Structures and origins of the twelfth-century "Renaissance"

About this book

"Considering the many seminal innovations that took place in the Central Middle Ages, this epoch can be regarded as an ‘axis time’ of European history. Previous scholarship has so far mostly focused on descriptions of what appeared to be new within the diverse areas of material and spiritual life. The present book, by contrast, analyzes the structural foundations of those innovations from the standpoint of the history of mentality, identifying general categories such as differentiation, psychologization, rationalization, and desacralization. The numerous changes in the thought patterns, the emotional set-ups, the aesthetics, and in the behavior of the medieval elite demonstrate more similarities to the main features characteristic of modern times than to those typical of the second half of the first millennium. What were the origins of the changes in question? Most probably, the climatic amelioration should be regarded as the main stimulating factor leading to the growth of the economy and the population, and, in the long run, to substantial mental transformations. Not only did social groups, which the early medieval sources rarely had dealt with, become visible, especially children and women, but the male elite also developed a new degree of emotionality both in religion (mysticism) and in the relation to the other sex (courtly love). One intention of this book is to apply also – with adequate circumspection – psycho-historical and -sociological models for the interpretation of the high medieval mutations analyzed. In particular, concepts elaborated by such scholars as Elias, deMause, Obrist, Radding, and others are tested regarding their usefulness in understanding the Renaissance of the 12th Century."--