Medieval Religious Institutions

When looking different things up for research paper ideas I came across many different medieval institutions (mainly religious) that are still around today. These institutions came about during the crusading era and in some cases played very large roles in certain conflicts. Two I found that had full fledged websites, membership info, etc. were the Dominicans and The Franciscans. Their respective websites are http://www.op.org/ and http://www.franciscans.org/. I find it very interesting that an institution can have trouble lasting a few years in modern society, but these have lasted for many hundreds of years. It raises the question with me as to why religious ideals can last, when ethical and moral based groups cannot. Those types of groups may change drastically over the years to maintain stability, but the Bible, Koran, etc. are the same book they always have been.

Gregorian Chant and Holy Week

As a lover of music and tradition--and as Holy Week is upon us--I wanted to do some research on the types of music that would have been sung for Holy Week masses during the Middle Ages. I searched for some of the Gregorian Chants specific to these days--here's what I found:

Click here for a website with recordings from St. Benedict's Monastery in São Paulo, Brazil. This has a number of recordings of all the masses during Holy Week; although sometimes the sound quality is not perfect, I think it's kind of interesting to hear birds chirping in the background.

Below are two links to the abby of Solesmes, in France. The first gives a decent description of Gregorian Chant (as a subject), the second describes the order of the mass (for those who may not be familiar with the service).
Gregorian Chant
Order of the Service

Gregorian Chant was recorded in one of the earliest forms of written music called neumes: click here for a description of them and how to read them.

Finally, this is a link to a youtube video I found. It is described as an "old Roman chant" for "Easter Sunday Service." The organ pedel that you hear in the background is called a "drone," which did often accompany Gregorian Chant when it was sung.

Happy Easter!

~C. Erba

Albigensianism

In doing some research on the Albigensian Crusade recently, I came across some really interesting information about the origins of the Albigensian, or Cathar, doctrines. For all intents and purposes, Albigensianism (also known as Catharism) is a version of the ancient doctrine of Manichaeism, which initially developed in the first few centuries after the death of Christ. Both of these share a belief in a dualist deity that is composed of a good entity and a bad: the bad entity is responsible for all things material (including the human body), and it is the principal aim of the soul to escape from its imprisonment in the human body and to rejoin the good entity. In addition, these sects had select members of their believers who formed an inner, sanctified core (in the Albigensian tradition, these people were called “perfaits” or “perfects”). Most intriguing was that Albigensianism flourished in Languedoc, a region in modern-day southern France which has been known throughout the centuries for its religious tolerance.

For more information see:
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, A Biography, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000)
http://www.cathar.info/

~C. Erba

The Modern Use of Trebuchets

For your amusement:

In High School I joined an engineering club that built a Trebuchet every year to participate in an event held in early November in which teams compete to hurl a pumpkin as far as possible.

The event is World Championship Punkin Chunkin.

The largest Trebuchet there is called Yankee Siege which uses a counter weight that can hold 30,000 lbs. It can hurl a 50-100 lb projectile between 300-400 yards with a partially filled counter weight. Its maximum range to date is just over 2000 ft.

Midieval Trebuchets were used to either destroy fortifications or as terror devices, employed to throw dead animals or live enemies over the wall as a psychological weapon. They generally had a range of about 300 yards. In many ways they were the pinnacle of siege technology and were made obsolete by the advent of gunpowder. They fired slowly as it took a long time to reload the device.

The operation of a Trebuchet is a bit of history that you can witness and it is easy to see how these massive machines could tear down walls with ease or fill defenders with fear.

Children's Crusade

I was looking up some more information on the Childrens Crusade and instead of taking it all for face-value, I tried looking up some information against it. Turns out there was a study in 1977 by Raedts called "The Children's Crusade of 1213". He argued that the army was not made up of primarily children, but of the 'wandering poor'. The traditional view of the crusade was that it began with a little boy claiming that he had been told to lead a crusade to the holy land by Jesus himself. He was supposed to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. He gained as many as 30,000 children but before making it to Jerusalem, most either died or were tricked into slavery. Modern views have claimed this story to be fake. Recent historians claim that there were actually two movements of people (of all ages, really). Mistakes in the interpretation of pueri, meaning boys, arose when past historians thought it to literally mean children where they probably actually meant country boys.

Crusading in the News

I would just like to comment on how common the term "crusading" has become these days. Just by searching the term in Google News, I ran into several articles describing some more 'modern' crusades: Obama's health care crusade, a crusade to provide food and shelter for the homeless of New York City, a crusade against junk food (seriously?). In my opinion, I think that the term "crusading" should be reserved for describing past crusades of the Middle Ages, where the term was originally coined, or even to describe modern religious warfare. But when I read an article telling me a chef is launching a CRUSADE to promote healthier eating, I can't help but feel a little frustrated at how common and poorly-used this word/concept has become.

A Very Long Walk In The Park

I feel like a major part of the Crusades that is often overlooked was the actual journey to get to the Holy Land itself, not just the conflict/fighting that was done once the Crusaders had arrived. I mean, in some Crusades (most notably the First and Second) people would walk by land the entire way from Western Europe to the Holy Land, not being shipped over across the Mediterranean Sea. That's pretty inconceivable. The distance from Paris to Jerusalem, for example, is just over 2000 miles, and that's if you travel as the crow flies, which is impossible because the Mediterranean Sea stands in the way. That is an incredible distance to travel on foot. Imagine walking one marathon a day, every day, for close to three months, and that's about the distance some of these Crusaders had to traverse. Just doing this without any hardships would be an amazing accomplishment-- but then you have to factor in (to the First Crusade) the battles fought along the way to the Holy Land, in such places as Nicaea and Antioch. Undoubtedly there was something strong motivating these Crusaders to march on, whether it be the promise of redemption or riches.
Anyway, all of this got me to thinking about the type of footwear that the Crusaders used on their multi-thousand mile journey, but I really couldn't find that too much on it. I did find that as a result of the Crusades, shoe styles from the Byzantine Empire were brought back to Western Europe, including the characteristically Medieval long-pointed shoes. These were called crackowes or poulaines.