An Age of Faith

What You Will Learn:

• Christian Europeans expressed their religious devotion by founding new religious orders and building beautiful churches.

• Some church schools grew into important centers of learning.

Background Knowledge:

• In previous chapters, you learned about the spread of Christianity throughout Europe.

• In this section, you will learn how Christianity influenced the hearts and minds of Europeans in the late Middle Ages.

Forms of Devotion

Religion was so important in the years between 1000 and 1300 that this period is sometimes called the Age of Faith.

• Christian Europeans expressed their devotion to God through new religious orders and the construction of beautiful churches.

Mendicant Religious Orders

The orders of monks founded in the early Middle Ages focused inward, on prayer and meditation.

• Later, new orders were founded with more outward-looking goals.

–Many were mendicant orders, or orders whose members lived on donations and worked in the community, not in monasteries.

One of the best-known mendicant orders was founded by St. Francis of Assisi.

• As a young man, Francis was wealthy and spoiled.

– Then, he had a powerful religious experience.

–He felt called to live as Jesus had lived.

• Francis was a friend of all living things.

Francis's pure and simple life of devotion attracted many followers.

• In 1209, the Franciscan order was established.

Women were also attracted to the kind of life preached by St. Francis.

• In 1212, a noblewoman later known as St. Clare of Assisi founded an order based on his teachings.

• Clare and her followers took a vow of poverty and aimed to live a life of devotion to God.

• Their order became known as the Poor Clares.

Great Cathedrals

People also expressed their religious devotion through art.

• Most medieval art was dedicated to glorifying God.

• The increase in wealth across Europe allowed the people of towns and cities to build great cathedrals.

–A cathedral is a major church, headed by a bishop who oversees a region's churches.

A church built in the early Middle Ages had thick walls, narrow windows, and a domed roof supported by thick columns.

• By the mid-1100s, Europeans were building great cathedrals in a new style known as Gothic.

The Gothic cathedral was a breathtaking sight.

• Rising high above the town, it could be seen for miles.

• The outside walls of the cathedral were decorated with stone carvings of saints.

• Statues and painting of angels and saints lined the inside walls.

• Brilliant stained-glass windows illustrated Bible stories and scenes from the lives of saints.

• Humble peasants and workers, unable to read, could learn about their religion from the glorious works of art.

Gothic cathedrals first appeared in France, but they soon rose all across Western Europe.

• Today, many still stand, signs of the religious devotion of people in the Age of Faith.

Checkpoint:

• How were Gothic cathedrals different from earlier types of cathedrals?

• Unlike churches built in the early Middle Ages that had narrow windows and domed roofs, Gothic cathedrals had brilliant stained-glass windows, ornate statues, and rose high above towns and cities.

The Growth of Learning

The great cathedrals of Europe became the center of another important new movement: the university.

• In the Middle Ages, young men were trained for the priesthood at schools that were attached to the cathedrals.

• Gradually, cathedral schools in some large towns grew into universities.

–Universities are schools, or groups of schools, that train scholars at the highest levels.

Medieval Universities

The medieval universities was not a building or campus.

• Professors and students together made up the university.

• Classes were held in rented rooms or in churches.

• Books were expensive and were often rented or shared by students.

Despite these discomforts, there was a new excitement about learning.

• Many works of ancient Greece had been preserved in the Byzantine Empire and in the Islamic world.

• With the growth of trade, copies of these books traveled to Europe.

Young men from all over Europe came to study at the universities of Bologna in Italy, Paris in France, and Oxford in England.

• Although the students came from different countries, language was not a problem.

– The Church had preserved Latin as the language of learning.

– Students who spoke Latin could understand courses taught at any university.

Thomas Aquinas

The medieval universities attracted the best minds in Europe.

• One of the greatest medieval scholars was a professor at the University of Paris named Thomas Aquinas.

• He was deeply impressed by the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Aristotle had emphasized the use of human reason to discover knowledge.

• Church scholars, in contrast, emphasized faith as the path to truth.

Aquinas wanted to show that there is no conflict between the two.

• He argued that both faith and reason come from God.

• If there is a conflict between the teachings of God and conclusions reached by reason, then it must be due to imperfect reasoning.

Aquinas also believed in the idea of natural law.

• This is the idea that there are laws in nature that are basic to both the natural world and human affairs.

Natural laws do not change over time as human-made laws do.

• For people, they provide a guide to right and wrong that does not change from one society to another.

• Aquinas believed that moral laws could be discovered through reason, just as a scientist can discover laws of nature.

Aquinas offered a famous proof for the existence of God based on reason and natural law.

• He argued that it was a law of nature that everything that happens must have a cause.

• Since the universe has come into being, it must have been caused by something.

– That "something," Aquinas argued, was God.

Similarly, it is a natural law that everything that moves must be put into motion by an outside force.

• The universe must have been put into motion by something.

– That first force, or prime mover, was God.

Checkpoint:

• How did universities develop?

• Cathedrals founded schools that trained young men for the priesthood. These schools gradually expanded into universities.