![]() ![]() Less than 100 years later, the Black Death wiped out more than a third of Europe’s population.įaced with this slew of external dangers, some cultural historians have suggested, the medieval Christian’s relationship with religion grew more inte- riorized - as if the purification of the soul could ward off defeat and disease. Beginning in the late 11th century, Christian Crusaders commenced a long, miserable war against Sunni Islam, supposedly to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem by the end of the 13th century, the last Crusader cities in the Middle East had surrendered. But this was also a time of turmoil during which Christendom was dealt one humiliating blow after another. Historians know this is nonsense: The medieval era saw the birth of the university system and an abundance of scholarship integrating the Christian and the Greco-Roman intellectual traditions. “Dark” suggests wretched ignorance waiting to be cured by knowledge - as it was, in the arc of pop history, by the Renaissance. You can sense, nevertheless, the condescension Thompson described in a term like “Dark Ages,” still used interchangeably with “medieval” to describe the period bookended by the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Age of Exploration. The range of feelings with which we respond to monsters (awe, hatred, terror and fascination) has changed very little since medieval times, even if we’re more likely to direct those feelings at Conor McGregor than at a fire-breathing dragon. But to show what, and to warn whom? Medieval monsters weren’t necessarily embodiments of evil their presence could be an omen, ill or otherwise, and their wondrous forms could inspire as well as scare. ![]() Consider the word itself: The English “monster” (like the Italian mostro and the French monstre) derives from the Latin monstrare (to show) and monere (to warn). The exhibit’s great achievement is to avoid this trap by showing how subtle and multifaceted the medieval understanding of monsters could be. Christopher Carries Christ Child,” from Book of Hours, Belgium, Bruges, ca. ![]() Because the beliefs have already been proved wrong, it’s tempting to conclude that the impulse that inspired them was similarly “wrong” or low - thus, medieval people believed in dragons out of stupidity and fear, nothing more. Thompson: his claim that he wanted to use scholarship to rescue the people of the past (especially anonymous, working-class people) from “the enormous condescension of posterity.” It can be very difficult to study old, debunked beliefs without a hint of a sneer. That image, and dozens of others depicting strange un- or semi-real creatures, is currently hanging in Manhattan’s Morgan Library and Museum as part of an intelligent new exhibit, “Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders.” Walking through the exhibit, I kept thinking of a famous quote from the English historian E. A 14th-century Italian medical textbook shows the little man that sleeps beneath the mandrake plant, leaves growing out of his head like a great, green headdress. Or, if you’re trying to have a child, you can eat the mandrake, although just smelling the flowers might be sufficient. When you get your hands on a mandrake, at any rate, you can grind it up into a fine powder and inhale it, at which time you may start having visions. Or maybe it’s safe to harvest it on a Monday, but only after the vernal equinox. The only safe way to harvest the plant is to get a dog to pluck it for you. Pluck a mandrake from the soil and you’ll find a tiny man hanging down underneath the leaves, screaming loudly enough to kill anyone nearby. Its flowers are a pretty shade of purple, but its roots can be deadly. The mandrake is a small, perennial plant that grows in warm Mediterranean climates. ![]()
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