Upload
doina-chiselita
View
30
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 1/6
Doina Chiselita 1
Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500
Rising on the ashes of the great Ancient civilization, the Middle Ages was a period of
cultural determination lead by people in search of their identity. The great fallen Roman Empire,
along with its accepted truths and order, was a consumed fact. Religions, states, social order and
nonetheless, cultures, came to suffer great changes that are often regarded as a necessary
transition from the Classical period to the Modern one. However, the role of the Middle Ages in
the formation of cultures and cultural identities of peoples and states should not be
underestimated. Even if the Early Middle Ages (approx. y. 500-800) were times of uncertainty,
disorder, invasions and cosmic insecurityi, the period to come, years 800-1500, also known as
the High and the Late Middle Ages, was a period of significant cultural development. Therefore,
if in the Early Middle Ages we can talk about a sort of cultural indetermination, when people
with different beliefs (barbarians, adepts of ancient religions, Christians, the newly emerged
Muslims) were thrown in the same pot with no further instructions, then the High and Late
Middle Ages bring out the cultural determination, the establishment of linguistic, religious and
cultural boundaries and this is when we can observe explicit examples of cultural exchange.
Still, I would like to clearly emphasize the fact that cultural interaction wasn’t a goal in itself
during this time; it was more of an adjacent process to the phenomenon of medieval travel,
which, at its turn, was a result of three major purposes: trade, diplomacy/conquest and
missionary. Merchants that engaged in long-travel trade had two main routs available, which
linked Europe, Asia and Africa: the silk-road, for luxurious goods and the sea-routes, for more
common goods, such as stone, steel and building materials. Major trading cities and ports grew
rapidly, becoming a meeting place for foreign merchants, traders, brokers, who ultimately
exchanged knowledge, religious ideas, philosophical beliefs, stories, legends and other cultural
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 2/6
Doina Chiselita 2
Those who believe (in the Qur'ân),
And those who follow the Jewish (scriptures),
And the Christians and the Sabians, -
Any who believe in God
And the Last Day,
And work righteousness,
Shall have their reward
With their Lord: on them
Shall be no fear nor shall they grieve.
~ The Holy Qur'an
elements. Missionaries wanted to spread their religious ideas on other territories, an ambition
that also became a form of cultural exchange. Diplomatic missions and conquest ambitions
appeared as a result of cultural and territorial delimitation, but also implied a cultural interaction
between the conquerors and the natives. Thus, in this paper, I would like to analyze the cultural
exchange between the Christian world and the Islamic world with an emphasis on the Levant
area and the Iberian Peninsula. I will consider as comparison subjects the following aspects of
cultural exchange: religion, scholarship, art and architecture and trade; as an outcome, I will
determine which of these aspects has been the best means of cultural exchange.
The territories on the Iberian Peninsula, also corresponding to modern Spain, have been
under the rule of the Moors from 711 until 1492, a fact that has had a great impact upon its
culture and civilization. The Moors took over the centralized kingdom of the Visigoths, who
were fully Romanized and Christianized by that time.ii
Spain, also known as Al-Andalus,
represented a portal through which the Islamic culture influenced arts, sciences and literature in
Europe. In Levant, cultural interaction was facilitated by the Crusades and the existence of the
Byzantine Empire, which represented a very powerful cultural entity at the time.
First of all, I would like to talk about the religious aspect of cultural exchange. Muslims
never tried to impose their religion on the local Christian population, because they were
generally outnumbered by it. Since the Christian
religion was monotheistic, Muslims were more
tolerant towards its adepts.
This is why, Christians were granted certain
autonomy, within the Islamic law, to practice their
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 3/6
Doina Chiselita 3
religion, in exchange for tribute. Still, over the years, the laws became harsher, including
regulations that prevented Christians from building new churches or repairing the old ones, as
well as wearing the same clothes as the Muslims. These laws tried to isolate Muslims from
Christians, in order to protect them from the danger of religious contamination. (Wolf).
However, cultural exchange became possible in an area outside religion, which
concerned the absolute truth and dealt with matters of logic and philosophy. As opposed to the
Christian religion, Islam was much more understanding and open minded towards ancient
writings. Therefore, in the development of the Islamic thought, scholars belonging to this
civilization studied ancient science, mathematics, medicine, translating the works of Aristotle,
Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and Euclid into Arab. Al-Andalus became a scholastic center,
which influenced European thought is a tremendous manner; for example, Gerard of Cremona
considered himself a student of the Arabic science; he studied the works of Ptolemy and
translated Avicenna from Arabic into Latin; his translations were very beneficial to the European
scholars at the time and “prepared the way for that conflict of ideas out of which sprang the
Scholasticism of the thirteenth century” (Turner). Therefore, this means of cultural interaction
was much more efficient that the one based on religion. However, scholastic interaction found its
limitation in Church’s hostile attitude towards a more open-minded style of thought, which is
why some European scholars were reluctant to Islamic knowledge.
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 4/6
Doina Chiselita 4
Figure 1: Church of St. Thomas,
Figure 2: Miniature painting, 1052
Figure 3: The Aqsa Mosque
Art and architecture was possibly the most effective
means of cross-cultural exchange. The earliest synthesis of
Christian and Islamic art in Spain is the Mozarabic style; the
Mozarabic architecture, as we can observe in the picture, is
characterized by a lack or minimal exterior decoration, as well
as the use of the horse shoe arch- a very typical Islamic
architectural element, as well as the use of column as support.
In painting, the most common
Islamic identifier is the use of
floral and knotting elements, as
illustrated in Figure 2. By the end of the 11th century, Islamic art has
grown even more influential, Spanish art and architecture
encompassing elements such as geometric patterns, tiles,
brickwork and ornamental metals (Mitchell). By 14th
century, architecture in Spain was a
harmonious fusion between the Islamic and Christian styles; distinct characteristics were the
horse-shoe arches, the wooden arches and the stylized column capitals complemented by the wall
decorated with geometrical patterns and calligraphy.
Islam, at its turn, took in some of the Christian art styles,
mainly through their interaction with the Crusaders; Muslims
incorporated in their Mosques elements taken from the Romanesque
style such as the heavy columns, with their thick and massive base, as
well as the sculpted elements on the facade, as illustrated in Figure 3;
Muslim painters were also influenced by Christian iconography. In
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 5/6
Doina Chiselita 5
Fi ure 4: Poet Rumi
Figure 4, Muslim poet Rumi is represented in the center of the painting,
with an aura-like glow around his head, incorporating in his own body
the structure of a mosque- a composition very similar to the Christian
representation of church founders (or saints) and image of the church as
an edificatory source of light.
Trade was also an important means of cultural exchange;
Muslim travelers along the Silk Road brought to Europe, for the first time, the art of paper
making, which significantly changed the concept of writing and printing, and helped speeding up
the process of knowledge spreading. The art of paper making was brought from China, which
underlines the true global nature of this kind of cultural exchange (Reaching Out: Cross-Cultural
interactions).
In conclusion, the most effective means of cultural-exchange between the Christian
World and the Islamic world was art and architecture. Artistic elements, such as arch shapes and
ornaments, traveled among these two distinct cultures, either to create a hybrid style (like in
Spain) either to be incorporated in an already existing style (Muslim architecture and painting).
Religion, as proven in this essay, has been an ineffective means of cultural exchange because
Muslims aimed to avoid any kind of religious intertwining; therefore, Muslims and Christians in
Spain were exposed to a certain religious segregation. Scholar interaction was a better way of
cultural interaction, limited however, by ideological barriers in Christian Europe. Last, but not
least, trade represented a more practical way of cultural exchange, which reached global
proportions indeed, but it did not manage to capture the profoundness and the intensity of artistic
cultural interaction.
5/11/2018 Global Cultural Exchange Between Years 800 and 1500 - slidepdf.com
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/global-cultural-exchange-between-years-800-and-1500 6/6
Doina Chiselita 6
iBy the year 800 many of the people in Western Europe did not adopt the Christian religion, encountering instead a
mixture of paganism and Christianityii Note the interaction between Christians and Muslims
Works cited and consulted:
Mitchell, Rosie. "Spain: Islamic and European Influences in Spanish Art.".
Turner, William. "Gerard of Cremona." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1909. 4 Dec. 2010 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06468a.htm>.
"Reaching Out: Cross-Cultural interactions." 3 December 2010 <http://highered.mcgraw-
hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073406937/540529/Chapter22.pdf>.
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (THE LIBRARY OF IBERIAN
RESOURCES ONLINE). 1999. 3 December 2010 <http://libro.uca.edu/martyrs/martyrs.htm>.