Black legends saying that it was due to the medieval Church that Europe experienced a collapse of civilization, can only tell those whose ignorance matches ideological prejudices. And besides, lies always sale better than the truth. The investigation of the fact requires work, while lies and lies can easy be sucked from a dirty toe," says prof. Tomasz Panfil, KUL, IPN Lublin. [We remind you of the 2019 interview]
The oldest order of the planet founded in 529 is Benedictine. Does this mean that we have not dealt with Catholic monks before?
Year 529 is simply a landmark date for the Catholic Church. Thanks to the actions of St. Benedict of Nursia, we managed to make Catholic communities, to which people were drawn who wanted to contemplate Christ and to reflect on the mystery of His death and resurrection. It's not like there's never been 1 before. Of course, they were, only that they lived their lives alternatively as hermits fleeing the temptations of civilization, specified as St. Anthony the Great, called the Hermit or St. Jerome.
Saint Jerome is simply a very good example here, for his legend says that Christ the Crucified appeared to him, who instructed him to abandon wilderness and loneliness and return to the monastic community and undertake a hard work of translating the Bible from Greek into Latin.
This is an highly instructive legend, as it shows differences in attitudes toward the world, religion and faith. Escapists – as initially St.Hieronim – flee from the temptations of the world, depleting him, as they take distant themselves and their talents from the world. St. Benedict of Nursia understood this perfectly well, and therefore, erstwhile establishing the order, wrote a regulation imposing certain duties on monks entering it. simply put, the regulation was plain: it is not adequate that you hide from the planet in a cave, in a hermitage, in the wilderness, and there you will pray and contemplate Christ! No! No! You gotta pray and work, you gotta create, you gotta rewrite the books, you gotta set an example of piety and advance religion among the people by spreading the truth. Ora et labora - Pray and work.
Was it through the work of Benedictine that they would draw close to God and their fellow humans?
Through their work they were to bring Christ closer to the small ones. The nuns were first of all educated people who could read, compose and talk more than 1 language. Their talents could not have been wasted by closing in cells or surviving in the wilderness. In monastery scriptors, monks worked hard to prescribe in many copies theological works, adorning them with illuminations. They were besides obliged to spread the Good News.
Rule Ora et labora forced them to work. Not to empty, lonely contemplation, but to work for the full Christian community.
Who were the iro-Scottish monks?
After the fall of Rome, the full continent was in the hands of the German barbarians – the alleged dark centuries came, and the Roman civilization (Latin) was gone into oblivion. People forgot how to read, how to write, what the law is, and the arts and skills fell into oblivion. Under German rule, almost the full of Europe has gone back into development.
Fortunately, the achievements of Latin civilization survived in the British Isles, specifically in Ireland and Scotland. Although South England was occupied by Germanic barbarians, or Danes, Saxons, etc., they did not scope Scotland or Ireland.
So they could stay there in a quiet isolation of early monastic communities, that is, monks and Russians – surviving in monasteries established by St. Patrick.
At the end of the 8th century, monks and roscotts began to arrive on the European continent. This phenomenon – the Irish and the Scots civilized Europe, re-Christianized it and re-populated Latin civilization. It was this arrival in Europe that the Iro-Scotts started something that was called the karaoke Renaissance in the past of our continent.
What, therefore, did the monks and the Greeks “give” to Europeans?
First of all, it was they who brought back to the continent European art of writing and reading. They were the ones who started the firm at Charles the Great's court. They were the ones who spread in the place of alleged strain magazines, i.e. almost completely illegible, scribbles, "normal" writing, or Roman minuscule and ounce.
Funny: the self-righteous 15th-XVIth century humanists who wanted to mention straight to the time of ancient Rome discovered documents... from the days of the Carolins and proudly declared that it would now compose as nicely as it was written in Roman times: with deep contempt of the mediate Ages they did not really know that they were following the carolin papers and that they were looking at the beautiful and careful karolin minuscule.
Is it due to the widespread deficiency of people, including elites, literacy that we say were “dark ages”?
Yes, and in my opinion, that word is only justified for this period of the mediate Ages. Imagine: The most powerful dynasty then, or ruling kingdom of Franconia, the Merovings can neither read nor write.
At the time of Rome, the citizens of the empire are “people of writing”, law, politics, economy are based on writing. With the fall of Rome, it all disappeared, and even the later rulers of Europe did not have the basic skills, as we might think, today. Charles the large couldn't compose either. He could only sign the papers due to the fact that he trained himself.
Fortunately, at Charles' court there were Iroscotts who brought with them texts from ancient Rome, codes of Roman laws and large literary works, both ecclesiastical and secular, ancient. In continental Europe, the cognition of these texts has disappeared. They existed, but they were forgotten or hidden somewhere in the dark monastic libraries.
But that is not all. The first palace school at the court of Karol Wielki was founded by an Irosztok monk – blessed Alkuin. It was. de facto return of schools to the European continent. Not only that: he, as 1 of the first, gave the signal that not only can and should be taught to read and write, but besides the basics of law or medicine.
Is that what the Romanesque monks started?
Not just them! past shows unequivocally that all time the Renaissance was a consequence of the work and efforts of people of the Catholic Church! After all, even Marcin Luther was at the beginning a man of the Church. The Church raised him and formed him, Catholicism gave him education and the chance to survey ancient writings, laws and theology.
Nota bene: it's not like the correct and anti-ecclesiastical education systems tell the planet that there was only 1 Renaissance in the past of the planet – the 1 from the 15th and 16th centuries, which "growled" thanks to Protestantism and was a reaction to the Catholic darkness of the mediate Ages!
After the Carolin Renaissance came the Renaissance of the 12th century, which was again initiated by the people of the Church, this time by the Cistercian order. It's about the alleged Cluna reform. That's where the goth started!
Gothic is architecture, it's mathematics, not just theology! These are applied sciences, after all, the Cistercians invent a fresh way of increasing land, which is called a three-field. Thanks to it, it was not essential to decision to fresh lands all fewer years and grubbing up another areas of the forest. The technological approach to land cultivation is to discover that it is adequate to wait 2 years and that the earth regains its power to bear grain. It was the Cistercians who invented the brilliant, most beautiful in the world, fantastic, breathtaking architecture, the fruits of which were magnificent cathedrals, in which wonderful Gothic paintings were placed.
The renaissance of the 12th century is also, or possibly above all, the renaissance of the Church and the return to the evangelization which the disciples of Jesus conducted.
What do you mean?
The Benedictine order was a contemplative order, or kind of a hidden, closed order. Although Benedictine prescribed texts, learned, trained workers for the secular administration, but in the first place there was always a prayer for them in the monastery retreat.
The Renaissance of the 12th century, on the another hand, brought a kind of reversal. And it's not just about the Cluna reform, it's not just about the Cistercian Renaissance. It is primarily about the creation of 2 orders of a fresh type, aimed at working outside.
Is it the Franciscans and Dominicans?
Yeah. St Francis and St Dominic concluded that it was time to go out to the people, return to the apostolic mission. They created fresh spiritual rules—their essence was the mission of calling to repentance and conversion.
Saint Francis preached that his order must be close to people, in rapidly developing cities, not somewhere remote, in isolation. He besides felt that nuns had to reject temptations to have various goods, which would prevent themselves from being ambushed by monks of contemplative orders, any kind of consumerism.
Consumerism?
I'm afraid so. The monks of contemplative orders lived from the work of peasants working in the goods which the monastery was endowed with. So the monks grew into a box, even though they prayed six times a day, wrote and copied books.
Francis, on the another hand, rejected the concept of gifting the Orders with goods. He wanted the office of his fresh fraternity to be in cities, not distant from them, according to the old rule of “closer to nature, closer to God”. No! No! Francis wanted to be among the people and did not want them to work for the spiritual brothers, but that nuns should be rewarded for their work, for their service.
The same goes for Dominicans. Do you know what OFP stands for?
Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum, or the order of the brothers of ministers...
Exactly! The Dominican mission was and is preaching, or going out to the people and preaching the Word of God to them, not through the scholarly books, not through the theological tracts, but through the thrilling sermons, through the beautiful images that appeal to the small ones—the painting was then called the "Pauperum Bible."
This was besides the renaissance of the Church in the 12th and 13th centuries – on change, or on renewal of the functioning of the Orders.
Benedictine Orders are de facto They're out of the world. The monks live in the community, but they are on the outside – they give something of themselves to the world, but they focus on themselves and on the creation of the Order's achievements.
In turn, the Cistercians advance various teachings not only contemplative, as I mentioned earlier. Architecture, agriculture, technology.
In turn Franciscans and Dominicans spread a fresh model of contact with believers – they are close to people. True, they cannot build their churches within cities, so they put them right next to the city walls. Where Dominican and Franciscan monasteries stand, the city utilized to end, which is very well seen, for example, in Krakow.
It was the Franciscans and Dominicans who gave people a fresh model of the Church. Not detached from the rich, surviving somewhat vainly by church dignitaries, but by fellow believers who offer surviving examples of faith, humility, poverty. The Benedictine Order saved the remains of Latin culture and civilization – it's its glory! This was done due to the fact that the nuns did not focus on physical work and regular duties, due to the fact that their mission was to save and defend culture from the brutal and barbarous external planet ruled by the German people, who contributed to the introduction into human minds of the concept with which the Church fought for hundreds of years—the concept of "holy war." For the Germans, the war was sacred and they had many excuses to fight and kill.
Is “holy war” a “righteous war”?
No, and you can't confuse those concepts.
Saint Augustine wondered about the concept of the “war of the righteous” for a long time as many Roman legionaries who had passed to Christianity became martyrs due to the fact that they refused to fight. I'll just mention the beautiful legend of St Maurycy and the Tebanian Legion. The soldiers of this unit converted and refused to fight, thus breaking Christ’s 5th commandment and commandment about the necessity of loving others. They were punished for this – Saint Maurice and all tenth soldier of this legion were sentenced to death.
It was a dramatic dilemma – whether a Christian can kill someone, or the defence of a home, a household of community, a Church, could mean the task of death. St. Augustine replied that yes, but only in the "war of righteousness." Even he did not claim, however, that all those who fight in the "war of righteousness" are exempt from repentance. The killing remained a sin and the soldier fighting in the “righteous war” had to execute severe penance.
The German customs were completely different: anyone can fight anyone without any justification. Whether the fight is fair or not. It was believed that if individual were attacked treacherously, the better, due to the fact that then there are better chances of winning.
Again, here comes the Church defending order and peace from war rage, and civilization from chaos. It's a concept. Pax etc Treuga Dei, which is Peace and the Peace of God. The Church was able to convince barbarian assassins not to wage wars at least on Friday and Sunday, so that at least these 2 days—the day of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus would be free from killing and fighting.
Is it the concept of a “righteous war” that contributed to the formation of knightly orders?
In a sense, yes – the recovery of the Holy Land at the hands of Muslims was definitely a fair war. The most powerful knight order were the Templars, who took their name from the word TemplumThe temple. There was only 1 temple at the time – a temple in Jerusalem.
Did knightly orders function like contemplative orders or beggar orders?
Nope. Knight Orders disagree from all others that they make an additional 4th wedding. All nuns pledge purity, poorness and obedience. On the another hand, knightly orders vow to fight for faith.
The another nuns couldn't fight?
Initially, diocesan priests could fight, but they were not allowed to shed blood, so they fought with machugs, not swords. In the song about Roland, there is simply a fragment about the bishop who fights Saracens just the club – this 1 does not cut the body.
Over the years, the command for the Church's people to refrain from fighting and bloodshed was increasingly respected and the priests were severely punished for utilizing force in any form. At the time of the crusade, however, the Church discovered that she needed her own troops – this was how knightly orders arose, in which the military service remained de facto recognized as developing the Cistercian Rule: it was a circumstantial work in the service of the Church.
Did Templars and another knightly orders set any fresh trends in the art of war?
Yeah. Templars and another specified orders formed troops more than knighthood. To realize this, we request to realize what the army looked like at the time: the sovereign sent out his wickets and called his lentils. They came with the message to service the superior with a sword. It was an army, but made up of individuality.
On the another hand, knightly orders introduce a drill and a fight in a compact order. The nun was not an individual, but a fragment of a larger whole. He was not a swordsman who ran before the ranks to gain greater glory or prey. Monk knights fight in a disciplined way, they execute the tactical assumptions adopted earlier. They are simply a modern army – uniformly commanded, uniformly guided.
So can it be said that we are dealing with another return to Roman times, another Renaissance?
In a way, yes. We've got a conflict in formation with professional soldiers, just like in Roman legions. The medieval armies prior to the establishment of knightly orders were armies consisting of noble borns, whose work to the sovereign is to service him with his own sword. Individuals are not utilized to listening, and frequently have interests diverge from sovereign interests.
Why are Templars wrapped in black legend today?
It was all due to King of France and Navarra – Philip the Beautiful, who simply wanted to rob them of their money. Money earned through banking – Templars invented a superb banking system.
Imagine this: the buyer wants to buy the goods, which means he has to take with him a box of gold and take a dangerous journey. He hires people to defend him from all the thugs who are waiting for specified opportunities. The Templars offered: you do not gotta carry your money with you, pay it to us and travel with our bills. The buyer could have gone to the nearest Templar station and placed 100 ducats there. He was given a bill of lading with which he could travel, find the Templar Facts and pay out his money. It was something very modern at the time.
The Templars created a immense network of specified facilities in both Europe and the Holy Land. Many people utilized their services, making the Templars gain money. They besides made money on loans.
Thus Templars became an highly rich order, and at any point, speaking violently, Philip the Beautiful decided to make a leap on their money accusing them of the worship of Satan, Baphomet. due to the fact that then the alleged Avinionian Papacy slave and the popes depended on the kings of France were obedient to them. Thus Pope Clement V dissolved the order and placed it in an interdict. And Philip the Beautiful burned at the stake of Jacob de Molay and his fewer twelve associates, and laid his hand on the riches of the law. Many Templars on the news of what happened in France escaped, hid money and valuables: hence today's films about the secret societies of Templars – rich and keeping secret knowledge.
Were there Inquisitor Orders?
Such orders did not exist, although the functions of inquisitors were most gladly entrusted to prepared and educated in speech and law of Dominicans.
Today it is so fashionable to condemn the Inquisition – but it must be said that it was the Holy Inquisition that introduced the institution of interrogation and the institution of defence witnesses and accusations into the trial, creating a more just judicial system, giving the accused a better chance of acquittal. He did not should be alone with the prosecutor, dependent on the judge's unfettered will – he could call witnesses, give speeches, present evidence etc. There was just a trial going on, not a prosecution and a conviction was executed.
Were nuns active in the creation of the first universities?
But of course! I will say more – not only did they participate, but it is their work: the growth of higher education!
The most celebrated scientist of the mediate Ages to this day is Saint Thomas of Aquinas of the Dominican order. Another celebrated medieval scientist, Ockham – the creator utilized by everyone present (except possibly politicians), “Ockham's razors” is besides a Franciscan monk. Bacon – Franciscan. There's no time or place to name everyone.
How were the first universities created?
The best schools – usually those at cathedrals, rich bishoprics – at any point became more than skill-giving schools. They began to search knowledge! Universities in Bologna and Paris have evolved from the best cathedral schools.
Unfortunately, in the field of higher education, we can see our Polish hold – the first Polish higher education institution, the Krakow University was established in 1364 – over 200 years after the first universities in the planet were established. According to the then rules of the teaching license, the Pope granted – and Kazimierz the large had to get specified permission. The same approval to renew the university would later should be given to the feasts of Jadwiga and Władysław Jagiełło.
Interestingly, the pope's consent was not a formality. The Holy Father could very profoundly interfere with the organization of the university, e.g. in 1400 the pope corrected the first organization of King Casimir, in which there was no theological faculty, due to the fact that the Polish king needed government officials. However, the Holy Father felt that after the union with Lithuania, the theological cathedrals must dominate, due to the fact that before Poland a immense Christianization mission to accomplish.
So universities in the mediate Ages even if they served the state were church institutions.
Who did medieval universities educate?
Priests, lawyers, doctors and teachers. Interestingly, all 4 professional groups wore black outfits. Priests wear black satans, doctors and university professors besides wear black robes, lawyers also. Remember, this black is the colour of wisdom and means a university graduate. The sutanna, the legal toga, the toga of the scientist is 1 and the same – the symbol of the university graduate, the symbol of the scholar's man.
If the Orders have given people and the planet so much good, why are these black legends, that it was through the Church in the mediate Ages that Europe experienced a civilization collapse?
Such things can only be said by those whose ignorance matches ideological prejudices. And besides, lies always sale better than the truth. An enquiry into the fact requires work, while lying and falsehood can easy be sucked from a dirty finger.
The black legend of the Orders is primarily a product of enlightenment, which wanted to argue its achievements to those of the past. In addition, the orders fell spiritually, morally, and materially.
Is there anything that deserves criticism?
I'm afraid so. Schooling from the late mediate Ages, or scholastics, had a bad opinion.
At the end of the mediate Ages, people of the Church did not want to do something new. The same was repeated over and over again, although the planet was changing. Let us look at many diploma holders today: many people think that erstwhile they finish any higher education and get a paper, they no longer request to update their knowledge.
This is how it works and that is why the Church has occasionally led to a fresh Renaissance. We needed an incentive to change and improve the inefficient system. The planet is changing, people come up with fresh ideas and discover fresh things. cognition needs to be updated. But let us remember, due to the fact that it is highly important: the Church is not to keep up with the world, but to set directions and paths for the world. They can – or even should – be fresh and revealing. And lead to God. In turn erstwhile Catholic discipline begins to follow temporal fashions – i.e. rapidly passing phenomena – this is for it the beginning of an even downward trend.
Thank you for talking to me.
Tomasz D. Kolanek
