Autumn in the Middle Ages
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Book Introduction
『Autumn of the Middle Ages』, reborn with the prose of professional translator Jong-in Lee.
Beginning around the 6th century, when the great migration of the Germanic peoples began in earnest and the Western Roman Empire fell, the foundations of medieval Europe began to slowly take shape.
Around the 11th century, the continuous migration and invasion of foreign peoples ended, the expansion of Islamic power slowed, and Europe entered a period of stability, experiencing a period of revival until the 13th century.
In this book, Hawijinga defined the 14th and 15th centuries, a period of decline after the heyday and preparation for a new era, as 'autumn.'
It is 'autumn' in the sense of an era that has passed its prime and is in decline, and in the sense of an era that has passed the Renaissance and is moving towards the 'modern era'.
The Middle Ages was an era of 'contrast'.
The Middle Ages were a time of stark contrasts, such as the rich and the poor, the city and the countryside, and light and darkness, and history was shaped by moving back and forth between these two extremes.
The Middle Ages, often mistakenly called the Dark Ages in history, already contained the seeds of a brilliant humanism, with its own simple way of life and its vision of a better world.
And just as those seeds bear fruit in the fall, they naturally gave rise to the harvest of the Renaissance and the modern era.
Beyond his macroscopic approach, Hawijinga surprises us with his keen insights into chivalry, grand entry ceremonies, horsemanship, religious mysticism, and ascetic piety.
Beginning around the 6th century, when the great migration of the Germanic peoples began in earnest and the Western Roman Empire fell, the foundations of medieval Europe began to slowly take shape.
Around the 11th century, the continuous migration and invasion of foreign peoples ended, the expansion of Islamic power slowed, and Europe entered a period of stability, experiencing a period of revival until the 13th century.
In this book, Hawijinga defined the 14th and 15th centuries, a period of decline after the heyday and preparation for a new era, as 'autumn.'
It is 'autumn' in the sense of an era that has passed its prime and is in decline, and in the sense of an era that has passed the Renaissance and is moving towards the 'modern era'.
The Middle Ages was an era of 'contrast'.
The Middle Ages were a time of stark contrasts, such as the rich and the poor, the city and the countryside, and light and darkness, and history was shaped by moving back and forth between these two extremes.
The Middle Ages, often mistakenly called the Dark Ages in history, already contained the seeds of a brilliant humanism, with its own simple way of life and its vision of a better world.
And just as those seeds bear fruit in the fall, they naturally gave rise to the harvest of the Renaissance and the modern era.
Beyond his macroscopic approach, Hawijinga surprises us with his keen insights into chivalry, grand entry ceremonies, horsemanship, religious mysticism, and ascetic piety.
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index
Translator's Note
Preface to the Dutch edition
Preface to the German translation
Preface to the English version
Chapter 1: The Passionate and Fierce Life of Medieval People
The sharp contrast between extremes, the procession of executions, the power of itinerant preachers, the ritual of tears and anger, the fairytale elements of medieval life, the dramatic lives of monarchs, the motif of bloody revenge, the emergence of factions, the cruel sense of justice of medieval people, the lack of mercy and forgiveness, pride and greed as the roots of sin, the transformation of the life of the medieval man Mathieu.
Chapter 2: The Longing for a More Beautiful Life
The Humanists: The First Group to Praise Their Own Age; The Melancholy Poems of Deschamps and Meshenot; Melancholy Without Religious Salvation; The Three Paths to a Better Life; Their Impact on Real Life; Aristocratic Life and the Forms of Ideals; Aristocratic Life as a Dream; The Forms of Life and the High Game; The Formalization of Social Relations; The Violation of Forms Is Inadmissible; The Need for Standardized Forms; The Mode of Communicating Death; Life with Beautiful Forms; Mignonism
Chapter 3: Heroic Dreams
The knightly class and the bourgeoisie; medieval society and the third estate; the suffering of the commoners; the two ideas of virtue and equality; the two pillars of the Middle Ages: knights and scholars; various chroniclers; the Renaissance sense of honor; chivalry and the sense of honor; nine male and female heroes; the example of knights, Marshal Boucicaud; Jean le Buey and Le Jouquincelle; the ascetic element of chivalry and Eros; romance is the product of the masculine imagination; cultural life in the late Middle Ages as a social game; the erotic element of tournaments; the pas d'armes in the 15th century; the emergence and origin of knightly orders; the Knights of the Golden Fleece and other knightly orders; knightly oaths and elements of play; Galois and Galloise; the oath of the cruel Heron (heron); the famous oath of the Pejan (pheasant); the spread of noble forms of life; chivalry and the Crusades; one-on-one duels among monarchs; judicial duels; chivalry and reality Opportunities to glorify war; Chivalry's retreat into the realm of literature, festivals, and play; The financial aspects of aristocratic-military life; The dissonance between formal and practical life; The praise of the simple life; The French humanists' condemnation of court life
Chapter 4: Forms of Love
The Bible of Erotic Culture, The Tale of the Rose · Literature, Fashion, and Etiquette · Erotic Metaphors of Marriage · The Forms of Eros · The Two Authors of The Tale of the Rose, Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun · Sexual Motifs Resisting Christianity · Pros and Cons of The Tale of the Rose · The Court of Love · The Forms of Love and Real Life · The Book of True Events: Love at Dusk and Morning · The Book of the Knight La Tour Landry · Elements of Love Play · The Idyllic Elements of Court Festivals · The Women's Counterattack
Chapter 5: Images of Death
The Three Themes of Death, Dust and Worms, Corruption and the Prevention of Corruption, The Macabre, The Four Last Things, The Innocent Cemetery in Paris, and the Disregard for the Virtuous Function of Death
Chapter 6: The Embodiment of the Sacred
Excessive reliance on images, Pierre Day's reformist claims, an absurd intimacy with God, the confusion of the sacred and the profane, the dangerous contact between the sacred and Eros, the church as a place for socializing, the combination of the sacred and profane, those who reject religion, the cult of saints and the position of the church, the cult of Joseph in the Middle Ages, the specialized functions of saints, saints who stand in for God
Chapter 7: Pious Personality
The strength of religious tension, the contrast between piety and sin, ostentation and piety, unwavering religious romanticism, the piety of Charles de Blois, the young saint Pierre de Luxembourg, Louis XI's penchant for collecting sacred relics, the Carthusian monk Denis
Chapter 8: Religious Excitement and Fantasy
The dualistic form of religious sentiment, the devotional moderna of each country, the exaggerated and dangerous piety of the general public, the ambivalent nature of virginity, the sensual expression of God's love, the metaphor of drunkenness and hunger, and the side effects of religious fantasy.
Chapter 9: The Decline of Symbolism
The metaphor of the cloudy mirror, symbols and what is symbolized, realism and nominalism, the function of symbolism, the schematization of symbols, symbols and allegory, the banal personification of allegory, symbols that have become psychological games
Chapter 10: Distrust of Imagination
The habit of associating objects and thoughts; the separation of concepts and contexts; the imagination and practice of hell; sin has substance; distrust of imagination; mystical experiences of God; the nature of God is darkness; the relationship between liturgy and imagination; Thomas à Kempis's The Imitation of Christ; perhaps Neschiri
Chapter 11: Thinking in Practice in Everyday Life
Everything in Life is God's Plan; The Assassination of Louis d'Orléans by the Duke of Mu; The Function and Morality of Proverbs; Causticism and Play; Formalism and Economic Understanding; The Frivolity of the Late Middle Ages; The Peculiar Inaccuracy of Chroniclers; The Mixture of Play and Seriousness; The Medieval Attitude to Superstition; The Witch Hunt: The Confusion of Magic and Heresy; The Fiction of Witches That Began in the 15th Century
Chapter 12: Art in Life: Focusing on Van Eyck's Art
Differences between painting and literature, Medieval art as applied art, Paintings connected to everyday life, Mixture of beauty and splendor, Functions of festivals, Roles of festivals and painters, Art of Sluter, Entrance processions of monarchs, Van Eyck's painting "The Arnolfini Marriage", Court life and Devotio Moderna, Patrons of great paintings, Characteristics of 15th-century painting, Naturalism of the Van Eyck brothers, Renaissance art thought, Medieval music thought, Light and beauty, Colors of costumes
Chapter 13: Images and Words: Comparing Pictures and Text
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance as mirror images; painters and poets of the late Middle Ages; failed literature of the 15th century; Van Eyck's "Madonna" and "Annunciation"; unlimited decoration in 15th-century literature; 15th-century art with excellent detail; the concrete effects of unlimited decoration; Chatelain, a master of 15th-century prose; the conflict between the good and the bold; Froissart, who excels at handling dialogue; depictions of nature in literature and art; 15th-century literature lacking in anything new; rhetoric that masks the lack of thought; Machaut, who established the form of lyric poetry; 15th-century literature strong in satire and ridicule; Bruegelian elements in literature; irony in literature; eroticism permeated with melancholy; the problem of nudity; static and dynamic harmony; mutually binding images and ideas; Molinet's hackneyed wordplay
Chapter 14: The Emergence of New Forms: A Comparison of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
The distinction between the Renaissance and the Middle Ages is unclear. Humanism began with a small number of Latin scholars. Petrarch and Boccaccio. French and Italian humanism. The spirit of the Middle Ages hidden beneath the guise of classicism. Literary paganism. The sound of the Renaissance heard in medieval life.
annotation
References
Explanation of terms and names
Commentary on the work | Where is the beauty of the Middle Ages?
Johan Huizinga Chronology
Search
Preface to the Dutch edition
Preface to the German translation
Preface to the English version
Chapter 1: The Passionate and Fierce Life of Medieval People
The sharp contrast between extremes, the procession of executions, the power of itinerant preachers, the ritual of tears and anger, the fairytale elements of medieval life, the dramatic lives of monarchs, the motif of bloody revenge, the emergence of factions, the cruel sense of justice of medieval people, the lack of mercy and forgiveness, pride and greed as the roots of sin, the transformation of the life of the medieval man Mathieu.
Chapter 2: The Longing for a More Beautiful Life
The Humanists: The First Group to Praise Their Own Age; The Melancholy Poems of Deschamps and Meshenot; Melancholy Without Religious Salvation; The Three Paths to a Better Life; Their Impact on Real Life; Aristocratic Life and the Forms of Ideals; Aristocratic Life as a Dream; The Forms of Life and the High Game; The Formalization of Social Relations; The Violation of Forms Is Inadmissible; The Need for Standardized Forms; The Mode of Communicating Death; Life with Beautiful Forms; Mignonism
Chapter 3: Heroic Dreams
The knightly class and the bourgeoisie; medieval society and the third estate; the suffering of the commoners; the two ideas of virtue and equality; the two pillars of the Middle Ages: knights and scholars; various chroniclers; the Renaissance sense of honor; chivalry and the sense of honor; nine male and female heroes; the example of knights, Marshal Boucicaud; Jean le Buey and Le Jouquincelle; the ascetic element of chivalry and Eros; romance is the product of the masculine imagination; cultural life in the late Middle Ages as a social game; the erotic element of tournaments; the pas d'armes in the 15th century; the emergence and origin of knightly orders; the Knights of the Golden Fleece and other knightly orders; knightly oaths and elements of play; Galois and Galloise; the oath of the cruel Heron (heron); the famous oath of the Pejan (pheasant); the spread of noble forms of life; chivalry and the Crusades; one-on-one duels among monarchs; judicial duels; chivalry and reality Opportunities to glorify war; Chivalry's retreat into the realm of literature, festivals, and play; The financial aspects of aristocratic-military life; The dissonance between formal and practical life; The praise of the simple life; The French humanists' condemnation of court life
Chapter 4: Forms of Love
The Bible of Erotic Culture, The Tale of the Rose · Literature, Fashion, and Etiquette · Erotic Metaphors of Marriage · The Forms of Eros · The Two Authors of The Tale of the Rose, Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun · Sexual Motifs Resisting Christianity · Pros and Cons of The Tale of the Rose · The Court of Love · The Forms of Love and Real Life · The Book of True Events: Love at Dusk and Morning · The Book of the Knight La Tour Landry · Elements of Love Play · The Idyllic Elements of Court Festivals · The Women's Counterattack
Chapter 5: Images of Death
The Three Themes of Death, Dust and Worms, Corruption and the Prevention of Corruption, The Macabre, The Four Last Things, The Innocent Cemetery in Paris, and the Disregard for the Virtuous Function of Death
Chapter 6: The Embodiment of the Sacred
Excessive reliance on images, Pierre Day's reformist claims, an absurd intimacy with God, the confusion of the sacred and the profane, the dangerous contact between the sacred and Eros, the church as a place for socializing, the combination of the sacred and profane, those who reject religion, the cult of saints and the position of the church, the cult of Joseph in the Middle Ages, the specialized functions of saints, saints who stand in for God
Chapter 7: Pious Personality
The strength of religious tension, the contrast between piety and sin, ostentation and piety, unwavering religious romanticism, the piety of Charles de Blois, the young saint Pierre de Luxembourg, Louis XI's penchant for collecting sacred relics, the Carthusian monk Denis
Chapter 8: Religious Excitement and Fantasy
The dualistic form of religious sentiment, the devotional moderna of each country, the exaggerated and dangerous piety of the general public, the ambivalent nature of virginity, the sensual expression of God's love, the metaphor of drunkenness and hunger, and the side effects of religious fantasy.
Chapter 9: The Decline of Symbolism
The metaphor of the cloudy mirror, symbols and what is symbolized, realism and nominalism, the function of symbolism, the schematization of symbols, symbols and allegory, the banal personification of allegory, symbols that have become psychological games
Chapter 10: Distrust of Imagination
The habit of associating objects and thoughts; the separation of concepts and contexts; the imagination and practice of hell; sin has substance; distrust of imagination; mystical experiences of God; the nature of God is darkness; the relationship between liturgy and imagination; Thomas à Kempis's The Imitation of Christ; perhaps Neschiri
Chapter 11: Thinking in Practice in Everyday Life
Everything in Life is God's Plan; The Assassination of Louis d'Orléans by the Duke of Mu; The Function and Morality of Proverbs; Causticism and Play; Formalism and Economic Understanding; The Frivolity of the Late Middle Ages; The Peculiar Inaccuracy of Chroniclers; The Mixture of Play and Seriousness; The Medieval Attitude to Superstition; The Witch Hunt: The Confusion of Magic and Heresy; The Fiction of Witches That Began in the 15th Century
Chapter 12: Art in Life: Focusing on Van Eyck's Art
Differences between painting and literature, Medieval art as applied art, Paintings connected to everyday life, Mixture of beauty and splendor, Functions of festivals, Roles of festivals and painters, Art of Sluter, Entrance processions of monarchs, Van Eyck's painting "The Arnolfini Marriage", Court life and Devotio Moderna, Patrons of great paintings, Characteristics of 15th-century painting, Naturalism of the Van Eyck brothers, Renaissance art thought, Medieval music thought, Light and beauty, Colors of costumes
Chapter 13: Images and Words: Comparing Pictures and Text
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance as mirror images; painters and poets of the late Middle Ages; failed literature of the 15th century; Van Eyck's "Madonna" and "Annunciation"; unlimited decoration in 15th-century literature; 15th-century art with excellent detail; the concrete effects of unlimited decoration; Chatelain, a master of 15th-century prose; the conflict between the good and the bold; Froissart, who excels at handling dialogue; depictions of nature in literature and art; 15th-century literature lacking in anything new; rhetoric that masks the lack of thought; Machaut, who established the form of lyric poetry; 15th-century literature strong in satire and ridicule; Bruegelian elements in literature; irony in literature; eroticism permeated with melancholy; the problem of nudity; static and dynamic harmony; mutually binding images and ideas; Molinet's hackneyed wordplay
Chapter 14: The Emergence of New Forms: A Comparison of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
The distinction between the Renaissance and the Middle Ages is unclear. Humanism began with a small number of Latin scholars. Petrarch and Boccaccio. French and Italian humanism. The spirit of the Middle Ages hidden beneath the guise of classicism. Literary paganism. The sound of the Renaissance heard in medieval life.
annotation
References
Explanation of terms and names
Commentary on the work | Where is the beauty of the Middle Ages?
Johan Huizinga Chronology
Search
Into the book
When the world was five hundred years younger than it is now, all events had much clearer outlines than they do now.
The distance between joy and sorrow, good fortune and bad fortune, seemed much greater than it does to us modern people.
Every experience had a direct and absolute character, like the sorrows and joys engraved in the heart of a child.
Every event and every action was defined by a specific expression, and a strict and unchanging way of life was solemnly observed.
The great events of human life - birth, marriage, death - were surrounded by the splendor of divine mystery thanks to the sacraments of the Church.
Even less important events, such as travel, labor, and pilgrimage, were accompanied by numerous blessings, rituals, proverbs, and conventions. ---p.37
In the Middle Ages, just as the contrast between summer and winter was much sharper than it is today, so too were the differences between light and darkness, silence and noise.
The modern city no longer knows such pure darkness and true silence, nor the power of a single tiny light or a lonely cry from afar.
From this constant contrast, and from the colorful forms which all phenomena imprinted upon the medieval mind, the daily life of medieval people received fierce impulses and passionate suggestions.
Such intensity and passion are revealed in a turbulent atmosphere of wild frenzy, sudden cruelty, and tender emotion, and life in the medieval city was also caught up in such a violent atmosphere.
But one sound always overpowered the loud noise of busy city life.
No matter how loud the tinkling of the bells was, it was never confused with any other sound.
It was the sound of church bells that brought everything back to order for a moment.
The sound of the bell served as a kind and gentle spirit in everyday life, announcing with its familiar voice sorrow or joy, peace or anxiety, assembly or encouragement.
Medieval people recognized the bell's sound as if it were a neighbor's, calling it by familiar names such as 'la grosse Jacqueline' or 'la cloche Rolland'.
Everyone recognized the tone of the bell and immediately understood its meaning the moment they heard it.
No matter how much the sound of the bell was abused, people never became indifferent to its sound. ---p.39
Medieval daily life offered almost limitless opportunities for fiery passion and childlike imagination.
Our medieval historians tend to rely solely on official documents, saying that chronicles are unreliable.
It is precisely because of this attitude that historians sometimes fall into dangerous errors.
Official documents say nothing about the subtle differences in tone that separate the Middle Ages from the modern era.
Official documents make us forget the passionate pathos of the Middle Ages.
Of the many passions that permeated medieval life in various shades, official documents generally recorded only two: greed and belligerence.
Who wouldn't be surprised by the incredible violence and stubbornness (the root of greed and belligerence) depicted in medieval court documents? Passions permeated every aspect of daily life.
Only by grasping the overall context of these passions can we truly accept and understand these conflicts.
It is for this very reason that the records of chroniclers are invaluable resources if we wish to accurately understand the Middle Ages.
We must cherish the chronicles, however superficial their accounts of actual events may be, and however inaccurate their reporting may be.
The distance between joy and sorrow, good fortune and bad fortune, seemed much greater than it does to us modern people.
Every experience had a direct and absolute character, like the sorrows and joys engraved in the heart of a child.
Every event and every action was defined by a specific expression, and a strict and unchanging way of life was solemnly observed.
The great events of human life - birth, marriage, death - were surrounded by the splendor of divine mystery thanks to the sacraments of the Church.
Even less important events, such as travel, labor, and pilgrimage, were accompanied by numerous blessings, rituals, proverbs, and conventions. ---p.37
In the Middle Ages, just as the contrast between summer and winter was much sharper than it is today, so too were the differences between light and darkness, silence and noise.
The modern city no longer knows such pure darkness and true silence, nor the power of a single tiny light or a lonely cry from afar.
From this constant contrast, and from the colorful forms which all phenomena imprinted upon the medieval mind, the daily life of medieval people received fierce impulses and passionate suggestions.
Such intensity and passion are revealed in a turbulent atmosphere of wild frenzy, sudden cruelty, and tender emotion, and life in the medieval city was also caught up in such a violent atmosphere.
But one sound always overpowered the loud noise of busy city life.
No matter how loud the tinkling of the bells was, it was never confused with any other sound.
It was the sound of church bells that brought everything back to order for a moment.
The sound of the bell served as a kind and gentle spirit in everyday life, announcing with its familiar voice sorrow or joy, peace or anxiety, assembly or encouragement.
Medieval people recognized the bell's sound as if it were a neighbor's, calling it by familiar names such as 'la grosse Jacqueline' or 'la cloche Rolland'.
Everyone recognized the tone of the bell and immediately understood its meaning the moment they heard it.
No matter how much the sound of the bell was abused, people never became indifferent to its sound. ---p.39
Medieval daily life offered almost limitless opportunities for fiery passion and childlike imagination.
Our medieval historians tend to rely solely on official documents, saying that chronicles are unreliable.
It is precisely because of this attitude that historians sometimes fall into dangerous errors.
Official documents say nothing about the subtle differences in tone that separate the Middle Ages from the modern era.
Official documents make us forget the passionate pathos of the Middle Ages.
Of the many passions that permeated medieval life in various shades, official documents generally recorded only two: greed and belligerence.
Who wouldn't be surprised by the incredible violence and stubbornness (the root of greed and belligerence) depicted in medieval court documents? Passions permeated every aspect of daily life.
Only by grasping the overall context of these passions can we truly accept and understand these conflicts.
It is for this very reason that the records of chroniclers are invaluable resources if we wish to accurately understand the Middle Ages.
We must cherish the chronicles, however superficial their accounts of actual events may be, and however inaccurate their reporting may be.
---p.48
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of publication: August 15, 2012
- Format: Hardcover book binding method guide
- Page count, weight, size: 776 pages | 992g | 153*224*40mm
- ISBN13: 9788994054261
- ISBN10: 899405426X
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