Researching the twelfth century felt a bit like drinking from a fire hose (I know I’ve said that before, ha). The great intellectual awakening I was expecting to see last century finally arrived. However, the renaissance of the twelfth century awakened more than just the intellect. There was an explosion of growth and development in all areas of life: culture, art, architecture, literature, law, medicine, science, trade and commerce, religion and spirituality, society, identity, and more. Let’s dive in.
SETTING THE SCENE
The twelfth century was one of profound transformation for Western Civilization, arguably on par with the Reformation or the French Revolution (Giraud, 1). A commercial revolution occurred after the crusades opened east/west trade by way of the new Latin Kingdoms (in the Holy Lands) and their seaports with the Silk Road running to Asia and China (Jones, 282). Europe evolved from a preliterate to a literate society. Literature production exploded, from vernacular poetry to biographies, memoirs, histories, and more. There was a revival of classical texts and the birth of new ideas, theology, and philosophy. Mathematics, science, and astronomy from the Greeks and Arabs previously unknown to the West was translated and introduced (Haskins, 7). A new development of thinking began which was less strictly controlled by the Church (Giraud, 1). There were changes in perspectives on personal/popular piety, church reform and authority, and theology. Political advances promoted a more peaceful way of life and society (Haskins, 14). All of this helped transform Europe into what we know it to be today.
KEY PLAYERS
Some key players (or events) are the Second and Third Crusades, including some influential actors who played vital roles in them (e.g., the infamous Saladin, who also caused quite a stir within the Islamic Empire). Then there was Sicily, that little island off the coast of Italy with its significant leader, Roger II. The Plantagenet dynasty shook things up in England (and France). And of course, as in every essay, we will spend some time checking in with the Christian Church, the papacy, and the other spiritual houses/orders/movements/leaders that were affected by and contributed to the dramatic changes seen in the twelfth century.
THE CRUSADES
The Crusader states in the Holy Land were the destination of Christian pilgrimages, but also a place for men to seek fortunes they couldn’t get back home. They also became the go-between for the West to expand their commerce and trade with the East. However, it wasn’t until mid-century (1144 CE) when the city of Edessa was recaptured by Muslims that we see another rise of crusading fervor in Europe (Hollister, 191).
Then we have a bit of Deja vu. The pope at the time, Pope Eugene, and the great spiritual leader St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153 CE, more on him in a minute) saw an opportunity to restore papal influence and power by launching another crusade. Dan Jones highlights the difference with Eugene and Bernard from Pope Urban (from last century’s First Crusade) in that they managed to successfully rally bigger fish. They didn’t just get nobles and their personal armies but persuaded “two of Europe’s greatest kings to take charge,” (Jones, 287). King Louis VII of France and King Conrad of Germany were the first two kings to set out on crusade. But sadly, neither king was known for their military prowess (Cantor, 298). After meeting unwelcome rebuffs from the Byzantine Empire (for they did not request aid from the west this round and weren’t too keen on them passing through) and then being attacked by Turkish warriors, both returned home. Cantor calls the Second Crusade (1147-1148 CE) a mixture of tragedy and farce (Cantor, 298). He argues the only significant thing to come out of it was the strained relationship between King Louis VII and his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (who traveled with him and was accused of having an affair with her uncle while in the Holy Land…that’s another story for another time). They divorced shortly after the crusade, which freed Eleanor up to marry Henry II, establishing the Plantagenet dynasty of England…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Third Crusade was in response to the Muslim victory at the Battle of Hattin that led to the Islamic leader Saladin capturing Jerusalem in 1187 CE. It’s interesting reading different scholars’ portrayals of how it all went down. One painted a dismal picture stating, “Saladin surrounded the crusader army and virtually annihilated it, and he afterwards conquered large portions of the Crusader States without serious opposition. Three months after Hattin, Saladin occupied Jerusalem after a two-week’s siege. It was not to be retaken by a Christian siege for the remained of the Middle Ages,” (Hollister, 191). Another focused on the barbarity and violence of Saladin’s army who ritually beheaded several hundred Templar and Hospitaller knights, leaving Jerusalem mostly defended only by women and children who were only able to give some resistance, but then surrendered (Jones, 292). But then another scholar paints a noble picture of Saladin’s taking of Jerusalem. According to Ansari, Saladin sent a proposal to the Franj (Crusaders) within Jerusalem to relinquish it peacefully. He would allow any Christians who wanted to leave to take their property and depart without being harassed or harmed. Those that wanted to stay could do so and continue practicing their religion unmolested. Christian places of worship would be left alone, and pilgrims were free to come and go. However, the Franj rejected his proposal, so Saladin had to take it by force. Yet, there were no massacres or plundering and all prisoners were set free upon payment of ransom (Ansari, 146-7).
The Third Crusade (1189-1192 CE) was led by three kings this time: Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, King Philip Augustus of France, and King Richard the Lionheart of England. Barbarossa sadly drowned on the way, Philip August fought with Richard and returned home. And while Richard had a few victories and captured territory (unlike the second crusade), he couldn’t retake Jerusalem. It ended in stalemate between him and Saladin establishing an agreement that Muslims would hold Jerusalem, but Christians were allowed to stay, live, and practice their faith unharmed (sounds eerily similar to Saladin’s initial proposal before taking the city four years and countless lives earlier, hmmm).
ISLAMIC EMPIRE & SALADIN
Let’s look at Saladin and the Islamic Empire real quick to better understand the dynamics in the East at the time. At the beginning of the century the Islamic Empire was still fragmented and rife with internal division. But a new leader rose through the ranks. A young man named Salah al-Din (aka Saladin) accompanied his uncle on campaign to conquer Egypt from the Crusaders, take down the Fatimid caliphate, and establish the Ayyubid dynasty (McKitterick, 171). In 1163 CE, when his uncle died, Saladin took over and became the king of both Egypt and Syria. “The Muslim savior had arrived,” (Ansari, 145). Thus, in the 1170s and 1180s, there was a new unified Islamic state centered in Egypt, led by Saladin. This was the leader and Islamic Empire that held Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Holmes claims the reunification of Islam in the twelfth century was a direct consequence of Christian involvement in the Near East (Holmes, 186). However, Ansari explains the unification of Syria by the Muslim leader Zangi, then his son Nuruddin, was more a response to the internal chaos caused by the Assassins (a fringe Muslim group deeply hated within the Islamic Empire) who was killing Muslim leaders left and right. I wonder how much Holmes’ argument is due to a Eurocentric perspective. Conflicting perspectives make for interesting history!
Though the Crusades of the twelfth century were not successful, they did bring about a major medieval pillar: they “gave an absolute moral and religious sanction to the union of military force and religious devotion,” (Cantor, 301). They justified killing in the name of Christian ideals. And this idea was quickly implemented not just against the infidel in the East, but also included Muslims in Spain, pagans, Jews, and heretics all over Europe. This synthesis between military might and Christian zeal reached its apogee in the religious orders established. These orders—such as the Templars, Knights Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights—were men/knights committed to the monastic life and military service. Look them up, they’re very interesting.
SICILY & ROGER II
Last century, we saw the Normans creating their own kingdom, this round we see it become one of the wealthiest and most influential of the twelfth century (Hollister, 185). Its capital was Palermo, on the island of Sicily. Hollister describes it as an almost utopian destination. “Palermo, with its superb harbor and magnificent palace, its impressive public buildings and luxurious villas, was at once a great commercial center and a crucial point of cultural exchange. Known as the city of the threefold tongue, Palermo drew its administrators and scholars from the Latin, Byzantine, and Arabic traditions alike,” (Hollister, 185). Sicily also became one of the places for Arabic and Greek to be translated into Latin, which contributed to the intellectual renaissance I’ll discuss in a minute. The efficient and centralized government, run by Roger the Great King of Sicily and Southern Italy, was far more advanced than other states at the time. Roger used legal structures from Justinian’s Corpus Juris, Byzantine and Lombard law, and Norman feudal custom (Hollister, 185-6). It was an attempt to build a thalassocracy (Hayes, 26). I know, it’s a large word and admittedly one I had to look up. A thalassocracy is “a political structure where a state or civilization draws its strength and influence from its control over the seas,” basically a maritime supremacy or empire. Another example would be Venice.
Hollister spoke very highly of Roger and Sicily saying, “East and West met in Roger the Great’s glittering, sun-drenched realm, and worked creatively side by side to make his kingdom the most sophisticated European state of its day,” and “Roger ruled strongly but tolerantly over the assorted peoples of his realm—Normans, Byzantines, Muslims, Jews, Italians, and Lombards—with their variety of faiths, customs, and languages,” (Hollister, 185-7). Sounds like a nice place!
THE PLANTAGENETS & ENGLAND
Over westward, another kingdom being ruled by Normans, England, saw similar growth and change. William the Conqueror’s son, Henry I (c. 1100-1135) implemented effective and efficient government, ridding England of rebellion and ushering in prosperity (Hollister, 241). Yet sadly when he died the kingdom spiraled into chaos. With no male heir to take over (his son had drowned in a tragic accident while crossing the Channel), he tried to get the people to recognize his daughter Matilda. But once he was gone, many refused to be led by a woman. Her cousin, Stephen of Blois, quickly seized the crown. Thus, fifteen years of civil war ensued, known as The Anarchy. The famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicles depicts this time saying, “It was as if Christ and his saints were asleep.” There is a great historical fiction series about this time by the wonderful Sharon Kay Penman titled, When Christ and His Saints Slept. I highly recommend it.
The Anarchy was resolved when Stephen was forced to recognize Matilda’s son, Henry Duke of Normandy, as his heir. In 1152 CE, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine, just months after she divorced King Louis VII of France. “Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the greatest coups of his life. For an ambitious young player in European politics, there could have been no more valuable bride,” (Jones, The Plantagenets, 30). Then, in 1154 CE, Stephen died, and Henry II became king of England, starting the Plantagenet dynasty, the longest reigning English royal dynasty, lasting more than two centuries (Jones, The Plantagenets, 1). A chronicler of the time, Henry of Huntingdon wrote, “Peace dawned on the ruined realm, putting an end to its troubled night,” (Jones, The Plantagenets, 40).
WESTERN CHRISTENDOM
The Investiture Controversy of last century was finally resolved in 1122 CE at the Concordat of Worms. It seems there was no real winner. Some argue secular rulers won, some say the Church did. Some claim it was a stalemate. The papacy was able to ban lay investiture, but monarchs still held considerable control over their churches (Hollister, 224). The symbiotic relationship between Church and State—a pillar of the Middle Ages—had been shaken but remained standing. The vision of a Papal Monarchy from the previous century hadn’t come to fruition. Yet, it seems the Church did grow into a vast, powerful, and complex institution (Hollister, 228). A different beast, but arguably still achieved similar goals. By the end of the century, the pope had become an effective and powerful leader (McKitterick, 133). “The pope, head of the institutional Church, had progressively gained more power not only over the clergy, but also over the lives of the laity. The pope was at the centre of an increasingly sophisticated jurisdictional and administrative system, taxation, and bureaucracy. Through councils, legates, and papal letters, papal power radiated to every corner of Christendom,” (McKitterick, 133).
Simultaneously…or maybe in reaction to all of this, there was a shift in peoples’ opinions of the Church, the papacy, and their faith. Different orders and movements formed that seemed to view the papacy and previous orders, such as the Cluniacs, as indulgent who had swayed from the righteous path. One such order were the Cistercians. Established by Benedictine dissenters in 1098, by the end of the twelfth century they had over five hundred houses (Hollister, 203). Their lives and abbeys were stark and undecorated. They were required to clear and farm their own lands. They raised sheep and cattle then sold the wool and cheese in the cities. The famous Saint Bernard of Clairvaux came from this order. Other orders, known as mendicants, arose as well. These actually were different because they didn’t remove themselves from the world but were active in their communities. Examples of this were the Franciscans and Dominicans. These two orders created a dense network of friaries based in towns all over Christendom (McKitterick, 150). Friars were different from monks in that they didn’t belong to a particular house but moved from place to place. These orders were built on vows of poverty and living an ascetic life. They were dependent on the charity and good will of others. Some of these orders and movements were sanctioned and approved of by the papacy, others were condemned as heretical. An interesting example were the Cathars. They were a popular heresy in France. Look up the Albigensian Crusade for more details.
HERE is a great article going into a little more detail on monastic orders.
Yet religious piety was only one of the big changes of the medieval mind. There were many more developments to the way people thought and believed.
NOTABLES
Jacques Antoine Ampère (1800-1864) started the term “Renaissance of the twelfth century” and defined it as a new development in ways of thinking and a renewal of the arts simultaneously with a return to Antiquity (Giraud, 1). Other scholars have argued the term renaissance is incorrect and prefer terms such as renewal or reform. Regardless of what you want to call it, it was an explosion of new ideas coupled with the resurrection of old ones.
Charles Homer Haskins has an excellent book solely devoted to the 12th Century Renaissance. He sums it up better than I could, stating it was…
“the complete development of Romanesque art and the rise of Gothic; the full bloom of vernacular poetry, both lyric and epic; and the new learning and new literature in Latin. The century begins with the flourishing age of the cathedral schools and closes with the earliest universities already well established at Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Montpellier, and Oxford. It starts with only the bare outlines of the seven liberal arts and ends in possession of the Roman and canon law, the new Aristotle, the new Euclid and Ptolemy and the Greek and Arabic physicians, thus making possible a new philosophy and a new science,” - The Renaissance of the 12th Century, by Charles Homer Haskins, page 6-7.
He points out the revival of Latin classics, prose, and verse, the development of biography, memoir, court annals, vernacular history, and the city chronicle. Philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy previously unknown from the Greeks and Arabs were recovered. Fascinatingly, it was an international movement, not restricted solely to a single dynasty like the Carolingian or Ottonian Renaissances (Cantor, 306).
Supposedly, it started in Toledo (Spain) after Castile captured it from the Muslims in 1085 CE. Toledo became a crucial place between Islamic and Christian culture. It was full of libraries containing Arabic-language editions of classical texts unavailable anywhere else in Europe and was home “to the wisest philosophers in all the world” (Jones, 400). “Here Arab scientific and philosophical works were translated into Latin and then disseminated throughout Europe to challenge and invigorate Western thought,” (Hollister, 181). Toledo’s school of translators attracted scholars from all over the world who took the classical heritage as a starting point for new directions in all areas: religion, law, government, economy, ethics, and education, as well as in art, literature, philosophy, and science (Cantor, 306). This flooded the map with new knowledge, and we see a rise not just in academic learning within universities, but even new schools of thought.
Universities started out as just groups of students and scholars gathering on their own to learn the basic ‘seven liberal arts’ (astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, music, grammar, rhetoric, and logic) with instruction in one of the ‘higher’ disciplines (such as law, medicine, or theology/philosophy) (Hollister, 288). But they quickly became institutionalized. The University of Bologna was the first, then Oxford, Paris, Salerno, and many others followed.
Intellectual schools of thought also developed. Scholasticism was a philosophical movement that explored the relationship between revelation and reason (Hollister, 294). “Aristotle’s influence was deeply felt with the rise of scholasticism: an approach to biblical study that emphasized logical deduction, with readers encouraged to interrogate texts deeply and reconcile paradoxes and contradictions by resorting to reasoning and structured argument,” (Jones, 402). Christian rationalism was also developed in response to Classical Greek texts translated into Latin. It “demonstrated the viewpoint that the creation of the universe was a rational process based on principals of mathematics and geometry,” (Hollister, 300-01). I can get my terms confused here, so I’m treading lightly and open to correction. But I believe there was not just a flurry of work around Christian Rationalism, but also discussion of Christian Humanism (aka ‘scholastic humanism’) that focused on recovering the wisdom humans had before sin. “Scholastic humanists ‘aimed at restoring to fallen mankind, so far as was possible, that perfect system of knowledge which had been in the possession of or within the reach of mankind at the moment of Creation’…the challenge of the scholars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries was ‘to take up once more the ancient task of restoring knowledge that had been lost at the Fall,” (Bequette, 2). This could be a whole essay itself, so I won’t go into more detail (even though it’s fascinating!) but the important thing to point out was the scholars were engaging with ancient texts, but asking new questions and contemplating them in a different light than they were prior to the twelfth century.
There were other developments as well. Things like the architecture changing from Romanesque to Gothic and castles becoming what we now know them as— “sprawling stone-built structures based on complex footprints with inner and outer baileys, two or more sets of walls studded with defensive towers, multiple gatehouses and drawbridges, single or double sets of moats, and often palatial living quarters in the most secure parts of the fortress,” (Jones, 426).
AS FAR AS I CAN TELL…
Sadly, there was a lot that occurred in this century I didn’t have time to highlight. Commercial expansion between Byzantium, Italian traders, and Crusader States arguably weakened the Byzantine Empire, priming it for a catastrophic event that we’ll discuss next time (McKitterick, 141). There were major developments between the English crown and the Church, specifically with the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. The Plantagenet family dynamics alone entertain like a gripping melodrama. We barely touched on the Iberian Peninsula and didn’t mention at all the Almoravids, the Almohades, or Alfonso the Battler and the establishment of Portugal. I didn’t highlight the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, or the city republics of Northern Italy, or the associations and guilds that formed (e.g. look up the Lombard League). And I didn’t once point to France. Alas, I didn’t get to St. Bernard of Clairvaux either and I promised! Such a travesty. These are all important and significant in the grand scheme of things. There are countless scholarly articles and books devoted to each of these topics, regions, events, and people. I’d encourage you to do some of your own research. It’s all worth your time.
My humble novice attempt at summing up a century’s worth of history is grossly inadequate. I apologize. And like usual, a scholar who has gone before me has done better than I could. And since I’m an advocate for not reinventing the wheel and for propping up other historians, I will simply quote them…
“If one compares the state of Europe in the century before Saint Bernard’s death and the century after, one looks upon two different worlds, though we call them both medieval. The aspect of the countryside had changed from half-wild to a cultivation not unlike that of today. Castles guarded the fields. Towns and villages emerged under exalted Gothic spires. Commerce was controlled by bankers and regulated by guilds. Universities flourished; scholars wrote their profundities; poets and novelists, their imaginations. The High Middle Ages had created that European civilization that was to become our own…The High Middle Ages were a time of noble aspiration and of unexampled villainy. And they were a time of advance and discovery, of exploration. They were a time of progress.” - The Middle Ages, by Morris Bishop, page 75.
It seems to me that due to the improvements in the quality of life, it freed up the medieval mind to dwell on matters beyond survival. And it opened the way for people to break with tradition so to speak and begin exploring new (or seemingly new, since they were built upon the revival of classics from antiquity) thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. There was a lot of questioning established authority (eg. seen in the intellectual renaissance as well as in the heretical movements and mendicantism).
The causes for such transformation are hard to pin down. Haskins spends a great deal of time trying to identify just what caused the 12th Century Renaissance. He points to “the rapid development of trade and commerce…and urban life,” (Haskins, 12). He mentions political advances, increase in travel, the Christian reconquest of Northern Spain opening the knowledge of Antiquity and Islam to the rest of Europe, and the relations between Constantinople and the city republics of Northern Italy (Haskins, 14). One could spend a career’s worth of time trying to nail this down. Indeed, many scholars are doing just that.
Any thoughts or comments you want to share? I’d love to hear from you!
SIDE NOTE: I couldn’t include all the characters I wanted to in this essay. But I couldn’t ignore some of the amazing people I met this century. So, I will post a list with just a few sentences on each with a book recommendation for further reading! PLEASE introduce yourselves to some of these men and women. They led influential and fascinating lives.
RESOURCES & FURTHER READING
Ansary, Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
Bequette, John P. "Introduction” In A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016)
Bishop, Morris. The Middle Ages
Cantor, Norman. The Civilization of the Middle Ages
Giraud, Cédric. "Introduction Schools and the “Renaissance of the Twelfth Century””In A Companion to Twelfth-Century Schools (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019)
Haskins, Charles Homer. The Renaissance of the 12th Century
Hayes, Dawn Marie. Roger II of Sicily: Family, Faith and Empire in the Medieval Mediterranean World
Hollister, C. Warren. Medieval Europe: A Short History
Holmes, George. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe
Houben, Hubert. Roger II of Sicily (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks)
Jones, Dan. Powers & Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages
Jones, Dan. The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
McKitterick, Rosamund. Atlas of the Medieval World
Norwich, John Julius. Sicily
Books on the Crusades (I haven’t read these yet, but they’ve been recommended):
Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History
Tyerman, Christopher. The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction