Rebirth in Medieval Europe: Was the Twelfth Century a Period of ‘Renaissance’ in Western Europe?
- Caleb Shaw
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
When people today imagine the ‘Renaissance’, they typically think of the transitional period that ushered in the glorious modern era, and marked the end of what Petrarch termed the ‘Dark Ages’. This period is commonly identified today by famous discoveries like Galileo’s heliocentric system, or artworks like the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci.
The 15th and 16th century Italian Renaissance also introduced a renewed enthusiasm for Classical texts, which began to appear in print thanks to inventions like Gutenberg’s printing press. Traditionally, and for most people, these events are viewed as an epoch in human learning, which served to take humanity out of a period of intellectual and scientific backwardness and into modernity.
However, the reality is far less definite than this perspective allows. Seb Falk, in his book, The Light Ages, argues that the Medieval period is really one of ‘scientific interest and inquiry’. The twelfth century, in particular, stands out with its very own ‘renaissance’ in Classical learning, innovation, and culture in Medieval Europe.
12th Century Learning: Cathedral Schools and the First Universities
The term ‘renaissance’ is a French word meaning ‘rebirth’ or ‘renewal’. Twelfth century Europe saw new developments in philosophical and scientific learning with the recovery of Greek and Arabic texts found in Muslim Spain following the Reconquest. This included works by Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Hippocrates.
These discoveries led to a demand for Latin translations, and as the revelations continued, new institutions were needed to accommodate the expansion of learning. Institutions for higher education evolved out of the already established cathedral schools, and became known as the universitas.
The first of these universities was founded in Bologna in 1088, followed by Oxford sometime in the early 12th century, and Paris in 1150. Despite 1150 being the official date, Paris had already established itself as a centre for learning, and students would come from afar to learn from the greatest masters.
The 12th century English scholar, John of Salisbury (c. 1150s–1180), was one of those students who attended Paris in 1136, and studied under the tutelage of Peter Abelard, who was one of the greatest scholastic intellectuals of the twelfth century.
John writes the following passage in a work he titled Metalogicus:
There at his [Abelard’s] feet I acquired the first rudiments of the dialectical art, and snatched according to the scant measure of my wits whatever passed his lips with entire greediness of mind.
After two years in Paris, John of Salisbury moved to the cathedral school at Chartres, where he continued his instruction under the grammarian William of Conches. Though there is little evidence to suggest that Medieval universities resembled the organised institutions we are familiar with today, they undoubtedly set the foundation for modern university education.
As Charles Haskins argues, we may call the twelfth century an ‘age of new creation in the field of institutions, most of all in higher education’.
12th Century Innovation: The Compass
Alexander Neckam (1157-1217), an English abbot, theologian and poet, is responsible for documenting the earliest known description and use of a compass-like device for maritime navigation outside of China. In his De naturis rerum (‘On the Natures of Things’), written about 1190, Neckam describes the properties of the magnet and its use for navigation at sea:
The sailors, moreover, as they sail over the sea, when in cloudy whether they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, or when the world is wrapped up in the darkness of the shades of night, and they are ignorant to what point of the compass their ship's course is directed, they touch the magnet with a needle, which is whirled round in a circle until, when its motion ceases, its point looks direct to the north.
Whether or not Neckam first encountered the compass whilst travelling across the English Channel in 1186, or was simply relating what someone else had told him, we can be certain that compasses were being used, albeit in a very rudimentary form, by European mariners prior to the 13th century.
12th Century Culture: Early Gothic Architecture
Perhaps the most visibly recognisable features of the twelfth century ‘renaissance’ are the dizzyingly high vaults, flying buttresses, and pointed arches of the Gothic architecture that dominated the landscape of Medieval Europe. Gothic style architecture, though inspired by the Romanesque and Norman styles that preceded it, incorporated new innovative and aesthetic features.
As pointed out by British architectural historian, David Watkin, at the heart of Gothic architecture was the use of columns, in the place of dividing walls, to ‘create a space that could flow freely in patterns of shadow and light’.
Suger (c.1081-1151), a French abbot and royal advisor to both Louis VI and his son, is considered one of the forerunners of French Gothic architecture. Elected to be the abbot of St. Denis in 1122, Suger embarked on a twenty-year project to rebuild the abbey, using the principles of Platonic and Pythagorean geometry, as well as conveying a spiritual message, in his choice of aesthetic.
He wrote, in 1144, after the abbey’s transformation was complete, describing the architectural elements that he incorporated into the enlargement of St. Denis’ upper choir:
That the divine hand which accomplished such things protected this glorious work is shown by the fact that it allowed the entire magnificent edifice, from the crypt below to the summit of the vaults above, varied by the division of numerous arches and columns, and even the roof, to be completed in three years and three months.
The rebuilding of St. Denis was the result of one man’s vision of statesmanship, and his reimagining of the glories of the past.
St. Denis stands as monument to Suger’s religious and political ambitions in Medieval France, and marks the rise of a novel form of art and architecture which would go on to define how we imagine the Middle Ages for centuries to come.
Conclusion: A 12th Century Renaissance
Although it has been a point of contentious debate among historians for decades, there appears to be reasonable justification for the term ‘renaissance’ to be applied to the twelfth century.
As this article has endeavoured to show, the twelfth century was distinguished by innovations in institutionalised education, navigation and architecture, all of which reflect ongoing progress throughout the Middle Ages.
Applying the term ‘renaissance’ to the twelfth century may also serve as a reminder that the Medieval period was not nearly as ‘dark’ as one might believe.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
John of Salisbury. ‘Metalogicus’. Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning. Translated by R. L. Poole. London: Macmillan, 1920. pp. 177-186. https:// archive.org/details/illustrationsoft029065mbp/page/n7/mode/2up
Neckam, Alexander. De naturis rerum libro duo. Translated by Thomas Wright. London: Longman & Co., 1863. https://archive.org/details/alexandrineckam00neckgoog/page/n10/ mode/2up
Suger. The Book of Suger, Abbot of Saint Denis On What Was Done During His Administration. 1144-1148. Translated by David Burr. https://www.medart.pitt.edu/texts/ Saint-Denis/SugerAdmin.html.
Secondary Sources:
Falk, Seb. The Light Ages. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2020. https://archive.org/details/ seb-falk-the-light-ages-the-surprising-story-of-medieval-science-w.-w.-nortoncompany-2020/mode/2up
Haskins, Charles Homer. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1955. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/d504rk48s
Southern, R. W. ‘The School of Paris and the School of Chartres’. Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century. Robert Benson & Giles Constable, eds. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. pp. 113-137. https://archive.org/details/ renaissancerenew0000unse/mode/2up
Von Simson, Otto. The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order - Expanded Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. https:// muse.jhu.edu/book/75881
Watkin, David. A History of Western Architecture. 4th Edition. London: Laurence King, 2005. https://archive.org/details/historyofwestern0000watk_y0h2/mode/2up
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