by Peter Watson
A SUPRANATIONAL ENTITY
The other side of the coin, in such a disparate Europe, was the role that the Christian Church played in the vital unification of the continent. At the time, the name Europe (Latin: Europa) was rarely used. It was a classical term, going back to Herodotus, and though Charlemagne called himself pater europea, the father of the Europeans, by the eleventh century the more normal term was Christianitas, Christendom.
The early aim of the church had been territorial expansion, the second had been monastic reform, with the monasteries – dispersed throughout Christendom – leading the battle for the minds of converts. Celibacy ensured that hereditary priestly castes did not emerge, as happened in India, for example, and certain New World societies. Out of all this arose a third chapter in church history, to replace dispersed localism with central – papal – control. Around AD 1000–1100 Christendom entered a new phase, partly out of the failure of the millennium to provide anything spectacular in a religious, apocalyptic sense, partly as a result of the Crusades which, in identifying a common enemy in Islam, also acted as a unifying force among Christians. All this climaxed in the thirteenth century with popes vying with kings and emperors for supreme control, even to the point of monarchs being excommunicated.
Around and underneath this, however, there developed a certain cast of mind, which is the main interest here. The problems of the vast, dispersed organisation of the continent-wide church, the relations between church and monarch, between church and state – all these raised many doctrinal and legal matters. Because these matters were discussed and debated in the monasteries and the schools that were set up at this time, they became known as scholastic. The British historian R.W.S. Southern was most intimately involved in showing how Catholic scholars, as a ‘supranational entity’, aided the unification of Europe.
The role of the scholars was immediately obvious in the language they used – Latin. All over Europe, in monasteries and schools, in the developing universities and in bishop’s palaces, the papal legates and nuncios, educated men everywhere, exchanged views and messages in the same language. Peter Abelard’s enemies perceived his books to be dangerous not only for their content but for their reach: ‘They pass from one race to another, and from one kingdom to another . . . they cross the oceans, they leap over the Alps . . . they spread through the provinces and the kingdoms.’ Because of this, papal careers were notoriously international. Frenchmen might be seconded to Spain, Germans to Venice, Italians to Greece and England and then to Croatia and Hungary, as Giles of Verraccio was between 1218 and 1230. In this way there was in Europe between AD 1000 and 1300 a unification of thought, of the rules of debate, in the ways of discussing things and in agreeing what was important, that did not occur anywhere else on Earth. And it was not only in strictly theological matters, but was felt in architecture, in law, and in the liberal arts.16
Theology, law and the liberal arts were, according to Southern, the three props on which European order and civilisation were built during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – ‘That is to say, during the period of Europe’s most rapid expansion in population, wealth and world-wide aspirations before the nineteenth century.’ These three areas of thought each owed its coherence and its power to influence the world to the development of schools of European-wide importance. Both masters and pupils travelled from all regions of Europe to these schools and took home the sciences which they had learned. Coherence was achieved because the men who created the system, besides using one language, Latin, all used the same, ever-growing body of textbooks, and they were all familiar with similar routines of lectures, debates and academic exercises and shared a belief that Christianity was capable of a systematic and authoritative presentation and could be improved.17
What had been inherited from the ancient world was very largely uncoordinated. The scholars’ aim now was to restore ‘to fallen mankind, so far as was possible, that perfect system of knowledge which had been in the possession or within the reach of mankind at the moment of Creation’. This body of knowledge, so it was believed, had been lost completely in the centuries between the Fall and the Flood, but had then been slowly restored by divinely inspired Old Testament prophets, as well as by the efforts of a range of philosophers in the Greco-Roman world. These achievements had, however, been corrupted once again and partly lost during the barbarian invasions which had overwhelmed Christendom in the early Middle Ages. Nevertheless, many of the important texts of ancient learning had survived, in particular those of Aristotle, albeit in Arabic translations and glosses. It was understood as the task of the new scholars, from about 1050 onwards, to continue the responsibility of restoring the knowledge that had been lost at the Fall. ‘[W]hat could legitimately be sought was that degree of knowledge necessary for providing a just view of God, of nature and of human conduct, which would promote the cause of mankind’s salvation . . . The whole programme, thus conceived, looked forward to a time not far distant, when a two-pronged programme of world-wide return to the essential endowment of the first parents of the human race would have been achieved so far as was possible for fallen mankind.’18
The theory of knowledge on which the scholastic system was based – that all knowledge was a reconquest of what had been freely available to mankind in its prelapsarian state – brought with it the idea that a body of authoritative doctrine would slowly emerge as the years passed. By 1175 scholars saw themselves not only as transmitters of ancient learning, but as active participants in the development of an integrated, many-sided body of knowledge ‘rapidly reaching its peak’. In stabilising and promoting the study of theology and law, the scholars helped create a fairly orderly and forward-looking society. Europe as a whole was the beneficiary of this process.19
Still another factor where Christianity affected the creation of Europe was the Crusades. To begin with, the Christians had hoped to recapture the Holy Land and convert the Muslims – by force if necessary – to Christianity. The first Crusade was proclaimed in 1095 but by 1250, when Europe discovered the Mongols, and their vast numbers and reach, not to mention their preternatural skills with the horse, and their great trading network across the steppes and deserts of central Asia, it became apparent that, as Southern put it, ‘There were ten, or possibly a hundred, unbelievers for every Christian.’20 This drove the (West European) Christians back on themselves, to study Arabic thinking and, through their translations, Greek philosophy and science. By then the Moors were in Spain, where the reconquest would play its part in what came later, in the discovery of the Americas.
The Crusades, however successful or unsuccessful they may be regarded in religious/ideological terms, did promote change in trading patterns, in particular the exchange of fine European woollens for Eastern spices and silks. The opportunities opened up by the Crusades also helped advance agriculture, mining and manufacturing in north-western Europe; it was a time of rapid urbanisation, which promoted the innovation of trade fairs. In many areas the growth of the cloth industry and banking went together: demand was high, the product was anything but fragile, could be easily replaced if a ship sank; it was a good risk.21 The Crusades, ironically and perhaps paradoxically, helped shift the centre of gravity of Europe to the west and north.
Flanders was, in any case, highly suitable land for raising sheep, but weaving underwent a technological breakthrough in the eleventh century that increased the productivity of workers by three and five times, as the horizontal loom was replaced by the vertical one.22 As a result Flanders’ trade, mainly local to that point, began to be exported much more widely, so that by the end of the Middle Ages Bruges, and to a lesser extent Ghent, were filled with foreign traders and bankers – French, Italians from all over, Portuguese, English, Scots, Germans.
Another knock-on effect of the Crusades was to initiate a frenzy of shipbuilding. From 1104, with the building of the Venice Arsenal, states began to take an interest in building ships, which had hitherto been private concerns. Great advances were
now made in the design, and size, of ships, both those with sails and those with oars. Some could even carry 1,000 paying passengers or pilgrims. Charts, compasses and astrolabes were introduced, as were convoys, to reduce the risk of losses, but these required new forms of capitalism, notably the fraterna, where the risk-money was shared among the brothers in the family business.23
As should now be clear, the so-called Dark Ages were anything but. And this too is part of the arguments put forward by such scholars as Michael McCormick, Carlo M. Cipolla, Robert Lopez and others, that the Dark Ages have been often misnamed – and during that time, and directly attributable to Christianity, Christendom’s technology and science overtook and surpassed the rest of the world. A close reading of the Middle Ages, they say, shows that there was at the time an extraordinary outburst of innovation: the water mill from the sixth century; the plough from the seventh; the crop rotation system from the eighth; the horseshoe and the neck harness from the ninth. In the same way, says Carlo Cipolla, the use of the mill proliferated to other uses, from beer-making in 861, through tanning in 1138, paper-milling in 1276, to the blast furnace in 1384. In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded 5,624 mills for 3,000 communities in England. There is no reason to believe that England was technologically more advanced than the rest of Europe, though watermills naturally tended to congregate there because there were a lot of rivers in a small area. Hence wool and cloth manufacture became a major feature of England and Flanders. Most of the watermills belonged to monasteries, Robert Lopez observes, which also built an increasing number of dams, the water power they generated being used for sawing lumber and stones, for turning lathes, grinding knives and swords, fulling cloth, drawing wire and making paper. ‘The idea of paper had begun outside Europe but its introduction spread rapidly in the new scholastic climate.’24
Wind and horse power proliferated, thanks to the invention of iron shoes and nails. The horse collar was invented, and harnesses enabling teams of horses to be used, two abreast rather than in single file. Wheel brakes were introduced, and axels that swivelled, also allowing for more flexible transport. The experience in casting bells was adapted to casting cannons, in 1325. The church promoted fish – not just on Fridays but on feast days, which totalled then about 150 days a year. As a result, artificial lakes and ponds were created, in which Cistercians were especially active. It was monks who found that the bottoms of fish ponds soon became extremely fertile so they would be drained every so often.25
Of course there were other factors than the church in accounting for Europe’s rise. Carlo M. Cipolla, the Italian economic historian, notes that Europe may have differed from the East in having a larger proportion of the population who were unmarried, which helped avoid the break-up of estates and reduced the number of large families, both factors which helped ameliorate poverty.
It was during this time too that agriculture was transformed by the three-field system. In The Rise of the Western World, Douglas North and Robert Thomas argue that in the High Middle Ages – the years between 1000 and 1300 – Europe was transformed ‘from a vast wilderness into a well-colonised region’. There was a marked population increase which meant that, in effect, Europe was the first region in the history of the world to be ‘full’ with people. This was aided by the layout of its main rivers – the Danube, Rhine and the Rhône/Saône – which led deep into the heartland. Together, these factors had a number of consequences, not the least of which was to begin a change from the old feudal structure, and to give more and more people an interest in property, in owning land. It was this wider ownership of land which would, before too long, lead to a rise in specialisation (at first in the growing of crops, then in the services to support such specialisation), then to the rise in trade, the spread of markets, and the development of a money economy, so necessary if surplus wealth were to be created, and which were the circumstances by which capitalism developed beyond the monasteries.26
Under the two-field system all arable land had been ploughed but only half of it planted to crops, the other half being left fallow to recuperate its fertility. The three-field system now divided the arable land into three parts. Typically, one field was ploughed and planted to wheat during the autumn, the second ploughed and planted in the spring to oats, barley or legumes, such as peas or beans, with the remainder being ploughed and left fallow. The next year the crops were rotated. This led to a massive 50 per cent rise in yield, at the same time as spreading agricultural labour throughout the year, and reducing the chance of famine through crop failure. Thanks to yet another piece of serendipity, domestic mammals – sheep and cattle in particular – could graze the fallow land and manure it, thereby helping to speed its return to fertility. Using the fallow field for grazing also had a dramatic effect on medieval economies. Manure was highly prized but sheep were the most blessed of all animals, providing milk, butter, cheese, meat, wool above all and even their skins made clothes and parchment. Fleeces in fact were the major industrial raw material in medieval times, woollen cloth industries dominating these early days of capitalism. Looms, carding and fulling machines were all either invented or improved.27 This period also saw a change from oxen to horses as the beasts of harness, the latter being 50 to 90 per cent more biologically efficient.
These twin developments, of significantly more people having a stake in the land, together with the idea that there was no more to go around, had two psychological effects, say North and Thomas. It helped make people more individualistic: because he or she now had a stake in something, a person’s identity was no longer defined only by his or her membership of a congregation, or as the serf of a lord of the manor. And it introduced the idea of efficiency, because now that Europe was ‘full’ resources could be seen to be limited. Allied to the increased specialisation that was developing, and the burgeoning markets (offering tempting goods from far away), this was a profound social-psychological revolution which, in time, would lead to the Renaissance.28
In addition to the theologians, two scholars in particular may be singled out for their contributions to the idea of the West. The first is Robert Grosseteste (c. 1186–1253). A graduate of Oxford, who studied theology at Paris, Grosseteste is best known for being chancellor of Oxford University. He was a translator of the classics, a biblical scholar and bishop of Lincoln. But he was also, and possibly most importantly, the inventor of the experimental method, which initiated an interest in exactness, and led in turn to a concern with measurement which produced a profound psychological and social change, which occurred first in the West in the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries. Exactitude was helped by the introduction of eyeglasses which came into use in 1284 and had a marked effect also on productivity. Hitherto many people had been washed up at 40; now they could see and use their experience.
It was at this time too that the clock was invented (the 1270s). Until then, time had been seen as a flow (helped by the clepsydra, or water clock) and clocks were adjusted for the seasons, so that the twelve hours of daylight in summer were longer than the twelve hours of daylight in winter. With the clock people could now coordinate their activities more or less exactly. (The Chinese and Muslims eschewed clocks because they secularised time and the Mandarinate/Immams didn’t want that.) Now clock towers began to appear in towns and villages, and workers in the field timed their hours according to the bell that sounded the hour. In this, exactitude and efficiency were combined.29
The second scholar who helped to lay the fundamentals of the West was Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274). His attempt to reconcile Christianity with Aristotle, and the classics in general, was a hugely creative and mould-breaking achievement. Before Aquinas the world had neither meaning nor pattern except in relation to God. What we call the Thomistic revolution created, at least in principle, the possibility of a natural and secular outlook, by distinguishing, as Colin Morris puts it, ‘between the realms of nature and supernature, of nature and grace, of reason and revelation. From [Aquinas] on, objective study of the natural orde
r was possible, as was the idea of the secular state.’ Aquinas insisted there is a natural, underlying order of things, which appeared to deny God’s power of miraculous intervention. There is, he said, a ‘natural law’, which reason can grasp.30
The recovery of the classics could not help but be influential even though that recovery was made within a context where belief in God was a given. Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109) summed up this changing attitude to the growing power of reason when he said, ‘It seems to me a case of negligence if, after becoming firm in our faith, we do not strive to understand what we believe.’ At much the same time, a long tussle between religious and political authorities climaxed when the university of Paris won a written charter from the pope in 1215, guaranteeing its independence in the pursuit of knowledge. It was a scholar at Paris, and Aquinas’s teacher, Albertus Magnus, who was the first medieval thinker to make a clear distinction between knowledge derived from theology and knowledge derived from science. In asserting the value of secular learning, and the need for empirical observation, Albertus set loose a change in the world, the power of which he couldn’t have begun to imagine.
Aquinas accepted the distinction as set out by his teacher, and also agreed with Albertus in believing that Aristotle’s philosophy was the greatest achievement of human reason to be produced without the benefit of Christian inspiration. To this he added his own idea that nature, as described in part by Aristotle, was valuable because God gave it existence. This meant that philosophy was no longer a mere handmaiden of theology. ‘Human intelligence and freedom received their reality from God himself.’ Man could only realise himself by being free to pursue knowledge wherever it led. He should not fear or condemn the search, as so many seemed to, said Aquinas, because God had designed everything, and secular knowledge could only reveal this design more closely – and therefore help man to know God more intimately.31
