III. The Earth and Its Life
IV. Matter and Energy
V. The Revival of Medicine
VI. Albertus Magnus
VII. Roger Bacon
VIII. The Encyclopedists
Chapter XXXVIII. THE AGE OF ROMANCE: 1100–1300
I. The Latin Revival
II. Wine, Woman, and Song
III. The Rebirth of Drama
IV. Epics and Sagas
V. The Troubadours
VI. The Minnesingers
VII. The Romances
VIII. The Satirical Reaction
Chapter XXXIX. DANTE: 1265–1321
I. The Italian Troubadours
II. Dante and Beatrice
III. The Poet in Politics
IV. The Divine Comedy
1. The Poem
2. Hell
3. Purgatory
4. Heaven
EPILOGUE: THE MEDIEVAL LEGACY
Bibliography
Notes
Index
List of Illustrations
FIG. 1. Interior of Santa Maria Maggiore
FIG. 2. Interior of Hagia Sophia
FIG. 3. Interior of San Vitale
FIG. 4. Detail of Rock Relief
FIG. 5. Court of the Great Mosque
FIG. 6. Dome of the Rock
FIG. 7. Portion of Stone Relief
FIG. 8. Court of El Azhar Mosque
FIG. 9. Wood Minbar in El Agsa Mosque
FIG. 10. Pavilion on Court of Lions, the Alhambra
FIG. 11. Interior of Mosque
FIG. 12. Façade of St. Mark’s
FIG. 13. Piazza of the Duomo, Showing Baptistry, Cathedral, and Leaning Tower
FIG. 14. Interior of Capella Palatina
FIG. 15. Apse of Cathedral, Monreale
FIG. 16. Cimabue: Madonna with Angels and St. Francis
FIG. 17. Portrait of a Saint, Book of Kells
FIG. 18. Glass Painting, 12th Century
FIG. 19. Rose Window, Strasbourg
FIG. 20. Notre Dame
FIG. 21. The Virgin of the Pillar
FIG. 22. Gargoyle
FIG. 23. Chartres Cathedral, West View
FIG. 24. “Modesty”
FIG. 25. “The Visitation”
FIG. 26. Rheims Cathedral
FIG. 27. St. Nicaise Between Two Angels
FIG. 28. “The Annunciation and Visitation”
FIG. 29. Wrought Iron Grille
FIG. 30. Canterbury Cathedral
FIG. 31. Hôtel de Ville
FIG. 32. Salisbury Cathedral
FIG. 33. Cathedral Interior, Durham
FIG. 34. Cathedral Interior, Winchester
FIG. 35. Westminster Abbey
FIG. 36. Strasbourg Cathedral
FIG. 37. “The Church”
FIG. 38. “The Synagogue”
FIG. 39. Saint Elizabeth
FIG. 40. Mary
FIG. 41. Ekkehard and His Wife Uta
FIG. 42. Rose Façade, Orvieto Cathedral
FIG. 43. Façade, Siena Cathedral
FIG. 44. Pulpit of Pisano
FIG. 45. Rear View of Cathedral, Salamanca
FIG. 46. Cathedral Interior, Santiago di Compostela
All photographs, with the exception of those otherwise marked, were secured through Bettmann Archive.
BOOK I
THE BYZANTINE ZENITH
325–565
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Dates of rulers and popes are of their reigns. All dates are A.D.
226:
Ardashir founds Sasanian dynasty
241–72:
Shapur I of Persia
251–356:
St. Anthony of Egypt
293–373:
Athanasius
300–67:
Hilary of Poitiers
309–79:
Shapur II of Persia
310–400:
Ausonius, poet
311–81:
Ulfilas, apostle to the Goths
325:
Council of Nicaea
325–403:
Oribasius, physician
325–91:
Ammianus Marcellinus, hist’n
329–79:
St. Basil
320–89:
Gregory Nazianzen
331:
B. of Julian the Apostate
337:
Death of Constantine
340–98:
St. Ambrose
340–420:
St. Jerome
345–407:
St. John Chrysostom
345–410:
Symmachus, senator
348–410:
Prudentius, poet
353–61:
Constantius sole emperor
354–430:
St. Augustine
359–408:
Stilicho, patricius
361–3:
Julian emperor
363–4:
Jovian emperor
364–7:
Valentinian I, Western emp.
364–78:
Valens Eastern emperor
365–408:
Claudian, poet
366–84:
Pope Damasus I
372:
Huns cross the Volga
375–83:
Gratian Western emperor
378:
Battle of Hadrianople
379:
Theon of Alexandria, math’n
379–95:
Theodosius I, emperor
382–92:
Affair of Altar of Victory
383–92:
Valentinian II, Western emp.
386–404:
Jerome’s transl, of Bible
387:
Baptism of Augustine
389–461:
St. Patrick
390:
Penance of Theodosius
392–4:
Eugenius Western emperor
394:
End of the Olympian Games
394–423:
Honorius Western emp.
395–408:
Arcadius Eastern emp.
395–410:
Alaric I King of Visigoths
397:
Confessions of St. Augustine
c. 400:
Saturnalia of Macrobius
402:
Alaric defeated at Pollentia
403:
Ravenna becomes Western capital
404:
End of gladiatorial games
407:
Roman legions leave Britain
408–50:
Theodosius II Eastern emp.
409:
Pelagius, theologian
410:
Alaric sacks Rome
410–85:
Proclus, mathematician
413:
Orosius, historian
413–26:
Augustine’s City of God
415:
Murder of Hypatia
425:
University of Constantinople
425–55:
Valentinian III Western emp.
428–31:
Nestorius patriarch at C’ple
429:
Vandals conquer Africa
431:
Council of Ephesus
432–82:
Sidonius Apollinaris
432–61:
St. Patrick in Ireland
433–54:
Aëtius patricius
438:
Theodosian Code
439:
Gaiseric takes Carthage
440–61:
Pope Leo I
440:
Moses of Chorene, hist’n
449:
Anglo-Saxons invade Britain
450–67:
Marcian Eastern emp.
450–550:
Great age of architecture and mosaic at Ravenna
451:
; Attila defeated at Troyes
452:
Leo I turns Attila from Rome
453:
D. of Attila
454:
Valentinian III slays Aëtius
455:
Gaiseric sacks Rome
456:
Ricimer rules the West
457–61:
Majorian Western emp.
466–83:
Visigoths conquer Spain
474–91:
Zeno Eastern emp.
475–6:
Romulus Augustulus
475–526:
Theodoric King of Ostrogoths
475–524:
Boethius, philosopher
476:
End of Western Roman Empire
480–573:
Cassiodorus, historian
481:
Clovis and the Franks begin conquest of Gaul
483–531:
Kavadh I; Mazdakite communism
490–570:
Procopius, historian
491–518:
Anastasius I Eastern emp.
493–526:
Theodoric rules Italy
525–605:
Alexander of Tralles, physician
527–65:
Justinian I Eastern emp.
529:
Justinian closes schools of Athens; St. Benedict founds Monte Cassino
530–610:
Fortunatus, poet
531–79:
Khosru I of Persia
532–7:
Cathedral of St. Sophia
533:
Belisarius regains Africa
535–53:
The “Gothic War” in Italy
538–94:
Gregory of Tours, hist’n
546–53:
Totila rules Italy
552:
Silk culture introduced into Europe
570–636:
Isidore of Seville, encyclopedist
577:
Anglo-Saxon victory at Deorham
589–628:
Khosru II of Persia
616:
Persians conquer Egypt
637–42:
Arabs conquer Persia
641:
End of Sasanian dynasty
CHAPTER I
Julian the Apostate
332–63
I. THE LEGACY OF CONSTANTINE
IN the year 335 the Emperor Constantine, feeling the nearness of death, called his sons and nephews to his side, and divided among them, with the folly of fondness, the government of the immense Empire that he had won. To his eldest son, Constantine II, he assigned the West—Britain, Gaul, and Spain; to his son Constantius, the East—Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; to his youngest son, Constans, North Africa, Italy, Illyricum, and Thrace, including the new and old capitals—Constantinople and Rome; and to two nephews Armenia, Macedonia, and Greece. The first Christian Emperor had spent his life, and many another, in restoring the monarchy, and unifying the faith, of the Roman Empire; his death (337) risked all. He had a hard choice: his rule had not acquired the sanctity of time, and could not ensure the peaceable succession of a sole heir; divided government seemed a lesser evil than civil war.
Civil war came none the less, and assassination simplified the scene. The army rejected the authority of any but Constantine’s sons; all other male relatives of the dead Emperor were murdered, except his nephews Gallus and Julian; Gallus was ill, and gave promise of an early death; Julian was five, and perhaps the charm of his age softened the heart of Constantius, whom tradition and Ammianus credited with these crimes.1 Constantius renewed with Persia that ancient war between East and West which had never really ceased since Marathon, and allowed his brothers to eliminate one another in fraternal strife. Left sole Emperor (353), he returned to Constantinople, and governed the reunified realm with dour integrity and devoted incompetence, too suspicious to be happy, too cruel to be loved, too vain to be great.
The city that Constantine had called Nova Roma, but which even in his lifetime had taken his name, had been founded on the Bosporus by Greek colonists about 657 B.C. For almost a thousand years it had been known as Byzantium; and Byzantine would persist as a label for its civilization and its art. No site on earth could have surpassed it for a capital; at Tilsit, in 1807, Napoleon would call it the empire of the world, and would refuse to yield it to a Russia fated by the direction of her rivers to long for its control. Here at any moment the ruling power could close a main door between East and West; here the commerce of continents would congregate, and deposit the products of a hundred states; here an army might stand poised to drive back the gentlemen of Persia, the Huns of the East, the Slavs of the North, and the barbarians of the West. The rushing waters provided defense on every side but one, which could be strongly walled; and in the Golden Horn—a quiet inlet of the Bosporus—war fleets and merchantmen might find a haven from attack or storm. The Greeks called the inlet Keras, horn, possibly from its shape; golden was later added to suggest the wealth brought to this port in fish and grain and trade. Here, amid a population predominantly Christian, and long inured to Oriental monarchy and pomp, the Christian emperor might enjoy the public support withheld by Rome’s proud Senate and pagan populace. For a thousand years the Roman Empire would here survive the barbarian floods that were to inundate Rome; Goths, Huns, Vandals, Avars, Persians, Arabs, Bulgarians, Russians would threaten the new capital in turn and fail; only once in that millennium would Constantinople be captured—by Christian Crusaders loving gold a little better than the cross. For eight centuries after Mohammed it would hold back the Moslem tide that would sweep over Asia, Africa, and Spain. Here beyond all expectation Greek civilization would display a saving continuity, tenaciously preserve its ancient treasures, and transmit them at last to Renaissance Italy and the Western world.
In November 324 Constantine the Great led his aides, engineers, and priests from the harbor of Byzantium across the surrounding hills to trace the boundaries of his contemplated capital. Some marveled that he took in so much, but “I shall advance,” he said, “till He, the invisible God who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.”2 He left no deed undone, no word unsaid, that could give to his plan, as to his state, a deep support in the religious sentiments of the people and in the loyalty of the Christian Church.
“In obedience to the command of God,”3 he brought in thousands of workmen and artists to raise city walls, fortifications, administrative buildings, palaces, and homes; he adorned the squares and streets with fountains and porticoes, and with famous sculptures conscripted impartially from a hundred cities in his realm; and to divert the turbulence of the populace he provided an ornate and spacious hippodrome where the public passion for games and gambling might vent itself on a scale paralleled only in degenerating Rome. The New Rome was dedicated as capital of the Eastern Empire on May 11, 330—a day that was thereafter annually celebrated with imposing ceremony. Paganism was officially ended; the Middle Ages of triumphant faith were, so to speak, officially begun. The East had won its spiritual battle against the physically victorious West, and would rule the Western soul for a thousand years.
Within two centuries of its establishment as a capital, Constantinople became, and for ten centuries remained, the richest, most beautiful, and most civilized City in the world. In 337 it contained some 50,000 people; in 400 some 100,000; in 500 almost a million.4 An official document (c. 450) lists five imperial palaces, six palaces for the ladies of the court, three for high dignitaries, 4388 mansions, 322 streets, 52 porticoes; add to these a thousand shops, a hundred places of amusement, sumptuous baths, brilliantly ornamented churches, and magnificent squares that were veritable museums of the art of the classic world.5 On the second of the hills that lifted the city above its encompassing waters lay the Forum of Constantine, an elliptical space entered under a triumphal arch at either end; porticoes and statuary formed its circumference; on the north side stood a stately se
nate house; at the center rose a famous porphyry pillar, 120 feet high, crowned with the figure of Apollo, and ascribed to Pheidias himself.*
From the Forum a broad Mese or Middle Way, lined with palaces and shops, and shaded with colonnades, led westward through the city to the Augusteum, a plaza a thousand by three hundred feet, named after Constantine’s mother Helena as Augusta. At the north end of this square rose the first form of St. Sophia—Church of the Holy Wisdom; on the east side was a second senate chamber; on the south stood the main palace of the emperor, and the gigantic public Baths of Zeuxippus, containing hundreds of statues in marble or bronze; at the west end a vaulted monument—the Milion or Milestone—marked the point from which radiated the many magnificent roads (some still functioning) that bound the provinces to the capital. Here, too, on the west of the Augusteum, lay the great Hippodrome. Between this and St. Sophia the imperial or Sacred Palace spread, a complex structure of marble surrounded by 150 acres of gardens and porticoes. Here and there and in the suburbs were the mansions of the aristocracy. In the narrow, crooked, congested side streets were the shops of the tradesmen, and the homes or tenements of the populace. At its western terminus the Middle Way opened through the “Golden Gate”—in the Wall of Constantine—upon the Sea of Marmora. Palaces lined the three shores, and trembled with reflected glory in the waves.