‘Scholasticism’, the philosophy of the university Schools, such as that of Thomas
Aquinas (c.1225–1274), was later regarded as too theoretical by students of natural
philosophy and northern European humanists. But it had reintroduced the system-
atic thinking of Aristotle, whose works came into Europe via Spain, retranslated
from Arabic translations of Greek Syrian Christian texts. The Scholastics dealt with
the problems of theology and philosophy, of ontology and epistemology, of mind
and language. They enquired into and debated truths by methods of proposition
and logical testing still used in philosophy today.
The more humane Christianity of the 12th century, in which the incarnation of
Christ made the physical universe speak of its divine origin, encouraged a further
development of all the arts beyond what had been seen in 10th-century Winchester.
What the Church did is largely still visible in the 10,000 medieval churches which
survive in England. She was the patroness of architecture, sculpture, wood-carving,
wall-painting, stained glass and enamel, fabrics, book-production, writing, illumi-
nation and music. These arts enhanced the services which enacted and proclaimed
the life of Christ and his teachings through the feasts of the Christian year. The fabric
of a church was a physical icon for all,laered or lewed, literate or illiterate. The 15th-
century French poet François Villon wrote for his mother a Ballade as a prayer to
Our Lady. What she says of herself was true of most medieval people:onques lettre
ne lus (‘not one letter have I read’).
Fe mme je suis povrette et ancienne,
Qui riens ne scay; onques lettre ne lus.
Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne
Paradis peint,ou sont harpes et lus,
Et ung enfer ou dampnez sont boullus.
A poor old woman am I, who knows nothing; I can’t read a word. At the church where I
am a parishioner, I see paradise painted, where there are harps and lutes, and a hell,
where the damned are boiled.
Literacy came through the Church, since the man who held the pen was a clerk
(Fr.clerc, Lat.clericus). For three hundred years after 1066, monks copied Latin
works; English texts were less worth preserving. The clerical monopoly weakened,
but when Middle English is found in manuscripts before 1350, it is usually devo-
tional. Yet in a Christian world, all writing had, or could gain, a Christian function.
The Latin chroniclers, for example, wrote a providential and moral history,
modelled on biblical history. Much of the best English writing was wholly religious,
such as that of the mystic Julian of Norwich, or William Langland’s Piers Plowman.
Medieval drama and much medieval lyric was created to spread the gospel to the
laity. Clerical thinkers, usually academics, gave philosophy priority over poetry – a
priority challenged later at the Renaissance.
Authority
Academic intellectual authority was vested in certain authors (Lat.auctores), as
Augustine in theology or Boethius in philosophy. Writers, whether religious or secu-
lar, Latin or vernacular, invoked earlier authors: authority came from auctores.
Authors’ names are still powerful and can still mean more than their books. Chaucer
names Franceys Petrak, the lauriat poeteand Daunte, the wyse poete of Ytaille as
sources, but claims that his Troilus is based not on his true source, the Filostrato of
THE NEW WRITING 45