What Does the Middle Ages Teach Us for Today?

Dominique Poirel

doi:10.18290/rkult20114-1

Dominique Poirel Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes & Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, France; John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Department of the History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7383-1110

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rkult20114-1

Keywords: Middle Ages, Europe, Christianity, pluralism, medieval universities, medieval renaissances, Bernard of Chartres, John of Salisbury, Hugh of St. Victor, Augustine of Hippo

Abstract

Insofar as it is possible to use history to understand one’s time, three main lessons can be drawn from the study of the Middle Ages. First, repeated confrontation with new populations did not prevent the foundation of a single cultural community. Then, among the causes that allowed this assimilation, there is what could be called an “inferiority complex,” which paradoxically pushed the men of the Middle Ages to constantly innovate out of admiration for their prestigious predecessors. Finally, the desire for unity was allied with numerous tensions and a de facto pluralism, since the poles around which to unify were themselves several: philosophical wisdom inherited from Athens, civil law transmitted from Rome, the Christian faith received from Jerusalem.

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