Scholastics

The Twelfth Century

Four aspects of the twelfth century hold particular interest for us:

1. the ongoing conflict between the Empire and the papacy;
2. the rise of the Lombard cities;
3. the Crusades; and
4. the development of scholasticism.

All four of these movements continued into the following century. The Crusades gradually came to a dismal conclusion; however, regarding the other three movements, the thirteenth century marked the culmination of the papacy’s triumph over the emperor, the firm independence gained by the Lombard cities, and the apex of scholasticism’s development. Nonetheless, all of this was the fruit of the groundwork laid in the twelfth century.

Not only the first of the four movements but also the other three are closely intertwined with the process of strengthening papal and ecclesiastical authority. The pope fostered an alliance with the Lombard cities against the emperor; Pope Urban II was the initiator of the First Crusade, and subsequent popes were the principal inspirers of later expeditions; all the scholastic philosophers belonged to the clergy, and church councils vigilantly ensured that they adhered to the boundaries of orthodoxy, punishing those who strayed from the true path. The sense of the church's political triumph, in which the scholastics participated, undoubtedly stimulated their intellectual initiative.

One of the intriguing features of the Middle Ages is that this era was original and creative while remaining largely unaware of it. All factions justified their policies with archaic arguments drawn from the dust of ages. The emperor in Germany appealed to feudal principles from the time of Charlemagne, while in Italy, he invoked Roman law and the authority of ancient emperors. The Lombard cities looked even further back into the past—toward the institutions of republican Rome. The papal party grounded its claims partly on the spurious Donation of Constantine and partly on the Old Testament narrative of the relationship between Saul and Samuel. The scholastics appealed either to Scripture or to Plato, and later to Aristotle; when they expressed original thoughts, they endeavored to conceal them. The Crusades were attempts to restore the status quo that existed prior to the rise of Islam.

This literary archaism should not deceive us. In the case of the emperor, it indeed corresponded with the facts. Feudalism was in decline, particularly in Italy; the Roman Empire was but a phantom memory. Hence, the emperor faced defeat. As for the cities of Northern Italy, their later development, which indeed bore resemblance to the cities of ancient Greece, did not arise from imitation but rather from analogous historical conditions: in both instances, small, wealthy, highly civilized trading republics were surrounded by monarchies that stood at a lower level of cultural development. The scholastics, however much they revered Aristotle, displayed greater originality than any of the Arab thinkers, and arguably more than any thinkers after Plotinus or, at the very least, after Augustine. The same masked originality characterized both politics and thought.