The Light and Shadow of a Thousand Years of the Middle Ages, Part 1

The Light and Shadow of a Thousand Years of the Middle Ages

Author

Ferdinand Seibt

Publisher

Hyunsil Munhwa | Published 2013-03-01

Category

History/Culture

Book description

From the history of kings to the lives of wandering acrobats, the other side of a thousand years of medieval history ...

People commonly say the Middle Ages began around the 8th century. For me, the concept of the 'Middle Ages' was close to a dark age. While playing the game RollerCoaster Tycoon, there was a tab called the 'Dark Age' in an expansion pack with buildings you could construct, and most of these structures were very uniform and ornate yet simple. The one thing you can't leave out when talking about the 'Middle Ages' is religion, and because of this religion most European countries came to pursue only 'one direction' and 'one way of thinking.' Witch hunts occurred most frequently during this medieval period, and the standardization of art also happened during this time. As the 'Renaissance' arose, interest in the classics increased again, humanism emerged, interest in 'humanity itself' grew, and people began to ponder human dignity. In the 'Middle Ages' before this Renaissance, a life grounded in human atonement was the most basic norm. So other ways of thinking could not be permitted, and as a result it came to be called the 'dark age.' Of course, religious art developed enormously. Religious art kept developing in various forms, such as the image of Jesus depicted in stained glass or the Pietà, but the point is that 'man' himself was not actually the subject of discussion.

It was 'Charlemagne' who opened the door to the Middle Ages. Charlemagne (740? – 814), king of the Franks and the Lombards and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was an unprecedented king. To put it simply, he unified the region of Gaul and made neighboring regions accept 'religion.' At the same time he succeeded in building the 'Frankish Kingdom' as an ideal alternative to Rome, and afterward he received the 'crown' from the Pope, becoming a true emperor. But because of the very fact that he received his crown from the 'Pope,' Europe thereafter found itself in a condition that was both very unfortunate and in its own way rather favorable: one could not become 'emperor' without receiving the crown from the symbolic figure of the 'Pope.' That is, authority and power. From the Pope one could obtain authority. The king created power himself.

When one becomes 'king,' the usual thing done to solidify power is to create 'order.' Charlemagne created order. Through currency reform he unified the coinage and made it easier to collect taxes, securing the treasury and strengthening royal power, and through a writing reform that unified the differing scripts of each monastery he created a 'road' by which 'intellectuals' could be informed all at once. Because of Charlemagne's name 'Karl,' the titles for emperor appear in various forms: karol, krol, kral, kyralj, and so on. But it's said that the Romance peoples generally preferred the title 'Imperator.' Augustus means 'the venerable one,' and Imperator means 'emperor'; the point is that they preferred the latter.

Among the interesting things, I remember the part that explains the etymology of country names. The name Franke comes from a word meaning 'free man (Freie),' Russia derives from the 'Rurikids,' the founders of the Kievan kingdom that originated in 10th-century Scandinavia, and 'Hungary (Ungarn)' chose its ethnic name from the process of tribal unification. 'On-Ugur' is said to mean 'ten parts.' Italy derives from the ancient Latin word 'tauri,' referring to young bulls, and Spain derives from 'Hispania,' the Latin word that referred to Spain in antiquity.

There are two ways to refer to Germany: 'deutsch' and 'germany.' The former is the original form, in pronunciation and word, of the term Charlemagne used to refer to the 'vernacular (Theodisc)' among the languages used by the Germanic tribes that did not belong to the Latin family, and the latter is a word meaning 'Germania.' At the time of Charlemagne's rule, the vernacular and Latin coexisted among the Franks, and from this the concept of the 'German language (Deutsch)' emerged. To say a bit more about 'Deutsch': the German language means the 'vernacular,' and is not the language of a specific region or province. 'Germany' does not simply mean only the East Frankish Kingdom that separated from the West Frankish Kingdom in 842. The Holy Roman Empire refers to a 'federated community' achieved through merging with the southern and western Latin peoples and through union with the Slavs from the 10th century onward. Just as humanists later, recalling antiquity, gave Spain and Italy their modern names, around 1500 the ancient Roman-era name 'Germania (German)' began to be used again for Deutsch, and so both 'deutsch' and 'germany' came to be used.

Germany is a truly remarkable country. From about the 11th century, Germany was already a country operating under the concept of a 'federal state.' It achieved a fusion and union of different cultural outlooks on a level quite different from neighboring countries, and rather than having only one duchy provide the king, several duchies took turns being 'emperor,' which gave it tremendous cohesion and power to boast of. The fact that it achieved in the Middle Ages a 'national structure' that one would only expect to see after the Industrial Revolution is, in a way, perhaps an example proving that the German people still have great underlying strength even today.

Gradually getting to know the European Middle Ages gives me considerable interest. I'd say it shows me as much 'inspiration' as when I read the Lectures on Russian Cultural History. Of course, the regret is that it will still take a lot of time before I can savor the kind of feeling I had when, after reading the Lectures on Russian Cultural History, I encountered Russian art. But setting that aside, what's fun is fun. The joy of getting to know something seems to double when you record it and look at it again.