Even those who are aware of Scotus' continuous appeal to the use of right reason, fail to see how this can be reconciled with the antecedent of the above enthymeme, and are puzzled by the apparent antinomy at the heart of his ethics.4
My aim in the book, then, was twofold:
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To correct the common misconceptions that arose because of his voluntaristic notions of God's relationship to creation, but more important to show the unity of his ethical system based on right reason, for it is his rational approach to what he believed as an ex professo theologian that makes his conceptions of morality and especially of the will of more than historical interest.5
As regards the first, my ploy is to show why Scotus thought the will was our only truly rational faculty.6 As for the second, I list the presuppositions of his ethical system and explain how they lead logically to a highly systematic humanistic ethics, one indeed that made the Scotistic school so popular in the 17th century that its adherents outnumbered those of the other schools combined. Consider the first of these.
1. The will as a rational faculty
Scotus' notion of will is a combination of what Aristotle said about rational and nonrational "potencies" and what Anselm said about freedom.7 The first two parts of the book8 are devoted respectively to what Scotus learned from these two thinkers.
Let me begin with Aristotle. His statement in Metaphysics IX, 2: "It is clear that some potencies will be nonrational but others will be with reason," prompted Scotus to ask "Is the difference Aristotle assigns between the rational and irrational appropriate, namely, that the former are capable of contrary effects but the latter produce but one effect?"9 If one is convinced, as Scotus was, that will is distinct from nature precisely because it is a power that can act at any given moment and under any set of external circumstances in more than one way, whereas natural powers or potencies, given all preconditions for acting, are determined by their very nature to act in the way they do, then all natural powers, including the intellect itself, are basically "nonrational" whereas the will alone is capable of effecting at any given moment more than one sort of volition or nolition. If one adds to this that the will can only act "with reason" or with some practical knowledge, one can see why Scotus might claim it is the only active potency that meets the Aristotelian criterion of a truly rational potency.
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Consider next what
Sc 525e42f otus borrows from Anselm of Caterbury and the
Another Anselmian feature Scotus added to his conception of will and its affection for justice was the saint's notion of freedom as a pure perfection.13 Rather than a "potestas peccandi" or power to sin, argued Anselm, the will's essential freedom consists in its capacity to preserve rectitude for its own sake (potestas servandi rectitudinem propter seipsum). And justice itself, Anselm defined, as "rectitude of will served for its own sake."14
Couple this Anselmian notion of the Will's liberty and affection for justice with Richard of St. Victor's definition of perfect love, and you complete the picture of what Scotus believed objective love consists in and why a perfect lover desires that what it loves objectively for its intrinsic worth, be loved by others as well. "Perfecte diligens vult dilectum condiligi."15 Scotus applied these notions to God's will and its relationship to creatures capable of moral choice. And this brings us to the second point, the presuppositions underlying Scotus' system of morality.
2. Presuppositions of Scotus' ethics
The first is his metaphysical notion of God; the second, his conviction that God must have free
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will and how it is to be understood; the third, how God's love for his infinitely perfect nature is both voluntary and steadfast, and hence is, in a special sense necessary; the fourth, how this dual aspect of his will affects his relationship to creatures, with whom he always deals according to right reason and in some ordained and methodical way; and last, in what sense God could be said to have revealed his will naturally to creatures, particularly in regard to the moral law. Once all this is properly understood, I think two points become very dear. First Scotus had every reason to think moral truth was accessible to man's natural mental powers; second, his ethical philosophy as a whole is remarkably coherent.16
As for the first presupposition, Scotus was personally convinced that if there was one theoretical entity a skilled metaphysician could prove existed on rational grounds alone, it was God as the supreme good and source of man's existence.17 Hence, he argued:
To love God above all is an act conformed to natural right reason, which dictates that what is best must be loved most; and hence such an act is right of itself; indeed, as a first practical principle of action, this is something known per se, and hence its rectitude is self-evident. For something must be loved most of all, and it is none other than the highest good, even as this good is recognized by the intellect as that to which we must adhere the most ... Since, the moral principles are of the law of nature, "Love the Lord, your God," etc. is also, and therefore such an act of love is known to be right.18
Furthermore, Scotus argued, secondly, that God must have created freely, for on no other rational grounds could he account for the manifest truth that the world is contingent and that we
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possess free will. He carefully analyzed the nature of our freedom to see what imperfections needed to be removed, before one could attribute free will as a pure perfection to God.19
This rational analysis led to his third and fourth ethical presuppositions, namely, that God's love for his infinitely perfect nature is both voluntary and steadfast, and hence is, in a special sense necessary; the fourth, how this dual aspect of his will affects his relationship to creatures, with whom he always deals according to right reason and in some ordained and methodical way. If the affection for justice is essential to the notion of will, and is in fact the ultimate specific difference that makes a created rational appetite free, then God's own volition must be governed by justice as well, and he must be true to himself and his own goodness in whatever he chooses to create. His third and fourth presuppositions permit Scotus to disengage his natural law theory from that of the impersonal Stoic-Augustinian conception of the eternal law, and show under what conditions of right reason God, as the author of man, might dispense from the binding force of the last seven precepts of the decalog, though never from natural law in the strict sense.
Scotus' fifth presupposition concerns how God reveals the moral law to a created intellect endowed with right reason. For if God is the author of human nature with the capacity to know and love what God himself does, then he has the authority to impose a moral obligation upon the creature he has created and set the conditions under which that creature may one day share God's inner life. How then does he manifest his Will? What often gets overlooked in asking this question of Scotus and his contemporaries is that their textbook in theology was the Sentences of Peter Lombard. If Peter had hammered one point into their heads, it was this:
That the truth (about the invisible things of God) might be
made clear to him, man was given two things to help him, a nature that is
rational and works fashioned by God. Hence the Apostle says (in Romans
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Hugh of St. Victor, whose influence on the Franciscan school can hardly be overestimated, had even earlier made specific application of this principle to ethics and the will of God:
Was it not like giving a precept to infuse into the heart of man discrimination and an understanding of what he should do? What is such knowledge but a kind of command given to the heart of man? And what is the knowledge of what should be avoided but a type of prohibition? And what is the knowledge of what lies between the two but a kind of concession, so that it is left up to man's own will where either choice would not harm him? For God to command then, was to teach man what things were necessary for him, to prohibit was to show what was harmful, to concede was to indicate what was indifferent.21
That Scotus accepted
this principle is clear from what he says about the law of nature being, in the
words of
As a keen observer of human nature and its foibles, however, Scotus might well have anticipated G. K. Chesterton's quip: "It is not true to say 'The man in the street does not think'; he does think, but he soon gets tired!" It was on this score that Scotus, like his fellow-theologians, rationalized the practical need for some special revelation on the part of God to reinforce truths that a skilled lawyer or moralist might have recognized without such revelation. All moral truths, however, are not equally evident. Scotus clearly distinguishes those which he considered to be the primary or self-evident principles of the natural law from secondary principles. These, if not obvious to all immediately, may be recognized upon further reflection and study to be very reasonable and in harmony with human nature and its individual and social needs.23
It is coming from this background that the 400 or more pages of texts and translations my book contains are to be understood. They are arranged under eight headings, entitled: the will and intellect; the will and its inclinations; moral good; God and the moral law; the love of God, of self, and of neighbor; and finally, as
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a kind of catch-all, sin. This last part deals a t some length with such perennially applicable topics as lying, perjury, the keeping of secrets and the sinfulness of enslaving oneself or another human being.
Scotus, like the great thinkers of his day, was ex professo a theologian rather than a philosopher, and in the latter role, perhaps more of a metaphysician and a psychologist than an ethician. Yet it is clear from the material contained in this work that he did discuss in depth and at length a great number of moral questions of contemporary interest. Though I might have added a number of other items of moral interest to the book, it would have made the book too unwieldy for ordinary uses for a course in Scotistic ethics. The topics covered are sufficiently broad in number and type to provide more material than required for a simple survey. They should suffice to show that Scotus had indeed an impressive and remarkably coherent moral philosophy, one in which right reason obviously plays the dominant role. Furthermore, despite the inner consistency of his ethics as a whole, the principles and conclusions he arrives at are not so tightly interconnected that a great many of his particular moral insights are not logically independent of one or another of these presuppositions and hence may be of considerable interest to a wider group of ethicians than those who may share his religious faith and all or most of his metaphysical conceptions. Many of Scotus' important insights emerge in his discussions of the moral aspects of marriage, divorce, polygamy, individual rights versus the authority of the state, what we owe to self versus what we owe to others, how right reason should evaluate a multifaceted good where one value must be sacrificed or downplayed for the sake of another, the role of prudence and other virtues, the effect of education and cultural differences, etc.
Though all of the book reviews of the work so far have been laudatory, Linus Thro, who has done considerable work on Scotus' thought himself, has raised some important questions that undoubtedly will occur to other readers as well. Referring to the presuppositions listed as underlying Scotus' ethics he writes:
The author ... will not be surprised if questions are raised with respect to the first and the last especially ... As to the first presupposition, is not
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the presupposed "metaphysical notion of God" really a Christian notion? The suggested demonstration from the "contingent-necessary" implication reminds one of the Anselmian argument and its vicissitudes in the subsequent centuries. And does Scotus himself claim merely to have "touched up" that argument?24
As for this one could say that, whatever his readers may have thought, it is clear that Scotus himself considered he had not only demonstrated by Aristotelian standards the existence of a necessary being that was supremely good, but the more controversial point, that such a being was actually infinite. If the demonstrative character of his proof was questioned in the first quarter of the 14th century, it was still considered by its critics as the most cogent rational proof that had been given to date and was regarded as persuasive and reasonable if not demonstrative. Even Ockham, Scotus' most severe critic, employed his own version of what Scotus regarded as a "causal" argument in his "conservation" proof of God as supreme being.
One should note that in the original version of his proof Scotus made no use of Anselm's argument whatsoever, but took as his starting point Henry of Ghent's summary of what were the proofs generally accepted as demonstrative in his day.25 These include his interpretation not only of the five ways of Aquinas but arguments from Augustine as well. Only Anselm's controversial Proslogion proof seems to be omitted in the classical arguments he marshals under the two headings of eminence and causality.26 "Causality," he understood to include not only efficient, but also exemplar and final causality. Scotus simplified Henry's "way of causality," combining it with the "way of eminence," and concentrated his personal efforts on putting the argument as a whole in a more rigorous logical form. In his Tractatus de Primo Principio, which seems to represent a final revision completed only with aid of some secretary, Scotus prefaces the proof with two introductory chapters in which the axioms and theorems it employs are set forth in an even more systematic way. If he introduces each chapter of this tract with prayer, it is a prayer that God may permit him to use reason rather than faith to see how far a metaphysician may go
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towards proving those attributes a believing Christian ascribes to God.
It seems that it was only in his second and later versions of the proof that Scotus recognized that the notion of "infinite" presented a special problem. As expressing something proper to God, it could not be constructed from simple univocal affirmations and negations of empirical elements in a straightforward way like such other theoretic notions as "highest good" or "supreme being." In his late magisterial Quodlibet Scotus goes to considerable pains to show what constructural steps can be used to facilitate the intellectual "blic" or "Gestalt-shift" that results in insight.27 In the post-Lectura versions of his proof of God, however, it seems clear that, rightly or wrongly, Scotus believed he had established a rational proof for the existence of an infinitely perfect God. And it was only when he sought to reorder and multiply his initial proofs for the infinity of his "First Being" that Scotus introduces his quasi-empirical or psychological proof, namely, an observation made earlier by Aristotle himself that far from being jarred by the notion of "infinite being," the human mind rather reaches out for such in its quest to make sense of the world of experience. It was in showing why "infinite" does not contradict the notion of "being" as some real entity (i.e., as something that either exists or can exists) that Scotus realized the technique he was using could be employed to "touch up" Anselm's argument itself so that it could be given an empirical rather than an a priori interpretation. Thro asked: "Is not the presupposed metaphysical notion of God really a Christian notion?" Obviously for Scotus it was, and for believers of other persuasions, it too might have required a modicum of faith. Even Kant himself admitted, a certain amount of good faith is needed to accept any proof for God. But the philosophers among the various religious sects have always thought they could make theological discourse meaningful and even give persuasive and plausible reasons for what they believed.28 If Scotus' first presupposition seems "Christian," he himself certainly thought it was shared by the two philosophers he admired most, Aristotle and Avicenna.
More serious, however, is Thro's further question: Does the effort succeed in showing the accessibility of moral truth to unaided human reason? For
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instance, did Aristotle himself arrive at it? Did Scotus doubt that any less than his predecessor, St. Bonaventure? It seems clear that to the extent that he adheres to much of the Anselmian-Victorine-Bonaventure tradition he inevitably distanced himself from the Aristotelian. Scotus could hardly consider genuine moral truth available to man without faith.29
Unless one specifies more precisely the sense of "moral truth," I think Thro's question has already been answered. For as I noted above, it seems clear to me, that in accepting much of the "Anselmian-Victorine-Bonaventure tradition" Scotus was concerned not to distance himself from Aristotle, but to bring that Franciscan line of thinking into the mainstream of contemporary Aristotelian thought. In his reformulation of Henry's classical arguments, for example, Scotus goes out of his way to use Aristotelian rather than Augutinian principles. And in his substitution of "nature and will" for Aristotle's dichotomy of "nonrational and rational potencies," Scotus devotes pages to showing the logical equivalence of the two conceptions.30
However, if one stresses the term "genuine" one could agree in great part with Thro's contention that "Scotus could hardly consider genuine moral truth available to man without faith." For we recognize more clearly today, as did the scholastics of Scotus' time, that for a Christian there is only one "genuine" end or destiny towards which all a person's moral striving should aim. Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus, like their Christian contemporaries, considered human nature to have been created only a "little less than the angels." For even if it was the "lowest" of such natures, it was still "capax Dei," and called to share in the afterlife the face to face vision of God. If this goal was something nature could not achieve through its own powers, it was still not regarded as something that did violence to that nature or was something towards which it was only indifferently inclined. Grace, it was often said, builds on nature; it perfects it without destroying it. In Aristotelian terms, however, this would mean that built into the very core of human nature was some potentiality to be perfected by something above the power of any created agency.31 This led
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to the controversy between "the philosophers and
theologians the
This question as to how much a philosopher without faith in any supernatural perfection might know about moral truth or the true nature of man, led undoubtedly to the sharp distinction made later between the natural (hypothetical) end of man and the supernatural (actual or genuine) end Christian's claimed to have. If this dichotomy, perhaps, was introduced explicitly only in Cajetan's day, it was spread by Suarez and the later scholastics, and adopted generally by Catholic theologians until relatively recent times. Only since Henri De Lubac's studies on what the high scholastics themselves thought, has there been a trend to reverse this kind of dualistic, "two-storied" conception of human nature.
Today as philosophers and theologians of various religious persuasions become more aware of the global unity of the human race, they also realize God seems to have intervened in a numinous way with cultures other than their own. Well may they ask how much of a role should one's particular religious faith play in their philosophical speculations. It might help here to borrow a page from philosophers of science. Their studies of the logical status of theoretical concepts indicate that while certain theories may be falsified by empirical data, strictly one cannot show there is but one unique theory that satisfies what is generally accepted as factual data. What is more, even what we claim to experience psychological studies show to be in some measure theory-laden. Hence the method by which any theory, scientific or philosophical, is arrived at appears irrelevant to its cognitive value in making sense of the real world in which "we live, move and have our being." All of this raises questions as to what should be excluded from philosophical speculation as being purely or properly theological. One might fall back on Gilson's original contention, which if I remember correctly, was that Christian theologians were giving better answers to the philosophers' questions than the pagan philosophers themselves.
I personally doubt whether Scotus was as skeptical of the powers of the human intellect to discover genuine moral truth as Thro's questions seem to suggest. Faith of some sort, as Augustine
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points out, is an integral part of much of what we consider we know naturally. And the whole history of "scholasticism" (and parallel movements among the Moslem and Jewish philosophers) has been to use philosophy and reason to eliminate the anthropomorphisms involved in the original accounts of the theophanies that undergird and support their religions.
At any rate, historians of medieval thought, philosophers of religion or ethics should find the evaluative techniques Scotus uses to solve particular ethical problems that fall under the second table of the law of value, without necessarily agreeing with his reasons why they oblige morally. For what right reason tells us is what perfects human nature naturally, and this should suffice for the development of a rational ethics by those who claim man's moral behavior is not essentially dependent upon a divine command.
In conclusion let me call attention to another important notion implicit at least in Scotus' ethical approach that other believing ethicians may appreciate. If nature's perfection is more an ideal towards which we strive rather than an absolute value that demands God's immediate intervention, then understandably God for whom a 'thousand years are as a day' is not constrained to see that it be attained at once or by some miraculous intervention on his part to correct each human mistake. The conception of a nature that achieves its complete perfection and comes to full maturity only gradually and by an internal trial and error mechanism does not seem foreign to or incompatible with Scotus' conception of God. If he stated his principle of evolutionary development Deus ordinate agens procedit de imperfecto ad perfectum in reference to God's revealed law, there seems to be no reason why it does not apply to the promulgation of the law of nature as well, namely, through a gradual growth in moral awareness that spans centuries or even millennia of human history. In processu generationis humanae, semper crevit notitia veritatis.33
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Notes
1. Allan B. Wolter, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality (
2. Anthony Quinton, "British Philosophy." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edwards (New York: Free Press/London: Collier-Macmillan, 1965), vol. I, p. 373.
3. Scotus' oft-quoted statement that "everything other
than God is good because God willed it and not vice versa" occurs in
reference to the goodness that stems from the merits of Christ, something that
transcends natural or any moral goodness as Aristotle understood the term (WM,
p. 16). Natural goodness is something things possess in virtue of having all
that is proper and becoming to their nature, and natural goodness is a
presupposition for moral goodness, and this depends upon actions having in
addition to their natural goodness, all that is becoming to them according to
right reason (WM, pp. 17-25). If all actual goodness can be said in any sense
to be will dependent, it is only because it is part and parcel of the grand
plan of a benevolent creator who creates not only freely but wisely, so that
whatever he makes will be worthy of himself and do justice to his goodness.
Hence, Scotus says, paraphrasing
4. See especially C. R. S. Harris, Duns Scotus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), vol. 2, pp. 331-35.
5. WM, p. ix.
6. Henry of
7. This is but another instance of how Scotus developed his own version of "Aristotelianism." After the condemnations of 1270 and 1277 a number of Franciscan theologians, inspired by Bonaventure, tried to develop what they considered a more "Augustinian" system of philosophy; Scotus' merit was to show how the values they were concerned to protect could be defended by an ingenious interpretation of Aristotelian axioms and thus brought the Franciscans' "school," if one can speak of their pluralism as a school, into the mainstream of Christian Aristotelianism. Scotus, however, was well aware that the Franciscan interpretation of "Augustine" was colored largely by insights of St. Anselm and the School of St. Victor, and he used both of these in his development of his own "Aristotelian" version of the will and its function.
8. Part I is entitled 'The will and intellect"; Part II, "The will and its inclinations."
9. WM, pp. 144-145.
10. See Anselm, De causa diaboli, c. 4 (ed. Schmitt, I, 241).
11. Scotus refers to this in WM, pp. 468-69. "If one were to think, according to that fictitious situation Anselm postulates in The Fall of the Devil, that there was an angel with an affection for the beneficial, but without an affection for justice
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(i.e., one that had a purely intellectual appetite and not one that was flee), such an angel would be unable not to will what is beneficial, and unable not to covet such above all. But this would not be imputed to it as sin, because this appetite would be related to the intellect as the visual appetite is now related to sight, necessarily following what is shown to it by that cognitive power, for it would be inclined to seek the very best revealed by such a power, for it would have nothing to restrain it."
12. Ibid., pp. 469-70: "This affection for justice, which is the first checkrein on the affection for the beneficial, inasmuch as we need not seek that towards which the latter affection inclines us, nor must we seek it above all else (namely, to the extent which we are inclined by this affection for the advantageous)-this affection for what is just, I say, is the liberty innate to the will, since it represents the first checkrein on this affection for the advantageous."
13. Anselm had argued that as a perfection "to be able to sin is not liberty or any part of liberty" (De libero arbitrio, c. 1); Scotus analyzes how far this can be applied to a created will by reason of its innate affection for justice (WM, pp. 458-77) as well as to the divine will (ibid., pp. 238-55).
14. WM, p. 241.
15. WM, pp. 12, 20.
16. WM, p. 5.
17. WM, pp. 5-9.
18. WM, pp. 425-27.
19. WM, pp. 9-10.
20. Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, liber I, dist. 3, c. 1, ed. I. Brady (Grottaferrata/Romae: Collegii 5. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, (tom. i) 1971), p. 69.
21. PL 176, 268.
22. WM. pp. 26, 263-65, 271, 287.
23. WM, pp. 26-29.
24. L. J. Thro, S. J., Manuscripta, vol. 31, n. 1 (1987), pp. 46-47.
25. A translation of this early version is contained in Wippel and Wolter, Medieval Philosophy: From St. Augustine to Nicholas of Cusa (New York: Free Press, 1969).
26. See the item on Henry, ibid.
27. See my analysis of this treatment in the second part of "An Oxford Dialogue on Language and Metaphysics," Review of Metaphysics 32 (1978), 323-48.
28. See for example what I have written in "A Scotistic Approach to the Ultimate Why-Question," in Philosophies of Existence Ancient and Medieval, ed. Parviz Morewedge (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982, pp. 109-30); and the commentary in the second edition of John Duns Scotus. A Treatise on God as First Principle (Chicago: Forum Books, Franciscan Herald Press, 1983).
29. Thro, art. cit. p. 46.
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30. He introduces his lengthy discussion (cf. WM, pp. 154-167) with the question: "How reconcile the aforesaid interpretation with the mind of Aristotle, who distinguished not between nature and will, but between irrational and rational potencies?"
31. See my article, "Duns Scotus on the Natural Desire for the Supernatural," New Scholasticism 23 (1949), 281-317.
32. See my article, "Duns Scotus on the Necessity of Revealed Knowledge," Franciscan Studies 11 (Sept.-Dec. 1951), [231]-[272].
33. Duns Scotus, Ordinatio IV, dist. 1, q. 3, n. 8, quoted in WM, p. 29.
Essays in Medieval Studies 5
[Page numbers of the printed text appear at the right in bold.]
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The Middleness of the Middle Ages: Periodizing European History
David L. Wagner
Northern
Periodization is an essential tool of the historian indispensable, I believe, for the historian concerned with lengthy periods of time. Thus, medievalists, most of whom are required by the exigencies of the academic world to survey the whole of the Middle Ages in their classes, cannot avoid facing the issue of periodization.
The issue arises in medieval history in both a broad and a narrow sense: broad, in that the very idea of a "middle" age lying between classical antiquity and the modern world raises questions concerning its beginning and end; and narrow, in that several distinct phases can be distinguished within that span of well over a thousand years.
Moreover, there is a quite specific reason medievalists cannot avoid the issue of periodization. The very concept that identifies their field of study arose within a tradition that was grounded in a particular theory of periodization. For, as is well known, the idea of a "middle age" arose in connection with the development of the Renaissance concept, a development that began when the Italian humanists viewed themselves as beginning a new era.1 Thus, like other terms with which it was originally associated "Gothic" and "Dark Ages" the term "Middle Ages" originally had a pejorative connotation.
Perhaps by now the term has lost its negative connotation and is used in a neutral sense, as is clearly true for "Gothic." Such an occurrence is not unusual with period terms: "baroque" is another example. Yet some terms such as "Renaissance" will probably
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never completely lose their original connotation. Even today "middle" does suggest a transitional era, its very identity thus depending on its relation to the periods that precede and follow it which seems to make the Middle Ages somehow inferior to those bracketing epochs.
The periodization of medieval history raises especially critical problems and will be the topic of this paper. Nevertheless, I shall begin by examining the periodization of Western civilization in more general terms. My aim is to base this periodization on the broadest possible criteria.
In the most general terms, the activities of men and women take place in the context of nature and society.2 Man's relation to nature is perhaps most fundamental; here one can identify several basic revolutions. In addition to changes in man's relation to nature and society, man's understanding of the world in which he lives is marked by equally fundamental and revolutionary changes. Significantly, these revolutions in worldview generally parallel the revolutions in man's relation to nature a fact that can serve to identify the most basic turning points in European history. In examining these turning points, my approach will be descriptive rather than causal.
Three revolutions
in man's relation to nature stand out as most basic for periodizing the human
past. The Agricultural Revolution marked the transition from a food gathering
and hunting society to one characterized by the cultivation of grain and the
domestication of animals. Although this neo-lithic revolution lies outside the
purview of the historian, I mention it because it helps to establish the nature
of basic turning points. The Urban Revolution, initiated in the West in the
river valleys of
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The introduction of iron is perhaps not on a par with these three revolutions from a strictly economic point of view. It would seem to represent a qualitative improvement metallurgy rather than a revolution. Yet, if one considers its social and intellectual consequence the introduction of iron clearly represented a basic turning point in history. An analysis of the revolutions in worldviews will confirm its importance for the historian.
As I have said, revolutions in worldview generally parallel revolutions in man's relation to nature. This is certainly true for the Iron Age. If one looks at Europe (i.e., excluding the ancient Near East), rationalism supplanted mythology as the way of understanding the universe.4 That intellectual change accompanied economic change is equally clear in the modern period. Certainly science as well as industrialism defines the identity of the Modem Age. Finally, before I turn to the Middle Ages, let me note parenthetically that if I am correct in my assumption, a distinctive worldview would characterize the Bronze Age. What seems to have happened during this period is that anthropomorphic polytheism supplanted an earlier concept of impersonal divine forces.
The turning point
that marked the end of the Age of Rationalism does not, however, exactly
conform to this pattern. A revolution in worldview clearly occurred: classical
rationalism gave way to a worldview oriented towards the supernatural. During
the first several centuries following this change, this new orientation (which
for ease of reference, I shall label an Age of Faith) took a variety of forms
including Neoplatonism, the mystery religions, Gnosticism and Manicheanism,
and, of course, Christianity. Although this intellectual revolution was not
associated with an economic revolution of the scope and nature of those
previously identified, its emergence was nevertheless clearly rooted in
economic and social change. Thus, for Gibbon (at least as I read him), the
triumph of Christianity is explained by the decadence economic and political of
the
The revolutions I have discussed so far, both economic and intellectual, establish the traditional periodization into ancient, medieval, and modem. It is perhaps significant for my problem that the emergence of the Middle Ages is primarily identified by a revolution in worldview. In this it differed from the other
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periods. While the origins of the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Modern Age were all characterized by economic revolutions that increased man's control of nature, the new medieval attitude toward the universe arose during a period of economic and social decay. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Middle Ages might seem of lesser stature to men of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment clearly; and perhaps even to some today. (Not medievalists, of course.)5
So far I have been doing history without dates. Some might even deny that it is history. But from this broad and extremely general perspective, the reality of periods seems clear. The traditional periodization is not a matter of arbitrary convenience. The men and women who lived during these epochs clearly inhabited different worlds (which for me, as I've said, includes their understanding of their worlds). I do not see how anyone can deny this.
Yet a historian will not be satisfied with an analysis in these broad terms: for historians analyze change more precisely, emphasizing exact chronology. But any attempt to give precise dates to the basic turning points does introduce an element of artificiality.6 Moreover, any analysis of these broad periods will generally involve sub-periodization. And it is probably the status of sub-periods that is at issue in the debate over the reality of periods. I believe the charge of artificiality can be precluded by basing sub-periodization on general criteria, that is, by extending the approach I have adopted for the major periods.
The most obvious way to begin this second analysis would be to establish precise dates for the major turning points. But first, I shall identify one further turning point, one that I believe is as important for periodization as those identified previously.
This attempt to
periodize European history has not been carried out in a vacuum. It reflects
several years of teaching and study. And no one who studies the Middle Ages can
be unaware of an essential turning point lying within the period. The Age of
Faith emerged during a period of economic and social decline a decline,
moreover, that continued over a lengthy period. Yet at some point this decline
bottomed out and
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size this reversal as a turning point on a par with the others I have cited again draws attention to the middleness of the Middle Ages. This turning point divided the Middle Ages in two: the several centuries that precede it were tied to antiquity, while those that follow led more or less without interruption to the modern world.
My problem, of course, is to identify this turning point in general terms, ones that are comparable to those I have used so far. It might be possible to continue using economic criteria those adopted by Henri Pirenne and Lynn White, Jr., come to mind. The re-emergence of Mediterranean trade was the decisive factor in Europe's recovery according to Pirenne; and though rooted in the past, the technological innovations in culture cited by Lynn White only became effective with the general recovery of Europe.7 These developments do not seem on a par with the Agricultural, Urban, Iron Age, or Industrial Revolutions, however, and I would prefer to identify this turning point in terms of more general criteria.
I believe an
analysis of man's relation to society does provide an alternative. While I believe
each age does have a characteristic form of social organization, to base
periodization on this criterion would be too specific on a par with the
interpretations of Pirenne and LynnWhite. Demography, however, provides a more
general approach to the analysis of man's relation to society. I interpret
demography broadly, to include ethnic migrations; and such migrations do play a
crucial role in an analysis of turning points especially at the beginning and
end of the Iron Age. Nevertheless, even more important for periodization is the
growth and decline in the size of population.8 It is fairly clear that the
decline of population that began in the late
The year 1000 is critical in any sub-periodization of the Middle Ages, and can be identified in terms of an analysis based on general criteria. Perhaps even more important, other dates critical
page 38
to the sub-periodization of the Middle Ages can also be based on general criteria specifically by extending the analysis of the basic turning points established so far. I shall limit my discussion to the termini of the Middle Ages. It is extremely significant that two of the most important historiographical problems of the twentieth century concern these termini. I refer, of course, to the debate on the Pirenne thesis and the so-called "Renaissance problem."
It is particularly illuminating to consider these two debates together, for they manifest a similarity that suggests an approach to the problem of sub-periodization. The essential point comes out most clearly in the "Renaissance debate" that dominated twentieth century Renaissance scholarship until World War II. The history of this debate is especially clear as it has been analyzed in detail by Wallace K. Ferguson.10
The event that would eventually precipitate the debate was the publication in 1860 of Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.11 This essay (as he entitled it) marked the culmination of several centuries of interpretation, beginning with the Italian humanists themselves, that emphasized both the concept of a cultural rebirth and the periodization of European history. Although he ignored economic history, Burckhardt viewed the Italian Renaissance as a general period that lasted until the Counter-Reformation. For Burckhardt, it was a pagan age, differing markedly from the Christian Middle Ages. Burckhardt also believed that this period, which saw the "rediscovery of man and the world," ushered in the modern age.
Burckhardt's view of the Renaissance dominated historical scholarship throughout the rest of the nineteenth century, but in the early twentieth century his thesis came under attack from many sides. At issue was Burckhardt's emphasis on the discontinuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Although Ferguson devoted several chapters to a detailed analysis of the revisionists' arguments, their attack on Burckhardt can be reduced to two fundamental criticisms, both of which emphasize the continuity between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.12 First, they argued that features Burckhardt had used to define the Renaissance were also to be found during the Middle Ages. Although these scholars drew attention to a number of such features the individualism of St. Francis, for example their most critical
page 39
argument rested on the identification of several previous "renaissances'' Carolingian, Ottonian, and that of the Twelfth-Century using the term in a limited sense to refer to a renewed interest in classical learning. Second, they argued that those traditions Burckhardt had characterized as medieval continued well past 1300. Most significantly, they argued that the Italian humanists remained Christians and were improperly identified by Burckhardt as pagans.
Nevertheless, the revisionists merely postponed the turn from the Middle Ages to the modern world. I believe most historians who accept the revisionists' concept of a late Middle Ages the "Waning of the Middle Ages," in Huizinga's classic phrase would argue that the recovery of trans-alpine Europe in the mid-fifteenth century (or perhaps the Reformation) marked the beginning of an "early modern" age, a period that lasted to the Industrial and French Revolutions.
Ferguson's own
interpretation of the Renaissance attempted to rise above the debate (in the
Hegelian sense).13 He accepted Burckhardt's essential thesis that the early
fourteenth century marked a decisive break with the Middle Ages but viewed the
Renaissance as a general period in European history, lasting to 1600. Accepting
the revisionists' emphasis on the continued importance of Christianity,
I believe the
important point is not the disagreement between Burckhardt and the
revisionists, but rather their similarity in contrast to
The debate on the
beginning of the Middle Ages displayed a similar pattern.14 Nineteenth century
scholars argued that the
page 40
expansion of Islam led to the closing of the
At about the same
time that Pirenne began to formulate his thesis, another scholar also began to
examine the appropriateness of the traditional catastrophic theory. In an
interpretation that to me is strikingly similar to that of
The adoption of
the concept of a transitional era does not solve the problem of dating of
course; it is still necessary to identify the termini of these transitional
eras especially if they are viewed as equal in ontological status to the major
periods (which is how
Let me begin by
emphasizing an important fact about
Gibbon, however, also adopted a different approach to periodization, one that suggests a way to compare the two transitional eras that bracket the Middle Ages. Thus Gibbon identified a twelve hundred year period (of superstition, he would say; of faith, from a less tendentious point of view) stretching from the reign of Constantine to Martin Luther.18 One might even give precise dates identifying a period from A.D. 313 to A.D. 1517. But neither the Edict of Milan nor Luther's posting of the ninety-five theses occurred in a vacuum. Both had roots in the past; and both initiated changes that required several decades before their full import was realized.
Thus, I would suggest that each of these dates is best regarded as marking the climax of a process, one that occurs mid-way through a period.19 While the concept of a climax is perhaps most suitable for eras of transition, one can also identify climaxes for the
page 41
other periods that I have distinguished: the coronation of Charlemagne for the period from the end of the transition to the time of recovery; the Twelfth Century Renaissance and the Investiture Struggle for the period from the beginning of recovery to the Renaissance (viewed as an age of transition); the French and Industrial Revolutions and if this approach is valid, Romanticism as well for the Modern Age.
Emphasizing the
climax of a period makes it less necessary to identify its beginning and end
with precise dates. Although the beginning or end of a process sometimes seems
clear, these dates are often arbitrary. Nevertheless, they demand attention;
and, as might be expected, I have my own dates. I accept Gibbon's view that the
crisis at the end of the Age of the Antonines began
Despite my
disclaimer, I do find the dating of the Renaissance a problem, and am
addressing that issue elsewhere. In brief, while I accept
I have concentrated in this paper on problems that arise in periodizing the Middle Ages. Yet, in conclusion, I would like to consider one further turning point that is of special significance for the middleness of the Middle Ages. The idea of a middle period has always rested on its contrast with Antiquity and the Modern Age. What has given force to the concept of middleness is that the Middle Ages are held to lie between antiquity and one's own age. In other words, the Modern Age has been viewed as extending to the present. But I believe the evidence is quite clear that the Modern Age no longer exists as the frequency of terms such as "post-modern" or "post-industrial" attests.22
One can even identify the climax of the transition between the Modern Age and our own. Thus, Jan Romein has argued for the year 1900 as a watershed year (a climax, in my terms) in the era
page 42
from 1880 to 1914 and has cited evidence from a vast variety of areas.23
As an intellectual historian, I find the year 1905 is perhaps even more apt.24 In that year Einstein first announced the special theory of relativity and also published a seminal paper on quantum physics. An annus mirabilis indeed. Almost simultaneously Picasso painted Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon. The Interpretation of Dreams appeared in Romein's watershed year; but, on the other hand, in 1904, William James denied the reality of consciousness in his famous essay, "Does Consciousness Exist?"25
Only when the new
Age has fully taken shape will the implications concerning the middleness of
the Middle Ages be clear. The term itself is perhaps permanently ingrained in
the historian's vocabulary; but I doubt the same is true of its meaning. Yet
one can only speculate how historians of this coming age will conceptualize the
Middle Ages. For it is not yet possible to identify "what great beast ...
is slouching towards
page 42
Notes
1. For a full discussion of this development, see Wallace K.
Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of
Interpretation (
2. This rather abstract way of putting the matter reflects the overall approach I shall adopt in this paper. A recent textbook, Constance Brittain Bouchard, Life and Society in the West: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (San Diego, 1988), p. 1, makes the same point in less abstract terms: "Human history, at its most basic level, is the history of people trying to get enough to eat and trying to find ways to get along with each other."
3. My analysis in this and the following paragraph is based
on Gordon Childe, What Happened in History, with a new foreword by Professor
Grahame Clark (
page 43
4. Some scholars have recently proposed the concept of an
Axial Age to identify this new period. See S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Origins
and Diversity of Axial Age Civilization (
5. This economic reversal does not serve as a general criterion for periodization. I shall argue below that man's relation to society can provide such a criterion.
6. I believe all historians would agree with Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the Making of European Unity (Meridian Book: New York, 1956), p. 239: "It is impossible to draw an abrupt line of division between one period and another...."
7. Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the
Revival of Trade, trans. Frank D. Halsey (Doubleday Anchor Book: Garden City,
New York, 1958), pp. 55-74. Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social
Change (
8. This may be an area in which changes in nature and society are related. The relation between changes in climate and the growth and decline of population is not yet dear, however.
9. This is not a special case. Turning points are often marked by demographic revolutions. The Urban, Iron Age, and Industrial Revolutions all led to rather rapid growth in population. See also, n. 20.
10.
11. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in
12.
13. Wallace K. Ferguson, "The Interpretation of the Renaissance: Suggestions for a Synthesis," Journal of the History of Ideas, XII (1951), 483-95.
14. Pirenne's thesis is stated most fully in Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (Meridian Booka: New York, 1957). Bryce Lyon, The Origins of the Middle Ages: Pirenne's Challenge to Gibbon (New York, 1972) gives an account of the debate. For a recent analysis from an archeological point of view, see Richard Hodges & David Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne & the Origins of Europe (Ithaca, New York, 1983).
15. Alfons Dopsch, The Economic and Social Foundations of
European Civilization (New York, 1937), ch. 1, analyzes the traditional theory,
which he labels "catastrophic,'' going back to the Italian Humanists. See
also
16. Ferdinand Lot, The End of the Ancient World and the Beginnings of the Middle Ages (Harper Torchbook: New York, 1961).
17. Bryce Lyon so argues in The Origins of the Middle Ages.
Nevertheless, Gibbon identifies a distinct period, lasting from the age of
Trajan and the Antonines to the beginning of the sixth century. See Edward
Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the
page 44
18. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. III, p. 221.
19. The life of Copernicus, whose heliocentric theory can be viewed as a climax in intellectual history, was contemporary with that of Luther.
20. If one wishes to be precise, one might argue for A.D. 167, the date of the plague that marked the beginning of the decline in population.
21. To adopt Pirenne's dating for the end of a period of transition is to remove the absolute quality it has in his theory. His interpretation de-emphasizes the importance of Christianity in the period before the seventh century.
22. This remark suggests a final criterion for periodization. In this paper I have discussed periodization using extremely general criteria based on the abstract concepts of nature, society, and worldview. Yet the essential subject matter of history remains the lives of men and women. Although history emphasizes the lives of people living in society, one way to use the concept of the individual in periodizing history is by focusing on the concept of personal identity. And one way in which people identify themselves can be used as a way of validating the periodization suggested here. H. Weisinger, "The Self-Awareness of the Renaissance as a Criterion of the Renaissance," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Literature, XXIX (1944), 561-67, suggested that self-consciousness serves as one criteria for establishing the reality of the Renaissance. I believe such self-consciousness is generally characteristic of a new period. I have just suggested that we are now aware that we have moved into a new period of transition. Other periods as well reflect this self-awareness. Thus citing only the barest of evidence the Epic of Gilgamesh clearly indicated an awareness that Sumerian civilization differs from the more primitive age that preceded it; Herodotus contrasted Greek society with that of the East; the Christian fathers clearly recognized the novelty of their age; and the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns marked a consciousness of the beginning of the Modern Age.
23. Jan Romein, The Watershed of Two Eras:
24. I would also extend the general period to 1945. This period is not on a par with others I have identified. We are too close in time to periodize conclusively.
25. See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Revolt Against Dualism: An Inquiry Concerning the Existence of Ideas (La Salle, Illinois, 1960), pp. 8-10.
Essays in Medieval Studies 5
[Page numbers of the printed text appear at the right in bold.]
page 93
Courts of Love: Challenge to Feudalism"
Robert V. Graybill
That political
liberation from the medieval feudal system in southern
The Feudal political system, based on undying loyalty to a lord or king, had its judicial system too. Although the church exercised power through ecclesiastical courts, the political courts were far from weak. It was an age of formality, legalism, and scholasticism a fixed system. No wonder then that for romantic love to be a part of the culture it had to have its own system of authority, its own court.
At first the concept of courtly love was not competitive to established legal and ecclesiastical systems. Rather, it filled a vacuum in feudal marriage. Since marriage was not based on romantic love, and since romantic love had a never-flagging impetus, some way had to be found to regulate it. The answer was courtly love, a convention which turned passion, jealousy, secret
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admiration and assignation into (as many of its supporters hoped) a socially valuable force, a means of social control that would be peaceful, even at times wholesome. As Denis de Rougemont remarks: "To impose a style on the life of the passions that dream of the whole of the pagan Middle Ages tormented by Christian law such is the secret wish that was to give rise to the [courtly love] myth" (196).
But the substitution of one form of control for another rent the fabric of feudal society. A courtly lover, bound to his lord by ties of homage and duty, found himself bound to an even further degree to the lord's lady. Feudal loyalty was split into different and sometimes opposing obligations.
Nor was personal
political loyalty the only kind of faith to suffer. Religious faith waned as
romance grew, and the new spirit "was not merely non-religious; it was
potentially unorthodox and anti-clerical. It is no accident that the cradle of
the courtly literature and culture should have also been the centre of the
Albigensian heresy and the first country in the west of
Once the idea had been established that loyalty and faith antipathetic to one's lord and one's church could be practiced, the challenge to authority was evident. A vassal who broke faith with his lord by seducing the lord's wife (and vassals likely crept into bedrooms as often as did minor nobles) would naturally find it easier to break his political or ecclesiastical ties after the initial breach of faith. Sometimes the courtly love relationship itself would suffer, as when, for example, in 1173, "Jacques d'Avesnes, having protested in vain against what he regarded as infringements of his rights by his lord, Count Baldwin V of Hainault, broke off relations with the countess, who was governing the country in her husband's absence, and 'dared to break his faith to her'" (Ganshof 99).
The idea of a god of love or of love as an absolute ruler with power to enforce his will can be traced to the Greeks. From the fertility gods of the near East to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine the idea persisted that sexual love, both physical and idealized, was meaningful and desirable, a human force not to be denied. It remained for the women of the troubadours to give the god of love a local habitation. C. S. Lewis points out that love permeated to the
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heart of Provençal culture, and took on many trappings of current philosophies and practices: "We find... conceptions of lovers as the members of an order of love, modeled upon the orders of religion; of an art of love, as in Ovid; and of a court of love, with solemn customs and usages, modeled upon the feudal courts of that period" (31).
Some scholars have
seen courtly love as similar to the feelings that caused the Albigensian
heresy. Other have traced its bases to the influence of Hispano-Arabic lyrics.
Although its bases may have been eclectic, one can safely say that it was
inclined to be heretical and was likely a carryover from paganism. Rowbotham
suggests that luxury itself helped cause the heresy of romantic love:
"Whether it were a secret unbelief or a spirit of social rebellion against
the moral constraints of religion engendered by luxury and looseness of life,
certain it is that the troubadours throughout their history will generally be
found to constitute the anti-clerical party a natural position, some will say,
for a race of men and poets who represented so strikingly the blithe,
unfettered, and pagan conceptions of life" (48). However, pagan or not, the
institutionalization of courtly love was couched in language and custom that
was nominally Christian. It took on "the organizing structure of an
imitated or assimilated Christian cosmos, with its worshipers, its martyrs and
angels, its God of Love, and its
Courtly love, whose beginnings lay in the social control of the culturally disruptive sexual urge, became an immensely powerful movement under the leadership of Eleanor of Aquitaine. As Patricia Terry says, "... courtly poets raised love to the same important level as religion and warfare within the realm of poetry. Ecclesiastical poets had celebrated the fidelity of saints and martyrs. Authors of the chansons de geste had rejoiced in the victories and had lamented the defeats of brave warriors. How appropriate that the household poets should likewise proclaim the dangers, the joys, and the sufferings embraced by the lover!" (x-xi) The idea saturated Provençal culture, but failed, ultimately; to do the very thing it first set out to do reduce the friction and dissension that love caused to the feudal system. Courtly love defied the social order by making love more important than politics or religion. It became, in its own right, a political power and a new religion. As
page 96
Friedrich Heer points out, "the Roman Courtois derived
from English and Celtic sources a tradition of antagonism towards the
For de Rougemont, courtly love was pagan. But the temper of the age seemingly made the new convention necessary. Masculine harshness, feudal inequity, and legalistic religion had little appeal to the refined mind. Satisfactory alternatives could be found only in the idealization of the oldest of human expressions
page 97
sexual emotion. Fleming rightly says that the "Parliaments of Love, then created, were neither so unorthodox nor so stupid as we may suppose," (74) and Amy Kelly explains why: "... the ideal of l'amour courtois which grew up in Poitiers had, as has been well said, more than a little to do with freeing women from the millstone which the church in the first millenium hung about her neck as the author of man's fall and the facile instrument of the devil in the world" (207). The courtly love ideals were more humane than the social institutions of the time and potentially more wholesome. After reading of the murderous assaults of the crusaders and the soul-quenching despotism of the church, one turns with relief to the gentility of courtly lovers. Even assuming, for the moment, that the ancestor of the court of love was the pagan fertility rite, the convention was still a valuable alternative to the sterile asceticism of contemporary religion.
Friedrich Heer, talking about the songs of Bertran de Born, makes the interesting statement that they "breathe all the passionate hatreds of the South, now consciously committed to a way of life which flouted all convention" (175). One wonders exactly when the dedication to a new way of life became "conscious." The origin of the Court of Love gives a terminus a quo to that question. When ladies established "courts" with even the smallest judiciary function about them, they must have been conscious of what they were doing. Some authors insist that there were never any such courts, that such a concept is a figment of the imagination of Andreas Capellanus, Jehan de Nostradamus, and Martial of Auvergne. Robert Briffault, however, while denying the existence of the Courts of Love, curiously enough gives a great deal of seemingly authentic information about something which supposedly never was. Such a full-blown negation as his demands quoting in its entirety:
Nothing could be at wider variance with courtly principles than to pass judgement on individual cases or even to refer in such a connection to any person by name. But it would, nevertheless, be fully in the spirit of twelfth-century gallantry to bestow such an appellation on fashionable gatherings enlivened by tuneful flattery of the poets and
page 98
jongleurs, and presided over by ladies who were quite prepared to voice their judgments on the verses descanted and on the 'questions of love' therein raised. It was in the 'salons' of these bluestockings born before their time that 'courtly' poetry originated, at the house of Ali&ecaute;nor of Aquitaine at Poitiers, at Ventadorn in the home of Azelais, daughter of the lord Guillaume de Montpelier, under the presiding patronage of Bertrane, the Lady of Signe, of Rostangue, Lady of the Manor of Pierrefeu, of Phanette de Gentelme, Lady of Romanin, of Hermesende, of the Lady of Posquieres, of Beatrice, Countess of Die, of Alaete, Lady of the manor of Ongle, of Adalazie, Viscountess of Avignon, of Mabille, Viscountess of Ieres, of Staphanie, wife of Raimon des Baux and daughter of Gilbert, Count of Provenqe, of Jausser-ande, Lady of Claustral, of Ermengarde, Countess of Narbonne and Bertrane d'Orgon. (86)
Quite a long list of courtly judges who never were. But
perhaps Briffault's difficulty is semantic. He seems to define the
Justin H. Smith likewise denies a formal Court of Love, but admits that "there was a custom resembling the fanciful institution; something far more graceful and appropriate. When all were thinking of love and its complications, it was natural to speak of them. Great ladies of the 'world' undoubtedly discussed all phases of the subject, and these informal discussions of real or imaginary cases became a favorite amusement of polite society. Difficult questions were certainly referred to recognized leaders of fashion, and their opinions helped, of course, to establish the principles and the usages of courtly love" (Vol. 1 216). Both Smith and Briffault find the problem of definition a difficult one. But
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they admit that something much like a court existed and that it did establish convention and influence the thinking of an era. Actually, had Eleanor and her specific Court of Love never existed, those who believed in the concept of one would have acted much as they did, the reality being Platonically undeniable.
From the courtly
love tradition to the outrage of a specific
Eleanor of Aquitaine
settled at
page 100
"These noble ladies knew well enough that they were not mistresses of their situation..." (173). But they also knew their subtle power. There were certainly aware that men would be saying, "Each and every one of the judgments in the queen's court is an arrant feudal heresy. Taken together they undermine all the primary sanctions and are subversive of the social order. No proper king or baron, even at the risk of being reckoned a boor, ought to subscribe to a single one of them" (Kelly 211). But subscribe to them the kings and barons often did, at least enough to perpetuate one of the foremost myths of the western world. They were at the mercy of the ladies: Who would openly want to be reckoned a boor? The power was social rather than legal, but, as Huizinga says, "One step more and love questions will be treated as lawsuits..." (122).
There is no doubt that such a final step could not be taken short of an outright revolution. Yet the courtly love concept was revolutionary in its impact. It was outrageous to established masculine authority. It was audacious and presumptive, yet in its very weakness lay its power. The church could not defeat so subtle an enemy; indeed, it could not really define it as heretical, since courtly love never took itself so seriously as to outrightly deny religion its titular importance. Open defiance was for the blunt and the naive. These courtly ladies were sophisticated to their fingertips. And their hands shook the world.
page 101
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Dawson, Christopher. Medieval Essays. Garden City,
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Ganshof, F. L. Feudalism.
Heer, Friedrich. The Medieval World.
Huizinga, Johan. The Waning of the Middle Ages.
Kelly, Amy. Eleanor of
Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love.
Muscatine, Charles. Chaucer and the French Tradition.
de Rougemont, Denis. Love in the Western World.
Rowbotham, J. F. The Troubadours and Courts of Love.
Smith, Justin H. The Troubadours at Home.
Terry, Patricia. Lays of Courtly Love.
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