FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS. In the early Middle Ages, a pair family - parents with children - was usually not perceived as independent and was included in a wider circle of relatives and everyone who lived under one roof, including servants.

From the ninth century priests begin to be involved to bless the newlyweds. In the 11th century, not without ecclesiastical influence, the small pair family began to be perceived as the main cell. Since that time, the influence of the church on the family has increased, the wedding in the temple has become the main rite of its creation, although it became mandatory only in the 13th century. But even later, cohabitation not consecrated by the church persisted, especially among the peasantry, although children from such ties were often considered illegitimate.

Feelings were not the basis of the family, but its addition. The church saw the essence of marriage only in the continuation of the human race. Passion was condemned, for it led away from love for God. Therefore, the ardent attitude of a husband towards his wife was qualified as a sin, a kind of debauchery.

They got married early. According to church rules, the groom had to reach 14 years old, the bride - 12. The choice of spouses, especially such minors, was carried out by parents based on economic or prestigious considerations.

A woman in the family, as well as in society, occupied a humiliated position, which was largely based on the church's idea of ​​​​her as the bait of Satan, an instrument of temptation and the fall, which came from monasteries. In the Middle Ages, women were not perceived as independent individuals, including by the majority of them. Women's participation in public life was allowed only through monasticism. Aristocrats as abbesses could obtain and exercise the rights to power. It is significant that the wife's adultery was almost always considered a reason for divorce, but the husband's betrayal was not.

On the other hand, the development of the urban economy has made it possible, in a number of cases, to raise the status of women. Gradually, a set of women's professions and occupations took shape in the cities: weaving, spinning, baking bread, brewing, and running taverns. However, the discussion about literacy for women continued until the end of the Middle Ages (men had to read at home).

The development of the family in the Middle Ages was reflected in a peculiar way in the design changes burials. From the V-VI centuries. family and children disappear from the tombstones, as well as the tombstone images themselves. Tombstones appear again in the 11th-12th centuries, but the husband and wife are buried separately, the children are not depicted at all. Joint burials of spouses have been noted since the 14th century. At the same time, images of children appear, but without indicating the age and words of grief. In the sixteenth century inscriptions about the grief of parents appear, and images of a specific child appear only in the 17th century.

In conditions when almost the majority of children died in infancy, and almost half of women died during childbirth, when epidemics destroyed everyone in a row, when a rare wound healed and when almost more than one scar did not heal, when both life itself and the church were taught to constantly think about death, thoughts about it were everyday, familiar. Until the thirteenth century it was generally believed that before the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, people do not die, but fall into a dream. Only with the complication of life, primarily in cities, already from the 12th century. there is a fear of death. And from the thirteenth century the idea of ​​a dream before the Last Judgment is replaced by the concept of Purgatory, in which, after death, it is determined where the soul should be, in heaven or hell.

The development of the family is evidenced name history. Christianity limited the choice of names saints(church calendar with the names of saints who were revered by the church on a given day). As a result, there were fewer names. Moreover, it was faster to join this tradition to know what distinguished it from the rest of the population. But many identical names quickly appeared, which led to the emergence of surnames that occurred in Western Europe in the 12th century. from nicknames.

CONCEPTS OF TIME. In medieval Europe, a solar calendar was used, which arose among the ancient agricultural peoples from the need to determine the beginning of field work by the sun. During the Middle Ages, Europeans used Julian calendar. But he wasn't entirely accurate. The duration of the mean solar year adopted in it exceeded the true one so much that an error of 1 day accumulated over 128 years. As a result, the timing of the actual vernal equinox ceased to coincide with the calendar. This was of fundamental importance for Easter calculations. The error was discovered in the Middle Ages, but only in the 16th century, when the error was already 10 days, under Pope Gregory XIII, a commission was created to reform the calendar. As a result, a new Gregorian calendar, in which an error of 1 day accumulates over 3280 years. By decree of the Pope, 6 October 1582 was to be followed by 15 October. But the transition to the new calendar, due to the considered conservatism of people, was delayed even in Western Europe and into the 17th century.

The Middle Ages accounted for the establishment of another temporal sign - Christian era. It was introduced in 525 by the Roman monk Dionysius the Small, who calculated the date of the birth of Christ (753 from the founding of Rome). In documents, the concept of "Christian era" began to be used from the 7th century. But only from the fifteenth century. all papal documents received a date from the Nativity of Christ, and this chronology became universal only in the 18th century.

The seven-day week in the Middle Ages was also borrowed from the ancients, from the Romans, and the names of the days of the week also came to medieval Europe. At first, Christians, like Jews, celebrated the Sabbath as a day dedicated to God. But in the II century. the day of rest was moved to the day of the Sun, and Emperor Constantine legalized this holiday. The Carolingians made this tradition obligatory throughout the empire, declaring Sunday a day of rest and prayer.

Medieval man in general was almost indifferent to time, which was caused by the general routine of life, its monotony, the connection of man with the natural rhythm. Time was not felt, they did not take care of it, although they did not live long, on average, up to 30-35 years. It was believed that time is the property of God, man has no power over time.

However, with the slowness, slowness of society as a whole, with the slow course of life, dependent on natural cycles, people quickly matured and quickly realized their abilities: short duration life seemed to be compressed by time and by the age of 25-30 people had time for a lot. This applies especially to the upper classes of society: young kings, dukes, bishops, etc. Old age began with modern adulthood. The medieval world was ruled by the young. But the ecclesiastical idea that everyone is mortal led to a lack of lust for life.

MOVEMENT. It was as slow as the passage of time. During the day, usually only a few tens of kilometers were covered. So leisurely traveled not only because they did not know the value of time. They mostly traveled on foot, because it was expensive to ride a horse. Often, aristocrats riding on horseback were accompanied by servants on foot, i.e. The rider had no advantage in speed. But traveling on a horse was more comfortable and reflected a certain social status of the traveler. Those. the average speed of movement in the Middle Ages was determined by the speed of a pedestrian and rarely exceeded 30 km.

The roads were in very poor condition. First of all, they were narrow, more like trails. In winter and in the rain they became impassable. The roads in France were better, thanks to the introduction of road service by kings and monasteries. There were few bridges, and they were distinguished by fragility. Stone bridges began to be built in the 13th century. Rivers were more convenient for movement - "God's roads", as they were then called.

In general, medieval roads cannot be viewed from a modern point of view. They then had other functions, because most people traveled on foot or on horseback, which did not require large expenditures for their hard surface. Comfort when walking and a good overview - that's all that was required of them.

The situation of feudal arbitrariness interfered with the movement: customs duties, mandatory routes for merchants, which were determined by the feudal lords in their possessions (the path was often specially lengthened to collect additional duties), payment for a mandatory escort, which the feudal lords had to provide. Although more often they took money for protection and issued a corresponding letter. But it would be wrong to conclude that the roads were almost always deserted. We traveled a lot. The lack of reliable communication required personal contacts: many kings literally did not get off the saddle. The feudal lords moved frequently from estate to estate: both for control and for eating up stocks - it was easier to come by yourself than to transport food. Merchants-peddlers traveled because of the lack of buyers.

CONNECTION. The described state of the communication routes meant that it took months to deliver letters. General illiteracy was also an obstacle to the development of postal communications.

In the XII century. correspondence becomes more intense, and they wrote mainly love and religious letters. From the thirteenth century business correspondence also spread. But it should be noted that even educated people more often dictated their letters, because writing was a complex and time-consuming task. The postal service was established only in 1490 by Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg.

HYGIENE medieval population was at a very low level. It was almost impossible to wash due to the lack of soap, later - because of its high cost. Most European peoples did not know towels, handkerchiefs; until the XIII-XIV centuries. underwear was also missing. The dishes were common, they drank from common goblets, they took food with their hands, taking it out of the common pot.

In many cities, pigs roamed the streets, dead cats and dogs were lying around. Even in the late Middle Ages, there were almost no running water - the water was often undrinkable. Where there were still water tanks, the corpses of cats and rats also often floated. Sewage from cesspools often fell into neighboring wells. Cemeteries were usually located near churches, and since churches were located, as a rule, in the centers of settlements, decomposition products poisoned the air and, especially, the ground with groundwater. Slop was usually poured out into the street. Even in the eighteenth century in France chamber pots were poured out the windows.

But gradually, especially with the development of cities, measures began to be taken to improve the sanitary condition. From the twelfth century in Italy, edicts are issued on the improvement of cities, and control over the products sold is introduced. At the same time, in England and Germany, state doctors and bazaar inspectors appeared. But the revival of hygiene (to the ancient level) began in the 16th-17th centuries, when epidemiologists appeared.

FOOD also affected health. Medieval food was monotonous, only the nobility and wealthy citizens could diversify their menu. The rest experienced, first of all, a lack of proteins (meat was rarely eaten, usually on holidays). There was almost no sugar. Cane sugar has been known from the Arabs since the 10th century. in Italy, but because of the high cost it was used only by aristocrats, and the rest - as a medicine. Honey was the main sweet. Little use was made of vegetable oil, common only in the Mediterranean.

Nutritional deficiencies were compensated by quantity. They ate a lot of bread. Vegetables were consumed little, which led to a lack of vitamins. The consumption of vegetables and meat has increased since the 14th century, which, by the way, has caused an increase in the demand for salt, which is necessary for the storage of meat and fish. Salt becomes one of the main products of trade, including international. From the fourteenth century butter also spread instead of melted lard, which contributed to the development of dairy farming in the countries of the coast North Sea. At the same time, they began to breed freshwater fish in ponds, which was ensured by a steady demand for fast fish on Fridays and during the fasting period. By this time, Christians had already learned how to somehow combine fidelity to the faith and already established habits of convenience and comfort.

But the food lacked spiciness: the lack of spices was replaced with garlic and onion sauces, vinegar and mustard. The meat was usually served as a stew with seasonings from roots, beans, herbs. For better absorption, rich fatty foods were washed down with plenty of water. They drank a lot, one and a half liters of wine or beer per person per day.

There were no forks in the fourteenth century. they still considered unbridled luxury. Spoons were also little used. The most popular were knives and one's own fingers. Hands, even in noble houses, were usually wiped on the tablecloth.

HEALTH CARE in the medieval era was poorly developed. Not only in rural areas, but also in many cities there were no doctors. Rare hospitals, in which there were often several patients in one bed, were served by monks and nuns who did not have special medical training.

However, medicine has evolved. From the end of the twelfth century there were private hospitals. At the same time, hospitals began to be founded in the cities for "their" poor (that is, only for the legal residents of a given city). From the fourteenth century communal hospitals are marked, but only for burghers who paid a special contribution. Sometimes such hospitals owned lands and villages.

Scientific research was underdeveloped. The Lateran Council of 1139 forbade the monastic doctors to perform operations, and in 1163 an ecclesiastical rescript appeared banning the teaching of surgery because of its interference with God's mysteries. These prohibitions contributed to the emergence of secular doctors.

In the organization of civil medicine, Emperor Frederick II Staufen did a lot. He supported the Salerno School of Physicians (in Sicily), gave it a Constitution (Charter), according to which medical education consisted of a preliminary three-year study of general sciences, then a five-year study of medicine according to Hippocrates, and Galen and years of work under the guidance of an experienced doctor. Pharmacies were registered in a special list in Salerno; private individuals were forbidden to manufacture medicines, love drinks and poisons.

LEISURE, SPECTACULARITY. The main form of medieval entertainment in Western Europe was dancing, common in all walks of life and associated with secular instrumental music. With the frantic, incendiary dances of the dancers, the dances in the upper strata of society were in sharp contrast. Although they basically had the same elements, they were performed more restrained, in accordance with etiquette. The attitude to dancing in society was different. Moralists did not distinguish dancers from voluptuous courtesans: a woman who started dancing is a deliberate shamelessness. Numerous images have been preserved in which dancing women symbolized various vices and even accompanied sinners to hell. Uncovered loose hair and skillful hairstyles were compared by clerics with tongues of hellish flame and considered one of the means of diabolical temptation.

But jugglers were famous not only for dancing. Artists were performers, and often authors of all kinds of parodies: both on different aspects of life at that time, and on people, both in terms of their social groups (nobles, clerics, etc.), and personally. In addition, in the conditions of medieval corporatism, a wandering lifestyle aroused suspicion in itself. Moreover, this position of the artists excluded daily control over them, which also contradicted the then norms of life.

Among the entertainments, a prominent place was occupied by games. In the thirteenth century in Paris and Novgorod, a game similar to hockey was known - the ball was driven like a stick. Since that time, sledges with runners made from horse jaws have been known. Of these, skates, which from the 13th century. there were also metal skids. From the XIII / XIV century. in France began to play skittles. Then the game of shuttlecock appeared - with the help of planks they threw a ball with feathers. From the fourteenth century football appeared in the English countryside. The game of dice has spread since antiquity. Its popularity - depending on the case, which was consistent with the medieval worldview. More refined were those that appeared in the 15th century. cards in which the same principle of the game of chance has been preserved. Spread in the XI-XIII centuries. chess was the game of the nobles.

In fact, in the Middle Ages there was a shortage of entertainment. The low level of education required simple entertainment, above all - spectacles, the thirst for which is one of the most important needs of medieval man. The thirst for spectacle made public executions popular. But interest, sometimes unhealthy, in executions was also caused by the general rudeness of morals, less sensitivity than now, which was determined by a more severe life: cold in dwellings, dark nights due to poor lighting, widespread hunting not only for fun or food, but and for protection from predators.

ATTITUDE TO WORK. In the early Middle Ages, the work of the farmer was the main one. But it was also considered low, the occupation of dependent people, serfs. Most crafts in the early Middle Ages were considered "low". In general, pre-capitalist societies were alien to the desire for daily work, except for the extraction of daily bread. But not to accumulate wealth. Other ways were customary for this: court or military service, inheritance, usury, alchemy. Therefore, they did not like merchants: the peasants did not trust, they envied the nobility.

A turning point in the attitude towards labor began on the verge of the 10th/11th centuries, which was associated with the rise of cities and the development of independent crafts. With the advent of new professions, the number of objectionable occupations is gradually reduced - their benefits were taken into account. The prestige of labor gradually increased. And if earlier the church considered labor as repentance for sins, now the church concept of labor is taking shape as a means of self-sufficiency and active salvation of the soul. A feature of the urban mentality is that it has become shameless to get rich. A wealthy city dweller (master, merchant) is no longer belittled as before. He "makes himself", this contributed to the overcoming of traditionalism and archaism in Europe.

ROLE AND PLACE OF RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE. In the X-XI centuries. the influence of monasteries on society increases, but the process of secularization of the clergy also intensified, for the higher clergy were recruited from the feudal environment, the lower - from the peasants. Since the X century. in Western Europe, a three-member division of society into "those who pray, those who fight and those who work" has spread. The clergy in this system was in first place.

Also in the thirteenth century. because of the incapacity for abstract thinking, born of illiteracy, the laity more assimilated the emotional side of Christianity. Religion remained for them at the level of rituals and gestures, visions and belief in miracles. Latin interfered with the perception of the theological foundations of Christianity. The Church strove to maintain and strengthen the religiosity of the masses, and paid great attention to repentance, to which all believers were to be regularly subjected. Special penitential books served to evaluate them. They collected typical sins and gave recommendations to priests about the punishments that had to be imposed for certain sins.

LEGAL VIEWS. In the Middle Ages the word law rarely used, more often right, rights, justice. There were frequent references in legal documents to custom. Ancient customs were especially valued. Among the forms of evidence in the early Middle Ages were common ordeals- trials, during which the accused had to prove his innocence during the ritual - "God's judgment", which lasted until the 13th century.

With the replacement of forensic trials by the practice of inquiry, torture. From the thirteenth century it was believed that the criminal had a weak soul. She can't handle the body. Therefore, it is necessary to torture the body in order to knock out the truth.

Among the punishments are monetary fines (even for murders), shameful and corporal punishment, keeping in prison on bread and water (if the convicted person does not have money). Common punishments included the death penalty. The execution was carried out according to a strict ritual, which demonstrated the triumph of the law. In the XIV-XV centuries. gradually began to develop criminal investigation system, which meant the transition of the suppression of crime from the population to the state.

From the twelfth century spread the ideas of natural law, the source of which is nature (along with God). Thus began the separation of legal consciousness from religion. The notion of the equality of all before the law and natural law, which can oppose one’s own, personal law, penetrates into Western European society: there is an awareness that others recognize your right- you need a contract. By the fourteenth century already recognized that everyone should have your right which is generally accepted. From here, in combination with religious ideas about morality, ideas about the general order are born.

In the fourteenth century there is also a complete return to Roman law. The concept of natural law demarcated it from morality, because in human nature there are also vices, most people are not virtuous enough. Because of their corruption, they cannot live according to God's right. moral life requires them to make an effort. Therefore, people need civil (and not God's) laws. Hence the rise in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. the role of the judiciary and lawyers.

From the fourteenth century spread the idea of ​​the sovereignty of royal power - the right to legislate. Insulting the king is considered a state crime. But this increased the dependence of the subjects on the kings. For the public good, the kings also receive the rights of confiscation. That is, the kings turn into bearers of the common law. The new monarchical doctrine also limited private law. But the idea of ​​popular sovereignty, although weakened, did not die, remaining in the city self-government. It was revived and won in the course of bourgeois revolutions.

Content:
1.Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3
2. The brightness and sharpness of life……………………………………………………….4
3. Chivalry……………………………………………………………………..7
4. The value of the cathedral in the medieval city…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
5. Citizen and time……………………………………………………………..14
6.Crime of the Middle Ages…………………………………………………..16
7. The role of the church…………………………………………………………………..17
7.1 The role of the church in education……………………………………………….18
8. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..19
Application……………………………………………………………………...20
List of used literature……………………………………………..21

1. Introduction
. I wanted to take a closer look at the life of those times. How did people live? What was their morality? What guided you in life? What daily concerns occupied their minds? How strongly do the interests of the people of the present and that time contrast? As now there were big cities, squares, but since then a lot has changed: if earlier in the square you could hear
the creak of wheels, the clatter of hooves, the clatter of wooden shoes, the cries of pedlars, the rumble and ringing of craft workshops, now this has been replaced by the frantic pace of city streets, industrial plants. But how have people changed?
I was interested to find out what role the cathedral played. And why did so much time was devoted to the construction of the cathedral. What meaning did the cathedral bring to public life?
2. Brightness and sharpness of life
When the world was five centuries younger, all the events of life took on forms much more sharply outlined than they do today. Suffering and joy, misfortune and good fortune are much more palpable; human experiences retained that degree of fullness and immediacy with which the soul of a child perceives grief and joy to this day. Every action, every deed, followed an elaborate and expressive ritual, rising to a stable and unchanging way of life. Important events: birth, marriage, death - thanks to the sacraments of the Church, they achieved the brilliance of mystery. Things not so significant, such as travel, work, business or friendly visits, were also accompanied by repeated blessings, ceremonies, proverbs and furnished with certain ceremonies.
Disasters and deprivation had nowhere to wait for relief, at that time they were much more painful and terrible. Sickness and health differed much more, frightening darkness and severe cold in winter represented a real evil. They reveled in nobility and wealth with greater greed and more earnestly, for they opposed blatant poverty and rejection much more sharply. The fur-lined cloak, the hot fire of the hearth, the wine and the joke, the soft and comfortable bed, gave that tremendous pleasure, which later, perhaps thanks to English novels, invariably becomes the most vivid embodiment of worldly joys. All aspects of life were paraded arrogantly and rudely. The lepers twirled their rattles and gathered in procession, the beggars screamed on the porches, exposing their squalor and ugliness. Conditions and estates, ranks and professions differed in clothing. Noble gentlemen moved only shining with the splendor of weapons and outfits, to everyone's fear and envy. The administration of justice, the appearance of merchants with goods, weddings and funerals were loudly announced with shouts, processions, weeping and music. Lovers wore the colors of their lady, members of the brotherhood their emblem, supporters of an influential person their respective badges and distinctions.
In appearance cities and villages were also dominated by diversity and contrasts. The medieval city did not move, like our cities, into slovenly outskirts with simple houses and dull factories, but stood out as a single whole, surrounded by walls and bristling with formidable towers. No matter how high and massive the stone houses of merchants or the nobility were, the buildings of the temples majestically reigned over the city with their bulk.
The difference between summer and winter was felt more sharply than in our life, just as between light and darkness, silence and noise. The modern city is hardly aware of the impenetrable darkness, the dead silence, the impressive impact of a single light or a single distant cry.
Because of the constant contrasts, the diversity of forms of everything that touched the mind and feelings, everyday life aroused and kindled passion, manifested either in unexpected explosions of rude unbridledness and bestial cruelty, or in impulses of spiritual responsiveness, in the changeable atmosphere of which the life of a medieval city flowed.
But one sound invariably blotted out the hustle and bustle of life; no matter how varied it was, it did not mix with anything and exalted everything transcendent into a sphere of order and clarity. This bell ringing of bells in everyday life was likened to warning good spirits, who in familiar voices announced grief and joy, peace and anxiety, called the people together and warned of imminent danger. They were called by their first names: Roland, Fatty, Jacqueline - and everyone understood the meaning of this or that ringing. And although the bells sounded almost incessantly, attention to their ringing was not dulled. In the continuation of the notorious legal duel between two townspeople in 1455, which plunged both the city and the entire Burgundian court into a state of incredible tension, a large bell - "terrifying hearing", according to Chatellin - rang until the fight was over. An old alarm bell, cast in 1316 and nicknamed “Orida”, still hangs on the bell churches of Our Lady in Antwerp. horrida - scary. What incredible excitement must have gripped everyone when all the churches and monasteries of Paris rang their bells from morning to evening - and even at night - on the occasion of the election of a pope who was supposed to put an end to the schism, or in honor of the conclusion of peace between the Bourguignons and Armagnacs.
A deeply moving spectacle, no doubt, was the procession. In bad times - and they happened often - processions succeeded each other, day after day, week after week. When the disastrous feud between the Houses of Orleans and the Houses of Burgundy finally led to an open civil war and King Charles VI in 1412. unfolded the oriflamme, in order to, together with John the Fearless, oppose the Armagnacs, who had betrayed their homeland by allying with the British, in Paris, for the duration of the king's stay in hostile lands, it was decided to organize processions daily. They continued from the end of May almost until the end of July; successive orders, guilds and corporations participated in them; each time they walked along different streets and each time they carried other relics. These days people fasted; everyone walked barefoot - councilors of parliament, as well as the poorest citizens. Many carried torches or candles. There were always children among the participants in the procession. On foot, from afar, barefoot, poor peasants came to Paris. People walked by themselves or looked at those walking. And it was very rainy.
And there were solemn exits of brilliant nobles, furnished with all the cunning and skill for which only the imagination was enough. And in never-ending abundance - executions. The cruel excitement and rude participation caused by the spectacle of the scaffold were an important part of the spiritual food of the people. These are moral performances. Terrible punishments are invented for terrible crimes. In Brussels, a young arsonist and murderer is chained to a ring placed on a pole around which bundles of brushwood and straw are blazing. Addressing the audience with touching words, he so softened their hearts, "that they shed all the tears out of compassion, and set up his death as an example, as the most beautiful one anyone has ever seen." Mensir Mansart du Bois, an Armagnac who was to be beheaded in 1411. in Paris during the Bourguignon terror, not only wholeheartedly grants forgiveness to the executioner, which he asks him according to custom, but also wants to exchange a kiss with him. “And there were crowds of people, and almost everyone wept bitter tears.” Often the condemned were noble gentlemen, and then the people received an even more lively satisfaction from the accomplishment of inexorable justice and an even more cruel lesson in the frailty of earthly greatness than any picturesque depiction of the Dance of Death could do. The authorities tried not to miss anything in order to achieve the effect of the whole performance: signs of the high dignity of the convicts accompanied them during this mournful procession.
Everyday life invariably gave endless expanse to ardent passions and childish fantasies. Modern medieval studies, which, because of the unreliability of the chronicles, mainly turns, as far as possible, to sources that are of an official nature, thereby unwittingly falls into a dangerous mistake. Such sources do not sufficiently reveal the differences in lifestyle that separate us from the era of the Middle Ages. They make us forget the tense pathos of medieval life. Of all the passions that colored it, they tell us only about two: greed and militancy. Who will not be amazed by the almost incomprehensible frenzy, the constancy with which in the legal documents of the late Middle Ages greed, quarrelsomeness, vindictiveness come to the fore! Only in connection with this passion that overwhelmed everyone, scorching all aspects of life, can one understand and accept the aspirations characteristic of those people. That is why the chronicles, even if they skim the surface of the events described and, moreover, so often report false information, are absolutely necessary if we want to see this time in its true light.
Life still retained the flavor of a fairy tale. If even court chroniclers, noble, learned people close to sovereigns, saw and portrayed the latter in no other way than in an archaic, hieratic guise, then what was the magical brilliance of royal power supposed to mean for the naive popular imagination!
Community of citizens. The uniqueness of the medieval cities of Western Europe was given by their socio-political system. All other features - concentration of population, narrow streets, walls and towers, occupations of citizens, economic and ideological functions and political role - could also be inherent in cities of other regions and other eras. But only in the medieval West, the city is invariably presented as a self-regulating community, endowed with a relatively high degree of autonomy and having a special right and a rather complex structure.
3. Chivalry
Chivalry - a special privileged social stratum medieval society. Traditionally, this concept is associated with the history of the countries of Western and Central Europe, where in the heyday of the Middle Ages, in fact, all secular feudal warriors belonged to chivalry. But more often this term is used in relation to medium and small feudal lords, as opposed to the nobility. The origin of chivalry dates back to that period of the early Middle Ages (7th-8th centuries), when conditional forms of feudal landownership, first for life, later hereditary, became widespread. When land was transferred to a feud, its complainant became a lord (suzerain), and the recipient became a vassal of the latter, which involved military service (compulsory military service did not exceed 40 days a year) and the performance of some other duties in favor of the lord. These included monetary "assistance" in the event of a son being knighted, a daughter's wedding, and the need to ransom a seigneur who was captured. According to custom, the vassals participated in the court of the lord, were present in his council. The ceremony of registration of vassal relations was called homage, and the oath of allegiance to the lord was called foie. If the size of the land received for service allowed, the new owner, in turn, transferred part of it as fiefs to his vassals (subinfeodation). This is how a multi-stage system of vassalage developed ("suzerainty", "feudal hierarchy", "feudal ladder") from the supreme overlord - the king to single-shielded knights who did not have their own vassals. For the continental countries of Western Europe, the rules of vassal relations reflected the principle: "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal", while, for example, in England (the Salisbury oath of 1085) a direct vassal dependence of all feudal landowners on the king was introduced with compulsory service in royal army.
The hierarchy of vassal relations repeated the hierarchy of land holdings and determined the principle of the formation of the military militia of the feudal lords. So, along with the establishment of military-feudal relations, the formation of chivalry as a service military-feudal estate took place, the heyday of which falls on the 11th-14th centuries. Military affairs became its main social function. The military profession gave rights and privileges, determined special estate views, ethical norms, traditions, and cultural values.
The military duties of the knights included defending the honor and dignity of the suzerain, and most importantly, the land from encroachment both by neighboring feudal rulers in internecine wars and by troops of other states in the event of an external attack. In the conditions of civil strife, the line between defending one's own possessions and seizing foreign lands was rather shaky, and a champion of justice in words often turned out to be an invader in deed, not to mention participation in campaigns of conquest organized by the royal government, such as numerous campaigns of German emperors in Italy, or by the Pope himself, like the Crusades. The knightly army was a powerful force. His armament, battle tactics corresponded to military tasks, the scale of military operations and the technical level of his time. Protected by metal military armor, the knightly cavalry, invulnerable to foot soldiers and peasant militia, played the main role in the battle.
Feudal wars did not exhaust the social role of chivalry. Under the conditions of feudal fragmentation, with the relative weakness of royal power, chivalry, fastened by a system of vassalage into a single privileged corporation, protected the feudal lords' property rights to land, the basis of their dominance. A vivid example of this is the history of the suppression of the largest peasant uprising in France - the Jacquerie (1358-1359), which broke out during the Hundred Years' War. At the same time, the knights representing the belligerents, the British and the French, united under the banner of the Navarrese king Charles the Evil and turned their weapons against the rebellious peasants, solving a common social problem. Chivalry also influenced the political processes of the era, since the social interests of the feudal class as a whole and the norms of knightly morality to a certain extent restrained centrifugal tendencies and limited the feudal freemen. During the process of state centralization, chivalry (medium and small feudal lords) constituted the main military force of the kings in their opposition to the nobility in the struggle for the territorial unification of the country and real power in the state. This was the case, for example, in France in the 14th century, when, in violation of the former norm of vassal law, a significant part of the chivalry was recruited into the army of the king on terms of monetary payment.
Participation in the knightly army required a certain security, and the land grant was not only a reward for the service, but also a necessary material condition for its implementation, since the knight acquired both a war horse and expensive heavy weapons (spear, sword, mace, armor, armor for a horse) at their own expense, not to mention the maintenance of the corresponding retinue. Knightly armor included up to 200 parts, and the total weight of military equipment reached 50 kg; over time, their complexity and cost have grown. The training of future warriors was served by the system of knightly training and education. In Western Europe, boys up to 7 years old grew up in a family, later up to 14 years old they were brought up at the court of a seigneur as a page, then a squire, and finally they were knighted.
Tradition required a knight to be knowledgeable in matters of religion, to know the rules of court etiquette, to possess the "seven knightly virtues": horseback riding, fencing, skillful handling of a spear, swimming, hunting, playing checkers, writing and singing poems in honor of the lady of the heart.
Knighting symbolized entry into the privileged class, familiarization with its rights and duties, and was accompanied by a special ceremony. According to European custom, the knight initiating the rank struck the initiate with a sword on the shoulder, pronounced the initiation formula, put on a helmet and golden spurs, handed over a sword - a symbol of knightly dignity - and a shield with a coat of arms and a motto. The initiate, in turn, took an oath of allegiance and an obligation to uphold the code of honor. The ritual often ended with a jousting tournament (duel) - a demonstration of military skill and courage.
Knightly traditions and special ethical norms have evolved over the centuries. The code of honor was based on the principle of loyalty to the overlord and duty. Among the knightly virtues were military courage and contempt for danger, pride, a noble attitude towards a woman, attention to members of knightly families in need of help. Avarice and avarice were subject to condemnation, betrayal was not forgiven.
But the ideal was not always in harmony with reality. As for predatory campaigns in foreign lands (for example, the capture of Jerusalem or Constantinople during the Crusades), knightly "exploits" brought grief, ruin, reproach and shame to more than one common people.
The Crusades contributed to the formation of ideas, customs, morality of chivalry, the interaction of Western and Eastern traditions. In the course of them in Palestine, special organizations of Western European feudal lords - spiritual and knightly orders - arose to protect and expand the possessions of the crusaders. These include the Order of St. John (1113), the Order of the Knights Templar (1118), the Teutonic Order (1128). Later, the orders of Calatrava, Sant'Iago, and Alcantara acted in Spain. In the Baltics, the Order of the Sword and the Livonian Order are known. Members of the order took monastic vows (non-possession, renunciation of property, chastity, obedience), wore robes similar to monastic ones, and under them - military armor. Each order had its own distinctive clothing (for example, the Templars had a white cloak with a red cross). Organizationally, they were built on the basis of a strict hierarchy, headed by an elected master, approved by the pope. When the master acted chapter (council), with legislative functions.
The reflection of knightly morals in the field of spiritual culture opened the brightest page of medieval literature with its own special color, genre and style. She poetized earthly joys in spite of Christian asceticism, glorified the feat and not only embodied knightly ideals, but also shaped them. Along with the heroic epic of high patriotic sound (for example, the French "Song of Roland", the Spanish "Song of my Sid"), chivalric poetry appeared (for example, the lyrics of the troubadours and trouveurs in France and the minnesingers in Germany) and the chivalric romance (the love story of Tristan and Isolde), representing the so-called "courtly literature" (from the French courtois - courteous, chivalrous) with the obligatory cult of the lady.
In Europe, chivalry has been losing its significance as the main military force of feudal states since the 15th century. The harbinger of the decline of the glory of French chivalry was the so-called "battle of spurs" (July 11, 1302), when the foot militia of the Flemish townspeople defeated the French knightly cavalry. Later, the ineffectiveness of the actions of the French knightly army was clearly manifested at the first stage of the Hundred Years' War, when it suffered a series of severe defeats from the English army. To withstand the competition of mercenary armies using firearms (which appeared in the 15th century), chivalry proved incapable. The new conditions of the era of the disintegration of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist relations led to its disappearance from the historical arena. In the 16-17 centuries. chivalry finally loses the specifics of a special class and is part of the nobility.
Brought up on the military traditions of their ancestors, representatives of the old knightly families made up the officer corps of the armies of the absolutist time, went on risky sea expeditions, and carried out colonial conquests. The noble ethics of subsequent centuries, including the noble principles of fidelity to duty and worthy service to the fatherland, undoubtedly bear the influence of the knightly era.
4. The significance of the cathedral in the medieval city
For a long time, the cathedral was the only public building in the medieval city. It played the role of not only a religious, ideological, cultural, educational center, but also an administrative and, to some extent, economic center. Later, town halls and covered markets appeared, and part of the functions of the cathedral passed to them, but even then it by no means remained only a religious center. The idea that “the main tasks of the city ... served as the material basis and symbols of the conflicting social forces that dominated urban life: the castle-pillar of secular feudal power; the cathedral is the embodiment of the power of the clergy; the town hall is a stronghold of self-government of citizens” (A.V. Ikonnikov) - only partly true. Their unconditional acceptance simplifies the socio-cultural life of the medieval city.
It is rather difficult for a modern person to perceive the variety of functions of a medieval cathedral, its significance in all spheres of urban life. The cathedral remained a temple, a religious building or became a monument of architecture and culture, a museum, a concert hall, necessary and accessible to a few. His life today does not convey the fullness of his being in the past.
The medieval city was small and enclosed by walls. Residents perceived it as a whole, in an ensemble - a feeling lost in a modern city. The cathedral defines the architectural and spatial center of the city; in any type of urban planning, the web of streets gravitated towards it. As the tallest building in the city, it served as a watchtower if necessary. Cathedral Square was the main, and sometimes the only one. All vital public events took place or began in this square. Subsequently, when the market was moved from the suburbs to the city and a special market square appeared, it often adjoins the cathedral one of the corners. So it was in a number of cities in Germany and France: Dresden, Meissen, Naumburg, Montauban, Monpazier. In the city, in addition to the main cathedral, as a rule, there were also parish churches, some of the functions of the cathedral were transferred to them. In large cities, their number could be significant. So a contemporary notes in London at the end of the 12th century. One hundred twenty-six such churches.
To our admiring eyes, the cathedral appears in a completed and “purified form”. Around it there are no those small shops and little shops that, like bird nests, clung to all the ledges and caused the demands of the city and church authorities "not to punch holes in the walls of the temple." The aesthetic inappropriateness of these shops, apparently, did not bother contemporaries at all, they became an integral part of the cathedral, did not interfere with its greatness. The silhouette of the cathedral was also different, since one or the other of its wing was constantly in the forests.
The medieval city was noisy: in a small space there was a creak of wheels, the clatter of hooves, the clatter of wooden shoes, the cries of peddlers, the roar and ringing of craft workshops, the voices and bells of domestic animals, which were only gradually driven out of the streets by the city authorities, the rattles of leprosy patients. “But one sound invariably blocked the noise of a restless life: no matter how diverse it was, it did not mix with anything, it elevated everything that happened to the sphere of order and clarity. This is a bell ringing. The bells in everyday life were likened to good warning spirits, who in familiar voices announced grief and joy, peace and anxiety, called the people together and warned of impending danger. They were called by their names: Roland, Fat Jacqueline - and everyone understood the meaning of this or that ringing. And although their glosses sounded almost incessantly, attention to their ringing was not dulled at all ”(J. Huizinga). The cathedral spikelet compiled the necessary information for all the townspeople at once: about a fire, about the sea, an attack, any emergency intracity event. And today the ancient "Big Paul" or "Big Ben" animate the space of the modern city.
The cathedral was the keeper of time. The bells chimed the hours of duck worship, but for a long time they also announced the beginning and end of the craftsman's work. Until the XIV century. - the beginning of the spread of mechanical tower clocks - it was the cathedral bell that set the rhythm of "well-measured life".
The watchful eye of the church accompanied the city dweller from birth to death. The church accepted him into society, and she also helped him pass into the afterlife. Church sacraments and rituals were an essential part of everyday life. Baptism, engagement, marriage ceremony, funeral service and burial, confession and communion - all this connected the citizen with the cathedral or parish church (in small towns the cathedral was also a parish church), made it possible to feel like a part of Christian society. The cathedral also served as a burial place for wealthy citizens, some of them had closed family tombs with tombstones. It was not only prestigious, but also practical (as historians note, the robberies of parish cemeteries occurred constantly).
The relationship between the townspeople and the city clergy was far from idyllic. The chronicles of Guibert of Nozhansky, Otto of Freisingen, Richard Devise do not say anything good about the townspeople. In turn, in urban literature - fablio, schwank, satirical poetry - the monk and the priest are often ridiculed. The townspeople oppose the freedom of the clergy from taxes, they seek not only to free themselves from the power of their senior prelates, but also to take under municipal control the affairs that were traditionally the responsibility of the church. Indicative in this regard, the evolution of the situation of hospitals, which during the XIII-XIV centuries. gradually cease to be ecclesiastical institutions, although they retain the patronage of the church and, therefore, the inviolability of their property. However, the frequent opposition to the clergy is combined with constant contacts with them in everyday life and does not prevent the townspeople from considering the construction and decoration of the cathedral their vital business.
The construction of the city cathedral was attended not only by the townspeople, but also by the peasants of the district, the magnates and the clergy. Medieval chronicles and other documents reflected examples of religious enthusiasm that struck contemporaries: “ladies, knights, all sought not only donations, but also feasible work to help the construction.” Often, funds were raised throughout the country for the construction of the cathedral. “In the Middle Ages, a wide variety of donations, donations, contributions to the construction of the temple, which were considered as a worthy and pleasing deed, became widespread. Most often, these were donations of jewelry and valuables, sums of money or free provision of materials for future construction ”(K.M. Muratov). The cathedral was built for several decades, but the complete completion of the building dragged on for centuries. From generation to generation, legends about the laying and construction of the temple were indulged, more and more funds were collected, donations were made, wills were left. The phrase of the papal legate and former chancellor of the University of Paris, Odo de Chateauroux, that "Notre Dame Cathedral was built on the pennies of poor widows," of course, should not be taken literally, but it is under a foundation. A sincere impulse of piety was combined with rivalry with a neighboring city, and for some, with a desire to receive personal remission of sins. The beautiful cathedral was one of the important signs of prestige, it demonstrated the strength and wealth of the city community. The size of the temples built in very small cities, the luxury and complexity of their interiors meet the need to create something incommensurable in beauty and grandeur with everything around. The significance of the cathedral is also evidenced by the desire to immediately restore its aftermath of the fire, and certainly in the same place, in order to preserve the usual objects of pilgrimage.
The construction of the cathedral was for many years in the center of attention of the townspeople, but it entered into action long before its final completion. Construction began from the choir, the roof was built, as a rule, even before the overlap of the temple with vaults, so the service could be performed fairly quickly after the start of construction.
The construction and decoration of the temple served as an impetus for the development of urban artistic crafts. The famous Parisian “Book of Crafts” (XIII century) reports on a number of such professions, the use of which in the daily life of the city would be very limited. Among them are painters, stone carvers, filigree makers, sculptors, rosary makers (from corals, shells, bones, horns, ambergris, amber), carpets, inlays, gold and silver threads for brocade, book fasteners, etc. Then the town hall, the houses of magnates living in the city and the city patriciate, charitable institutions will be decorated. But at first the masters applied arts mostly work for the cathedral. The builders did not stay in one place, they moved from city to city, from country to country. They learned from renowned masters; the site of the cathedral under construction was a school for architects.
The iconographic material of the era also testifies to the keen interest of contemporaries in the process of building the temple: the plot of the construction of the cathedral is often on miniatures of medieval manuscripts. (Appendix A)
Relics with relics were kept in the cathedral, pilgrims flocked to it, sometimes from afar. There was a constant exchange between the inhabitants of different areas. The motley crowd of pilgrims going to Canterbury to venerate the relics of Thomas Becket gave Chaucer the idea for The Canterbury Tales. The city and the temple valued such pilgrimages: they brought substantial income.
At the cathedral there was a school with a singing and grammar class. In a small town, she often remained the only one. So, in London in the XIV century. Only three church schools are known. Church book collections could be quite rich, but they were accessible only to a narrow circle of clerics and, possibly, urban intellectuals. Libraries at town halls and Guildhalls appeared later. On the porch, and in the winter and in the premises of the cathedral, schoolchildren and students held disputes. The townspeople present at them enjoyed the gesture and the very process of the dispute rather than the word: the disputes were conducted in Latin. In Bologna, lectures were given to university students from the outer pulpit of the Cathedral of San Stefano.
The porch of the cathedral was the liveliest place in the city: various deals were concluded here, people were hired, the marriage ceremony began here, the beggars asked for alms. London lawyers on the porch of the Cathedral of St. Pavel arranged meetings and gave advice to clients. The porch served as a stage for dramatic performances for a long time. On the porch, and sometimes in the church itself, the so-called "church ales" were arranged - the prototype of future charity bazaars, they sold wine, various local crafts and agricultural products. The proceeds went to the maintenance of the temple, the needs of the parish, in particular, and to pay for festive processions and theatrical performances. A custom that was constantly condemned, but with the passage of time became more and more frequent. These feasts greatly revolted church reformers and zealots of piety in general.
The city cathedral has long served as a place of municipal meetings, was used in case of various public needs. True, monastery churches and the houses of city lords were also used for the same purpose. The temple was always a ready and open refuge in the days of grief, anxiety and doubt, it could also become a refuge in the literal sense, guaranteeing immunity for a while. The cathedral tried to accommodate everyone, but on especially solemn days there were too many people who wanted to. And despite the strict etiquette of the medieval way of life, which for us has already become a frozen stereotype, there was a stampede and not always a harmless crowd in the cathedral. Contemporaries left evidence of riots during coronation ceremonies in Reims Cathedral.
The cathedral was one of the most significant (if not the most significant) implementation of medieval culture. He contained the entire amount of knowledge of his era, all its materialized ideas about beauty. He satisfied the needs of the soul in the high and beautiful, non-everyday, and the simpleton, and the intellectual. “The symbol of the universe was the cathedral,” writes a modern historian, “its structure was conceived in everything similar to the cosmic order: a review of its internal plan, dome, altar, aisles should have given a complete picture of the structure of the world. Each of its details, as well as the layout as a whole, was executed symbolic meaning. The one praying in the temple contemplated the beauty and harmony of divine creation. It is, of course, impossible to restore in its entirety how an ordinary city dweller perceived worship. The experience of "temple action" was both a deeply individual and at the same time a collective process. Upbringing, ritualized norms of behavior were superimposed on the piety, impressionability, education of the individual.

4. Citizen and time
The Middle Ages inherited the methods of measuring time from ancient times. Instruments for such measurement were divided into two large groups: those that measured time intervals and those that showed astronomical time. The first include the hourglass, known since antiquity, but recorded in Western Europe only in 1339, and the fire clock - candles or oil lamps, the combustion of which occurs over a certain period of time. The second type of clock includes solar and mechanical. Solar gnomon, known in Egypt in the 5th millennium BC, were widely spread in the Roman Empire and were an almost obligatory decoration of many villas and houses. An intermediate type of clock can be considered water-clepsydra. Clepsydras have also been known since the 15th century. BC. in Egypt. Others of them are two connected flasks in which water is poured from one to another in a fixed time - such, for example, are known in Greece from about 450g. BC. "Hours for Speakers". Another type of water clock is large cisterns, in which water also overflows from one to another, but for many days or, when one of the cisterns is connected to a natural or artificial water stream, it is constant, and the absolute time is determined by the water level. About 150g. BC. Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a water clock in which a rising float turned a shaft with an arrow. This watch was more like a yearly calendar, and the hand marked the day; every hour, however, the water threw out a pebble, which fell with a ringing sound on a metal plate. Later, the clepsydra were modified so that the arrow showed not the day, but the hour. (The division of a day into 24 hours, and an hour into 60 minutes, was known in Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC)
In the early Middle Ages, accurate measurement of time, especially of the day, was not widely used. The first clocks known then - solar and water - were built according to the instructions of the famous philosopher Boethius (c. 480-524) by order of Theodoric the Great (c. 454-526; king of the Ostrogoths from 471, king of Italy from 493); they were intended as a gift to the king of the Burgundians, Gunvold. From the letter accompanying this gift, it was clear that in the barbarian kingdoms that arose on the territory of Gaul, clocks were unknown (although there were gnomons and clepsydras in Roman villas in Gaul).
The low prevalence of watches in the early Middle Ages is explained, firstly, by the attitude (in a certain sense, indifference) of people to time, in which they proceeded from natural cyclicality and were guided by signs and phenomena observed over the centuries. Secondly, technical difficulties: both clepsydra and gnomons were motionless, bulky and (especially the first) complex structures, and the sundial, moreover, could show time only during the day and in clear weather.
Many thinkers of the Middle Ages paid much attention to the careful gradation of time. For example, Honorius Augustodunsky (first half of the 12th century) divided the hour into 4 "points", 10 "minutes", 15 "parts", 40 "moments", 60 "signs" and 22560 "atoms". But still, the unit of measurement of time remained at best an hour, and that one, rather, in liturgical use, while in everyday life it is a day. Gregory of Tours (c. 538-594), in his De cursu stellarum ratio, proposed to calculate time by the rising of the stars and by the number of psalms read.
The division of time into equal hours was absent for a long time: the light and dark times of the day were divided into 12 hours each, so that the hours of the day and night were not the same and varied at different times of the year. The primary division of the day into 24 hours was made in the Middle East, at whose latitude day and night are approximately equal throughout the year, but in the northern regions of Europe the difference was striking. One of the first, if not the first thinker to express the desire to equalize the hours was the Anglo-Saxon Bede the Venerable (c. 673-731), as is clear from his treatise De ratione computi. He or his entourage owns the first calendar, which indicates the distribution of light and dark time at the latitude of the middle part of the British Isles: “December - night hours XVIII, daytime - VI; March - night hours XII, daytime - XII; June - night hours VI; daily - XVIII ", etc. Already after the invention of mechanical clocks and before the beginning of the XVII century. Very complex adjustable drives were used, which made it possible to divide the day into unequal periods of time - the hours of the day and night, so that the idea of ​​the hour as a constant unit of time spread rather slowly and initially only in church life, where it was caused by liturgical necessity. The constancy of the hour was especially actively maintained in the 10th century, in the process of the Cluniac reform, in order to unify the church ritual, which provided, among other things, for the simultaneousness of church services (they did not know about standard time then).
19th century explorers The invention of the mechanical clock was attributed to the famous scientist Herbert of Aurillac (c. 940-1003), who became in 999. Pope under the name of Sylvester II. In fact, he only improved (c. 983) clepsydra, and now its axis rotated under the influence of falling water; this made it possible to subsequently replace the force of water with the weight of weights, i.e. facilitated the creation of mechanical watches.
The reasons for the appearance of the latter were more socio-psychological than technical. The exact measurement of time was carried out only inside the church space, outside the time was noted not so accurately.
6. Crime of the Middle Ages.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, historians drew romantic paintings equality and communal unity of medieval townspeople, supposedly opposing their secular and spiritual lords as a united front.
The study of urban poverty is hampered by the state of the sources, especially for the early centuries of urban history. Sources become more eloquent only as we approach the late Middle Ages. But it would be a mistake to conclude from this that poverty is an exceptional phenomenon of these centuries.
Below we will talk about specific representatives of the underworld of medieval France and Burgundy - professional thieves.
The problems of urban crime constantly occupied the minds of officials. Potential criminals were those who refused to work and led a wild life, visiting taverns and brothels. These lazy people set a "bad example" to those around them, spending all their time gambling and drinking under the pretext that wages were not high enough. Secondly, people who did not have any worthy profession at all.
The city was an ideal place for the creation and existence of the gang. On its streets one could meet anyone. Moreover, theft is considered not just a profession - in it, as in any craft, there is a certain specialization.
Already in the XIII century. In Paris, there is a gang of "dirty Baboons" ("livilains Baubuins") who lured dupes to Notre Dame Cathedral and, while they stared at the sculptures of Pepin and Charlemagne, cut their purses from their belts.
There are the following types of masters, thieves' specialties:
- A burglar is someone who knows how to open locks.
- "collector" - one who cuts wallets
- "mockery" is a thief who lures a dupe, plays
- "sender" - killer
 “kidala” - someone who sells counterfeit gold bars.
Actually, nothing could really exclude them from the life of society. Professional criminals lived in "symbiosis" with the urban population, they could even cooperate with the authorities, especially with the nobility.
7. The role of the church in the Early Middle Ages
The most important feature of medieval culture is the special role of Christian doctrine and the Christian church. In the context of the general decline of culture immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire, only the church for many centuries remained the only social institution common to all countries, tribes and states of Western Europe. The church was not only the dominant political institution, but also had a dominant influence directly on the consciousness of the population. In the conditions of a difficult and meager life, against the background of extremely limited and unreliable knowledge about the surrounding world, the church offered people a coherent system of knowledge about the world, its structure, and the forces acting in it. This picture of the world completely determined the mentality of the believing villagers and townspeople and was based on the images and interpretations of the Bible.
The entire cultural life of European society of this period was largely determined by Christianity.
The population was traditionally attached to pagan cults and sermons, and descriptions of the lives of the saints were not enough to convert them to the true faith. They converted to a new religion with the help of state power. However, even a long time after the official recognition of a single religion, the clergy had to deal with the persistent remnants of paganism among the peasantry.
The church destroyed temples and idols, forbade worshiping gods and making sacrifices, arranging pagan holidays and rituals. Severe punishments threatened those who practiced divination, divination, spells, or simply believed in them.
The formation of the process of Christianization was one of the sources of sharp clashes, since. the concept of people's freedom was often associated with the old faith among the people, while the connection of the Christian church with state power and oppression stood out quite clearly.
In the minds of the masses of the rural population, regardless of belief in certain gods, attitudes of behavior were preserved in which people felt themselves directly included in the cycle of natural phenomena.
This constant influence of nature on man and the belief in man's influence on the course of natural phenomena with the help of a whole system of supernatural means was a manifestation of the magical consciousness of the medieval community, an important feature of its worldview.
In the mind of a medieval European, the world was seen as a kind of arena of confrontation between the forces of heaven and hell, good and evil. At the same time, the consciousness of people was deeply magical, everyone was absolutely sure of the possibility of miracles and perceived everything that the Bible reported about in a literal sense.
In the most general terms, the world was seen by people in accordance with a certain hierarchical ladder, or rather, as a symmetrical scheme, resembling two pyramids folded with their bases. The top of one of them is God. Below are the levels of sacred characters - Apostles, archangels, angels, etc. At some level, people are included in this hierarchy: first the pope and the cardinals, then lower-level clerics, then the laity, starting with the secular authorities. Then, further from God and closer to the earth, there were animals and plants, then - the earth itself, already completely inanimate. And then it was like a mirror image of the upper, earthly and heavenly, hierarchy, but in a different dimension, as if with a “minus” sign, along the growth of evil and proximity to Satan, who was the embodiment of Evil.
Thus, adherence to tradition, conservatism of all public life, the dominance of a stereotype in artistic creativity, and the stability of magical thinking, which was imposed on the church, can be considered signs of early medieval culture.
7.1 The role of the church in education
In the V-IX centuries, all schools in Europe were in the hands of the church. She drew up a curriculum, selected students. The Christian Church preserved and used elements of secular culture left over from the ancient education system: disciplines inherited from antiquity were taught in church schools: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics with elements of logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
Medieval university science was called scholasticism. The influence of the church on medieval universities was enormous. A woman in the Middle Ages, as a rule, with very rare exceptions, did not receive education. Some noble ladies could afford to be educated, but usually a woman was kept in the background, and even if noble men did not receive an education, since they were fascinated by military affairs, and not by books, then a lot of effort and money were not spent on women in this sense. .
Byzantium during the early Middle Ages was characterized by the strengthening of the positions of the Christian Church in the field of education, which was expressed in the persecution of ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophy was replaced by theology. A prominent representative of the Byzantine culture of that time was Patriarch Photius, the compiler of the "Mariobiblion" - a collection of reviews of 280 works of mainly ancient authors, authors of theological works.
8.Conclusion
In answer to the questions I posed at the beginning, we can say that no matter how barbaric the Middle Ages, it cultivated a sense of duty, if only out of pride. However limited the amount of knowledge of that time was, at least it taught first of all to think and only then to act; and there was no ulcer then modern society- complacency. And the Middle Ages are considered naive.
Undoubtedly, the cathedral, the church, played an important role, determining the mindset of the inhabitants.
Along with the poverty of that time, the problems of crime, luxurious trips of nobles and knightly competitions were arranged.
The courage and dexterity of knights, the variegated forms of everything that affected the mind and feelings, everyday life aroused and kindled passion, manifested either in unexpected explosions of rude unbridledness and bestial cruelty, or in impulses of spiritual responsiveness, in the changeable atmosphere of which the life of a medieval city flowed. In a word, life retained the flavor of a fairy tale.
Annex A

Bibliography:
1. A.A. Svanidze "City in the medieval civilization of Western Europe" v.3, v.4 M. "Science", 2000
2. L.M. Bragin "The culture of the revival and the religious life of the era" M. "Science", 1997
3. A. Ya Gurevich "problems of the medieval folk culture» M., 1981
4. J. Huizinga "Autumn of the Middle Ages"

No matter how important the military and religious aspects of existence and contacts with the surrounding Muslim world were for the Latin states of Lenant, the problems of peaceful life and the provision of daily life activities occupied no less significant place. Immediately after the bloody wave of conquest, it became clear that murder and terror were not the best way to ensure the stability and viability of new states. The Franks themselves did not have the opportunity to populate these countries precisely because of the peculiarities of the “combat” pilgrimage: after all, the vast majority of the participants in the crusades, after they had fulfilled their duty as pilgrims, left the Holy Land. And those thousands, even tens of thousands of Catholic soldiers that still remained, could by no means become a replacement for millions. In addition, the conquerors themselves needed subjects, they needed money and food for the army. Therefore, soon after the First Campaign, especially since 1110, when the new power was sufficiently strengthened, the attitude towards the conquered population changed to a large extent.

It is important to note that the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean were distinguished by exceptional national and religious diversity. About half of the population were Muslims (in the Kingdom of Jerusalem their percentage was even higher). And in the Principality of Antioch, most of the inhabitants were Greeks of the Orthodox faith.

The county of Edessa and Eastern Cilicia were predominantly Armenian. The mountainous regions and valleys of Lebanon were inhabited by both Maronite Christians* and Druze who had broken away from everyone and everything**. All this was supplemented by a considerable number of Jewish Jews, and in the mountainous northeast, also by fire-worshipping Persians. If we take into account that the same Muslims were divided into Ismailis, Duodecimal Shiites and Orthodox Sunnis***, then the picture becomes extremely variegated.

It must be admitted that the new rulers coped quite well with the task of restoring order in the conquered territories. It was based on the principle as old as the world, clearly formulated in ancient Macedonia: “divide and conquer”. The entire population was clearly divided depending on privileges or, conversely, restrictions, taxes paid and legal status. At the same time, the authorities tried not to interfere in the internal life of these communities, demanding only the implementation of general legislation. Frankish lords did not interfere in local customs and self-government; moreover, each social group had its own legal norms. So, for example, Muslims judged according to Sharia law - of course, Muslims were also judges. Naturally, the highest jurisdiction belonged to the conquerors, whose court dealt with crimes that went beyond the boundaries of a single community (for example, a lawsuit between a Muslim and an Orthodox Greek) or especially serious crimes. For the rest, these different groups were practically independent.

* Maronites - an Eastern Christian sect that arose around the 5th century. In 1181 they submitted to the apostolic see, but retained a certain internal autonomy.

** Druze is a heretical movement in Islam founded by the Egyptian Sultan al-Hakim, who around 1017 declared himself a living god. They refused to practice Shahada, thereby excluding themselves from the ranks of Muslims; were also hostile to Islam.

*** See chapter 3.

The most privileged part of the subjects were, of course, the crusaders themselves and their descendants. Almost all of them, with the exception of a small part of the servants of the feudal lords, enjoyed personal freedom, including complete freedom of movement and settlement. In general, these former peasants, who by the will of fate became warriors, also occupied a place in the Levant that has no analogues in the European class system of that time. A fairly clear three-tier gradation dominated there: the worshipers - that is, the clergy, the warring ones - the chivalry, and the working people - the peasantry. The growth of cities, of course, began to complicate this order - craft and trade have significantly moved away from rural labor. Nevertheless, the belonging of merchants and artisans to the working class was not in doubt. But with the crusaders of the first wave and their descendants, the situation was more complicated. On the one hand, they were undeniably working people who lived on their own work. Some of them became tenants of the feudal lords, usually on the terms of paying a tenth of the harvest**. Another part, and, until the end of the XII century, a smaller one, settled in cities. But, on the other hand, the Catholic conquerors were a small minority in the Holy Land, living among a hostile (or, at best, neutral) population, outnumbering them by dozens of times. And the feudal lords were forced to constantly involve them as a military force for endless wars. That is, they were both breastfeeding and military at the same time.

The collision for a rigidly structured medieval society, indeed, was almost unprecedented. Only as a very incomplete analogy, and even then a later one, can one cite the English yeomen or the Russian one-dwellers. And yet, the yeomanry legally remained peasants, while the odnodvortsy, despite their de facto peasant labor, belonged to the nobility. For crusaders of non-noble origin, a clear legal status was never defined: they remained an intermediate social group. And from the end of the XII century, this legal problem gradually began to fade away. Saladin's conquests forced almost all Catholics to move to the cities, and after the death of Saladin, a half-century period of peace ensued, and there was no need for constant military service. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the line that completely separated the nobility from the peasants in Europe was largely blurred in the Holy Land, and during the years of the Crusades, many of these “Catholic one-palaces” joined the ranks of the knighthood.

Among the conquered population, Christians of various kinds had a higher status; moreover, before the break with Byzantium at the beginning of the 13th century, the position of the Orthodox Greeks was the best. They enjoyed some benefits in taxation, and sometimes were recruited into the army. Relations with the Monophysite Armenians* were more complicated, but on the whole the Armenians remained a privileged group. Moreover, the crusader nobles willingly married representatives of the Armenian nobility, and the Armenian princes married the daughters of Frankish lords and knights. This was especially noticeable in the county of Edessa, which already in the thirties of the XIII century turned into a prosperous Franco-Armenian enclave beyond the Euphrates.

The most numerous part of the population was in a less advantageous position. Muslims were taxed at a much higher rate of 30 to 50%, depending on the area and the crop being grown. They were also forbidden to live in Jerusalem and some port cities. At the same time, their situation was not particularly difficult, and in many ways it was even better than under the rule of fellow Muslims. Interestingly, in THIS connection, evidence of the implacable enemy of the crusaders - i slave traveler ibn Ju-bair, who wrote the following around 1184: “We moved from Tibnin along the threshold along which farms stretched, where Muslims live, who are in great prosperity under the Franks - may Allah save us from such a temptation... Muslims are the owners of their houses and govern themselves as they themselves understand... The hearts of many Muslims are tempted to settle there (in the Frankish lands) when THEY see the situation of their brethren in the areas ruled by Muslims, for the condition of those is far from prosperous. Unfortunately for Muslims, in countries ruled by their co-religionists, they always complain about the injustice of their rulers, but they criticize the behavior of the Franks, whose justice they can only be proud of.

The words of ibn Jubair are echoed by the famous Arab poet and scholar Usama ibn Munkiz, who also seriously fears the mass migration of Muslims under the rule of the crusaders. Osama, who is by no means friendly towards the Franks, praises the justice of their justice, which he experienced firsthand - the court in his lawsuit with a Catholic took the side of Usima, and not his co-religionist. The Arab poet also notes that the Christians (in this case, the Templars) gave him the opportunity to pray to Allah in his own chapel. In general, Islamic authors emphasize that the conquerors were quite religiously tolerant in matters of religious rituals: suffice it to say that there were two mosques in the citadel of the Crusaders - Acre.

The Jewish population of the Levant was in a similar position to the Muslims. They were also forbidden to live in Jerusalem, and the tax burden was the same. However, it is worth noting that both Muslims and Jews did not pay church tithes, which reduced the fiscal burden, and sometimes caused discontent among some Christian communities; in particular, the Armenians of Jerusalem complained about such injustice. And in general, the attitude towards Jews in the Christian states of the East was not bad. The Jews were quite free to perform their religious rites, no one forced them to wear special clothes indicating their faith, which was practiced constantly in Europe and often aroused the hostility of the population and persecution. In Syria and Palestine for all two hundred years there was not a single Jewish pogrom. The practice of the ghetto*, so beloved in Europe, was also not applied: Jews could freely settle in cities and engage in any kind of activity at their discretion.

An overview of the national-religious situation in the Latin East would be incomplete without mentioning another very curious group - the so-called. turco-catching. Auxiliary detachments of lightly armed cavalry of the Seljuk type were recruited from them. From this it is clear that the Turkopols were the descendants of the Seljuks and preserved the main elements of their life and culture. However, the origin of the Turcopoles is still unclear. They may have been Turks who converted from Islam to Catholicism, although such conversions are rare in the society of the time. They could also be descendants of mixed Muslim-Christian marriages - Christians by faith and Turks by way of life. Finally, it could also be Muslim Turks who had crossed II.-| side of the enemy and sworn allegiance to the crusaders. In favor of the first of the versions, perhaps, the goth fact speaks that Saladin in 1169 ordered to kill all the captured Turkopols. The change of faith - that is, in fact, the betrayal of Islam, fully explains this fury of the Kurdish ruler, who, in general, was not particularly bloodthirsty. Yes, and in later times there were precedents for a mass transition from Islam to Christianity - it is enough to recall the baptized Tatars in the service of the Russian Grand Dukes.

The conquering crusaders quite organically joined this conglomeration of peoples and cultures. Already the second generation of "Christ warriors" was sharply different from their fanatical fathers, as well as from the newly arriving pilgrims. And despite the constant external war (with the exception of the aforementioned peaceful half-century of 1193-1243), which the Christian states waged, a fairly strong internal peace was established in them. The history of the Latin East for all two centuries of its existence knows almost no major popular unrest (which, by the way, the neighboring Muslim countries could not boast of). A certain symbiosis was established - the Franks guaranteed law and order, the conquered peoples, almost without changing their way of life, paid the established, not too burdensome, taxes. As far back as 1120 (!) the famous chronicler Fulcherius of Chartres spoke figuratively and emotionally about the existing cultural phenomenon: “People from the West, we have turned into residents of the East. Yesterday's Italian or Frenchman has become a Galilean or a Palestinian. The inhabitant of Reims or Chartres has now become a Syrian or an Antiochene. We have forgotten our native country. Here, one owns the house and servants with such confidence, as if it were his inheritance right from time immemorial. Another marries a Syrian, an Armenian, or even a baptized Saracen. The third one lives with a local family. We all speak several languages ​​of this land.”

Settled in the Latin East inner world soon led to a revival of economic life. Crusader states in the XII-XIII centuries were in a flourishing state, even despite the constant war and the incessant raids of the regular Seljuk cavalry or Bedouin robbers. Great success was achieved by the agriculture of the Levant, which embarked on the path of commodity production much earlier and more firmly than Europe.

Agricultural advances, of course, were aided by the fact that both the coast of the Levant and many of the lands inland around the Sea of ​​Galilee and along the banks of the Jordan were extremely fertile, and they could grow several crops a year.

The wonderful climate, a well-established irrigation system of canals and aqueducts preserved from Roman times gave the peasants the opportunity to grow a wide variety of crops. In addition to traditional wheat, other grains were also cultivated, including millet. Viticulture, horticulture and olive cultivation played a very important role in the economy. Significant was the export of these products to Europe, where Levantine olive oil and many varieties of olive oil were very popular. On the tables of European nobles, ek-yutic Mediterranean fruits also came. It is interesting that the now known apricot for the West was an absolutely unknown fruit and gained popularity only after the conquest of the Holy Land. Moreover, the apricot began to enjoy the glory of "charitable" food and began to be actively cultivated in monasteries, from where it later spread throughout Europe.

The agriculture of the Eastern Mediterranean provided the Western world with two other extremely important products - sugar and cotton. In the Levant, these technical crops were grown almost exclusively for export and, with the growth of commodity-money relations, gradually occupied an increasing place in the region's economy. Finally, a separate and important export item was precious woods, incense, and especially spices, the trade in which brought fabulous incomes and became one of the main factors in the economic prosperity of the Levant in the 12th-13th centuries.

In general, trade in the new Christian states occupied an exceptionally important place. Already from the middle of the XII century, and especially in the first half of the XIII century, commerce, focused on large import-export operations, became the driving force of the entire Levantine economy. The cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, and especially the ports, turned into prosperous trading centers that attracted merchants from all over the world. In the middle of the 13th century, more than sixty thousand people lived in Acre, which became the most important transshipment base for world transit trade, it was one of largest cities world, surpassing in population such large capital cities as Paris, Rome and London. Acre, Tyre, Beirut, Tripoli and Laodicea became destinations for trade routes to the east and from the east, turned into a meeting point for East and West.

The growth of Levantine trade could not fail to attract the special attention of such large trading cities as Venice, Genoa and Pisa. Initially, their interest was focused on the transportation of pilgrims, whose number increased significantly after the conquest of Jerusalem, crusading military contingents and military equipment. This brought huge incomes to the Italian city-republics and became one of the main sources of primitive capital accumulation. Little by little, priorities began to shift, and by the end of the 13th century, cunning Italian merchants had taken control of the Leantian transit trade. Quarters and entire districts belonging to Genoese or Venetian merchants appeared in coastal cities. In Tyre, the Venetians, in general, owned a third of the city, under ■-JTOM they enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality and enjoyed huge tax benefits. The Genoese quarter and Acre occupied the central square with the church ell. Lawrence and the palace, where the judicial chamber met. The quarter had its own fortified gates, its own bakeries, shops and hotels for visiting merchants.

Trade gave the Italians colossal dividends. It was not too uncommon to receive five hundred or even a thousand percent of the profit from a trade transaction. But even taking into account all kinds of tax benefits (especially since, for example, Byzantine or Armenian merchants did not have such benefits), a considerable share of these incomes remained in the Holy Land, settling in the pockets of princes and feudal lords; something fell to the common population. It was the unprecedented scope of trade operations that led to a situation that was unique for the Middle Ages, when not land holdings, but various financial payments - shares of tax or port dues, interest on trade transactions, etc. Muslim invasion could be expected - this was a kind of insurance for the lords and knights, allowing them to invest in strengthening their castles. And although the feudal nobility did not take a direct part in trade operations - this contradicted the unwritten knightly code of honor - its very wealth and even, to some extent, political power was based precisely on the success of trade.

The economic advantages of the princely-knightly elite were well supported by legal trump cards. In the second half of the 12th century, under King Amalrich, a set of laws was finally formulated and written down - the famous Jerusalem assizes. Unfortunately, this remarkable monument of medieval law has not reached us: manuscripts with a complete record of the laws were lost during the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin. But until the fall of Acre, the oral tradition of the interpretation of these laws prevailed; there were also written comments, of which the so-called. "The book of Jean d" Ibelin ". Its author was himself a representative of the princely elite, the Count of Jaffa, and in his work both political moments and legal procedures related to the concepts of vassalage and possession of a feud, the rules of conduct for knights and the limits of jurisdiction are analyzed in particular detail in relation to feudal lords.

Even based on the sources that have come down to us, we can safely say that the Jerusalem assizes were indeed a fundamental body of feudal law. Moreover, the assizes defended, so to speak, "feudalism squared", feudalism in its most striking and pure forms. The relations of vassalage were very clearly spelled out in them, the powers of the central government in relation to the sovereign barons were severely limited. In fact, large landowners in their estates were almost sovereign sovereigns, holding both the life and property of their subjects in their hands. Any feudal lord could be condemned only by a court of peers, i.e. seniors equal to him in rank: The legislative and political possibilities of kings were sharply limited and were actually reduced to the formal adoption of an oath of allegiance - homage. However, in the XII century - a century of permanent puff wars, the kings still had considerable authority as the bearers of supreme power. With the onset of a relatively peaceful era, the real power of the kings began to rapidly decrease; they have indeed become nothing more than "first among equals." In the end, the very title of the King of Jerusalem itself turned into just a card being played, giving the winner in the game for him almost nothing but moral satisfaction. And if in Europe the 13th century became the century of the formation of centralized states and the restriction of the arbitrariness of princes and lords, then in Palestine these years were the time of conservation of the most odious feudal orders.

However, this political fragmentation had little effect on the economic life of the states of the Levant, for which the first half of the 13th century was the time of the highest economic prosperity. So, in 1240 Acre alone gave in the form of taxes and fees (excluding the actual profit of trading operations) about fifty thousand pounds of silver per year, which exceeded the financial income of the king of England. In Tripoli in the thirteenth century there were four thousand silk-weaving looms, and Antioch was not inferior to him. In the markets in Tire and Acre, one could buy goods from all over the world - European cloth and manufactory, Arabian and Indian spices, noble horses from Central Asia. Until the Mongols cut the Great Silk Road in the middle of the 13th century, caravans even from distant China came to the Levant.

The huge incomes that the Levantine trade brought, especially the spice trade, made it possible to invest heavily in construction, in raising the standard of living. Acquaintance of the crusaders with highly developed Islamic culture introduced many of its achievements into everyday life of Christians. One of these conquests was the serious success of hygienic procedures, which was almost unknown to Europe at that time. In the cities there were dozens of baths, some of them could accommodate up to a thousand people. Among women, the use of cosmetics has become fashionable; there was even something like salons, beauty salons, where women could communicate and pay attention to their appearance. In numerous hospitals of the Joannite and Teutonic orders, not only pilgrims, but also the urban poor could receive a very diverse food, as well as medical assistance. Pools and fountains were common in the houses of nobles and large merchants.

And yet, despite some interpenetration of Christian and Muslim cultures, its degree should not be exaggerated. The "Christ warriors" by no means merged with the subjugated population; each national and religious group lived in isolation, in essence closed in on itself. A nobleman could know several languages ​​​​of the country, in order to facilitate communication, but, for example, for all two centuries of Christian domination, not a single Arabic book was translated into Latin commonly used among Catholics. However, in the same way, Muslims accepted the introduced Western culture. The Latin East was an absolutely remarkable conglomeration of cultures, each of which retained its own identity.


It seems logical to organize the study of the daily life of our ancestors in accordance with the main milestones of the human life cycle. Cycle human life eternal in the sense in which it is ordained by nature. A person is born, grows up, marries or gets married, gives birth to children and dies. And it is quite natural that he would like to properly mark the milestones of this cycle. In our day of urbanized and mechanized civilization, rituals related to each link in the life cycle are reduced to a minimum. This was not the case in antiquity, especially in the era of the tribal organization of society, when the main milestones in the life of an individual were considered part of the life of the clan. According to G. V. Vernadsky, the ancient Slavs, like other tribes, marked the milestones of the life cycle with complex rituals reflected in folklore. Immediately after the adoption of Christianity, the Church appropriated the organization of some ancient rites and introduced its own new rituals, such as the rite of baptism and the celebration of name days in honor of the patron saint of every man or woman.

Based on this, several areas of the daily life of a resident of Medieval Russia and the events accompanying them, such as love, weddings, funerals, meals, festivities and amusements, were singled out for analysis. It also seemed interesting to us to explore the attitude of our ancestors to alcohol and women.

Wedding

Wedding customs in the era of paganism were noted among different tribes. The groom had to kidnap the bride from the radmichi, vyatichi and northerners. Other tribes considered it normal to pay a ransom for her family. This custom probably developed from a kidnapping ransom. In the end, the frank payment was replaced by a gift to the bride from the groom or her parents (veno). There was a custom among the glades that required the parents or their representatives to bring the bride to the groom's house, and her dowry was to be delivered the next morning. Traces of all these ancient rites can be clearly seen in Russian folklore, especially in wedding rites of even later times.

After the conversion of Russia to Christianity, the engagement and marriage were sanctioned by the Church. However, at first only the prince and the boyars cared about the church blessing. The bulk of the population, especially in rural areas, were content with the recognition of marriage by the respective clans and communities. Cases of marriage avoidance in the church by ordinary people were frequent until the 15th century.

According to Byzantine legislation (Ekloga and Prokeiron), in accordance with the customs of the peoples of the south, the lowest age requirements for future married couples were established. The 8th century eclogue allows men to marry at the age of fifteen, and women at thirteen. In the Prokeiron of the ninth century, these requirements are even lower: fourteen years for the groom and twelve for the bride. It is known that Eclogue and Prokeiron existed in Slavic translation and the legitimacy of both manuals was recognized by Russian "jurists". In medieval Russia, even the Sami people did not always respect the low age requirements of the Prokeyron, especially in princely families, where marriages were most often concluded for diplomatic reasons. At least one case is known when the prince's son married at the age of eleven, and Vsevolod III gave his daughter Verkhuslav as a wife to Prince Rostislav when she was only eight years old. As the bride's parents saw her off, "they both wept because their beloved daughter was so young."

In medieval moralizing sources, there are two points of view on marriage. Don of them - the attitude towards marriage as a sacrament, a sacred act, is expressed in the Izbornik of 1076. "Woe to the fornicator, for he defiles the groom's clothes: let him be expelled from the kingdom of marriage with disgrace," instructs Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem.

Jesus, the son of Sirach, writes: "Give your daughter in marriage - and you will do a great deed, but only give her to a wise husband."

We see that, in the opinion of these church fathers, marriage, marriage, is called a "kingdom," a "great deed," but with reservations. The groom's clothes are sacred, but only a worthy person can enter the "kingdom of marriage". Marriage can become a "great thing" only if a "wise man" marries.

The sage Menander, on the contrary, sees only evil in marriage: “Marriage is a great bitterness for everyone”, “If you decide to marry, ask your neighbor who is already married”, “Do not marry, and nothing bad will ever happen to you.”

In Domostroy, it is indicated that prudent parents ahead of time, from the birth of their daughter, began to prepare to marry her off with a good dowry: "If a daughter is born to someone, a prudent father<…>from any profit he saves for his daughter<…>: either they raise a little animal for her with offspring, or from her share, that God will send there, buy canvases and canvases, and pieces of fabric, and robes, and a shirt - and all these years they put her in a special chest or in a box and a dress, and headwear , and monist, and church utensils, and tin and copper and wooden dishes, always adding a little, every year ... ".

According to Sylvester, who is credited with the authorship of "Domostroy", such an approach did not allow "at a loss" to gradually collect a good dowry, "and everything, God willing, will be full." In the event of the girl's death, it was customary to commemorate "her dowry, magpies like her, and alms are distributed."

In "Domostroy" the wedding ceremony itself is described in detail, or, as they called it then, the "wedding rite".

The wedding procedure was preceded by a conspiracy: the groom with his father or older brother came to his father-in-law in the yard, the guests were brought "the best wines in goblets", then "after blessing with a cross, they will begin to speak and write contractual records and an in-line letter, agreeing how much for the contract and what dowry", after which, "having secured everything with a signature, everyone takes a cup of honey, congratulates each other and exchanges letters". Thus, the collusion was a normal transaction.

At the same time, gifts were brought: the son-in-law's father-in-law gave "the first blessing ~ an image, a goblet or a ladle, velvet, damask, forty sables." After that they went to the half of the mother of the bride, where "the mother-in-law asks the groom's father about his health and kisses through a scarf both with him and with the groom, and with everyone the same way."

The princely rank is more complicated, the rite was simpler for commoners. For example, in "Domostroy" it is noted that with the princely rank "the bride should not be here; ordinary people have a custom - and the bride is here." Then they set the table, "everyone feasts with pleasure, but there is no big table."

The next day, the groom's mother comes to see the bride, "here they give her damask and sables, and she will give the bride a ring."

The day of the wedding was appointed, the guests were "painted", the groom chose their roles: planted father and mother, invited boyars and boyars, thousand and travellers, friends, matchmakers.

On the day of the wedding itself, a friend with a retinue came in gold, followed by a bed "in a sleigh with a limber, and in the summer - with a headboard to the irradiation, covered with a blanket. And in the sleigh there are two gray horses, and near the sleigh boyar servants in an elegant dress, on the irradiation the elder in bed will become in gold, holding a holy image. A matchmaker rode behind the bed, her outfit was prescribed by custom: "a yellow summer coat, a red fur coat, and also in a scarf and a beaver mantle. And if it were in winter, then in a fur hat."

It is already clear from this episode alone that the wedding ceremony was strictly regulated by tradition, all other episodes of this ceremony (preparing the bed, the arrival of the groom, wedding, "resting" and "knowledge", etc.) were also strictly played out in accordance with the canon.

Thus, the wedding was an important event in the life of a medieval person, and the attitude towards this event, judging by the moralistic sources, was ambiguous. On the one hand, the sacrament of marriage was exalted, on the other hand, the imperfection of human relations was reflected in an ironically negative attitude towards marriage (for example, the statements of the "wise Menander"). In fact, we are talking about two types of marriages: happy and unhappy marriages. It is generally accepted that a happy marriage is a marriage of love. In this regard, it seems interesting to consider how the question of love is reflected in moralizing sources.

Love (in the modern sense) as love between a man and a woman; "The basis of marriage, judging by the moralistic sources, did not exist in the minds of medieval authors. Indeed, marriages were made not out of love, but at the will of the parents. Therefore, in case of successful circumstances, for example, if a "good" wife is caught, the sages advise to appreciate and save this gift, otherwise - humble yourself and be on your guard: "Do not leave a wise and kind wife: her virtue is more precious than gold"; "if you have a wife to your liking, do not drive her away, but if she hates you, do not trust her." However, the word "love" is practically not used in these contexts (according to the results of the analysis of the texts of the sources, only two such cases were found.) During the "wedding rite", the father-in-law punishes the son-in-law: "By the fate of God, my daughter took the crown with you (name) and you should favor and love her in lawful marriage, as the fathers and fathers of our fathers lived. "The use of the subjunctive mood ("you should favor her and love") is noteworthy. One of Menander's aphorisms says: "Great connection love is the birth of a child.

In other cases, love between a man and a woman is interpreted as evil, a destructive temptation. Jesus, the son of Sirach, warns: "Do not look at the virgin, otherwise you will be tempted by her charms." "To avoid carnal and voluptuous deeds..." Saint Basil advises. "It is better to shun voluptuous thoughts," Hesychius echoes him.

In the Tale of Akira the Wise, an instruction is given to his son: "... do not be seduced by the beauty of a woman and do not desire her with your heart: if you give all the wealth to her, and then you will not benefit from her, you will only sin more before God."

The word "love" on the pages of the moralistic sources of medieval Russia is mainly used in the context of love for God, gospel quotes, love for parents, love of others: "... the merciful Lord loves the righteous"; "I remembered the words of the Gospel:" Love your enemies ..., "Love strongly those who gave birth to you"; "Democritus. Wish to be loved during your lifetime, and not terrible: for whom everyone is afraid of, he himself is afraid of everyone."

At the same time, the positive, ennobling role of love is recognized: “Whoever loves a lot, gets angry a little,” Menander said.

So, love in moralistic sources is interpreted in a positive sense in the context of love for one's neighbor and for the Lord. Love for a woman, according to the analyzed sources, is perceived by the consciousness of a medieval person as a sin, danger, temptation of unrighteousness.

Most likely, this interpretation of this concept is due to genre originality sources (instructions, moralizing prose).

The funeral

No less significant rite than a wedding in the life of medieval society was a funeral rite. The details of the descriptions of these rites make it possible to reveal the attitude of our ancestors towards death.

Funeral rites in pagan times included memorial feasts held at the burial site. A high mound (mound) was raised over the grave of a prince or some outstanding warrior, and professional mourners were hired to mourn his death. They continued to perform their duties at Christian funerals, although the form of crying changed according to Christian concepts. Christian funeral rites, like other church services, were, of course, borrowed from Byzantium. John of Damascus is the author of an Orthodox requiem ("funeral" service), and the Slavic translation is worthy of the original. Christian cemeteries were created near churches. The bodies of prominent princes were placed in sarcophagi and placed in the cathedrals of the princely capital.

Our ancestors perceived death as one of the inevitable links in the chain of births: "Do not try to have fun in this world: for all the joys of this world end in crying. Yes, that crying is also vain: today they cry, and tomorrow they feast."

You must always remember about death: "Death and exile, and troubles, and all visible misfortunes, let them stand before your eyes at all days and hours."

Death completes a person's earthly life, but for Christians, earthly life is only a preparation for the afterlife. Therefore, special respect is given to death: "Child, if there is grief in someone's house, then, leaving them in trouble, do not go to a feast with others, but first visit those who are grieving, and then go feast and remember that you too doomed to death." The "Measure of the Righteous" regulates the norms of behavior at a funeral: "Do not cry loudly, but grieve with dignity, do not grieve, but do mournful deeds."

However, at the same time, in the minds of medieval authors of moralizing literature, there is always the idea that the death or loss of a loved one is not the worst thing that can happen. Much worse is spiritual death: "Weep not over the dead, over the unreasonable: for this one has a common path for all, but this one has its own will"; "Cry over the dead - he lost the light, but mourn the fool - he left his mind."

The existence of the soul in that future life must be secured by prayers. To secure the continuation of his prayers, a rich man usually bequeathed part of his property to the monastery. If for some reason he was not able to do this, then his relatives should have taken care of it. Then the Christian name of the deceased will be included in the synodic - a list of commemorated names in prayers at every divine service, or at least on certain days established by the church for commemoration of the departed. The princely family used to keep their own synodik in the monastery, whose donors were traditionally princes of this kind.

So, death in the minds of medieval authors of moralistic literature is the inevitable end of human life, one must be prepared for it, but always remember it, but for Christians, death is the boundary of the transition to another, afterlife. Therefore, the sorrow of the funeral rite must be "worthy", and spiritual death is much worse than physical death.

Food

Analyzing the statements of medieval sages about food, one can, firstly, draw a conclusion about the attitude of our ancestors to this issue, and secondly, find out what specific products they used and what dishes they prepared from them.

First of all, it can be concluded that in popular consciousness moderation, healthy minimalism is preached: "From many dishes, illness arises, and satiety will bring to grief; many have died from gluttony - remembering this will prolong your life."

On the other hand, the attitude towards food is reverent, food is a gift, a blessing sent from above and not to everyone: "When you sit at a plentiful table, remember the one who eats dry bread and cannot bring water in illness." "And to eat and drink with gratitude - it will be sweet."

The fact that the food was cooked at home and was varied is evidenced by the following entries in Domostroy: “And the food is meat and fish, and all sorts of pies and pancakes, various cereals and jelly, any dishes to bake and cook - all if the hostess herself knew how so that she can teach servants what she knows. The owners themselves carefully monitored the process of cooking and spending products. Every morning it is recommended that “husband and wife consult about household chores”, plan “when and what to cook for guests and for themselves from food and drink”, count the necessary products, after which “send to the cook what should be cooked, and to the baker, and for other blanks, send the goods as well.

Domostroy also describes in great detail what foods to eat on which days of the year, depending on the church calendar, and provides many recipes for preparing dishes and drinks.

Reading this document, one can only admire the diligence and frugality of the Russian hosts and marvel at the richness, abundance and diversity of the Russian table.

Bread and meat were two staples in the diet of the Russian princes of Kievan Rus. In the south of Russia, bread was baked from wheat flour, in the north rye bread was more common.

The most common meats were beef, pork, and lamb, as well as geese, chickens, ducks, and pigeons. The meat of wild animals and birds was also consumed. Most often in "Domostroy" hare and swans are mentioned, as well as cranes, herons, ducks, black grouse, hazel grouse, etc.

The church encouraged the eating of fish. Wednesdays and Fridays were declared fast days and, in addition, three fasts were established, including Great Lent. Of course, fish was already in the diet of Russian people before the Baptism of Vladimir, and so was caviar. In "Domostroy" they mention white fish, sterlet, sturgeon, beluga, pike, loaches, herring, bream, minnows, crucians and other types of fish.

Lenten food included all dishes from cereals with hemp oil, "he bakes flour, and all kinds of pies and pancakes and succulents, and makes rolls and various cereals, and pea noodles, and strained peas, and stews, and kundumtsy, and boiled and sweet porridges and dishes - pies with pancakes and mushrooms, and saffron milk mushrooms, and mushrooms, and poppy seeds, and porridge, and turnips, and cabbage, or nuts in sugar or rich pies with what God sent.

From legumes Rusichi grew and actively ate beans and peas. They also actively ate vegetables (this word meant all fruits and fruits). Domostroy lists radishes, watermelons, several varieties of apples, berries (blueberries, raspberries, currants, strawberries, lingonberries).

Meat was boiled or roasted on a spit, vegetables were eaten boiled or raw. Corned beef and stew are also mentioned in the sources. Stocks were stored "in the cellar, on the glacier and in the barn." The main type of preservation was pickles, they salted "both in barrels, and in tubs, and in merniks, and in vats, and in buckets"

They made jam from berries, made fruit drinks, and also prepared levashi (butter pies) and marshmallows.

The author of "Domostroy" devotes several chapters to describing how to properly "satiate all sorts of honey", prepare and store alcoholic beverages. Traditionally, in the era of Kievan Rus, they did not drive alcohol. Three types of drinks were consumed. Kvass, a non-alcoholic or slightly intoxicating drink, was made from rye bread. It was something like beer. Vernadsky points out that it was probably the traditional drink of the Slavs, since it is mentioned in the records of the journey of the Byzantine envoy to the leader of the Huns Attila at the beginning of the fifth century, along with honey. Honey was extremely popular in Kievan Rus. It was brewed and drunk by both laymen and monks. According to the chronicle, Prince Vladimir the Red Sun ordered three hundred cauldrons of honey on the occasion of the opening of the church in Vasilevo. In 1146 Prince Izyaslav II discovered five hundred barrels of honey and eighty barrels of wine in the cellars of his rival Svyatoslav 73 . Several varieties of honey were known: sweet, dry, with pepper, and so on.

Thus, the analysis of moralistic sources allows us to identify such trends in nutrition. On the one hand, moderation is recommended, a reminder that a good year may be followed by a hungry one. On the other hand, studying, for example, "Domostroy", one can draw conclusions about the diversity and richness of Russian cuisine, due to the natural wealth of Russian lands. Compared to today, Russian cuisine has not changed much. The main set of products remained the same, but their variety was significantly reduced.

Holidays and entertainment

Daily life was often interrupted by holidays and other social events. The ancient holidays of pagan times were gradually supplanted by church holidays,” writes V. G. Vernadsky, “in the way these holidays were celebrated, pagan customs were still noticeable for a long time, despite all the objections of the clergy. Each major church holiday, such as Christmas, Easter, Trinity and the Transfiguration of the Lord, was celebrated not only with special church services, but also with social gatherings, songs, dances and special treats. On such occasions, the prince usually opened the doors of his palace to the city people and arranged magnificent feasts, at which musicians and buffoons entertained the guests. In addition to princely feasts, there were more intimate gatherings of various communities and brotherhoods, whose members usually belonged to the same social or professional group. Such brotherhoods played an important role in the social life of large cities, especially Novgorod and Pskov"" 74 .

On holidays in Russia it was customary to arrange feasts. It was considered good form to have strong drinks and food for the holidays to prepare ahead of time: "... whoever lives with a supply, always has everything in store with a sharp-witted hostess, you are never ashamed in front of a guest, but you have to arrange a feast - you need to buy and you need a little, you see: gave God - everything and houses in abundance" 7 .

Prayerful sources contain a number of maxims on the topic of behavior at feasts. First of all, the authors call for moderation and modesty: "If you are not hungry, do not eat up, otherwise you will be known as a glutton"; "Be able to keep the womb from gluttony"; "In satiety, debauchery arises; in hunger, never."

Part of the moralizing statements is devoted to how to behave at a feast: "At a feast, do not scold your neighbor and do not interfere with him in his joy"; "... at the feast do not be foolish, be like one who knows, but is silent"; "When they call you to a feast, do not sit in a place of honor, suddenly from among those invited there will be someone more respectable than you, and the host will come up to you and say:" Give him a place! - And then you will have to go to the last place with shame " .

After the introduction of Christianity in Russia, the concept of "holiday" first of all acquires the meaning of "church holiday". The "Tale of Akira the Wise" says: "On a holiday, do not pass by the church."

From the same point of view, the church regulates aspects of the sexual life of parishioners. So, according to "Domostroy", a husband and wife were forbidden to cohabit on Saturdays and Sundays, and those who did this were not allowed to go to church.

So, we see that a lot of attention was paid to the holidays in moralizing literature. They were prepared for them in advance, but modest, respectful behavior, moderation in food were encouraged at the feast. The same principle of moderation prevails in moralistic statements "about hops."

In a number of similar works condemning drunkenness, the "Word about the hops of Cyril, the Slovenian philosopher" is widely distributed in ancient Russian manuscript collections. It warns readers against addiction to intoxicating drink, draws the misfortunes that threaten the drunkard - impoverishment, deprivation of a place in the social hierarchy, loss of health, excommunication from the church. The "Word" combines Khmel's own grotesque appeal to the reader with a traditional sermon against drunkenness.

This is how the drunkard is described in this work: “Need-poverty sits at his house, and illnesses lie on his shoulders, sadness and sorrow ring with hunger on his thighs, poverty has made a nest in his wallet, evil laziness has become attached to him, like a dear wife , and sleep is like a father, and groaning is like beloved children"; "From drunkenness, his legs hurt, and his hands tremble, the sight of his eyes fades"; "Drunkenness destroys the beauty of the face"; drunkenness "plunges good and equal people, and masters into slavery", "quarrels brother with brother, and excommunicates a husband from his wife."

Other moralistic sources also condemn drunkenness, calling for moderation. In "The Wisdom of the Wise Menander" it is noted that "wine, drunk in abundance, instructs little"; "The abundance of drunk wine entails talkativeness."

The “Bee” monument contains the following historical anecdote attributed to Diogenes: “This was given a lot of wine at the feast, and he took it and spilled it. perished, I would perish from the wine."

Hesychius, presbyter of Jerusalem, advises: "Drink honey little by little, and the less, the better: you will not stumble"; "It is necessary to refrain from drunkenness, because groans and remorse follow sobering up."

Jesus, the son of Sirach, warns: "A drunkard worker will not get rich"; "Wine and women will corrupt even the sensible...". Saint Basil echoes him: "Wine and women seduce even the wise..."; "Avoid both drunkenness and the sorrows of this life, do not speak slyly, never talk about anyone behind your back."

"When you are invited to a feast, do not get drunk to the point of terrible intoxication ...", Pop Sylvester, the author of Domostroy, instructs his son.

Especially terrible, according to the authors of moralistic prose, is the effect of hops on a woman: So says Hops: “If my wife, whatever she is, begins to get drunk, I will make her crazy, and she will be bitterer than all people.

And I will raise bodily lusts in her, and she will be a laughing stock between: people, and she is excommunicated from God and from the church of God, so it would be better for her not to be born ";" Yes, always beware of a drunken wife: a drunken husband: - it’s bad, and the wife is drunk and not nice in the world."

So, the analysis of the texts of moralistic prose shows that traditionally in Russia drunkenness was condemned, a drunk person was strictly condemned by the authors of the texts, and, consequently, by society as a whole.

The role and place of women in medieval society

Many statements of moralizing texts are devoted to a woman. Initially, a woman, according to the Christian tradition, is perceived as a source of danger, sinful temptation, death: "Wine and women will corrupt the sensible, but he who sticks to harlots will become even more impudent."

A woman is an enemy of the human race, therefore the sages warn: "Do not reveal your soul to a woman, for she will destroy your firmness"; "But most of all, a man should refrain from talking with women ..."; "Because of women, many get into trouble"; "Beware of the kiss of a beautiful woman, like the venom of a snake."

Entire separate treatises about "good" and "evil" wives appear. In one of them, dating back to the 15th century, an evil wife is likened to the "eye of the devil", this is "a hellish marketplace, a queen of filth, a governor of lies, a satanic arrow that strikes the hearts of many."

Among the texts with which the ancient Russian scribes supplemented their writings "about evil wives", attention is drawn to the peculiar "worldly parables" - small plot narratives (about a husband crying for an evil wife; about selling children from an evil wife; about an old woman looking in a mirror ; about the one who married a rich widow; about the husband who pretended to be sick; about the one who flogged his first wife and asking for another for himself; about the husband who was called to the spectacle of monkey games, etc.). All of them condemn the woman as a source of voluptuousness, unhappiness for a man.

Women are full of "feminine cunning", frivolous: "Women's thoughts are unstable, like a temple without a roof", deceitful: "You rarely learn the truth from a woman"; initially prone to vice and deceit: "Girls do bad things without blushing, while others are ashamed, but secretly they do worse."

The original depravity of a woman is in her beauty, and an ugly wife is also perceived as torment. So, one of the anecdotes of the "Bee", attributed to Solon, reads: "This one, asked by someone whether he advises marriage, said" No! If you take an ugly woman, you will be tormented; if you take a beauty, others will also want to admire her.

"It is better to live in the wilderness with a lion and a snake than with a lying and talkative wife," says Solomon.

Seeing the arguing women, Diogenes says: "Look! The snake asks the viper for poison!"

"Domostroy" regulates the behavior of a woman: she must be a good housewife, take care of the house, be able to cook and take care of her husband, receive guests, please everyone and at the same time not cause complaints. Even the wife goes to church "in consultation with her husband." Here is how the norms of a woman's behavior in a public place - at a church service are described: "In church, she should not talk to anyone, stand silently, listen to singing with attention and read Holy Scripture, without looking anywhere, do not lean against a wall or a pillar , and do not stand with a staff, do not step from foot to foot; stand with your hands crossed on your chest, unshakably and firmly, lowering your bodily eyes down, and your heart - to God; pray to God with fear and trembling, with sighs and tears. leave the church until the end of the service, but come to its very beginning.

The image of a woman in the moralizing literature of medieval Russia is mainly associated with an "evil" wife. Only a few isolated statements show that wives can be good. Let us turn to "Domostroy": "If God gives someone a good wife, it is more expensive than a stone of great value. It is a sin to lose such a wife and with greater profit: he will establish a prosperous life for his husband."

The beauty of the "evil" wife is contrasted with the modesty and mind of the "good" one. So, the Wise Menander is credited with saying: "Not the beauty of every woman is gold, but the mind and silence."

One cannot but agree with V. G. Vernadsky, who noted that the medieval Church, although imbued with biblical concepts, humiliated a woman on the very threshold of the life cycle: “For physiological reasons, the mother was considered unclean for forty days after the birth of a child and she was not allowed to enter the church during this period. She was not allowed to be present at the baptism of her child."

The same humiliation sounds in the moralizing sayings of the ancient wise men and church fathers. Modesty, obedience and humility are required from a woman, she must clearly understand her place in the male world and not go beyond the accepted behavioral stereotype.

Thus, the analysis of the texts of medieval moralistic literature gives us the opportunity to recreate the features of the worldview of a medieval person.

The main events of the daily life of a medieval person are weddings, festivities, household arrangements, funeral rites, as well as prevailing value and moral norms, love, attitude towards a woman, towards drunkenness. Of course, it should be taken into account that moralizing sources were oriented towards the ruling stratum of society, therefore, for example, such an important aspect of peasant life as work was practically not considered in them. For a more complete reconstruction of the picture of Russian life of that time, it seems necessary to analyze other historical sources.