Modern winemaking owes much to the ancient Mediterranean world, where wine first achieved a place as a dietary staple. In antiquity, wine was central to religious functions and private social gatherings, a legacy bequeathed to the Christian church and Roman secular elites that they then passed on to the medieval world and thence to modern Europe. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans added to a rich wine matrix that still influences taste and expression today.

Vitis vinifera originated in the Caucasus region, and by the Bronze Age (c. 3500–1100 BC) had spread to the Aegean and Mediterranean regions. Under the care of early Phoenician growers, at least by the ninth century BC, fine wines were produced along the coast of present-day Lebanon and Israel and traded widely throughout the Middle East in distinctive two-handled clay jars called amphorae. These were commonly sealed with clay, lime, or gypsum and lined with pitch, which allowed wine to keep for a considerable period, as the porosity of the clay permitted gentle oxidation over time. During the period of extensive Phoenician contacts and colonization throughout the Mediterranean (twelfth through sixth centuries BC), colonists spread wine-grape production to North Africa and Spain, and probably into parts of southern France as well.

Greek colonies began in the eighth century BC in mainland Italy, Sicily, and southern France and around the Black Sea coast, and Greek vine husbandry preferences and skills spread to these regions. By the Classical period (fifth century BC), the Greeks had developed a technical vocabulary for wine and thoroughly enjoyed wines of different types and origins. Wine drinking formed the centerpiece of the Classical Greek symposium, the gathering of the intelligentsia for entertaining, social networking, and political debates, and was drunk by all members of society.

As Greek influence spread, their wine tastes and habits followed. The pan-Mediterranean wine trade was especially active in the Hellenistic period (fourth through first centuries BC) that followed the Macedonian and Greek conquest of the Middle East. It is during this era that the Greeks began to rationalize and systematize agricultural improvements. The screw press, an efficient device initially developed in the Hellenistic period, has remained little changed into modern times. The remains of a fourth-century BC shipwreck contained not only amphorae but also grapevine cuttings. The desire and ability to ship vine stock around the ancient world shows the Greeks’ dedication to viticulture, but also hints at the vast spread of different ancient varieties over much of Europe between the first century BC and the fifth century AD.

The best ancient Greek wines were those from the islands of Kos and Thasos, while the most popular vintages came from on and around Rhodes. The wine amphorae from such active production centers bore control stamps that ensured the jars were standard in size and that their origin could be guaranteed and appropriately taxed. The former Phoenician colony of Carthage in North Africa also developed a thriving wine industry and exported its production to Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and Spain.

By the time of Pliny the Elder in the first century AD, the Romans had developed a taste for Greek wines and developed their own distinctive wine types and local grape varieties. Roman merchants traded Italian wines extensively throughout Gaul (France), and it is likely, but remains to be proved, that many old French varieties came from Italy and farther east with Roman conquest and colonization.

While it is difficult to state with precision which modern cultivars are most closely related to ancient wine grapes, there are some descriptions of popular wines. Varieties known under the name Apianis are believed by some to be close relatives of Fiano, which today is witnessing a commercial revival. Falernian wine, a beverage famous in Italy for centuries and served at the table of Roman emperors, was sought after around the Mediterranean world and traded as far away as Arabia and India. A grape called Aminean rendered sweet, highly alcoholic wine that could be kept for years, and it probably became the most commonly grown variety in the ancient Mediterranean. Like famous varieties of today, it was known by name in the marketplace and sold for about four times the value of common wines.

Wine was a universal beverage drunk by all adults, and though women were discouraged from drinking, they also enjoyed it. Wine was customarily drunk mixed with water—to drink it neat in Greece or Rome was considered barbaric. Adding honey to it was fashionable. Modern imbibers would also find strange the tendency to resinate or heavily salt wines, generally by a suffusion of seawater, in order to stabilize them for transport. Raisin wine pressed from sun-dried grapes was another popular type of wine in the Roman Empire. In addition, wine was a common medicine; certain potent vintages were viewed as particularly helpful in digestive complaints.

The ability of the vine to flourish over a wide range of conditions, the pleasure wine offered, and the array of its uses meant that there was enormous demand. Since the masses of the city of Rome alone needed as much as 75 million liters (the equivalent of 8 million cases) of undiluted wine per year to fulfill their basic consumption, it is easy to see why Italian viticulture flourished during the empire. Estate vineyards were geared toward the markets that the thriving cities of the empire provided. While the average individual Roman vineyard block was fairly small (three acres or so), large estates had scores or even hundreds of such discreet blocks, planted with different varieties and spread over large areas to minimize the potential damage of pests, hail, and disease. Vineyards focused on high-volume production. Wine presses found in excavation in Israel reveal complex installations designed for speedy processing; some of these gargantuan presses held as much as 60,000 liters of must.

In the third century AD, Rome’s economic and political woes caused disruptions to viniculture, a situation exacerbated by the barbarian invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries. Cultivation survived in Gaul, Italy, and Spain, but the famous vintages, such as Falernian, fell on hard times. Most northern barbarians favored beer, although many came to appreciate wine. Nevertheless, Western wine exports dissolved and vineyards declined in the fourth through sixth centuries. By then, upper-class tastes had changed to favor those wines then in fashion in the imperial court at Constantinople—primarily strong white wines from Gaza and Ascalon on the southern Palestinian coast. The arrival of Islam ended this golden age for Eastern wines, and the West took centuries to recover its preeminent skills in winemaking.

By Michael J. Decker in "The Business of Wine - An Encyclopedia", edited by Geralyn Brostrom and Jack Brostrom, Greenwood Press, USA, 2009, excerpts pp. 5-7. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

A fortified wine is a wine to which brandy has been added during or after fermentation. The addition of brandy raises the alcohol level high enough to kill the yeast, thus arresting the fermentation. Fortified wines vary in alcoholic strength and range from dry to sweet according to how much sugar in the must had been converted to alcohol before fortification.

Many wine-producing countries make fortified wines. The ‘‘classics’’ are Port, Sherry, and Madeira. However, this is not intended to dismiss the significance of some of the other great and historic fortified wines. There are the less revered, a good example being vermouth, which is a fortified wine flavored with herbs and spices and is not often given its due respect. There is also the important category of vin doux naturel, French for ‘‘fortified wine,’’ which was pioneered in 1299 by Arnaldus de Villanova, a Catalan alchemist, working in Montpellier. Indeed, France produces some delicious fortified wines, most prolifically in the Rhône Valley, including Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise and Banyuls.

Muscat is one of the most common grapes grown for the production of fortified wines, and sadly some of the best producing areas are disappearing. Setubal, a peninsula close to Lisbon in Portugal that is being gobbled up by property developers as the city expands, is one of the greatest losses to the world wine community.

Wines of the few remaining producers, most notably José Maria da Fonseca, rival the world’s greatest and, with stocks in cask dating back to the 1880s, are some of the longest lived.

Spain’s Malaga is another disappearing region. It once produced about 2.4 million nine-liter cases (mc) a year, but fell victim to phylloxera, forcing hundreds of producers to abandon their businesses. Today, there are just a couple left, making under 80,000 cases. Sicily’s Marsala, also in decline, formerly reached close to 7 mc in sales and has now dropped down to around a million, most of which is cooking wine.

The United States makes fortified wines—officially classed as ‘‘dessert wines’’ in government terminology—and because the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade protocol to protect European place names was never signed, some U.S. producers use names that are recognized by the rest of the world as coming only from specific regions in Europe. Such wines cannot be exported. The same applies to some wines made in South Africa and Australia, although they have since signed the agreement and these wines will soon be marketed under brand names, such as Galway Pipe, without mentioning the word ‘‘Port.’’

Many other fine fortified wines are made in Australia, including Muscat and Tokay in Rutherglen by such noteworthy producers as Bailey’s and Morris Wines. South Africa’s Cape also excels in fortified wines, but none of them shares the success of Port and Madeira from Portugal or Sherry from Spain.


Port. 

Port, the king of fortified wine, comes from the Douro, a strictly demarcated region in Portugal, and the entire production is rigorously controlled by appellation regulations. Port’s name is derived from the town of Oporto at the mouth of the Douro River, but the Douro, the world’s second oldest demarcated region (after Hungary’s Tokaji), predates Port. Judging by its Roman ruins, wine production in this part of Portugal has an ancient history. Initially a dry table wine–producing region, its fortified wine developed when British traders shipped wine back to England late in the seventeenth century and the long sea journey required fortification of the wine for it to survive the primitive shipping conditions. Today, Port is produced by adding brandy to the must within 24 to 48 hours of the beginning of fermentation, at which point the wine is usually around 7 percent alcohol by volume (abv) and is raised to 20 percent abv. This kills the yeast and fermentation stops, leaving a wine with significant residual sugar.

Most Port is red, but there are also white Ports, and in 2008 production of the first rose´ Port was announced. Among the reds, the majority is bottled after three years of aging in stainless steel tanks or oak casks. Those sold for immediate consumption are called ruby or tawny, depending on the depth of color. Some Ports are deemed of sufficient quality and structure to warrant special aging in bottle or barrel. High-quality tawnies may be age-worthy enough to warrant 20 years or more in barrel. Vintage Port is top-quality Port that generally has the potential to age 50 years or more in the bottle; the earliest known vintage Port still available, the 1815 Ferreira, continues to make thought-provoking drinking. Other styles of Port include late-bottled vintage (LBV), which is bottled between four and six years of age; reserve Port; colheita, a tawny from a single year; and crusted. There are more than a hundred indigenous grape varieties used for Port production, the best-known being Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Cão, and Tinta Barroca.

Port exports in 2006 totaled 8.7 mc, with a total value of a330 million. Almost a third of this went to France. Other important destinations included the Dutch market, Belgium, Britain, and Germany. The United States imported about 470,000 cases of Port, which represented 51 percent of all fortified wine brought into the country; the largest imported brands were Warre’s and Sandeman.


Sherry. 

Sherry (or Jerez), from Andalucia in southwestern Spain, is the second of the three classic fortified wines. Though Port has fully recovered from its depression years (the 1960s), Sherry is still struggling to find its footing in today’s market. Exports were down to 4.6 mc in 2007, a 20 percent decline from four years earlier. Sherry is where Riesling was 15 years ago and, like Riesling, is the darling of many top wine writers, such as Jancis Robinson, Hugh Johnson, and Michael Broadbent.

Sherry is quite different from other fortified wines. In the first place, fortification takes place after fermentation rather than during it; thus, the wines are initially fully dry. Sherry’s two most unique features, however, are flor and the solera. Flor, an unattractive-looking but beneficial yeast that develops in the barrels of fino Sherry, protects the wine and gives it a distinctive tang. Those Sherries that do not develop flor become palo cortado or oloroso; those that lose their flor become amontillado. Flor resembles yellowy cottage cheese and floats on top of the wine. It is rather volatile and needs to be kept alive by feeding on nutrients in the Sherry. For this reason, Sherry undergoes a solera method of aging, in which young wine is added to older wine barrels to replenish these nutrients. The solera system conceptually acts like a waterfall in that the final barrels are a mix of very old wine, and every vintage of wine eventually reaches the blend.

Three grape varieties are grown in Sherry’s 26,000 acres of vineyards. The primary grape, Palomino, is used for most styles. Pedro Ximenez and Moscatel (Muscat of Alexandria) are used as sweetening agents for some blends and by themselves for very sweet dessert wines. Finos tend to be about 15.5 percent abv, whereas oloroso is around 18 percent and can go higher.

Sherry production in 2006 was 5.4 mc, down from an average of 7.8 mc in the previous four years. Exports in 2006 were valued at a76.3 million. The United States imported 278,000 cases of Sherry in 2006, roughly a third of the total imports of fortified wine. The largest-selling Sherry brand in the United States was Harveys Bristol Cream, which alone accounted for about 100,000 cases.



Madeira. 

The third classic fortified wine is from the Portuguese island of Madeira, 400 miles off the coast of Morocco, directly in the trade winds between Europe and North America. In the colonial era, all passing ships used to stop in Madeira to stock up on provisions and would use casks of Madeira wine as ballast in the bottom of the boats. It was discovered that the wine in the holds was heated and improved during the transit to the West Indies and America from Madeira, and for a while it was required that the best Madeiras be treated by being sailed around the world twice. It became the largest selling wine in North America, where the illustrious following included the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington (who drank a pint of Madeira daily for dinner), and such historical events as the signing of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were toasted with Madeira.

America remained the largest market for Madeira until Prohibition, at which time, with the collapse of sales, most producers had to uproot the vines and plant other crops. In 1988, Madeira experienced a revival when the Port trade’s Symington family invested in the ailing Madeira Wine Company and relaunched it in the United States.

The unique difference in the method of production of Madeira is that the wine is heated after fortification for a minimum of three months to simulate the voyage through the tropics, at a temperature of 115°F to 120°F (about 45°C). The result of this maderization is a wine that is indestructible — it does not go off even after a bottle has been opened. The grapes used for Madeira include four white varieties, which are also synonymous with styles of wine: Sercial, Verdelho, Bual (or Boal), and Malmsey (Malvasia), from driest to sweetest. The red variety Negra Mole today is also considered a ‘‘classic’’ variety.

Total production of Madeira for drinking in 2005—not counting a large volume that is salted and sold for cooking purposes, much of it to France—was a little  more than 100,000 cases. Major markets are Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States, which imported 18,500 cases in 2006.

By Bartholomew Broadbent  in "The Business of Wine - An Encyclopedia", edited by Geralyn Brostrom and Jack Brostrom, Greenwood Press, USA, 2009, excerpts pp.101-103. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

The Paths of Christianity and Islam

The relationship between alcohol and religion began thousands of years ago. As we have seen, much of the earliest evidence of alcohol, whether in China or the Middle East, has been found in contexts suggesting it was used in religious ceremonies of various kinds. In many ancient and classical cultures, gods were associated with various alcoholic beverages, especially beer, wine, and mead; Bacchus and Dionysus are only the best known. Alcohol was not the only commodity to have dedicated deities—in Greece, Demeter was the goddess of bread, fruit, and vegetables—yet wine and beer were more consistently linked to religion. Why that was so is a matter of speculation. According to one common argument, the feelings of relaxation, light-headedness, and disorientation that result from drinking increasing volumes of alcohol (a progression that is prosaically called mild to severe intoxication) were sensations so different from drinkers’ quotidian experience that they were thought of as “otherworldly.” Alcohol elevated the drinker to sensory dimensions that were understood as having spiritual or religious significance.

Positively or negatively, the association between alcohol and religion may be thought of as a historical constant, but Christianity and Islam—two religions that emerged in the same millennium—forged unique, divergent, and persistent relationships with alcohol. Christianity elevated one alcoholic beverage—wine—to a position of centrality in its symbolism and rituals, while Islam is the first major religion known to have rejected alcohol entirely and to have forbidden its followers to drink alcoholic beverages. There were precedents for both. On one hand, wine was central to the ceremonies of the cult centered on Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, and integral to Jewish doctrine and ceremonies; on the other hand, some pre-Christian Jewish sects and secular laws (such as Sparta’s) prohibited the consumption of alcohol. But these latter were marginal or short-lived bans. In contrast, Christian and Muslim doctrines on alcohol have had long-term meaning for their millions of followers and have endowed alcohol with much of the religious freight it carries to this day.

The direct background of the Christian position on alcohol was the Jewish Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible), which contains many references to wine and the effects of drinking, as well as a reference to beer in a Greek version (but not in the Hebrew and later translations).1 In the New Testament, however, the grapevine is the most frequently mentioned plant, and there are many references to wine; but beer is not mentioned at all, even though it was widely consumed in the eastern Mediterranean in the first centuries of the Christian era.

There is a debate among some biblical scholars and commentators about the meaning of various terms and how biblical references to alcohol should be interpreted. Although some biblical texts can be read as treating the consumption of wine in a positive light, others are neutral, and yet others are indisputably negative. One text in Genesis treats wine in a matter-of-fact way, as integral to dining: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine.”2 Another text celebrates wine: “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.”3 The therapeutic uses of wine were also recognized. Timothy advises, “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine other infirmities,”4 while Luke alludes to wine’s antiseptic qualities: “And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.”5

Yet other biblical texts appear to warn against any drinking, such as, “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.”6 Many of the biblical texts dealing with wine make a clear distinction between moderate and excessive drinking and condemn the latter: “Be not among winebibbers [drunkards]; among riotous eaters of flesh”7 and “Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre.”8 In these cases, excessive drinking was condemned alongside other forms of excess, such as gluttony and money-grubbing. It is likely that the abuse of wine, not wine itself, was the specific target of condemnation, just as food and money were not, in themselves, subjects of criticism.

These ambiguities were not a major issue for religious commentators until the nineteenth century. Until then, alcohol was widely consumed—not least because it was a safer alternative to the water then available for drinking—and the moderate consumption of beer and wine was viewed in a positive light. There was an assumption that any negative message about alcohol in the Bible was aimed at excessive consumption or some other form of misuse, not at consumption itself. When the Bible was quoted, it was almost always to warn against drunkenness and its associated sins. But in the 1800s, supplies of safe drinking water and other nonalcoholic beverages became much more widely available in Europe and North America, and alcohol ceased to be necessary as an alternative to the water many populations had access to. Put simply and briefly (the issues are explored in more detail in Chapter 9), the availability of alternatives to alcohol made total abstinence from alcohol the viable option it had not been until that time. One result was that much of the attention and criticism that had been directed at drunkenness and at the negative effects of habitual heavy drinking shifted to the consumption of any alcohol at all.

Nineteenth-century biblical scholars, working in a cultural climate increasingly receptive to temperance and prohibitionist ideas, began to reinterpret the treatment of alcohol in the Bible in light of the widespread acceptance of the notion that the consumption of even the smallest volume of alcohol led to sin and social disorder. If drinking alcohol led to immorality, they asked, why did Jesus turn water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana? Why did Jesus drink wine? And why would wine symbolize the blood of Christ in communion? Seizing on the existence and apparent ambiguity of many different Hebrew words used to refer to alcoholic beverages, they adopted a “two-wine” theory: that the positive, approving references to “wine” in the Bible referred not to wine—the beverage resulting from fermentation—but to unfermented grape juice, whereas the negative references referred to actual wine. For them, the miracle at the marriage at Cana was that Jesus turned water not into wine but into grape juice. (Cynics might see this as a more modest miracle.) In contrast, they argued that negative examples of wine involved the real thing, as when Noah drank so much wine that he stripped naked, and when Lot’s daughters so befuddled their father with wine that he was not aware he was having sex with them. In these and other cases, supporters of the two-wine theory argued, alcohol was clearly at work, erasing the line between moral and immoral behavior.

Many of the Christian denominations founded in the 1800s (such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Salvation Army) forbade their adherents to drink alcohol and rallied to the two-wine interpretation of the Bible. There was also a movement to celebrate communion in mainstream denominations with grape juice, or what they designated by the oxymoron “unfermented wine.” The place of alcohol in the Old and New Testaments is still a subject of lively debate. Some commentators have added up the positive, negative, and neutral references to beer and wine in the Bible and concluded that they are predominantly negative; whether that is true, and whether it means anything if it is, is a matter of interpretation and individual decision.

What is clear is that wine was of great importance to both Jews and Christians. The book of Genesis reports that when the Great Flood had receded and the earth needed to be replanted and repopulated, the first plant cultivated by Noah was not cereal for making bread but a grapevine to provide wine. Having cultivated his grapes, Noah proceeded to make wine, and this was apparently a good thing. But the narrative ended badly when Noah drank too much, stripped off all his clothes, and fell into an intoxicated stupor in his tent. His youngest son, Ham, came in and saw his father naked, and for this offense Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan.9 This is a complicated story (commentators suggest there was some form of sexual violation by Ham of his father), and there are several explanations why Canaan, rather than Ham, bore the punishment. But what is important, in this context, is that what appeared to start out as the unproblematic consumption of inherently good wine led to breaking God’s laws and a family tragedy that is emblematic of human life in the new world after the flood.10

The tragedy was prefigured in some Jewish commentaries on the story of Noah and wine that set out the problems of excessive alcohol consumption more explicitly. According to one, Noah was about to plant his vineyard on the slopes of Mount Ararat when Satan offered to help in exchange for a share of the produce. Noah agreed, and Satan promptly slaughtered, in turn, a sheep, a lion, an ape, and a hog (presumably taken from the ark’s passengers, which would have made the reproduction of these species problematic) and fertilized the vineyard with their blood. This was meant to demonstrate to Noah that after the first cup of wine, a drinker’s behavior is as mild as a sheep’s, but that after a second cup, the drinker becomes as courageous as a lion. The third cup of wine makes one behave like an ape, and after the fourth, the drinker acts like a hog that wallows in mud.11

Other Old Testament texts associated drunkenness not so much with bad, crude, or bestial behavior but explicitly with sin. In the case of Lot’s daughters, the offense was incest, when they plied their father with wine so that he would sleep with them in order “to preserve seed of our father.” They appear to have calibrated the amount of wine well so that Lot was not so drunk that he could not perform sexually yet was sufficiently intoxicated that when each daughter slept with him on consecutive nights, “he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.”12 We might add, “nor who she was.”

Coexisting with such examples of the abuse of wine are clearly positive statements. When Moses led the Hebrews from Egypt into Israel, he dispatched scouts, and they returned with a bunch of grapes so big and heavy that it took two men to carry it on a rod on their shoulders. While the Jews might well have valued eating juicy, fresh grapes after their trek, it is as likely that they relished the thought of drinking wine, the highly valued beverage of the Egyptian elite that had enslaved them. The Hebrews’ god enjoined them to enjoy wine (and bread, oil, and meat) at annual festivals13 and ordered priests to make offerings of bread and wine: “And the meat offering shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.”14 Perhaps the most positive statement about wine was the affirmation, “Wine maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.”15

The importance of wine to the Hebrews is also strongly suggested by the threats that God made to those who disobeyed his laws: they would not suffer eternal roasting in some far-off hell but the much more immediate penalty of having no wine. That, at least, seems to be implied in threats to make the vineyards barren: “The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh. . . . There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone,”16 and “I will surely consume them, saith the Lord: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade.”17

Beer was far from neglected, as we should expect from a society where beer was widely consumed.18 Yahweh is said to consume the equivalent of 2 liters a day (and more on the Sabbath), and there are other positive references to beer. There is one suggestion that beer should be given to “him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”19

In their overall positions on alcohol, the Old and New Testaments can be read as representing fairly conventional restatements of the attitudes adopted by ancient and classical writers: wine and beer had the potential for either good or evil, and their effects depended on how they were consumed; as beverages, they were to be judged on their effects, not on any quality intrinsic to the beverages themselves. This is not surprising, as alcohol consumption was common among Jews (including the authors of the New Testament). Wine was integrated into festivities such as Purim, it had a place at Passover seders (including the Last Supper), and like their Greek and Roman colleagues, Jewish physicians employed wine as both internal and external therapies for a wide range of physical and emotional ailments.20

While among Jews wine had banal, therapeutic, and symbolic presences, among Christians it took on a more intensely critical meaning. The doctrine of transubstantiation, which was articulated in the first centuries of Christianity, holds that at the Eucharist the substance of the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, even though they keep their outward appearances. In the fourth century, St. Augustine quoted Cyprian as saying, “For as Christ says ‘I am the true vine,’ it follows that the blood of Christ is wine, not water; and the cup cannot appear to contain His blood by which we are redeemed and quickened, if the wine be absent; for by the wine is the blood of Christ.”21 Although this referred only to wine blessed for the Eucharist, and not to the wine consumed on a daily basis, it would not be surprising to find Christian doctrine taking a more stern view than other religions of the abuse of wine. Excessive drinking not only had the common range of personal and social consequences, but for Christians it involved the misuse of a substance charged with religious meaning. Perhaps it is for this reason that, under Christianity, we see the emergence of more systematic regulations governing the drinking of wine and other alcoholic beverages.

Christianity introduced Christ as a figure who, in many respects, resembled a new wine god. Christianity adopted many of the symbols of existing beliefs, and there were many similarities between Christ and other wine gods who were still venerated in the first centuries of Christianity. Dionysus, for one, was born of a god and a human woman, and he, too, performed the miracle of turning water into wine—although Dionysus filled only three jars with wine, not six, as Christ did. In the early centuries of Christianity there was a complex interplay between Christ and wine gods. A fifth-century mosaic from Paphos, in Cyprus, depicts the infant Dionysus in a tableau that echoes representations of the adoration of the magi in Christian iconography.22

So important was wine to the image of Christ that the first miracle performed by Jesus was the transformation of water into wine at the celebration of a marriage. When Mary, his mother, observed that the wine had run out before the festivities were over, Jesus called servants to fill six jars with the water that would normally be used for washing and then instructed one servant to give a bowl of the water to the man leading the festivities. Miraculously (and apparently without any words or gestures on Jesus’s part) the water had become wine. There is a sense in which the miracle partially prefigured transubstantiation: when Jesus presented the bowl to the host, it appeared still to contain water, and he had to taste it before he recognized it as wine. (We might infer from this that it was white wine.) As with transubstantiation, the appearance had not changed, although its essential properties had.

In addition to the basic miracle, Jesus had turned bad water (intended for washing, not drinking) into high-quality wine; the host observed that while the best wine was usually served first, before the guests became too intoxicated to appreciate its quality, the wine Jesus provided was better than the wine that had been served first and had run out.23 Was it wine? The word used might be open to several meanings, but the context—a marriage celebration—is the kind of occasion at which wine was typically served. It is worth noting that water, whether or not it was intended for washing, was not considered appropriate for the festivities.

For many centuries, until the 1800s, religious scholars and the clergy did not question that the wine referred to in the Bible was the alcoholic beverage made by fermenting grape juice. This is demonstrated by the use of wine in communion and by the way Christ was represented for hundreds of years. One genre of religious painting was “Christ in the wine-press,” in which he is shown standing in a vat where grapes are crushed and pressed for their juice. Christ is usually depicted bearing a cross and wearing a crown of thorns, with blood running from the wounds on his head and body into the grapes that he is pressing with his feet. The red liquid running from the vat is thus a blend of Christ’s blood and the grape juice, showing the essential convergence of the two. There can have been no doubt in the mind of the artist or of the audience of these works that what was in play here was what we know as wine.

Such was the centrality of wine to Christianity that it became associated with the religion. In fact, in the first few centuries of the Christian era, some Christian writers echoed the prejudices of the Greeks and Romans and portrayed beer as an inferior and harmful beverage. Eusebius, the fourth-century Christian historian, wrote that Egyptian beer “was both adulterated and cloudy. The Egyptians used it as a drink, before the Lord lived among them.” (There is a hint here of the common notion, contested by some historians, that converts to Christianity shifted their drinking preferences from beer to wine.) About the same time, St. Cyril wrote that beer was “a cold and cloudy drink of Egyptians which could cause incurable illnesses,” whereas wine “gladdened the heart.” In turn, the fifth-century Christian thinker Theodoret wrote that Egyptian beer “is an invented beverage, not a natural one. It is vinegary and foul-smelling and harmful, nor does it produce any enjoyment. Such are the lessons of impiety, not like wine which ‘gladdens man’s heart.’”24 Such characterizations of beer seem to have died away by the sixth century, and later Christian criticisms of beer referred to its consumption in pagan festivals or to simple excessive consumption. The way was clear for the Christians to embrace beer and for the church’s religious houses to produce beer as well as wine.

Over time, the importance of having wine for communion led the Christian church and its institutions, such as religious houses, to became significant sponsors of an extensive wine industry. Many vineyards were planted on monastic lands, and monasteries became important commercial producers of wine. Only small volumes of wine were needed for communion, and wine was an integral part of the diet in some religious orders and for the church hierarchy; but many monasteries also produced wine for sale to the better-off strata of secular society. By the time the Roman Empire had reached its farthest extent about AD 400, the church had helped extend viticulture and winemaking to many parts of France (including now-famous regions like Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhône Valley), as well as to present-day England, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Poland.

Thanks largely to the church, viticulture and wine production were well established throughout much of the Romans’ western empire when Germanic populations (Franks, Burgundians, and others) from central and eastern Europe began to invade during the fifth century. By about AD 500, each major Germanic group had settled and established political control over parts of what had been the western Roman empire. It was the Romans who designated them “barbarians,” and the word was soon given its meaning of “culturally inferior.” The names of some individual populations—in particular the Vandals and Huns—later took on more specific but equally negative connotations. As we have seen, the Romans objected not only to their languages but also to their drinking customs: for the most part, the Germans (like every other group, apart from the Greeks and Romans) drank beer and were reputed to drink it to excess on a regular basis. Julius Caesar wrote that the Germans were suspicious of wine and that they initially opposed its importation into their regions because they feared it would make men effeminate.

If they were opposed to wine when they first encountered it, the Germans quickly overcame their qualms, and their elites were soon consuming wine as well as beer and mead. In the second century, the Greek philosopher Posidonius described their morning meal as consisting of roasted meat, milk, and undiluted wine.25 By the late ninth century, King Alfred the Great referred to beer as one of the basic necessities of life (along with weapons, meat, and clothes) in Britain, but in the following century, the English abbot Aelfric laid out the hierarchy of beverages: wine for the rich, ale for the poor, and water for the poorest.26 Among the Celts, who inhabited Gaul, the situation was similar, and beer was also widely consumed. In the sixth century, one physician wrote that “it is on the whole extremely suitable for all to drink beer or mead or spiced mead, since beer which has been well made is excellent in terms of benefits and is reasonable. . . . Similarly also mead made well, as long as the honey it has is good, helps a lot.”27

Although Germans and Celts drank a range of alcoholic beverages, Edward Gibbon, the eighteenth-century historian of the fall of the Roman Empire, echoed the worst Roman prejudices (and amplified them with his own) when he described the “barbarians.” They were, he wrote, “immoderately addicted” to “strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted . . . into a certain semblance of wine.” But, he added, some of the barbarians who had “tasted the rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that one delicious species of intoxication.” He added that “the intemperate thirst for strong liquors often urged the barbarians into the provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied presents.”28 In short, Gibbon thought the barbarians invaded some regions of western Europe primarily to get their hands on wine, not for its sensory pleasures, but purely for its ability to intoxicate more rapidly than beer.

Were Edward Gibbon’s views of these beer-guzzling, wine-hankering tribes shared by west Europeans as they faced the incursions by the peoples from the east? If so, they must have feared for the vineyards that had been initially planted under Roman sponsorship, then extended by Christian missionaries and religious houses, and for the wine that was increasingly regarded as a symbol of civilization and Christian piety. If it were true that the barbarians lived in crude disorder but loved wine, they could easily be imagined consuming the existing stocks in one drunken binge before letting the vineyards fall into ruin.

Yet when the German peoples invaded western Europe, they did not so much interfere with the production of wine as dislocate the established patterns of commerce. Trade declined as the Roman commercial system broke down and as the empire fragmented and was replaced by the smaller political units that were established throughout the region. The process did not affect ale, as it was consumed where it was made, but the wine trade was one of the casualties. We can only imagine the impact of political instability on Bordeaux’s young wine industry. In the fifth century alone, the Bordeaux region was invaded successively by Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Franks. Then the Gascons from Spain arrived in the seventh century (giving the region the name Gascony), and in the eighth century the Franks were back. Such dramatic changes in political power and the shifting alliances that went with them were hardly conducive to the continuity of existing commercial links or the development of stable new ones.

This does not mean that the newcomers were hostile to wine. Even if they did not expand existing vineyards, and even if the wine trade was disrupted when the Roman Empire collapsed, the various German tribes maintained wine production more or less intact. Visigothic legal codes set out heavy penalties for damage to vineyards, and the Vikings, whose name has become a byword for theft and pillage and whom historians long treated as an early medieval chapter of the Hell’s Angels, became active participants in the wine trade of northern Europe. Many of the rulers of the new political entities transferred vineyards to monastic orders. Ordono, the Gothic king of Portugal, did so in the ninth century, and a hundred years later the English kings Eadwig and Edgar granted vineyards to the monks of several abbeys.29 Wine was clearly a valued commodity in the diets and medical preparations of these peoples, not simply something to be quaffed until the drinker fell into an intoxicated stupor, as Edward Gibbon suggested. Contemporary recipes called for wine in the preparation of stewed meat and fruit, and elite attitudes toward wine after the collapse of the empire were little different from the advice of Roman and Greek commentators. A seventh-century Anglo-Saxon text, for example, advised that “wine is not the drink for children or the foolish, but for the older and wiser.”30

The promotion of wine by the Christian church reinforced the cultural status of wine and its consumption by the German and Celtic elites. Most lived in northern Europe, where cereals were easily cultivated but where the climate made viticulture either marginal or impossible. Wine had to be imported, sometimes over short but sometimes over longer distances, and transportation costs made wine more expensive than beer. Even where wine could be made, producers of the middling classes likely did not drink it on a daily basis because of its value as an exchange commodity. Beer, then, remained the drink of the masses outside the major wine-producing regions. It was a nutritious beverage (a given amount of grain provided more nutrients as beer than as bread) and safer than much of the water available for drinking. Both these considerations help explain why there were no attempts to restrict the production of ale so as to conserve stocks of grain for bread. At various times, authorities tried to limit the area of land under viticulture in order to preserve land for cereals (and, later, to restrict distilling of cereal-based spirits so as to reserve grain for bread). But until the early twentieth century, when temperance ideas influenced government policy and beer no longer had the nutritional value of earlier styles, no one tried to restrict beer production so as to conserve cereals for baking.

At various times in the early Middle Ages, climatic and other factors led to poor grain harvests. Drought reduced crops across much of Europe in the 860s, and in the following decade, locusts devoured the ripening grain throughout much of Germany. For lack of grain reserves, poor harvests led to shortages and famines, local or regional, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Although it is unlikely that many deaths can be attributed solely to starvation, many people died of disease as malnutrition weakened their immune systems. Warfare, too, could result in grain shortages, often because outside armies deliberately destroyed crops in the field. In any period when grain was in short supply, ale production must have declined, and populations must have been forced to drink the only alternative: water. It is probable that polluted drinking water contributed to the diseases and mortality that attended periods of famine.

It is impossible to know how much ale Europeans drank on a daily basis in the early Middle Ages. Consumption must have varied broadly on a regional basis, as well as by class, gender, and age. One calculation suggests that, in the eighth and ninth centuries, monks drank 1.55 liters of ale, while nuns drank 1.38 liters. Among lay consumers, the volume of ale was calculated as varying between 0.6 and 2.3 liters of beer (and 0.6 to 1.45 liters of wine), a wide range.31 In all cases, the volume of alcohol would have increased during festivities, though perhaps it decreased during periods of penance and fasting, and it would certainly have decreased in years when grain harvests were poor.

In the early medieval period, ale was made to be consumed within days of being brewed, not to be kept for any extended length of time. It was generally brewed in small quantities in each household, usually by women as part of their responsibilities for baking bread and preparing food more generally. There are scattered references to brewing from all parts of Europe at this time—from England, Iceland, Spain, France, and elsewhere—but few provide much detail, probably because brewing was such a commonplace activity. In the eighth century, the emperor Charlemagne appointed a brewer to his court to maintain the quality of the ale, and he also enjoyed ale to celebrate military victories. Several English and Irish scholars complained about the poor quality of ale on the Continent, compared to what was available at home.32

The first large-scale brewing operations were set up in monasteries from the eighth century. Not only were monasteries wealthy enough to buy the equipment for commercial production, but they also owned the land that would provide the necessary supplies of grain. Beyond that, larger religious houses needed to produce more than a family household because they had to meet the dietary requirements of more people: the scores of monks in residence and the various travelers who might stay at a monastery. In contrast, a typical family household in much of western Europe comprised only four or five members, including women and children who did not drink as much ale as adult males.

One of the first religious houses to embrace brewing was the monastery of St. Gall (in what is now Switzerland). The buildings included three breweries—one for making ale for the monks; another, for distinguished guests; and a third, for pilgrims and paupers—but it is not clear if there was a quality distinction among the three ales. In general, monks were free to choose to produce wine or ale, and many seem to have made both, as well as other alcoholic beverages. In 843, the abbot of a monastery near Paris wrote that produce of all kinds was in such short supply that beverage production was difficult. There was a scarcity of grapes for wine, pears for making perry were unavailable, and a shortage of grain all but ruled out ale, so all that was left for the monks to drink was water. It is as clear a statement of the hierarchy of beverages as we could wish for.33

Many religious orders and houses prescribed daily allotments of wine and/or beer, but despite some attempts to standardize rules in the eighth century, there were many variations in what and how much was permitted. For some orders, the higher alcohol content of wine was problematic, as a ninth-century account of the founding of the monastery at Fulda, in Germany, makes clear: “Whilst he was explaining the Holy Rule to the brethren [the abbot] read out the passage which states that the drinking of wine does not befit the vocation of a monk, and so they decided by common consent not to take any strong drink that might lead to drunkenness but only to drink weak beer. Much later this rule was relaxed at a council held in the name of King Pippin, when, owing to the increasing numbers in the community, there were many sick and ailing among them. Only a handful of the brethren abstained from wine and strong drink until the end of their lives.”34 The synod of Aachen in 816 decided that the daily ration of alcohol in religious houses should be about half a pint of wine and a pint of ale. Examples such as these show that ale was considered fit for the Christian clergy. This policy marked a significant departure from the anti-ale positions that Christianity inherited from the Greeks and Romans, and it is even more significant in light of the centrality of wine to Christian doctrine and rituals.

There is some debate as to who produced the wine that seems to have flowed through Europe in quite generous volumes during the Middle Ages up to about AD 1000. Many historians have argued that the church, for which wine was symbolically so important and which needed regular supplies for communion, had almost single-handedly protected vines from the ravages of the easterners who invaded Rome’s western empire. But a more nuanced and positive view of the Germans themselves has undermined the facile contrast between images of pious monks tending vines and harvesting the grapes for the glory of God, on one hand, and scenarios of brutish pagans carousing drunkenly until they exhausted the supply of wine, on the other.

But did monks and priests really contribute more than secular landowners to the survival of viticulture during the early Middle Ages? Records of landownership by the church were kept more systematically and have survived better than those of individual secular owners, because the clergy were more literate and there was more continuity in ecclesiastical establishments and archives. In fact, we often know about many secular holdings only from church records that record that lay proprietors gave or bequeathed vineyards to the church. In the sixth or seventh century, for example, Ementrud, a Paris aristocrat, left property including vineyards to her entourage and to several Paris churches.35 In 764, when the monastery of St. Nazarius of Lauresham, near Heidelberg, was founded, it was given vineyards by two secular landowners. In the next century it accumulated many more from secular donors, and by 864 it owned more than 100 vineyards near Deinheim alone.36 We do not know what percentage of vineyards was owned by the church and religious orders and what percentage was in secular hands, but it is clear that the church was far from solely responsible for viticulture and wine production in this period—and perhaps not nearly as responsible for innovations in winemaking as many commentaries suggest.

Yet while we can recognize the probable significance of secular vine owners in this period, we must give full credit to the church for its role in extending wine production up to and beyond the end of the first Christian millennium. The importance of wine to the church ensured that, among other things, viticulture spread wherever Christianity extended its influence. As missions were established throughout central Europe, each planted vines for the production of sacramental wine—a pattern that would be repeated when Catholic missionaries extended their faith throughout Latin America and California from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Some of the monastic vineyards were extensive. In the early ninth century the abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés, near Paris, owned a total of 20,000 hectares of land, of which 300 to 400 hectares were in vines. The vineyards were scattered throughout the total estate, but they were located close to the Rivers Marne and Seine so that the wine could be easily transported to Paris, the single most important market in France. Each year the abbey’s vineyards, mostly cultivated by peasants who leased the land, produced about 1.3 million liters of wine, equivalent to 1.7 million modern bottles.37 This was production on a substantial scale.

Most church vineyards were much smaller, though, and were cultivated to provide what was needed for ritual purposes, to supply a priest or religious house with a daily ration of wine and enough for special occasions, and perhaps to allow some extra for the market. The only churches that did not have vineyards were located in regions where grapes would not grow or perhaps where viticulture was extensive enough that there was no difficulty obtaining supplies of wine. In more isolated areas that could sustain vines, priests were not only encouraged but sometimes ordered to plant them. The Council of Aachen decreed in 814 that every cathedral should have a college of canons, one of whose obligations was to cultivate vines.38

Between about AD 500 and 1000, various monastic orders were responsible for planting vines, and the number of vineyards in Europe rose substantially. Because the volume of wine needed for communion was very small, most of the wine produced directly by the medieval church was consumed on nonreligious occasions and became an integral part of the diet of the clergy. As we have seen, monks might have had about a liter and a half of alcohol (ale and/or wine) each day, and nuns had a little less. The rule of St. Benedict, which became the most influential model in western Europe, allowed a daily measure of wine for each monk, but in contrast with the strong positive association of wine with monks, St. Benedict conceded the ration only reluctantly: “Wine is no drink for monks; but since nowadays monks cannot be persuaded of this, let us at least agree upon this, that we drink temperately and not to satiety. . . . We believe that a hemina [about half a liter] of wine a day is sufficient for each. But those upon whom God bestows the gift of abstinence, they should know that they have a special reward.” In recognition of the medicinal value of wine, however, the prior could allow a sick monk to have a larger ration. The Benedictines drank ale when they did not drink wine.39

It is clear that wine and ale were firmly entrenched in the culture and diets of Europeans in the first millennium of the Christian era. The collapse of the Roman Empire did not diminish the popularity of wine, and the spread of Christianity extended viticulture. Even the so-called barbarians turned out to be defenders, rather than the ravagers, of Europe’s nascent wine industry. But if these great changes were no threat to alcohol, Islam was. Beginning in what is now Saudi Arabia, Islam quickly gained support throughout the Middle East and then began a journey of spiritual and military conquest much farther afield. Moving westward, it took in much of the northern fringe of Africa along the Mediterranean and by the eighth century had expanded to Sicily, to the Iberian Peninsula, and for a brief time, into southwestern France—areas where wine and beer (depending on the region) were integral to the diet.

The rise and spread of Islam is important for the history of alcohol because Islam represented the first example of a comprehensive prohibition policy that banned the production, distribution, and even consumption of alcohol. (More recent prohibition policies, such as the well-known national prohibition in the United States from 1920 to 1933, criminalized the production and sale of alcohol, but not its consumption.) Moreover, Islam’s prohibition policies proved to be remarkably successful, having lasted in many parts of the Muslim world for nearly 1,500 years. While it is true that alcohol is explicitly or implicitly permitted in some modern countries that are officially or predominantly Islamic, such as Turkey, there is very little alcohol consumption in many others, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. For their populations, drinking alcohol is simply out of the question, as it is for adherents of other religions that ban alcohol, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in the United States. A key difference between Mormons in the United States and Muslims in countries that prohibit the consumption of alcohol is that Mormons choose to abstain from alcohol, whereas Muslims in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia are forbidden by law to drink alcohol and can be punished if they do so.

Islam was first implanted in regions of the Middle East where alcoholic beverages were widely consumed in pre-Islamic times and where some of the earliest evidence of wine and beer has been found. Initially, the Prophet Muhammad was no more hostile to alcohol than Jews and Christians were, but after a short time he forbade his followers to drink wine and any other fermented beverages. The reason was not because these drinks were evil in themselves—a position adopted by later advocates of abstinence—but because the weakness of humans led to excessive drinking and then to blasphemy, sin, immorality, and antisocial behavior.

The Qur’an contains a number of references, both positive and negative, to wine, and one scholar notes that a critical analysis of all references reveals that the Qur’an treats wine “with great ambivalence; the potent liquid that constitutes an abomination in one verse becomes a source of ‘good food’ in another.”40 But it is important to note that the texts of the Qur’an were “revealed” gradually over time, not as a completed corpus, and that later texts could abrogate earlier ones. Read in this way, the references to the Qur’an are less contradictory than when read in an achronological manner, and they are more consistent in their condemnation of alcohol than they might at first appear. Wine might be described as both an intoxicant and a wholesome food, but one text in particular has been understood as representing the final Muslim doctrine on wine: “Believers, wine and games of chance, idols and divining arrows are abominations, devised by Satan. Avoid them so you may prosper. Satan seeks to stir up enmity and hatred among you by means of wine and gambling, and to keep you from the remembrance of Allah and from your prayers.”41

This verse is thought to have been a response to conflicts within the Muslim community that were exacerbated by alcohol. One account explains Muhammad’s ban on alcohol as the result of his experience at a wedding. When he saw the guests drinking wine and joyfully celebrating the marriage, Muhammad praised wine as a gift from God. But when he returned to the house the next day, he saw that the guests had drunk too much, that their joy had turned to anger, and that the celebration had turned violent. Surveying the wreckage and the injuries, Muhammad cursed wine and thenceforth advised Muslims against drinking alcohol in any form. Such a narrative accords with a developmental model of the alcohol doctrine of the Qur’an, with one position being abrogated by another in the light of new information, insights, or guidance. Muslims who abstained from intoxicating beverages on earth would, however, have access to them in Paradise, which is depicted as flowing with rivers of delicious wine. But nowhere in the Qur’an are these two wines, the earthly and the heavenly, or the implications of consuming them, actually brought into a direct relationship.

The Qu’ran did not expressly forbid the consumption of alcohol, although it strongly advised against it. Later commentaries and the hadith (sayings attributed to Muhammad) promoted the prohibition of wine consumption perhaps, according to some scholars, to strengthen Muslim identity and to allow Muslim leaders to control their populations more easily.42 Even so, there are two major lines of thought about alcohol in Islam. The dominant one is that any intoxicating drink, known as khamr, is forbidden to the faithful. They are liable to be punished if they drink it in any quantity or buy, sell, or serve it, but no one who spoiled or destroyed alcohol would suffer any punishment. In contrast, a minority school holds that khamr is made only from grapes, and only it is banned absolutely; other fermented beverages, made from ingredients such as honey and dates, are permissible, but intoxication from drinking these beverages is prohibited and punishable.43 There is a similar division over whether alcohol may be used for medical purposes. Most Islamic scholars agree that it may not, but others believe that it may be used under certain circumstances, notably when a patient’s life is endangered if he or she does not take alcohol in some form, such as in a medicine.44

Muhammad appears to have deterred wine production by limiting the kinds of vessels in which fruit juice could be made or stored. Only vessels made from skin were permitted, and gourds, glazed jars, and earthenware vessels coated with pitch were forbidden, although it is hard to see how any fruit or grape juice, whatever it was contained in, could be prevented from fermenting into wine, given the warm temperatures of late summer when fruit and berries were ripe, and the ambient yeasts that must have been present if there had been alcohol production before the ban was imposed. Muhammad’s wives made a potentially alcoholic drink called nabidh (traditionally made from raisins or dates and which may be alcoholic or nonalcoholic) for him in a vessel made of skin. “We prepared the Nabidh in the morning and he drank it in the evening and we prepared the Nabidh in the night and he drank it in the morning.”45

The twelve hours between preparation and consumption might or might not have been long enough for fermentation to begin, but it is unlikely that the resulting beverage would have enough alcohol in it to be classified as alcoholic today. The Qur’an not only forbade the consumption of fermented beverages but dealt with the situation where a Muslim did not know whether or not a liquid had fermented. Faced with nabidh on one occasion, Muhammad diluted it three times before he believed he was able to consume it.46 The implication might be that the Qur’an did not insist on absolutely alcohol-free beverages—perhaps a recognition of the likelihood that any fruit-based beverage would begin to ferment in a short period—but that, sufficiently diluted, an alcohol-bearing beverage could be consumed, as long as the drinker was sincerely uncertain whether any fermentation had taken place.

The Islamic prohibition of alcohol affected broad swaths of the Middle East, northern Africa, and southwestern Europe, regions where ale, wine, and other alcoholic beverages (such as date and pomegranate wine) were commonly consumed. Early Islam did not extend the ban on alcohol consumption to non-Muslims of Muslim-governed territory, and wine presses and other evidence of wine production have been found in many parts of the early Muslim world.47 Over time, the prohibition was enforced with varying degrees of rigor in different regions of the Muslim empire. It was probably more rigidly enforced in areas closest to the origins of the religion, but less so at the fringes of the Muslim world. In Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, and Crete, for example, a number of policies succeeded one another or even coexisted, as some caliphs prohibited wine production in law but allowed it to continue in practice, even to the point of acknowledging the fact by taxing wine. Arab sources suggest that vineyards for wine production were widespread in southern Spain (especially in Andalusia) and in Portugal under Muslim rule. Islamic horticulture was so advanced that the number of recognized grape varieties increased, and some Muslim texts on agriculture included instructions on taking care of fermentation vats. Yet for all that some caliphs tolerated or turned a blind eye to drinking in parts of the Muslim world in the first centuries, others did not. In the tenth century, Caliph Ozman ordered the destruction of two-thirds of the vineyards of Valencia, in Spain; presumably the grapes of the surviving vines were to be eaten fresh or as raisins.

It was also in Spain, however, that Muslim legal scholars interpreted the prohibition on alcohol consumption in such a way as to permit it. They argued that the beverage referred to in the Qur’an was wine made from grapes and that it referred exclusively to that kind of wine. (The vineyards closest to Mecca were a thousand miles away, but wine from Syria and other places had been imported for consumption there before the ban on alcohol.) Therefore, they argued, wine made from dates was permitted. But if date wine was permitted, so was any wine (including grape wine) as long as it was no more intoxicating than (that is, had an alcohol level no higher than) date wine.48 Needless to say, this interpretation, which effectively undermined what seems like an unambiguous prohibition on alcohol, was not accepted by all Muslim scholars. It failed to answer the objection that even if drinking did not lead to drunkenness, it was certainly a distraction from pious thoughts.

Over the long term, there are many examples of Muslims accommodating the production and consumption of alcohol. In sixteenth-century Ottoman Crimea, for example, wine production was extensive, and vineyards were owned by members of both the majority Christian and minority Muslim populations. The Muslim state benefited from the taxes it imposed on these activities, but in order to maintain the fiction that Muslims had nothing to do with intoxicants, the tax was imposed on wine produced by Christians and on the grape juice produced by Muslims.49

Later experiences of prohibition—in twentieth-century Russia and the United States, for example—would lead us to think that the initial ban on alcohol in Muslim societies generated some resistance. Only the most determined efforts, combined with the adoption of the new faith, could have curtailed private, domestic production and brought about such a dramatic change in drinking habits. Yet some Muslim writers assert that whole populations rapidly gave up drinking: “In a matter of hours a whole city-state [Madina] had become abstinent and the most successful campaign that had ever been launched by man against alcohol dependence was miraculously achieved.”50

Within decades of the birth of Islam, the poet Abu Jilda al-Yaskuri wrote of his repentance of the old ways:

"I was once made rich by a choice wine,
[I was] noble, one of the illustrious men of Yaskur.
That [was] a Time whose pleasures have passed—
I have exchanged this now for a lasting respectability".51

The possibility of drinking seems to have been embraced by some Muslims in Spain, although it is thought that wine consumption was lower among them than among Christians.52 Muslims drank on occasions reminiscent of Greek symposiums: men gathered after the evening meal to drink wine, diluted with water, while relaxing on cushions. Wine was poured by serving boys, and the participants talked, recited poetry, and were entertained by female singers and dancers. Similar occasions were common among Jews in Muslim Spain, and they gave rise to a particular genre of poetry that celebrated the ability of wine to banish cares and bring joy.53 Later poems in the genre included Omar Khayyam’s Ruba’iyat, a long poem in praise of wine and love that included sentiments such as “I cannot live without the sparkling vintage / Cannot bear the body’s burden without wine.” More to the point, he cynically implied that illegal drinking (and sexual relationships) were common:

"They say lovers and drunkards go to hell,
A controversial dictum not easy to accept;
If the lover and drunkard are for hell,
Tomorrow Paradise will be empty."54

Compliance with the Muslim prohibition on alcohol must often have fallen short. As easy as it was to decree an end to production and consumption of alcoholic beverages, the raw materials needed to make them were in plentiful supply. Cereals that could be used for brewing ale were needed for baking bread, and grapes cultivated to be eaten fresh or as raisins could be crushed and fermented. If table grapes are not ideal for wine, they can still be fermented, and grapes that have begun to shrivel to raisins make wine with a higher alcohol content than grapes that are merely ripe. It is certain that alcoholic beverages were made and consumed clandestinely in the Muslim world despite the prohibition on them, although we cannot know how extensive resistance to the policy was.

However successful it was—and it seems to have been remarkably successful over the longer term—the Islamic ban on alcohol represented a radical break with historic and prevailing attitudes toward drinking. Although a few marginal Christian and Jewish sects had required abstinence from alcohol, the mainstream Jewish and Christian faiths not only tolerated but even encouraged drinking for reasons of nutrition, health, and conviviality. They were at one in condemning excessive consumption and drunkenness and in arguing that humans should resist the temptation to drink too much, and they provided penalties for those who proved too weak. But they did not consider the option of removing the temptation from the table, as Muslim doctrine did so effectively.

To make it clear that Christians should not consume alcohol to excess or to the point of intoxication, penitentials (guides to the penances that Christians should do if they acted immorally) included drunkenness among the various sins and offenses against God. Penances for this offense were generally light, such as spending three days without consuming wine or meat. This is a mild enough penalty when we think that wine or ale might be easily forgone for a couple of days after a bout of drunkenness, especially when it took the form described in one penitential: “It changes the state of the mind and the tongue babbles and the eyes are wild and there is dizziness and distention of the stomach and pain follows.” Yet if the penitentials treated ordinary drunkenness with relative lenience, they came down hard in some circumstances. Following a general pattern, the same penitential prescribed much more severe penances for the clergy than for laypeople, because priests were held to a higher standard of behavior. If a layperson spent three days without wine or bread, a priest spent seven days, a monk spent two weeks, a deacon spent three weeks, a presbyter four weeks, and a bishop five weeks.55

A Spanish penitential made further distinctions. A cleric who got drunk was to perform a penance of 20 days, but if he vomited, his penance was extended to 40 days; if he aggravated the offense by vomiting up the Eucharist (the communion bread), an additional 20 days were added. The penance for a layperson in these circumstances was less severe and set at 10, 20, and 40 days, respectively.56

The frequent references to drunkenness in the penitentials do not necessarily mean that drunkenness was common in the early Middle Ages, but they do show us that the church frowned on it, no doubt because intoxication was frequently associated with other proscribed activities, such as illicit sexual activity and blasphemy. From this point of view, it is easy to see why the writers of the penitentials regarded drunkenness by the clergy as especially horrifying. Perhaps, too, that is why the clergy figure so prominently in contemporary accounts of drunkenness. The bishop of Tours was said to be “often so completely fuddled with wine that it would take four men to carry him from the table.” The bishop of Soissons was said to have been “out of his mind . . . for nearly four years, through drinking to excess,” to the point that he had to be locked behind bars whenever royalty visited his city. Gregory of Tours complained that monks regularly spent more time drinking in taverns than praying in their cells.57 In 847, perhaps because of perceptions of widespread clerical drunkenness, the Council of Prelates ordered that any person in religious orders who habitually drank to the point of drunkenness should abstain from fat, beer, and wine for forty days. The council signaled its seriousness by including both beer and wine in the ban, effectively forcing an offending monk to drink nothing but water for more than a month.

Such penalties were part of the continuing battle that the authorities, religious and secular, continued to wage against excessive alcohol consumption. But it is notable that until the brief period from about 1914 to 1935, when several national governments experimented with prohibition policies, no non-Muslim authorities took the radical step of banning alcohol altogether. If anything, the rise of Christianity elevated one form of alcohol, wine, to unprecedented status, and it might be argued that in doing so, the church implicitly gave a nod to alcohol consumption more generally. Europeans did not need the blessing of the church before they drank, of course, and ale and wine became increasingly integral to their diets as the second Christian millennium opened.

NOTES

1. Max Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe (London: Routledge, 2005), 75.
2. Genesis 14:18.
3. Ecclesiastes 9:7.
4. 1 Timothy 5:23.
5. Luke 10:34.
6. Luke 1:15.
7. Proverbs 23:20.
8. 1 Timothy 3:8.
9. Genesis 9:20–27.
10. Devora Steinmetz, “Vineyard, Farm, and Garden: The Drunkenness of Noah in the Context of Primeval History,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113 (1994): 194–95.
11. Midrash Agadah on Genesis 9:21.
12. Genesis 19:32–35.
13. Deuteronomy 14:26.
14. Leviticus 23:13.
15. Psalms 104:15.
16. Isaiah 24:7, 11.
17. Jeremiah 8:13.
18. Michael D. Horman, “Did the Ancient Israelites Drink Beer?,” Biblical Archaeological Review, September–October 2010, 23.
19. Proverbs 31:6–7.
20. Randall Heskett and Joel Butler, Divine Vintage: Following the Wine Trail from Genesis to the Modern Age (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 88–97.
21. Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, bk. 4, chap. 21.
22. The mosaic is reproduced in Hugh Johnson, The Story of Wine (London: Mitchell Beazley, 1989), 58.
23. John 2:1–11.
24. Nelson, Barbarian’s Beverage, 75–76.
25. Ibid., 79.
26. Ibid., 87.
27. Ibid., 89.
28. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. David Womersley (London: Penguin, 1994), 238.
29. Tim Unwin, “Continuity in Early Medieval Viticulture: Secular or Ecclesiastical Influences?,” in Viticulture in Geographical Perspective, ed. Harm de Blij (Miami: Miami Geographical Society, 1992), 37.
30. Ann Hagen, A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food (Pinner, U.K.: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1992), 94.
31. Kathy L. Pearson, “Nutrition and the Early-Medieval Diet,” Speculum 72 (1997): 15.
32. Richard W. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 26. See pp. 15–36 generally on the early Middle Ages.
33. Nelson, Barbarian’s Beverage, 104.
34. Eigil, Life of Sturm, www.Fordham.edu/halsall/basis/sturm.html (accessed June 13, 2012).
35. Marcel Lachiver, Vins, Vignes et Vignerons: Histoire du Vignoble Français (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 46.
36. Desmond Seward, Monks and Wine (New York: Crown Books, 1979), 25–35.
37. Lachiver, Vins, Vignes et Vignerons, 45–46.
38. Rod Phillips, A Short History of Wine (London: Penguin, 2000), 71.
39. See Seward, Monks and Wine, 25–35.
40. Kathryn Kueny, The Rhetoric of Sobriety: Wine in Early Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 1.
41. Qur’an 5:92.
42. Kueny, Rhetoric of Sobriety, 43.
43. Nurdeen Deuraseh, “Is Imbibing Al-Khamr (Intoxicating Drink) for Medical Purposes Permissible by Islamic Law?,” Arab Law Quarterly 18 (2003): 356–60.
44. Ibid., 360–64.
45. Kitab Al-Ashriba (The Book of Drinks), no. 4977, http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/muslim/023-smt.php (accessed April 7, 2013).
46. Kueny, Rhetoric of Sobriety, 35–36.
47. Lufti A. Khalil and Fatimi Mayyada al-Nammari, “Two Large Wine Presses at Khirbet Yajuz, Jordan,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 318 (2000): 41–57.
48. Raymond P. Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986), 28–29. It is not clear how alcohol content would have been measured at this time.
49. Oleksander Halenko, “Wine Production, Marketing and Consumption in the Ottoman Crimea, 1520–1542,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47 (2004): 507–47.
50. M. B. Badri, Islam and Alcoholism (Plainfield, Ind.: American Trust Publications, 1976), 6.
51. Philip F. Kennedy, The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry: Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 105.
52. Thomas A. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 80.
53. Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death, 19–25.
54. Omar Khayyam, The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs (London: Allen Lane, 1979), 68.
55. John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York: Octagon Books, 1965), 230.
56. Ibid., 286.
57. Itzhak Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481–751 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 240.



Written by Rod Phillips in "Alcohol, A History", The University of North Carolina Press, USA, 2014, excerpts chapter 3. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

James Frazier Reed and Margaret Reed

It’s the tale of how the pursuit of the American dream turned into one of the great American nightmares, and a reminder of the dark side of the frontier spirit. 170 years after the Donner Party set out from Springfield, Illinois, their tale still haunts and fascinates us. But how did 89 men, women and children meet such a gruesome fate? It began with a hope for a better life in the West. California was their destination, painted as a land of opportunity and plenty by Lansford W Hastings – a pioneer and aspiring land developer. Hastings had great dreams for what he could accomplish in California but he needed able bodies to make them a reality. In 1845, he published "The Emigrants’ Guide To Oregon And California", containing a shorter route to their destination via what would become known as ‘The Hastings Cutoff’.

The year of 1846 saw a huge number of settlers heading westward. James Frazier Reed was driven by the prospect of new business ventures and a better climate for his wife Margaret, who was prone to terrible headaches, while George Donner and his family were veteran emigrants. They left Springfield on 14 April, late in the season for a westward passage, but making for an impressive sight, thanks in large part to the Reed’s opulent two-storey wagon known as the ‘pioneer palace car’. By 19 May, they had joined Colonel William Russell’s wagon train, then 50 wagons strong, and more would join them over the coming days. In June, Russell left the group and Lilburn Boggs took command. The group would soon splinter but it wasn’t over a question of leadership. It was about Lansford Hastings and his cutoff.

When the Boggs train reached Fort Laramie on 27 June, they met James Clyman – an experienced traveller who had just journeyed east with Hastings – and he had a dire warning for Reed and his companions. It was hard enough on foot, he told them, and to attempt to travel that route by wagon would be incredibly dangerous. Reed ignored him, putting his trust in Hastings and a faster way to their final destination.

A letter from their guide was found at Independence Rock, telling the group to meet him at Fort Bridger, and the Reed-Donner party split from the Boggs train on 20 July. The group now needed to appoint a leader, and chose Donner over the proud and domineering Reed, who had alienated many of his fellow travellers. They reached Fort Bridger to find that Hastings had already gone ahead, but he had left instructions behind. After four days of rest and repairs, they set out to follow him.

At first, it seemed like Clyman’s warning about the trail had been an exaggeration. They embarked on a few days of easy passage and made good time. However, on 6 August, they found a note at Echo Canyon in Utah. In it, Hastings told them that the planned route was “impassable” and wrote that he had gone on ahead to find another way. Reed and two men went looking for their absent guide, and when they finally found him, Hastings pointed out a new path but refused to return with them.

Hastings’ new route through the Wasatch Mountains was incredibly tough going. The emigrants had to clear a path for the wagons past bush and boulders, and the supplies were just days away from running out when the desert came into view. There, at the end of August, the party found another note from Hastings, a ragged, tattered order to follow him across the Great Salt Lake Desert, which he described as two days’ and two nights’ hard driving. As the emigrants stockpiled water and grass for this next ordeal, they knew they had come too far to turn back now.

Travelling across the salt was beyond difficult. By day, the heat of the Sun turned the salt into sludge, and the wheels of the wagons sunk up to their hubs. Their water ran out on the third day, and that night the Reeds lost their oxen; the beasts had been driven mad by the lack of water and fled.

It took five days for the Donner party to reach the other side of the salt flat, at which point they had lost 36 cattle and four wagons. After a week’s recovery, they set out again on 8 September, and sent Charles Stanton and William McCutchen to Sutter’s Fort when they realised that they didn’t
have enough food to make it to California.

They found the Humboldt trail on 26 September – the original, advised safe track. Hastings Cutoff had added 200 kilometres to their journey, and cost them equipment, livestock and, perhaps most crucially of all, time. The snows were coming and the group was falling apart. Tempers snapped on 5 October when Reed attempted to stop a fight between one of his men and the Graves’ driver John Snyder. The furious Snyder beat Reed with his whip, and before he could land another blow, Reed planted a knife in his chest.

The emigrants watched Snyder stagger away for a few paces and die, and promptly accused Reed of murder. After Margaret begged for his life, the group banished him, forcing him to ride away from his wife and children. A day later, an elderly gentleman, Mr Hardkoop, was ejected from Lewis Keseberg’s wagon and, unable to keep up on foot, was last seen at the side of the road. By the middle of October, the Paiute Indians had become aware of the struggling emigrants and destroyed their oxen.

Finally, the group had some good fortune when Charles Stanton rode into view around 25 October with supplies and two Miwok guides, Luis and Salvador. Inevitably, the new supplies prompted discussion among the group about taking a rest, but when George Donner cut a gash in his hand while making a new axle for his wagon, they were reminded just how isolated they were. They pressed on and stopped for the night by Truckee Lake in the shadow of the lake, and it started to snow. They were a day late.

They tried for the summit on the next day but they were turned back by snow 1.5 metres deep, and a night on the mountain convinced them to turn back for the relative shelter of the lake. A winter camp was their only option, and the weather got worse and worse. The shacks were barely enough to keep the elements at bay, with roofs made of animal hide that would later become their food. The group anxiously watched the weather for signs of improvement, desperate to make a break for it across the mountain, but when days passed, they realised that the wagons would simply not make it. The first aborted attempt to cross on foot was made on 12 November, and with each successive failure, spirits worsened and supplies continued to dwindle.

Eventually, on 16 December, a team of 17 took advantage of the fair weather and set out on makeshift snowshoes for the mountain pass. They were in trouble after just a few days. Charles Stanton, the man who had been the group’s salvation once before, realised that he was struggling to keep up and told his companions to go on without him. He was last seen smoking his pipe in the snow.

On 24 December, they realised just how bad the situation was. They were lost, their supplies were gone, and the storm had returned. Desperate, they drew lots, but no one could bring themselves to kill the unlucky Patrick Dolan. Two days later, four were dead and the group resorted to cannibalism, taking care not to eat their family members. Cruelly, and inevitably, this food quickly ran out, and William Foster suggested that they murder Luis and Salvador. The appalled William Eddy told the two Native Americans of Foster’s intentions and they vanished, only to be found at death’s door roughly ten days later, at which point Foster carried out his initial plan.

On 12 January, the group found a Miwok camp, and the inhabitants nearly ran from the starved figures that appeared from the trees. The Miwoks gave them what food they could spare, and with their help Eddy soldiered on, finally finding Johnson’s Ranch, a farming outpost in Sacramento. A rescue team was scrambled and located the surviving members of the Camp of Death on 17 January. Their ordeal was finally over.

Meanwhile, at Truckee Lake, the Donner party was becoming desperate. Patrick Breen wrote that he prayed to God on Christmas Day but the weather refused to let up, they struggled to forage or hunt, and animal hides became the basis of their meals. While the Forlorn Hope party was being saved, numbers at the lake were dwindling. Death was everywhere, and the storms continued. But a rescue party was coming. With the Mexican-American War over, Reed and McCutchen were able to rally men, and they left San Francisco on 7 February. Just two days later, Breen wrote, “Pike’s child all but dead. Milt at Murphy’s; not able to get out of bed. Keyburg never gets up; says he is not able. John (Breen, Patrick’s son) went down today to bury Mrs Eddy and child.”

The rescue party did not arrive until 19 February. Daniel Rhoads wrote about shouting a greeting and being met by a woman emerging from the snow, followed by others pushing their way towards them. “They were gaunt with famine,” he wrote, “and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. The first woman spoke in a hollow voice, very much agitated, and said, ‘Are you men from California or do you come from heaven?’” Carefully giving out small quantities of food, they decided to take 23 of the emigrants, leaving 21 behind for successive rescues. In their absence, the hunger at the camp was worsening. Breen wrote in his diary at the end of February that, “Mrs. Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milton and eat him. I do not think she has done so yet; it is distressing.”

James Reed was in the second rescue party, which arrived at the lake on 1 March. The Murphy cabin was a nightmarish pit of sickness, madness and cannibalism. The same scenes were found at the Donner camp, where the remains of Jacob Donner showed that his party had been surviving on him.

17 emigrants were taken from this hell, leaving just five behind, but a savage snowstorm left the party exhausted and stranded. Young Isaac Donner perished, and Mary’s feet were so badly frostbitten that she fell asleep with them in the fire. The Breen and the Graves family refused to go on, but James Reed drove ahead, meeting William Foster and William Eddy, who were heading back to the lake with a rescuer named John Stark to save their families. They took four of Reed’s men and came across the Breens and Graves, with 11 survivors sat around a fire pit a short distance away from gruesome evidence of cannibalism. Foster and Eddy took two men and carried on, while the other two took a child each and headed back. In an incredible act of heroism, John Stark picked up two children and all the provisions he could carry, and guided the 11 to safety.

When Foster and Eddy arrived on 14 March, they discovered that they were too late to save their children. They left for Bear Valley with four youths and two adults, but Thomasen Donner chose to stay behind with her husband, George, whose grotesquely advanced gangrene made travelling impossible. Lewis Keseberg also stayed behind. It would be another month before a fourth relief party could make it through.

George Donner had finally died towards the end of March, at which point Thomasen had set out for Lewis Keseberg’s cabin. Accounts differ as to how she met her fate, but when Keseberg was finally discovered, his shack was littered with the half-eaten bodies of his dead companions, including Mrs Donner. They left with Keseberg on 21 April, and he arrived at Sutter’s Fort over a week later. The horror stories from the ‘cannibal camp’ would shock the nation, and dog the survivors for the rest of their lives. For settlers, they became the definitive cautionary tale. As Virginia Reed wrote, “Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”

Written by Jonathan Hatfull in "All About History Magazine" UK,  issue 45, 2016, excerpts pp. 78-83. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Turkey's Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük may have benn an orderly society built on tolerance and equality - until it fell apart.

Tunç I'lada stoops to pick up a pottery shard, one of many littering the ground at the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük. “This is from a Roman ceramic workshop that was here nearly 2,000 years ago,” I'lada, a tour guide, says of the shard. “But for the archaeologists working here, this is practically brand new.” Ancient Rome indeed feels like modern history compared with the inds for which this arid, dusty site in rural central Turkey is most renowned. Beginning some 9,500 years ago, in roughly 7500 B.C., and continuing for nearly two millennia, people came together at Çatalhöyük to build hundreds of tightly clustered mud-brick houses, burying their dead beneath the loors and adorning the walls with paintings, livestock skulls and plaster reliefs. Greeks, Romans and other later cultures left evidence of their subsequent presence at the site, but it’s the Neolithic residents who have captured archaeologists’ imaginations: Now, new techniques to analyze the tantalizing clues left by these first settlers may overturn our entire notion of prehistory.

The 34-acre site, at one time inhabited by as many as 8,000 people, is among the world’s largest and best-preserved early settlements. It’s astonishingly rich in artifacts: When the first digs began in 1961, British archaeologist James Mellaart “chose his excavation area based on where wall paintings had been revealed by erosion and were just sticking up from the ground,” says current excavation director Ian Hodder. When Hodder, a former student of Mellaart’s, took over the dig in 1993, his team unearthed nearly 20,000 objects that irst year through surface collection alone. And although Çatalhöyük’s first inhabitants left behind no written records or other traces of the language they spoke, artifacts suggest they were connected through trade to places as far-lung as the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coast.

Mysterious, fascinating objects are still being uncovered at Çatalhöyük. The prize of the 2015 dig season was a head modeled out of plaster and adorned with obsidian eyes. Though the site’s earliest residents are known to have applied plaster and ochre to the actual skulls of their dead, an artifact like this — found “watching over” what researchers think was a storehouse — had not been seen before.

But the digs are winding down. As Hodder’s team members wrap up a 25-year excavation and make the last new inds, they’re also focusing on putting past discoveries into context.

WINNING THE DATING GAME

“Radiocarbon dating alone can only show us if one artifact’s origins are within 200 years of another,” says Alex Bayliss, a University of Stirling archaeologist on Hodder’s team. “That’s like the difference between us and Napoleon. Most people wouldn’t know what their ancestors were doing during the Napoleonic Wars.”

Bayliss’ current work aims to reine dating of the site to within a generation, to better understand relationships within the community and how it changed over time. To do so, she combines radiocarbon dating with stratigraphy — analysis of each of the layers of the 69-foot-deep site — and data gleaned from all other available material, including fragments gathered by local women sifting through sand and gravel samples with thick tweezers. Bayliss then crunches the data using Bayesian statistics, a sophisticated mathematical technique that can incorporate multiple lines of evidence.

“The detailed stratigraphy and the depth excavated at Çatalhöyük mean I can routinely get samples that give me a chance of getting to within [a date range of] 20 to 40 years,” Bayliss says. “This allows us to say that the people in this house knew the people in that house. It’s taking the ‘pre’ out of prehistory.

Hodder and others on the Çatalhöyük team have hailed Bayliss’ work as among the most groundbreaking of the entire project. It’s possible to compare this new generational chronology directly against the climate record, which researchers can also measure on a iner scale by examining changes to tree rings, lake sediments and other materials. This direct comparison could establish whether important milestones, such as the introduction of domesticated cattle, were related to changes in the surrounding environment.

More precise dating of the hundreds of often co-mingled human remains at the site could also indicate the relationship between, for example, a body and the plastered skull cradled in its arms at the time of burial: Were they parent and child, or was the skull a venerated ancestor, many generations removed?

This dating technique also has implications for understanding the site’s social dynamics. “If we know that two houses are exactly contemporary, we can start determining that differences between them may have been by choice, rather than just a change in the times,” Bayliss adds. “Say I have a wall painting [that I’m looking at in Çatalhöyük]. Is it of a red bull because red bulls were ‘so this season,’ or is it because it was painted by the grandchildren of the people who painted an earlier red bull, and it’s kind of a family heirloom?”

With the current excavations scheduled to wrap up this month and final data to be published over the next two years, Bayliss, Hodder and others on the team hope that this highly reined, comparative approach to dating will help unravel some big questions that remain about the site: why these people first settled in such a large community, how they lived and why things eventually fell apart.

LIFE WITHOUT LEADERS

One of the enduring mysteries of Çatalhöyük is how this early society was organized: The hundreds of homes excavated thus far exhibit remarkable unity in how they were built, arranged and decorated, with no sign of any distinctive structure that could have served as an administrative or religious center. In most of the layers of successive settlement, each household seems to have had a similar amount of goods and wealth, and a very similar lifestyle. It’s primarily in the most recent uppermost layers, after about 6500 B.C., that signs of inequality begin to emerge. Hodder speculates that this uniformity, as well as a strong shared system of beliefs and rituals, kept people together in the absence of leaders. He cautions, however, that it may not have been an egalitarian utopia.

“We believe people in Çatalhöyük were quite equal, but it might not have been the nicest society to live in,” he says. “Residents had to submit to a lot of social control — if you didn’t it in, you presumably left. What Çatalhöyük may show is that such a society only works with strong homogeneity. For many generations, it was very unacceptable for individual households to accumulate [wealth]. Once they started to do so, there is evidence that more problems started to arise.”

Some of the new evidence for this theory comes from Çatalhöyük’s human remains lab. There, Ohio State University’s Joshua Sadvari noticed something odd about one of the hundreds of skulls in the lab’s collection, the world’s largest single Neolithic assemblage. Team leaders Christopher Knüsel of the University of Bordeaux and Bonnie Glencross of Wilfrid Laurier University took a closer look.

“The cranium had a depressed fracture,” says Knüsel. “We started going through the other remains looking for more.” He and Glencross found dozens of skulls with similar wounds, all showing a consistent pattern of injury to the top back of the skull. “The pattern of the wounds suggests that most of them were inlicted by thrown projectiles, but all of them were healed, meaning they were not fatal.” They speculate that the attacks that caused the injuries were meant only to stun, perhaps to control wayward members of the group, or to abduct outsiders as wives or slaves.

In line with Hodder’s theory, the skulls with this characteristic were found primarily in later levels of the site, when more independence and differentiation between households started to emerge. Hodder speculates that, with these inequalities potentially creating new tensions among the community’s members, non-fatal violence may have been a means to keep everyone in check and prevent or diffuse full-ledged conlicts that could break the settlement apart. “The head wounds, in a way, confirm the idea of a controlled society,” Hodder says. “They suggest that violence was contained and regulated, not something that led to large-scale killing.”

KICKSTARTING THE ANTHROPOCENE

The Çatalhöyük site is divided between two low hills on an otherwise lat plain. Today’s visitors see a predominantly dry landscape stretching in all directions, but the original settlers were likely drawn there by the now much-diminished Çarsamba river — what’s left of it runs through a channel alongside a rural road leading to the site. When Çatalhöyük was irst settled, however, the river’s marshy wetlands would have provided ish and water birds for food, and wet clay for building and replastering their homes.

Researchers believe the very process of digging for clay changed the river’s drainage and eventually its course, which may have contributed to the abandonment of what they call the East Mound for the nearby West Mound around 6000 B.C. It’s evidence that suggests humans at Çatalhöyük — and possibly elsewhere — were already having an impact on Neolithic ecosystems and even the climate.

Most scientiic literature holds that the Anthropocene, the period of human activities inluencing the environment, began with the industrial era in the 1700s, explains Hodder. “But you could argue that this impact goes back much further, starting in the Neolithic period at places like Çatalhöyük,” he says. “Farming ends the reciprocal relationship with nature that hunters had. At Çatalhöyük, we see evidence of deforestation, of extensive burning, of erosion and of large-scale grazing transforming the environment.” The trend of reworking the landscape, first begun in Neolithic times, continues today: Heavy use of irrigation has turned the area into one of modern-day Turkey’s agricultural centers.

Hodder’s team planned additional soil coring of the area around Çatalhöyük this summer. Their hope is to ind more details about how the local environment changed during roughly two millennia of settlement, and how those changes may have affected people’s behavior, perhaps even contributing to the site’s eventual dissolution circa 5500 B.C.

RUMINATING ON TECHNOLOGY

Farmers in the Fertile Crescent, more than 200 miles east of Çatalhöyük, began domesticating cattle around 8000 B.C. By 6500 B.C., the practice had moved to parts of Turkey’s Central Anatolia, Çatalhöyük’s general neighborhood. But evidence of domesticated cattle at Çatalhöyük is scarce until after the move to the West Mound. Compared with their neighbors, the people of Çatalhöyük appear to have been “late adopters” of that era’s hottest new innovation: domesticated cattle.

“Every domesticated animal is a hugely complex new technology that offers great potential for change, but also requires great investments,” says Katheryn Twiss, an associate professor of archaeology at Stony Brook University and co-director of Çatalhöyük’s faunal analysis laboratory. “If you have cattle, you can start to plow, but you also have to be able to get enough water and graze, and to keep them healthy and safe from predators. There may have been reasons to resist adopting this technological advance.”

Some 3 million animal bones have been found at Çatalhöyük — primarily from sheep and cattle, but also goats, horses, dogs, boar, fox, deer, hare and other species. Twiss’ team has been analyzing them to determine when, and why, the settlement transitioned from hunting to herding. Ongoing research may link the arrival of domesticated cattle with emerging inequality between households, and increasingly individualistic behavior among Çatalhöyük residents.

QUESTIONS OF GENDER ROLES

Site discoverer James Mellaart and other archaeologists believed that Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society — these early theories were based in part on clay figurines found in the settlement and believed to represent a “mother goddess.” Although researchers have since largely dismissed the idea of a matriarchy, some intriguing evidence suggests relatively high levels of gender equality.

Researchers have found more than 500 individual human skeletons on site, most interred below the plaster loors of Çatalhöyük’s homes. Some remains were subsequently disinterred and their skulls reburied with other bodies, possibly as a form of ancestor worship. Analysis of the site’s remains has not shown signiicant gender-based differences in how the dead were buried, including their grave goods or which skulls were later removed and placed with other individuals. Studies of the Neolithic residents’ teeth likewise reveal no major gender discrepancies in wear patterns, as would occur, for example, if men had more regular access to meat than did women.

“Teeth are usually really well-preserved and can tell you so much about diet and health, in addition to genetic relationships and social structure,” says Marin Pilloud of the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies the size and shape of teeth as part of her work in Çatalhöyük’s human remains lab. The relatively warm climate at Çatalhöyük and contamination issues from the previous generation of digs have made it dificult to analyze genetic material, so Pilloud uses teeth as a proxy for DNA. “Sixty to 80 percent of the variation in tooth size and shape can be attributed to genetics,” she says. Her research thus far has shown greater variation among female teeth than those from males, suggesting more women than men married into the community.

Analysis of bone development has also revealed some subtle differences between men and women in terms of manual labor. Says excavation director Hodder: “Women seem to have been more involved in activities related to grinding grain, while men were more active in throwing” — a movement linked to hunting with spears.

Hodder cautions, however, against drawing too many conclusions about a society so distant from our own. Current theories about Çatalhöyük’s level of gender equality may one day seem as quaint as Mellaart’s belief that its residents were goddess worshippers. “Interpretations will change, different ideas will come along,” Hodder says. “What’s important is leaving a detailed set of data that people can play with, test new hypotheses against, and mine endlessly.”

By Jennifer Hattam in "Discovery", USA, September 2016, v. 37, n. 7, excerpts pp. 34-43. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Resumo

A alimentação na Idade Medieval tem sido alvo de estudo e reinterpretações. Tem sido abandonada a visão de uma época marcada quase exclusivamente pela carência alimentar, para se ensaiarem descrições mais elaboradas e que reflictam a variedade de condições e períodos vividos por diferentes grupos. Este trabalho reúne informação acerca da alimentação praticada em Portugal durante a Idade Média, visando uma compreensão diferenciada das várias facetas por ela assumidas. Abordam-se aspectos genéricos da alimentação na Europa nesse período, características gerais da alimentação no Portugal Medieval, os alimentos mais utilizados e a adequação nutricional, as técnicas culinárias, utensílios e instrumentos e as características das refeições.

Palavras-chave:
Alimentação; Idade Medieval; Portugal.

Abstract

Food in Middle Age has been studied and reinterpreted. The vision of a time marked almost exclusively by food privation is beeing abandoned and more elaborated descriptions, reflecting the variety of conditions and periods experienced by different groups, have been attempted. This work reunites information about food in Portugal during Middle Age, seeking a differential comprehension of the several forms it assumes. We focus on common features of food in Europe during that period, general characteristics of food in medieval Portugal, most frequent foods and nutritional adequacy, culinary techniques, utensils and instruments and meals’ characteristics.

Keywords:
Food; Middle Age; Portugal.

INTRODUÇÃO E OBJECTIVOS

De entre os aspectos que caracterizam a cultura de um povo, a alimentação é, seguramente, um dos que mais profundamente reflecte a sua estrutura económica, política e social. As interacções de factores que a determinam e que por ela são influenciados são vastas e o estudo da alimentação em contextos espaciais e temporais específicos implica uma leitura integrada com eles.

Ao longo das últimas décadas a alimentação na Idade Medieval tem sido alvo de estudo e reinterpretações. Em particular no que concerne à Europa, tem sido abandonada a visão de uma época marcada quase exclusivamente pela carência alimentar, para se ensaiarem descrições mais elaboradas e que reflictam a variedade de condições e períodos vividos por diferentes grupos.

Na sequência da crescente necessidade de especificidade contextual e actualização na área da História da Alimentação, pretende-se com este trabalho reunir informação acerca da alimentação praticada em Portugal durante a Idade Média. Parte-se de uma breve abordagem a aspectos genéricos da alimentação na Europa nesse período e prossegue-se com as características da alimentação no Portugal Medieval. Após algumas considerações gerais, serão abordados os alimentos mais utilizados e a adequação nutricional, as técnicas culinárias, utensílios e instrumentos e as características das refeições.

A ALIMENTAÇÃO NA EUROPA MEDIEVAL

Para que se compreenda a alimentação na Idade Medieval é fundamental recuar ao Império Romano. Roma tinha ideologias universalistas e, como tal, tentava uniformizar usos e costumes. Isto reflectia-se ao nível alimentar: apesar de algumas variações locais na alimentação das regiões que formavam o território do Império Romano, esta tendia para uma grande uniformidade, marcada sobretudo pela trilogia clássica trigo-vinho-azeite.1,2

Os romanos orgulhavam-se da sua ligação à terra e seus produtos. Opunham a sua alimentação, baseada nos cereais, legumes, leguminosas e frutos, à dos povos bárbaros, que se alimentavam sobretudo de carne.1,2

Na passagem da Antiguidade para a Idade Média ocorreu um fenómeno de integração entre estas duas culturas. Na alimentação, este processo reflectiu-se sobretudo numa maior diversificação dos hábitos de consumo. Aos produtos da agricultura habitualmente consumidos veio juntar-se a ingestão mais frequente de carnes (tanto gado como caça) e peixes.1-3

É difícil proceder a uma caracterização global da alimentação medieva, visto os regimes alimentares dos diversos grupos sociais revelarem diferenças quantitativas e qualitativas2,3. Vão-se também registando mudanças ao longo deste período, sendo de assinalar as diferenças nos modos de produção e modelos de consumo antes e após os séculos X e XI, resultantes sobretudo do forte crescimento demográfico e consequente desenvolvimento de uma economia de mercado em substituição da anterior economia de subsistência4.

Apesar da população medieval ser fundamentalmente constituída por camponeses, poucos registos existem acerca de como se alimentavam. No entanto, como o consumo e a produção alimentares eram interdependentes (o comércio dizia respeito sobretudo a produtos de luxo), os dados relativos à produção permitem ter uma noção aproximada de como seria a alimentação desta classe social.1,3,5

Pensa-se actualmente que, exceptuando alguns períodos de maiores dificuldades, a alimentação da generalidade da população seria satisfatória. Apesar da relativa pobreza alimentar se compararmos a ingestão praticada com os padrões modernos, as quantidades de alimentos disponíveis seriam bastantes para garantir um aporte energético adequado e a crescente vulgarização de produtos animais à mesa dos populares serviu para minimizar diferenças entre classes.2,3,6,7

A diversificação alimentar foi permitindo a generalização de métodos de substituição de uns alimentos por outros, que ajudavam a dar resposta aos frequentes períodos de dificuldades produtivas.1,2,8

Para proceder a uma caracterização e análise mais pormenorizadas de como terá sido a alimentação durante a Idade Medieval, centrar-nos-emos no caso de Portugal, onde, pela sua História, localização geográfica, e características climáticas, se reúne um conjunto de factores que tornam interessante esta particularização.

A alimentação medieval em Portugal era, como no resto da Europa, uma alimentação pobre e monótona. Embora as quantidades de alimentos disponíveis fossem globalmente suficientes para suprir as necessidades energéticas, até mesmo nas classes menos abastadas, a qualidade não era a desejável e verificavam-se algumas diferenças entre classes sociais.6,7

Embora se refiram com frequência as dificuldades de produção resultantes de variações climáticas como uma das causas da menor adequação da alimentação dos camponeses no Portugal medieval, há que tê-las em consideração em interacção com as estruturas social e económica da época. As repercussões do clima nos preços dos alimentos e, consequentemente, no poder de compra tornaram-se, em diversos períodos, a barreira mais impeditiva da diversificação alimentar de vários grupos de trabalhadores, cujos reduzidos salários tornavam proibitiva a compra de grande parte dos alimentos.6
Os camponeses lavravam e semeavam terras que não lhes pertenciam, pagando aos senhores rendas e foros sob a forma de parte da produção e guardando para si uma parte menor desta. As quantidades de cereais e vinho com que ficavam eram habitualmente suficientes para lhes matar a fome; no entanto, não bastavam para se converterem em carne, pescado ou iguarias com a mesma frequência que acontecia à mesa dos senhores.9

Assim sendo, a alimentação da maioria da população era baseada nos cereais e no vinho. A inclusão de outros alimentos, como por exemplo as carnes e os peixes, estava dependente da sua abundância e preços; simultaneamente, eram os défices de produção de alguns alimentos que aumentavam a frequência de outros à mesa do camponês.6,7,9

OS ALIMENTOS MAIS FREQUENTES E A ADEQUAÇÃO NUTRICIONAL

A alimentação na Idade Medieval baseava-se essencialmente nos cereais, no vinho, nas carnes e no pescado. No entanto, existiam diferenças entre classes sociais relativamente ao consumo destes alimentos.

A maioria da população, isto é, os camponeses, praticava uma alimentação muito simples, baseada sobretudo nos cereais. Estes, juntamente com o vinho com que habitualmente eram acompanhadas as refeições, proporcionavam aos camponeses uma alimentação rica em energia.6,7

A riqueza da alimentação em proteínas dependia sobretudo da presença de carne e pescado à mesa. Comparando os orçamentos alimentares dos diferentes grupos sociais, verifica-se que quando mais se descia na classe social maior era o dispêndio com o pão, isto é, com os cereais, e que quanto mais se ascendia na hierarquia maior a importância do acompanhamento. Assim, e apesar de a carne ser a base da alimentação nas classes mais abastadas, entre os camponeses o seu consumo era raro, o que podia tornar insuficiente o aporte proteico em determinados períodos.6,7,9

Também o consumo de legumes e fruta não seria adequado entre as classes mais pobres. Este facto concorria para a pobreza da alimentação em algumas vitaminas.7,9

Os Cereais, o Pão e os Sucedâneos dos Cereais

Como já foi referido, a alimentação dos camponeses medievais era baseada nos cereais. Aliás, tanto em Portugal como no resto da Europa medieval, os cereais ocupavam a maior parte das áreas cultivadas.10

De entre os cereais cultivados em Portugal, salientam-se as diversas variedades de trigo, visto ser este o mais produzido e mais consumido. A sua importância está bem patente no facto de, em português medievo, todos os restantes cereais receberem a designação de “segunda”. A seguir ao trigo, seria o milho o cereal mais utilizado no fabrico do pão. Para além destes, eram ainda produzidos e consumidos o centeio, a cevada e, menos, a aveia. O arroz já se conhecia e consumia no século XIV, mas ainda não estava largamente divulgado.7,10,11

Atentando em cálculos efectuados para os coutos de Alcobaça e relativos ao ano de 1439, na produção global desse ano as percentagens dos diversos cereais e leguminosas teriam sido as seguintes: 45% de trigo, 36% de milho, 15% de cevada, 2% de centeio e 1% de leguminosas. Estes dados permitem substanciar a supremacia do trigo (e do milho) sobre os restantes cereais.10,12

No entanto, é importante realçar a grande heterogeneidade na produção cerealífera em Portugal. Na comarca de Entre-Douro-e-Minho ocorria grande produção de cereais, predominando a cultura do milho-alvo, ao passo que em Trás-os-Montes era o centeio o cereal mais cultivado, não sendo esta comarca produtora de grandes quantidades de cereais. Nas Beiras e no Ribatejo a produção cerealífera era abundante, sendo relativamente equilibrada nas Beiras e sobretudo de trigo no Ribatejo, onde se podiam encontrar também cevada, milho e até centeio. Também a Estremadura (nomeadamente os referidos coutos de Alcobaça) e o Alentejo possuíam zonas com solos de elevada produtividade. Em contraste, o Algarve tinha de recorrer com frequência à importação visto contar com níveis de produção insuficientes.10,11

A farinha tinha diversas aplicações: podia ser consumida como papas (misturada com água) ou sopas, servia para cozer biscoito para os exércitos ou armada e era utilizada como polme para peixe ou carne ou até mesmo para confeccionar pastéis e empadas (entre as classes mais ricas). No entanto, os cereais eram consumidos sobretudo sob a forma de pão, sendo frequente utilizar a designação “pão” referindo-se a estes.6,7 Diariamente, e em época de produção regular, cada camponês consumia entre 1 e 2 kg de pão.9

A maioria da população fabricava o pão que consumia, nos fornos de pão. Nas cidades o pão era cozido e vendido em tendas ou ao domicílio por padeiras.7

Como se depreende com base nos dados relativos à produção, o pão era essencialmente de trigo. Eram fabricados pães de forma circular e com grandes dimensões (a maioria pesaria entre 150 e 750 gramas), que cresceriam pouco com a cozedura. A sua forma e, sobretudo, as suas dimensões avantajadas estariam certamente relacionadas não apenas com o facto de serem consumidos em grandes quantidades, mas também com o de constituírem suporte para a comida.7,10,11

Para além da designação de “pão”, usavam-se já na Idade Média os termos “fogaça” e “broa” para designar, respectivamente, o pão delgado, cozido debaixo das cinzas ou por rescaldo e o pão de milho.7

Os camponeses consumiam com maior frequência pão escuro, produzido a partir de mistura de farinhas. O pão branco, fabricado apenas com trigo, era mais consumido entre as classes mais abastadas, embora os camponeses também o consumissem com alguma regularidade, provavelmente aos domingos e dias santos.9,11

O pão de mistura poderia ser meado, terçado ou quartado, conforme o número de cereais por que era composto. Como também se compreende pela produção da época, o pão meado associava habitualmente as farinhas de trigo e milho, juntando-se-lhes a de centeio para o pão terçado e ainda a de cevada para o quartado. Estas combinações de farinhas não seriam as únicas possíveis, mas parecem as mais frequentes. Nas Beiras interiores e em Trás-os-Montes, por exemplo, seria o centeio a fornecer a base do pão para consumo normal, embora o trigo se encontrasse sempre presente.7,9,11

Apesar de ser praticada uma alimentação baseada nos cereais, nem todos os solos eram os mais adequados à sua produção. Algumas zonas revelavam uma baixa produtividade, dependendo de outras para assegurarem a satisfação das necessidades de consumo.10,11 Para além disso, as crises na produção cerealífera eram frequentes, reflectindo-se principalmente nas zonas mais populosas. A subida do preço do pão era problemática e levava à necessidade de encontrar alimentos que o substituíssem.7

Tanto nestas situações de menor produção, como, de um modo geral, nas regiões mais montanhosas (e, como tal, menos acessíveis) ou menos propícias à cultura cerealífera, quando para além do trigo havia falta dos outros cereais, o que foi frequente a partir de meados do século XIV, era frequente a utilização da castanha, da bolota e das leguminosas como sucedâneos do pão. Algumas populações de camponeses tinham até já enraizados hábitos com os quais faziam face a estas adversidades: em algumas zonas do Norte e interior de Portugal, nomeadamente nas Beiras e em Trás-os-Montes, comia-se castanha em vez de pão durante cerca de metade do ano; noutras fabricava-se habitualmente pão de lande ou de bolota. Nas zonas com mais população, chegavam-se a importar favas do estrangeiro para fazer face à situação de crise. Esta necessidade de importação demonstra que a produção de leguminosas não seria avultada, não chegando a armazenagem para suprir as baixas na produção cerealífera. Para além das favas, também as ervilhas, as lentilhas, o grão-de-bico, os chícharos, o feijão e o tremoço eram leguminosas utilizadas como substitutos dos cereais.7,10,11,13,14

Em última análise, este recurso aos sucedâneos do pão era a melhor garantia de subsistência que possuíam os camponeses medievais. Este facto verificava-se não só em Portugal como também no resto da Europa.11

A Vinha, o Vinho e as Outras Bebidas

Para além da dos cereais, a vinha era a outra grande cultura da Idade Média. Terá até chegado a ser a primeira, em determinadas épocas e regiões. Ao contrário do que sucedia com os cereais, existiam em diversas zonas do solo português áreas extensas adequadas a esta cultura. A adequação dos solos, juntamente com a do clima, fez com que não ocorressem quebras significativas na produção vinícola, como ocorreu com os cereais.7,10

Este facto terá servido para que o vinho assumisse uma enorme importância na alimentação do Portugal medieval. Embora parte da produção das vinhas se destinasse ao consumo de uvas como fruta de mesa, a maioria era reservada para a produção de vinho. Para além do abundante consumo, exportava-se ainda vinho português para o estrangeiro.10

Produziam-se diversas qualidades de vinhos, brancos e tintos, que constituíam a bebida mais consumida por todas as classes sociais e por todo o país. De facto, tanto à mesa dos camponeses como nos banquetes das classes mais abastadas, fosse como acompanhamento das refeições ou simplesmente para matar a sede, o vinho estava sempre presente. Para além disso, o vinho servia também para as cerimónias do culto religioso.7,9,10

Quase se pode considerar que, durante a Idade Média, em Portugal, quando se refere “beber” se adivinha “beber vinho”, pois raras seriam as excepções. Um camponês consumiria cerca de 1 a 2 litros de vinho diariamente; o consumo de outras bebidas era apenas ocasional e muito limitado. Desconheciam-se o café, o chá ou o chocolate. No Norte da Europa o consumo de cerveja era abundante, mas em Portugal o consumo deste produto nunca se terá popularizado, não tendo a sua importação sido mais do que esporádica.7,9

Embora também se bebesse simples, o vinho era bebido sobretudo misturado com água. Os camponeses mais afortunados fariam a mistura com duas partes de vinho e uma de água; para os mais pobres, a vinho seria meado de água. O vinho era bebido não apenas no seu estado natural (cru), como também cozido.7,9

A Carne e o Pescado

Ao contrário do que sucedia relativamente ao consumo do pão e do vinho, ambos consumidos com abundância por todas as classes sociais, a ingestão de carne e pescado durante a Idade Média revelava fortes assimetrias sociais. Eram essencialmente as classes mais ricas quem tinha acesso regular a estes alimentos, restando aos menos abastados um consumo menos frequente, mais escasso e não tão diversificado.6,7,9

Para além disso, e relativamente à carne, sabe-se que os seus preços eram muito variáveis no Portugal medieval. Por exemplo, na Coimbra do século XII, as carnes de porco e de carneiro eram as mais caras, sendo mais acessíveis as de vaca e de cabrito, ao passo que em Évora, nos séculos XIII e XIV, era a carne de vaca a mais cara, seguindo-se-lhe a de porco e sendo as de carneiro e cabra consideravelmente mais baratas. Estas variações regionais de preços, para além das que derivavam dos mecanismos de mercado, influenciavam enormemente não só as quantidades como também os tipos de carne mais consumidos.7

Esta influência fazia-se sentir sobretudo entre os menos abastados, sendo difícil caracterizar o consumo de carne pelos camponeses medievais. Pensa-se contudo que, globalmente, seriam as carnes de carneiro e de porco as mais frequentes. O carneiro era, aliás, considerado a carne de melhor nutrição, sendo provavelmente a mais comum.6,7,15

Entre as classes mais ricas, porém, o consumo de carne caracterizava-se por uma enorme diversidade. Consumiam-se não só carnes de matadouro ou carnes gordas, como a vaca, o porco, o carneiro, o cordeiro ou o cabrito, como também carnes de caça compradas nos mercados e provenientes de criação doméstica. Em mercado tabelavam-se carnes de gamo, zebro, cervo, corço, lebre e até de urso, ao lado de grande quantidade de aves: pombas, perdizes, galinhas, ansares, anas, abetardas, grous, túrtures, patos bravos, cercetas, garças, maçaricos, fuselos, sisões, galeirões, calhandras. A criação doméstica era sobretudo respeitante a galinhas, patos, gansos, pombos, faisões, pavões, rolas e coelhos.7,9,16

A carne era habitualmente consumida fresca ou em conserva, sob a forma de torresmos, presunto ou diversos enchidos, como os chouriços, as linguiças, os paios ou os salpicões. A carne de vaca era muito usada em sopas, enquanto a confecção de outros tipos de pratos utilizava sobretudo as carnes de carneiro ou de aves.7,15

Em relação ao peixe, parece ter sido menos consumido do que a carne na época medieval em Portugal, pelo menos se considerarmos especificamente as classes mais abastadas, em que o consumo destes alimentos se revela mais significativo. Apesar de se tratar uma publicação já dos finais do século XVII, o livro de cozinha de Domingos Rodrigues16 apresenta-se como uma boa referência para efeitos de caracterização da alimentação praticada pelas classes abastadas, indo ao encontro dos manuscritos da época medieval. Assim, a título de exemplo, refira-se que nesta obra 66% das receitas eram de carne, enquanto pouco mais de 10% eram de peixe. Porém, o peixe tinha também alguma importância no contexto da alimentação medieva em Portugal, sobretudo entre as classes mais pobres.6,7

Entre as classes mais ricas, o consumo frequente de pescado estava muito associado a prescrições religiosas. Estas prescrições, que proibiam o consumo de carne por todos os católicos em cerca de sessenta e oito dias por ano, levavam à sua substituição por pratos de peixe ou de marisco. Nestes dias de jejum, para além de ser obrigatória a abstinência de carne, estava também proibido o consumo de peixes gordos, ovos, queijo, manteiga, banha e até de vinho.6,7

O peixe era consumido principalmente fresco ou salgado, sendo por vezes também consumido seco ou defumado. Entre os camponeses o mais consumido seria a sardinha, sendo também frequente a pescada (“peixota”). Entre as classes mais abastadas, era habitual o consumo de outras espécies, tanto de mar como de rio, entre as quais: lampreia, congro, linguado, sável, salmonete, azevia, ruivo, pargo, solho, besugo, cação, rodovalho, truta e goraz.6,7,9,13,17

Comiam-se ainda carnes de baleia e toninha e diversos moluscos e crustáceos, salientando-se as amêijoas, o berbigão, a lagosta, o caranguejo e as ostras6,7.

As Hortaliças e os Legumes

Durante a Idade Média o consumo de hortaliças e legumes não era muito frequente entre as classes mais ricas. O livro de cozinha de Domingos Rodrigues16 conta com menos de 5% de receitas com estes alimentos. Os legumes frescos seriam sobretudo apreciados pelos elementos das classes mais pobres.6,7

Eram conhecidos muitos hortícolas, sendo principalmente utilizados vários tipos de couve: couve comum, couve murciana, couve tronchuda e couve-flor. Para além da couve, eram consumidas diversas hortaliças ainda hoje presentes na alimentação portuguesa, tais como espinafres, pepino, nabo, cenoura, cebola, alho, brócolos, abóbora, espargos, rábanos, rabanetes, alface, beringela, cogumelos e salsa.7,10,13,14

A alface era muito consumida durante o Verão sob a forma de salada que acompanhava as refeições. Esta e outras formas de utilização de legumes na alimentação quotidiana serviam para compensar parcialmente a monotonia alimentar dos camponeses (e a consequente desadequação nutricional), ressalvando-se, contudo, o facto de estarem dependentes quer de variações climáticas e sazonais quer dos já mencionados condicionalismos de mercado e da estrutura sócio-económica.13,14

A Fruta

Desde a Idade Média que a fruta tem um papel importante na alimentação e economia portuguesas, sendo já conhecidas quase todas as frutas consumidas actualmente.6,7,10

Tanto no interior como na periferia dos povoados encontravam-se numerosas e diversas árvores de fruto, tais como: figueiras, ameixieiras, macieiras, pereiras, pereiros, pessegueiros, cerejeiras, cidreiras, nespereiras, marmeleiros, amoreiras, romãzeiras, nogueiras, castanheiros, sorveiras, laranjeiras, limoeiros, alfarrobeiras, amendoeiras. Também a vinha e a oliveira, para além de fundamentalmente ligadas à produção de, respectivamente, vinho e azeite, produziam uvas e azeitonas para consumo de mesa.10

Poucos são os frutos não conhecidos em Portugal durante a Idade Média. A ausência mais relevante será decerto a da laranja doce, que apenas viria a ser trazida do Oriente por Vasco da Gama. Era conhecida a laranja azeda (hoje muito menos produzida), que, juntamente com o limão, era sobretudo usada para tempero.6,7,18

Habitualmente, a fruta era ingerida acompanhada com vinho, como refresco ou refeição ligeira, sobretudo à noite. Usava-se até a expressão “vinho e frutas”, embora se pense que num sentido mais alargado, significando “sobremesa”.6,7,19

É também importante referir que as frutas não eram todas igualmente consideradas. Algumas, como por exemplo o pêssego, as cerejas ou o limão, eram encaradas como pouco saudáveis, sendo desaconselhado o seu consumo.7

Era também frequente produzir outros produtos a partir da fruta fresca. Destacam-se os frutos secos e as conservas e doces de fruta. Entre os frutos secos, seriam os figos e as passas de uvas os mais habituais. No que respeita às conservas e doces, eram fabricados com grande variedade: de cidra (“casquinhas”, “diacidrão”), pêssego (“pessegada”), limão, pêra (“perinhas”, “perada”), abóbora e marmelo (“marmelada”, “bocados”, “almívar de marmelo”). De laranja fazia-se a então famosa “flor de laranja”, utilizada não só como tempero mas também como perfume e até a alface era utilizada para o fabrico de uma conserva especial conhecida por “talos”.7

A produção abundante de frutos em Portugal durante a Idade Média revela-se na exportação para o estrangeiro de figos secos e passas de uva (principalmente provenientes do Algarve), bem como de frutas frescas de fácil conservação10.

As Gorduras e os Restantes Temperos

Durante a Idade Média, a condimentação era bastante simples. Nas casas mais pobres, consistia essencialmente na adição de sal e gorduras aos alimentos.6,7

Eram utilizadas diversas gorduras para condimentar os alimentos. De todas, o azeite era a mais importante, sendo inclusivamente considerado um dos produtos básicos da alimentação medieval portuguesa. A oliveira era uma das árvores mais comuns, tendo a importância do azeite na alimentação portuguesa aumentado principalmente com a expansão dos olivais para Norte. A produção de azeite era muito abundante, permitindo não só suprir as necessidades de consumo nacional como também a exportação para o estrangeiro.6,7,10

Para além do azeite, eram utilizadas, não com a mesma frequência ou abundância, mas ainda assim com alguma relevância, diversas gorduras animais. Destas, destacam-se a manteiga, o toucinho e a banha. É de referir, aliás, que a banha de porco era utilizada como tempero por todas as classes sociais. Mais raramente, a gordura de vaca também era empregue na preparação de refeições.6,7

O sal era amplamente utilizado como tempero. Para além disso, usava-se para conservar carnes, peixes e outros alimentos quando se pretendia proceder ao seu transporte ou armazenamento.7

A utilização de outros temperos ocorria quase exclusivamente entre as classes sociais mais abastadas. Era habitual a utilização de ervas de cheiro (coentros, salsa, hortelã), sumos (de limão, laranja azeda e agraço), vinagre, cebola, alho e pinhões como tempero, o que conferia maior requinte e palatibilidade às refeições nas casas mais ricas.7,14

Quanto mais elevado era o preço dos temperos, menos ampla era a sua utilização. Alguns seriam quase exclusivos da casa real, como é o caso de diversas especiarias, antes de ser vulgarizada a sua importação em grandes quantidades a partir do Oriente. A pimenta, por exemplo, seria frequente à mesa real mas rara nas restantes. Também o cravo, o açafrão, o gengibre, a mostarda, os orégãos e os cominhos seriam, devido ao seu elevado preço, pouco divulgados, apesar de já conhecidos e consumidos pelos mais ricos.7,14

Os Lacticínios, os Ovos e a Doçaria

O leite era pouco consumido directamente durante a Idade Média. Os lacticínios, pelo contrário, eram muito frequentes na alimentação medieval portuguesa. Eram chamados de “viandas de leite” e utilizados sobretudo como acompanhamentos ou sobremesas. Os mais frequentes seriam o queijo, a nata, a manteiga e diversos pratos confeccionados, especialmente doces.6,7

Os ovos, devido à abundância de criação de galinhas, patas, gansas e pombas, eram utilizados em grande quantidade, entrando na confecção de grande parte dos pratos mais elaborados.6,7

O fabrico de bolos no período medieval não era muito habitual nem se encontrava muito desenvolvido. Para além das sobremesas feitas com leite, a doçaria medieval portuguesa baseava-se nos biscoitos e pastéis (como por exemplo os “biscoitos de flor de laranja” ou os “pastéis de leite”), sendo também confeccionado “pão-de-ló”, bem como os “fartéis” (doces feitos à base de mel, farinha e especiarias). Eram ainda produzidos alguns doces com ovos, como os “canudos” e os “ovos de laços”. Devido ao elevado preço do açúcar, o mel era o adoçante mais utilizado.6,7

AS TÉCNICAS CULINÁRIAS MEDIEVAIS

As técnicas culinárias usadas na Idade Média caracterizavam-se pela simplicidade. A maioria dos métodos de confecção mais elaborados que eram utilizados no Império Romano foi-se perdendo, restando apenas algumas formas mais elementares de preparação de alimentos.6,7

As principais técnicas utilizadas eram o assar, cozer, fritar, estufar e “afogar”, sendo este último uma espécie de guisado. Usavam-se também algumas técnicas de acabamento de refeição, como o corar, tostar ou enxugar. Eram muito utilizados os refogados, feitos com cebola e azeite.6,7

As técnicas de preparação da carne, apesar de simples, eram diversas. Dependendo do tipo de carne, esta poderia ser picada, trinchada ou lardeada. Quanto às formas de a cozinhar, a mais habitual era o assado no espeto, embora também fossem frequentes os cozidos, os “desfeitos” (preparados com carne picada) e os estufados. Com carne de carneiro fazia-se nos finais da Idade Média uma espécie de caldeirada chamada “badulaque”. Já o peixe era consumido principalmente cozido, assado ou frito.5,6 Outras técnicas culinárias aplicadas às carnes ou ao pescado eram raras; por vezes confeccionavam-se empadas e pratos semelhantes, mas não com grande frequência e quase exclusivamente nas classes sociais mais abastadas7.

Os ovos podiam fazer-se cozidos, escalfados, mexidos, fritos ou recheados, sendo para além disso utilizados para coalhar os molhos 6,7.

OS UTENSÍLIOS E INSTRUMENTOS UTILIZADOS

Verificando-se assimetrias sociais já no que respeita ao tipo, quantidade e frequência com que os alimentos eram ingeridos durante a Idade Média, a tentativa de caracterizar os utensílios utilizados na preparação e confecção das refeições revela-se ainda mais difícil. Apesar de a simplicidade das técnicas culinárias medievais tornar desnecessária uma grande diversidade de utensílios, são notórias diferenças na variedade que se poderia encontrar numa cozinha, consoante a riqueza do seu proprietário.6,7

Nas habitações rurais seriam utilizados alguns utensílios destinados a preparar os alimentos, como panelas, caldeiras ou amassadeiras. Quanto mais elevado o nível sócio-económico, maior a especificidade dos utensílios empregues. Nas casas mais ricas eram usados diversos utensílios, habitualmente de cobre, para levar os ingredientes ao lume, tais como tigelas, panelas, tachos, caços ou caçarolas. Também para cozinhar os alimentos eram utilizadas bacias que serviam igualmente para os misturar. Usavam-se “viradouros” ou frigideiras para fritar peixe ou para ir ao forno. Para auxiliar à preparação e confecção eram ainda utilizados outros instrumentos: facas (habitualmente de ferro), colheres, escumadeiras, escalfadeiras, almofarizes e graais.6,7

No serviço à mesa, usavam-se alguns dos utensílios utilizados para confeccionar as refeições (como por exemplo os viradouros e as frigideiras), bem como outros especialmente concebidos para o efeito. Nas casas mais abastadas já desde a Idade Média que se foi tornando comum a utilização de salvas, pratos, talhadores (travessas de grandes dimensões), sopeiras, pires e outros utensílios similares para levar a comida à mesa. Os materiais em que se fabricavam estes utensílios também variavam, podendo ser de estanho, louça, ou até mesmo de prata. O azeite e o vinagre serviam-se em “salseiros”.6,7

Durante muito tempo não se utilizaram pratos. A carne e o peixe eram inicialmente comidos sobre grandes metades de pão colocadas no início da refeição em frente a cada conviva. No final da refeição estas rodelas de pão estavam embebidas em molhos, sucos e outros restos, sendo habitual nas casas mais ricas distribui-las pela chamada “turba” dos mendigos ou, em alternativa, atirá-las aos cães que rodeavam a mesa.6,7

Mais tarde, as metades de pão viriam a ser gradualmente substituídas pelos “talhadores” (fabricados em madeira e distintos dos utilizados para servir à mesa). Posteriormente, também os talhadores seriam substituídos por escudelas. Quer as escudelas quer os talhadores não eram ainda individuais, destinando-se a ser partilhados por duas pessoas sentadas lado a lado.6,7

Muito antes do início da sua utilização para os alimentos sólidos, já as escudelas eram habitualmente usadas para comer sopa e outros alimentos líquidos. Mais uma vez, o material em que se fabricavam estes utensílios dependia da classe social, podendo ser fabricadas em prata, madeira ou até mesmo barro (recebendo neste último caso a designação de “tigelas”).6,7

Os garfos eram desconhecidos e as colheres eram pouco usadas, tendo utilidade quase exclusivamente durante a confecção. O instrumento mais utilizado, tanto durante a preparação como já à refeição, era a faca. A sua importância era tal, que era rara a distribuição de facas aos convidados a um banquete, pois cada um transportaria sempre consigo a faca de que se servia em todas as refeições.6,7

Para beber eram usados “vasos”, que mais não eram do que copos, se bem que um tanto maiores e mais pesados do que os utilizados hoje em dia. Também se usavam vasos para receber alimentos após a sua confecção. Os “graais” e “tagras”, ambos vasos de dimensões particularmente grandes, tinham também esta função. Os líquidos quentes eram frequentemente servidos em “copas” tapadas por “sobrecopas”. Finalmente, usavam-se ainda para beber as chamadas “púcaras” e “pucarinhas”, feitas de barro e munidas de asas.6,7

O RITUAL DAS REFEIÇÕES MEDIEVAIS

No Portugal medieval existiam essencialmente duas refeições: o jantar e a ceia. A principal seria o jantar, que, ao longo da Idade Média, terá visto o seu horário mais habitual avançar das oito ou nove horas da manhã para as dez ou onze. A ceia era tomada entre as seis e as sete horas da tarde. Para além destas, o progressivo atraso na hora do jantar terá levado a que se instituísse uma outra refeição, o almoço, tomado pouco depois do levantar.7

O número de pratos servidos a cada uma destas refeições variava não apenas entre elas mas, e principalmente, entre classes sociais. À mesa do rei, da nobreza e do alto clero seriam servidos três pratos ao jantar, para além das sopas, acompanhamentos e sobremesas; quanto menor fosse o estatuto social, menor o número de pratos, que seria de dois ou apenas um entre os mais desfavorecidos. À ceia, os mais ricos veriam servidos dois pratos, enquanto os menos abastados apenas um.7

Também relativamente ao decorrer das refeições se verificavam diferenças entre classes e grupos sociais. Os camponeses faziam as refeições de um modo mais simples, comparativamente às classes socialmente mais elevadas, nas quais as práticas seriam mais elaboradas e protocoladas.

Um aspecto era comum a todos: a ausência de garfos levava a que fosse imprescindível lavar as mãos antes e após cada refeição, devido ao contacto destas com os alimentos. Nas casas mais ricas, servidores traziam à mesa “justas” ou “gomis” (de prata ou de outro metal), bem como grandes bacias, sobre as quais se colocavam as mãos. Por vezes, particularmente em banquetes mais importantes e requintados, utilizava-se água de rosas ou de outro perfume em substituição da água simples. Para limpar as mãos depois de as lavar eram usadas “napeiras” ou pequenas toalhas.7

Desde a Idade Média que se usam nas mesas toalhas e guardanapos. Esta prática, como se depreende, foi-se tornando hábito inicialmente entre as classes mais ricas e só mais tardiamente na restante população. Seria também costume entre as classes mais ricas portuguesas (mas não o seria noutros pontos da Europa) introduzir sob a toalha uma espécie de alcatifa (o chamado “bancal” ou “mantel”), que se usava também a cobrir os bancos. Para além de servir para cobrir a mesa, a toalha (ou, em alternativa, os toalhetes) era ainda utilizada para proceder à limpeza dos objectos no final da refeição.6,7

Também nos banquetes das casas mais abastadas era habitual a presença de peças de ourivesaria nas mesas, com fins não só utilitários como também decorativos. Cada prato, bem como o vinho, era precedido por um porteiro seguido por criados empunhando tochas. Os alimentos eram trazidos em terrinas ou bacias, sendo estas de tamanho reduzido no nosso país, comparativamente a outros locais da Europa. Pelo contrário, nas casas mais pobres encontravam-se sobre a mesa apenas os utensílios essenciais para as refeições, sendo o cerimonial em torno destas muito mais simples e informal.7,20

Se as práticas referidas são já suficientes para mostrar a importância que as refeições assumiam no seio das classes sociais mais elevadas, algumas outras se lhes podem acrescentar para demonstrar a diversidade de ritos que envolviam estes momentos. Viviam-se tempos em que abundavam as superstições; estas, em conjunto com o medo de envenenamentos por parte dos mais poderosos levavam à utilização de “alfaias” usadas para detectar os alimentos. Entre a enorme variedade destes objectos contam-se diversas pedras raras (ágata e pedra serpentina, entre outras), bicos de aves e chifres de animais (a que, pomposamente, era dada a designação de “chifres de unicórnio”) com acabamentos em ouro e prata e uma espécie de suportes chamados “lingueiros” onde se suspendiam línguas de serpente ou dentes e ossos de animais. A todos estes objectos eram atribuídas propriedades mágicas: acreditava-se que quando contactassem com alimentos “impuros”, estes e outros talismãs mudariam de cor, manchar-se-iam ou começariam até a sangrar.7

A partir dos finais do século XIV começaram a estabelecer-se regras de colocação de lugares à mesa7.

Os Grandes Banquetes

Se ao nível do tipo e frequência de alimentos consumidos eram já evidentes as diferenças entre as classes sociais do Portugal medieval, e sendo estas discrepâncias ainda mais notórias durante as refeições e protocolos que as envolviam, a distinção mais marcada surge, sem dúvida, em ocasiões festivas. Isto não significa que as classes sociais mais pobres não festejassem certos acontecimentos com alimentação mais abundante e diversificada. A diferença era sobretudo marcada pela grandiosidade dos banquetes servidos pelos nobres.

Seguidamente, transcrevem-se excertos da descrição feita por Garcia de Resende de dois banquetes do casamento do príncipe D. Afonso com D. Isabel, nos quais é manifesta não só a fartura de alimentos como o enorme investimento no que diz respeito aos rituais e à cerimónia em si21.

« [...] E a mesa de El-Rei com tôdolos oficiais vestidos de brocados, e servida por moços fidalgos que serviam de tochas e bacios, ricamente vestidos. E as outras mesas todas com trinchantes e oficiais vestidos de ricas sedas e brocados e mui galantes, e assim os moços da câmara ordenados a cada mesa, todos vestidos de veludo preto. No qual banquete houve infinitas e diversas iguarias e manjares, e singular concerto e abastança e muitas e assignadas cerimónias. E quando levaram à mesa de El-Rei as iguarias principais e fruta primeira e derradeira, e de beber a ele e à Rainha, e ao Príncipe e Princesa, íam sempre diante, dois e dois, muitos porteiros de maça, reis de armas, arautos e passavantes, os porteiros-mores, quatro mestres-salas, o veador, e os veadores da fazenda, e detrás de todos o Mordomo-mor, e todos iam com os barretes na mão até o estrado, onde faziam suas grandes mesuras, e os veadores da fazenda iam com os barretes na cabeça até o meio da sala, e do meio por diante os levavam na mão, e o Mordomo-mor ia sempre coberto até o fazer da mesura, que juntamente fazia e tirava o barrete. E era tamanha cerimónia que durava muito cada vez que iam à mesa.

[...] E logo à entrada da mesa veio uma grande carreta dourada, e traziam-na dois grandes bois assados inteiros, com os cornos e mãos e pés dourados, e o carro vinha cheio de muitos carneiros assados inteiros com os cornos dourados, e vinha tudo posto num cadafalso tão baixo com rodetas por fundo dele, que não se viam, que os bois pareciam vivos e que andavam.

E diante vinha um moço fidalgo com uma aguilhada nas mãos picando os bois, que pareciam que andavam e levavam a carreta, e vinha vestido como carreteiro com um pelote e um gabão de veludo branco forrado de brocado, e assim a carapuça, que de longe parecia próprio carreteiro, e assim foi oferecer os bois e carneiros à Princesa e feito o serviço os tornou a virar com sua aguilhada por toda a sala até sair fora, e deixou tudo ao povo, que com grande grita e prazer foram espedaçados, e levava cada um quanto mais podia.

E assim vieram juntamente a tôdalas mesas muitos pavões assados com os rabos inteiros, e os pescoços e cabeça com toda a sua pena, que pareceram muito bem por serem muitos, e outras muitas sortes de aves e caças, manjares e frutas, tudo em muito grande abundância e grande perfeição».

« [...] E era cousa formosa para ver as mesas como estavam ordenadas, que em cada uma havia três grandes bacios de iguarias cobertos, e em cima dos dois dos cabos estavam tendas de damasco branco e roxo, que eram as cores da Princesa; as tendas eram borladas e muito galantes, com muitas bandeirinhas douradas, e eram grandes de dez côvados cada uma. E na iguaria do meio estava um castelo de feição de tríbulo, feito de madeira subtil, e pano de tafetá dourado, que era muito formosa cousa, e de muito custo.

[...] E toda a gente da corte e da cidade que estava em pé entre as grades, que era muita, todos comiam do que se tirava das mesas, que era em tanta abundância que muito mais era o que sobejava que o que se comia, e por isso não havia pessoa que deitasse mão de cousa alguma, nem fizesse mau ensino, e também pelos muitos oficiais que nisso faziam tento, e pelo castigo que sabiam que haviam de haver se o fizessem, e mais sobejando tudo a todos; que certo foi em tanta abastança e tanta perfeição, tanta honra, tanto estado, quanto no mundo podia ser».

CONCLUSÃO E CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS

A alimentação medieval portuguesa teve origem, tal como no resto da Europa, na integração dos hábitos alimentares romanos e bárbaros. Deste processo resultou uma alimentação baseada nos cereais e no vinho, mas com uma tendência crescente para a inclusão de carnes e pescado.

De um modo geral, a quantidade de alimentos que a maioria da população teria disponível seria suficiente do ponto de vista energético, verificando-se no entanto diferenças substanciais entre os regimes alimentares das diferentes classes sociais, sendo a alimentação dos camponeses particularmente monótona e desadequada.

Comparativamente à nobreza e ao clero, o consumo de carne e peixe seria marcadamente inferior nas classes sociais mais pobres, para as quais a alimentação estaria mais dependente dos cereais (e seus substitutos, em contextos de insuficiência) e de condicionalismos climáticos e, consequentemente, de mercado. Também a utilização de outros alimentos, como os legumes e a fruta, seria mais irregular entre os menos abastados.

Estas características seriam globalmente similares ao que se verificava no resto da Europa, ocorrendo algumas divergências sobretudo devido a diferenças nas capacidades de produção de alimentos específicos.

As técnicas culinárias empregues no Portugal medieval eram simples e faziam uso de utensílios igualmente elementares.

Durante grande parte da Idade Média eram apenas duas as refeições, tendo-se convertido em três já nos finais do período medieval. Nota-se maior tendência para que as refeições se tornassem cada vez mais ritualizadas e complexas, sobretudo nas classes mais elevadas, sendo nestas que primeiramente eram adoptados novos costumes e protocolos.

No que concerne aos costumes que envolviam os banquetes nas classes sociais mais ricas, parecem ter existido diferenças mais notórias relativamente à restante Europa medieval. Tal é compreensível visto estes costumes se afastarem mais da componente meramente biológica da alimentação, estando mais relacionados com aspectos sociais e culturais.

Longe de pretender fazer uma abordagem exaustiva, o presente trabalho visou compilar informações que caracterizem a alimentação no Portugal medievo, bem como que facilitem uma compreensão diferenciada das várias facetas por ela assumidas. Da globalidade dos aspectos considerados emerge a importância de aprofundar o estudo de fontes primárias que salientem a fecundidade da alimentação portuguesa na Idade Medieval, para que melhor se compreendam a sua evolução e riqueza actual.

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

1. Montanari M. Romanos, Bárbaros, Cristãos: Na Alvorada da Cultura Alimentar Europeia. In: Flandrin JL, Montanari M, direcção. História da Alimentação. 1º vol. «Dos primórdios à Idade Média». Lisboa: Terramar; 1998, pp. 247-50.
2. Tannahill R. The Silent Centuries. In: Food in History. New York: Three River Press; 1988. Cap. 7, pp. 92-102.
3. Montanari M. Estruturas de Produção e Sistemas Alimentares. In: Flandrin JL, Montanari M, direcção. História da Alimentação. 1º vol. «Dos primórdios à Idade Média». Lisboa: Terramar; 1998. Cap. XVI, pp. 251-9.
4. Montanari M. A Caminho de um Novo Equilíbrio Alimentar. In: Flandrin JL, Montanari M, direcção. História da Alimentação. 2º vol. «Da Idade Média aos tempos actuais». Lisboa: Terramar; 2001, pp. 7-10.
5. Tannahill R. Supplying the Towns. In: Food in History. New York: Three River Press; 1988. Cap. 12, pp. 155-73.
6. Ferro JP. Arqueologia dos hábitos alimentares. Lisboa: Publicações Dom Quixote; 1996.
7. Marques AHO. A Mesa. In: A Sociedade Medieval Portuguesa. Aspectos da Vida Quotidiana. 5ª edição. Lisboa: Sá da Costa; 1987. Cap. I.
8. Tannahill R. The Late Medieval Table. In: Food in History. New York: Three River Press; 1988. Cap. 13, pp. 174-95.
9. Coelho MHC. Apontamentos sobre a comida e a bebida do campesinato coimbrão em tempos medievos. Separata da Revista de História Económica e Social. 1984; 12:91-101.
10. Marques AHO. Portugal na Crise dos Séculos XIV e XV. Vol. IV da «Nova História de Portugal», direcção de Serrão J e Marques AHO. Lisboa: Editorial Presença; 1987.
11. Marques AHO. Introdução à História da Agricultura em Portugal. A questão cerealífera durante a Idade Média. 2ª edição. Lisboa: Edições Cosmos; 1968.
12. Gonçalves I. O Temporal do Mosteiro de Alcobaça nos Séculos XIV e XV. Vol. I. Lisboa: Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas; 1984.
13. Coelho MHC. Apontamentos sobre a comida e a bebida do campesinato coimbrão em tempos medievos. In: Homens, Espaços e Poderes. Séculos XI-XVI. Vol. I «Notas do Viver Social». Lisboa: Livros Horizonte; 1990, pp. 9-22.
14. Gonçalves I. Acerca da Alimentação Medieval. In: Imagens do Mundo Medieval. Lisboa, Livros Horizonte; 1988, pp. 201-17.
15. Henriques FF. Anchora medicinal para Conservar a Vida com Saude. Lisboa; 1721.
16. Rodrigues D. Arte de Cozinha. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda; 1987.
17. Santos MJA. O Peixe e a Fruta na Alimentação da Corte de D. Afonso V. Breves Notas. Separata de Brigantia. 1983 Jul-Set; III(3):307-43.
18. Azevedo MAS. Fruta. In: Serrão J, director. Dicionário de História de Portugal. Vol. III. Porto: Livraria Figueirinhas; 1985.
114 Alimentação Humana Revista da SPCNA
19. Arnaut SD. A Arte de Comer em Portugal na Idade Média. In: O “Livro de Cozinha” da Infanta D. Maria de Portugal. Coimbra: 1967.
20. Sousa AC. Provas da História Genealógica da Casa Real Portuguesa. 2ª edição. Coimbra; 1946.
21. Resende G. Crónica de D. João II. In: Crónica de D. João II e Miscelânea. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda; 1973.

Texto de Nuno P. S. Ferreira publicado em "Alimentação Humana", revista da SPCNA, Portugal, 2008, volume 14, nº 3, excertos pp.104-114. Digitalizado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

LE MARIAGE EN ÉGYPTE. 

Les textes font un peu défaut pour la constitution de la famille en Égypte, surtout en ce qui concerne les rapports conjugaux. Sur un grand nombre de stèles funéraires, on voit les hommages quel es parents viennent rendre au membre de la famille qui est défunt. La femme est souvent représentée beaucoup plus petite que l’homme, mais suivant M. Mariette, il ne faut tirer de là aucune conclusion sur la situation respective des époux. Nous trouvons en effet sur quelques monuments le mari et la femme placés à côté l’un de l’autre, de telle façon qu’il est impossible de voir une hiérarchie quelconque dans l’intention de l’artiste.

La polygamie était admise dans l’ancienne Égypte : c’est du moins ce qui résulte d’un passage de Diodore de Sicile, qui avait étudié à fond cette contrée. Chez les Égyptiens, dit cet historien, les prêtres n’épousent qu’une seule femme, mais les autres citoyens peuvent en choisir autant qu’ils en ont besoin. Les parents sont obligés de nourrir tous leurs enfants, afin d’augmenter la population, qui est regardée comme contribuant le plus à la prospérité de l’État. Aucun enfant n’est réputé illégitime, lors même qu’il est né d’une mère esclave, car, selon la croyance commune, le père est l’auteur unique de la naissance de l’enfant, auquel la mère n’a fourni que la nourriture et la demeure.

L’AMOUR 

Les Égyptiens, comme les Chinois, avec lesquels ils présentent tant de rapports, regardent l’amour filial comme la première de toutes les vertus et, par une association d’idées assez singulière, ils le considèrent comme une annexe obligée du culte qu’on rend au roi. Il existe à la Bibliothèque nationale un livre de morale écrit par un vieillard nommé Ptah-Hotèp, qui remonte à la cinquième dynastie. L’obéissance du fils à son père, assimilée à celle qu’on doit au roi, y est présentée comme la première des vertus ; au reste, la récompense promise à celui qui la pratique n’a rien de mystique et paraît être simplement la promesse d’une longue vie et de la faveur du roi. Le fils qui reçoit la parole de son père deviendra vieux à cause de cela.... Le fils docile sera heureux par suite de son obéissance ; il vieillira et parviendra à la faveur... L’auteur se propose lui-même pour exemple. C’est ainsi que je suis devenu un ancien de la terre ; j’ai parcouru cent dix ans de vie avec la faveur du roi et l’approbation des anciens, en remplissant mon devoir envers le roi dans le lieu de sa faveur.

LA CONDITION DES FEMMES. 

Contrairement à ce qui s’est presque toujours passé en Asie, la femme égyptienne paraît avoir occupé une très large place dans la famille. Ce qui le prouve, c’est l’usage qu’avaient les Égyptiens d’indiquer le nom de leur mère préférablement même à celui de leur père. Religieusement elles participaient au sacerdoce et politiquement elles pouvaient occuper le trône. Enfin elles n’étaient pas confinées dans un harem et paraissent même avoir rempli l’office de maîtresses de maison.

Quand on attendait des hôtes pour une réception, le maître et la maîtresse du logis s’asseyaient l’un à côté de l’autre sur un large fauteuil, auquel était quelquefois attaché un chien, un singe, une gazelle ou tout autre animal favori. Les jeunes enfants, lorsqu’ils n’étaient pas sur les genoux de leurs parents, jouaient par terre sur des espèces de nattes.

LES ENFANTS.

La privation d’enfants était regardée par les Égyptiens comme la pire des infortunes, et le premier âge inspirait à tout le monde la plus vive sollicitude. La circoncision a été de tout temps pratiquée chez les Égyptiens ; c’est un usage qu’on retrouve également chez plusieurs peuples de l’Asie. Au lieu d’emmailloter les enfants, comme cela se faisait chez les Grecs et les Romains, les femmes égyptiennes avaient l’habitude de les porter dans une espèce de poche formée par une écharpe qu’elles nouaient sur l’épaule ou sur le do.

On a trouvé dans les tombeaux égyptiens plusieurs jouets d’enfants. Les petits enfants qui, il y a quelques milliers d’années, s’amusaient avec ces joujoux, ne se doutaient guère de l’importance que des hommes g graves y attacheraient un jour et des savantes dissertations qui seraient faites à leur sujet.

Nous avons au musée du Louvre plusieurs jouets égyptiens, entre autres des poupées ; elles sont en bois peint avec des grains de verre pour imiter les yeux.

Plusieurs collections renferment des jouets analogues ; quelques-uns sont extrêmement soignés. On a trouvé dans les tombeaux des petits crocodiles destinés à servir de jouets, et des pantins dont on fait mouvoir les membres au moyen d’une ficelle.

Par René Ménard dans "La Vie Privée des Anciens", Paris, France, A. Morel Editeurs, 1880, chapter 1. Numérisée, adapté et illustré par Leopoldo Costa.

While the Mayas were generally regarded over the last century as ‘peaceful’, the Aztecs on the other hand have been seen as developing one of the most violent cultures in the world. As with the Mayas, these assumptions about the Aztecs have been overemphasized by those who have wanted to demonize them for various reasons.

The Aztec (1325–1521 CE) rise to prominence in centralMexico was relatively late among Mesoamerican cultures. The Aztecs authorized their presence in centralMexico by accentuating the similarities of their culture to those of Olmec, Teotihuacan and Tollan. The languages and ethnicity of the people who lived in these places is unknown. In fact most of what is currently known of the pre-Aztec cultures of central Mexico is filtered through the Aztec conceptions of these people. For example, many of the place-names, such as Teotihuacan and Tula, are Nahuatl words. Also the Aztecs performed their own archaeological explorations and held important ceremonies at these sites.

The etymology of the word ‘Aztec’ is a reference to the story of their migration as a tribe, called the Mexica, from an unknown land north of central Mexico. Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, is part of a family of languages called Uto-Aztecan. It seems that the Aztecs indeed originated in the north because Nahuatl is similar to the Hopi, Huichol, Ute and Paiute languages. This land was called ‘Aztlan’, or the place of the seven caves. From that place the Aztecs the earth, then wandered southward. They were despised and distrusted by those with whom they came into contact. As they wandered they were led by a group of priests who were attempting to divine signs from Huitzilopochtli, ‘Hummingbird on the left’, who was their tribal deity. After a long time of being driven from place to place the Aztecs sought refuge in the marshy cane fields in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Throughout the Valley of Mexico there were enormous salt and sweet water lakes which were a major food resource for the residents. There the priests saw an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus, which grew out of a rock in the middle of the lake. The eagle was a manifestation of Huitzilopochtli and associated with the sun. This is the ‘hierophany’, or manifestation of the sacred, which founded the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan.

The legacy of the Aztec remains is due to the fact that Tenochtitlan lies beneath Mexico City. Pre-Columbian artefacts are unearthed by virtually every public works project. The significance of Aztec culture for Mexico is exemplified by the hierophany of Tenochtitlan’s founding being depicted on the flag. In 1978 electrical workers uncovered an elaborately carved stone near the great Cathedral and the Zocalo, the central square of Mexico City. They tried to cover-up the find because it would delay their work, but it was eventually reported and led to the most important Aztec excavation. The workers had discovered the now famous Coyoxauhqui stone, which lay at the base of the steps of the Templo Mayor, the central temple structure of Tenochtitlan. The Templo Mayor was built and rebuilt by each new ruler of the Mexica,who was called the ‘tlatoani’ (i.e.principal speaker).From1325 to 1521 the Temple was enlarged and rededicated on the spot where Huitzilopochtli descended onto the cactus in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The discovery and excavation of the temple radically transformed the scholarly and popular understanding of Aztec civilization.

Although there were written descriptions of the temple it had not been seen since Cortés destroyed Tenochtitlan in 1521. As with the other parts of the city, the Spanish conquistadors levelled theTemplo Mayor with cannon fire. For them the temple symbolized the heathen worship of the Aztecs. They used the cut stone of the temple to construct what is now the oldest part of the National Cathedral nearby to the west. The Templo Mayor survives as a series of bases from successive rebuilding stages. When a new temple was to be erected the old one was carefully buried under the new structure. By the sixteenth century, therefore, the Templo Mayor was an enormous pyramid.

The Templo Mayor functioned as a ceremonial platform. The Nahuatl term for city is ‘altepetl’ (‘Water Mountain’) and refers to the dominant temple which emerged out of occupied the centre of every city, town and hamlet.

For Mesoamericans, including the Aztecs, the city was defined by its central temple. When a town was captured by the Aztecs, for example, that event was iconographically represented by the temple having been toppled and set on fire. But the term ‘altepetl’ also indicates that the central temple, like the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan and the cosmic tree for the Mayas, was a vertical axis that connected human beings with the sky and the underworld. Mountains were understood to be containers of water. Either too little or too much water could be devastating for agricultural success. As we have seen at other sites in Mesoamerica, the intimate relationships between various aspects of material life were directly involved in the urban planning and the ceremonies.

The Templo Mayor is actually two temples in one structure. The southern side of the temple is dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the tribal god of the Aztecs, and the northern side is dedicated to Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility whose earliest appearance is at Teotihuacan. The bifurcated structure is extremely rare among Mesoamerican cities; only one other bifurcated temple is known. While the Aztecs conquered an enormous area stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic, they did not seem as interested in imposing their religious structures on subject peoples. Rather they were interested in the flow of tribute to Tenochtitlan. This is dramatized by the absence of similar bifurcated temples throughout their conquered region.

The dominant status of Huitzilopochtli at the Templo Mayor was not surprising to researchers. What was surprising was the absence of images of the god. In fact no iconographical representations of Huitzilopochtli were found at the site. Yet as Matos Moctezuma, the archaeologist responsible for the excavations, has said, it was Huitzilopochtli who oversaw the imperial designs of the Aztecs. As god of the sun Huitzilopochtli was venerated at the Templo Mayor with sacrifices and other offerings. Like the sun he was omnipresent, but at the same time he was a uniquely Aztec deity. Scholars have been quick to point out that the absence of images of Huitzilopochtli at the Templo Mayor should not be seen as symptomatic of his significance for the Aztecs. Instead he may have been of great significance as a deus otiosus, a god obscured, or remote.

Unlike Huitzilopochtli, the presence of Tlaloc at the Templo Mayor is ubiquitous. For Broda this indicates that the Aztecs perceived the Templo Mayor as a symbol of absolute fertility. As with the ceremonial centres of Teotihuacan, the Aztecs saw their principal temple as an ‘altepetl’, a ‘water mountain’, which established the proper connection between human and divine beings for purposes of agricultural success. Huitzilopochtli was the solar god but also the Mexica deity of war and tribute. Tlaloc was the water and fertility god and a pan-Mesoamerican deity of agriculture. In the bifurcated Templo Mayor, therefore, the Aztec venerated deities who symbolized the material well-being of the city of Tenochtitlan.

The Aztecs adopted Tlaloc as their own deity and thereby authorized their presence in the Valley of Mexico. Thousands of figurines and statues were found at theTemplo Mayor, as well as numerous other artefacts associated with water and fertility. The richest source of Tlaloc material is the offering boxes, which have been found throughout the site and are associated with all phases of the temple’s construction. For Lopéz Luján, an archaeologist who has worked intensively with the offering boxes, the profusion of Tlaloc material can be ‘read’ like a book. The various layers of these boxes were intended to represent the different layers of the cosmos. In addition these layers indicate how Aztec ceremonial life unfolded.

Offering box no. 48, for example, is a particularly rich example. At the bottom of the box are various shells and corals from both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They are laid out in an east–west direction, tracing the path of the sun. Above that were found various objects including jaguar skeletons, beads, figurines of various gods, and jars which symbolize the temple as a container of water. Above these objects were the entire skeletons of forty-two children below the ages of 7, with a corresponding number of Tlaloc figurines capping off the box. This offering was dated to 1454 when there was a very serious multi-year drought in Central Mexico. In desperation the Aztecs propitiated the deities of rain, principal of them being Tlaloc, to bring rain.

The Aztecs are famous, perhaps infamous, for their use of human sacrifice. These sacrificial rites have held a powerful place in the European imagination, and at certain points in the last 500 years they have assumed mythic proportions. Incidents of human sacrifice in the New World were often emphasized and exaggerated by Europeans in order to justify their colonial operations in the Americas. It is important to note, however, that the Spanish killed millions more people than did the Aztecs. This is particularly ironic given that the intention of the Spanish, as with other Europeans in the New World, was to spread a religion of love. The ‘Black Legend’ of the Spanish brutality perperated by Bartolomé de Las Casas in 1550 was promoted by the Protestant cultures of northern Europe. Protestants wished to demonize the Spanish Catholics by emphasizing the atrocities throughout the Americas. As horrific as Aztec human sacrifice was they killed far fewer people in the course of a given agricultural year than did the Spanish.

The phenomenon of human sacrifice is no different from similar offering rites. In an exchange economy of relationships with the deities human sacrifice is the gift among all gifts. Even so, the descriptions of these rites that have survived through the conquest of Tenochtitlan seem to indicate that even among Mesoamerican cultures, who were no strangers to human sacrifice, the Aztecs were known to be particularly bloody in their sacrificial rites. Since the scholarly view of the Mayas has been altered since the 1950s their counterparts in central Mexico look more similar and less bloody than they had done.

Written by Philip P. Arnold in "A Handbook of Ancient Religions", edited by John R. Hinnells, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2007, excerpts pp. 549-553. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Cerca del año mil, la literatura occidental presenta a la sociedad cristiana con un esquema nuevo que obtiene muy pronto un gran éxito. Un «pueblo triple» compone la sociedad: sacerdotes, guerrero y campesinos. Las tres ca tegorías son distintas y complementarias, y cada una tiene necesidad de las otras. Su conjunto forma el cuerpo armónico de la sociedad. Este esquema aparece en la traducción libre de la obra de Boecio De Consolatione, hecha por el rey de Inglaterra Alfredo el Grande a finales del siglo IX. El rey ha de tener jebedmen, fyrdmen y weorcmen, «hombres de plegaria», «hombres de ca ballo» y «hombres de trabajo». Un siglo después, la estructura tripartita rea parece en Aelfric y en Wulfstan, y el obispo Adalberón de Laón, en su poema al rey capeto Roberto el Piadoso, hacia el 1030, da una versión elaborada de ella: «La sociedad de los fieles no forma más que un cuerpo; pero el Estado tiene tres. Porque la otra ley, la ley humana, distingue otras dos clases: los no bles y los siervos, efectivamente, no se rigen por el mismo estatuto... Aquéllos son los guerreros, protectores de las iglesias; son los defensores del pueblo, lo mismo de los grandes que de los pequeños, en fin, de todos, y aseguran a la vez su propia seguridad. La otra clase es la de los siervos: esta desgraciada casta no posee nada si no es al precio de su trabajo. ¿Quién podría, abaco en ano, calcular las labores que ejecutan los siervos, sus largas marchas, sus duros trabajos?

Dinero, vestidos, alimentos, los siervos lo proporcionan todo a todo el mundo; ningún hombre libre podría subsistir sin los siervos. ¿Se ha de hacer un trabajo? ¿Se quieren hacer gastos? Vemos a reyes y prelados ha cerse siervos de sus siervos; el siervo nutre al amo, él, que pretende alimen-tarlo. Y el siervo no ve nunca el fin de sus lágrimas y de sus suspiros. La casa de Dios, que se cree ser una, está, por lo tanto, dividida en tres: los unos rue gan, los otros combaten y los otros, en fin, trabajan. Esas tres partes que co existen no sufren por verse separadas; los servicios proporcionados por la una son condición de las obras de las otras dos; cada una, a su vez, se encar ga de aliviar el conjunto. Así, este conjunto triple no deja de permanecer uni do, y así es como la ley ha podido triunfar y el mundo gozar de la paz».

Texto capital y, en alguna de sus frases, extraordinario. En un solo flash, la realidad de la sociedad feudal queda reflejada en la fórmula «el siervo nu tre al amo, él, que pretende alimentarlo». Y la existencia de las clases —y, por consiguiente, su antagonismo—, aunque inmediatamente enmascarada por la afirmación ortodoxa de la armonía social, se plantea por la constatación: «La casa de Dios, que se cree ser una, está, por lo tanto, dividida en tres». Sin em bargo, lo que nos importa aquí es la caracterización, que se hará clásica, de los tres estamentos de la sociedad feudal: los que rezan, los que combaten y los que trabajan: oratores, bellatores, laboratores.

Sería apasionante seguir la suerte de este tema, sus transformaciones, sus relaciones con otros temas, por ejemplo, con la genealogía de la Biblia: los tres hijos de Noé, o de la mitología germánica: los tres hijos de Rigr.

Pero, ¿es este tema literario una buena introducción al estudio de la so ciedad medieval? ¿Qué relación mantiene con la realidad? ¿Expresa la ver dadera estructura de las clases sociales en el Occidente medieval?

Georges Dumézil ha mantenido con éxito la tesis de que la triple parti ción de la sociedad es una característica de las sociedades indoeuropeas, y el Occidente medieval quedaría así vinculado sobre todo a la tradición itálica: Júpiter, Marte, Quirino, probablemente con un intermediario celta.

Otros, entre ellos recientemente Vasilij I. Abaev, piensan que la «triple partición funcional» es «una etapa necesaria en la evolución de toda ideología humana» o, mejor aún, social. Lo esencial es que ese esquema aparece o reaparece en un momento que se puede considerar oportuno para la evolu ción de la sociedad occidental. Georges Duby ha sido el brillante historiador de esos tres órdenes.

Entre el siglo VIII y XI la aristocracia se constituye en orden militar, como hemos visto, y al miembro por excelencia de esta clase se le denomina miles —caballero—, denominación que parece extenderse hasta las fronteras de la cristiandad, puesto que en una inscripción funeraria del siglo XI, descubierta recientemente en Gniezno, se habla de un miles. En la época carolingia, los clérigos se transforman en casta clerical, como lo ha puesto bien de manifies to el canónigo Delaruelle, y la evolución de la liturgia y de la arquitectura re ligiosa expresan esta transformación: clausura de los coros y de los claustros, reservados al clero de los capítulos, y cierre de las escuelas exteriores de los monasterios. El sacerdote celebra en adelante la misa de espaldas a los fieles, éstos ya no van en procesión a levar al celebrante las «oblaciones», ya no es tán asociados a la recitación del Canon que, en adelante, recita el sacerdote en voz baja, la hostia ya no es de pan natural, sino de pan ázimo, «como si la misa se convirtiese en algo extraño a la vida cotidiana». En fin, la condición de los campesinos tiende a uniformarse en el nivel más bajo: el de los siervos. Así pues, emplearé el término de clase para designar las tres categorías del es quema.

Basta comparar ese esquema con los de la alta Edad Media para darse cuenta de la novedad. Entre los siglos V y XI hay dos imágenes de la sociedad que se entremez clan muy a menudo. Se trata, a veces, de un esquema múltiple, diversificado, que enumera un cierto número de categorías sociales o profesionales donde se pueden hallar los restos de una clasificación romana que distingue las ca tegorías profesionales, las clases jurídicas y las condiciones sociales. Así el obispo de Verona, Rathier, en el siglo X, nombra diecinueve categorías: los ci viles, los militares, los artesanos, los médicos, los comerciantes, los abogados, los jueces, los testigos, los procuradores, los patronos, los mercenarios, los consejeros, los señores, los esclavos (o siervos), los maestros, los alumnos, los ricos, los de fortuna media y los mendigos. En esta lista se encuentra mejor o peor representada la especialización de las categorías profesionales y sociales características de la sociedad romana y que quizá habían sobrevivido en cier to modo en la Italia del norte.

Pero con más frecuencia la sociedad se reduce a la confrontación de dos grupos: clérigos y laicos en una cierta perspectiva, poderosos y débiles o gran des y pequeños, o ricos y pobres si sólo se tiene en cuenta la sociedad laica, li bres y no libres si uno se sitúa en el plano jurídico. Este esquema dualista co rresponde a una visión simplificadora de las categorías sociales en el Occidente de la alta Edad Media, eso es seguro. Una minoría monopoliza las funciones de dirección: dirección espiritual, dirección política, dirección económica; la masa lo soporta. La triple partición funcional que aparece alrededor del año mil expresa otra ideología. Corresponde a la función religiosa, a la función militar y a la función económica y es característica de un cierto estadio de evolución de las sociedades que los sabios como Georges Dumézil han denominado indoeuro peas. Es un testimonio del parentesco entre la imaginación social de la sociedad medieval y la de otras sociedades más o menos arcaicas.

¿Qué quiere decir triple partición funcional? Y en primer lugar, ¿qué relaciones mantienen entre sí las tres funciones, o mejor, las clases que las representan? Está claro que el esquema tripartito es un símbolo de armonía social. Como el apólogo de Menenio Agripa, Los miembros y el estómago, es un instrumento lleno de imágenes del cese de la lucha de clases y de la mixtificación del pueblo. Pero, si bien se ha visto claramente que ese esquema se orientaba a mantener a los trabajadores —la clase económica, los productores— en la sumisión a las otras dos clases, no se ha puesto suficientemente de manifiesto que el esquema, que es clerical, se orienta también a someter los guerreros a los clérigos, a hacer de ellos los protectores de la Iglesia y de la religión.

Representa también un episodio de la antigua rivalidad entre hechiceros y guerreros y va de la mano con la reforma gregoriana, la lucha entre el sa cerdocio y del Imperio. Contemporáneo de los cantares de gesta, terreno literario de la lucha entre la clase clerical y la clase militar, como lo fue en la Iliada —tal como lo ha demostrado brillantemente, partiendo del episodio del caballo de Troya, Vasilij I. Abaev—, es un testimonio de la lucha entre la fuerza chamánica y el valor guerrero. Piénsese en la distancia que separa a Roldan de Lancelote. Lo que se ha dado en llamar la cristianización del ideal caballeresco, probablemente, no es más que la victoria del poder sacerdotal sobre la fuerza guerrera.

Roldan, aparte lo que se haya podido decir, tiene una moral de clase, piensa en su linaje, en su rey, en su patria. No tiene nada de santo, salvo que sirve de modelo al santo de su época —siglos XI y XII— definido como miles Christi. Todo el ciclo de Arturo, por el contrario, termi na con el triunfo de la «primera función» sobre la «segunda». Ya en la obra de Cristian de Troyes, el difícil equilibrio entre «clerecía» y «caballería» aca ba, a través de la evolución de Perceval, con la metamorfosis del caballero, la búsqueda del santo Grial, la visión del Viernes Santo. El Lancelote en prosa remata el ciclo. El epílogo de la muerte de Arturo es un crepúsculo de los guerreros. El instrumento simbólico de la clase militar, la espada Excalibur, acaba siendo arrojada por el rey a un lago y Lancelote se convierte en una es pecie de santo. El poder chamánico, bajo una forma, por lo demás, muy de purada, ha absorbido el valor guerrero.


Por otra parte, uno puede preguntarse si la tercera categoría, la de los trabajadores, laboratores, se confunde por completo con el conjunto de los productores, si todos los campesinos representan la función económica.

Se podrían acumular una serie de textos y demostrar que, entre el final del siglo VIII y el XII, las derivaciones de la palabra labor, empleadas en un sentido económico —pero raramente, de hecho, en su estado puro, porque esos términos se hallan casi siempre más o menos contaminados por la idea moral de fatiga, de penalidad—, responden a un significado preciso, el de una conquista agrícola: ya sea mediante una extensión de la superficie culti vada, o bien mediante la mejora de la cosecha. La capitular de los sajones de finales del siglo VIII distingue substantia y labor, el patrimonio, la herencia, y las adquisiciones debidas a su explotación. Labor incluye la roturación y su resultado. La glosa de un canon manuscrito de un sínodo noruego de 1164 precisa que labores equivale a novales, es decir, las tierras roturadas. El laborator es aquel cuya fuerza económica basta para producir más que los demás. Ya en el 926, un acta de Saint-Vincent del Macones nombra illi meliores qui sunt laboratores («esa élite que son los laboratores»). De ahí procederá, en francés, la palabra laboureurs que, ya en el siglo X, designa la capa superior del campesinado, la que posee al menos una yunta de bueyes y sus correspondientes aperos de labranza. Así, el esquema de la triple partición —incluso aunque algunos, como Adalberón de Laón, hagan entrar en él al con junto de los campesinos e identifiquen a los laboratores con los siervos— representa más bien de manera exclusiva el conjunto de las capas superiores: la clase clerical, la militar y la capa superior de la clase económica. En una pa labra, sólo comprende la melior pars, las élites.

Piénsese, además, en la forma en que esta sociedad tripartita va a trans formarse durante la baja Edad Media. En Francia se convertirá en los tres estados: clero, nobleza y tercer estado. Ahora bien, este último no se confunde con el conjunto de los campesinos. Ni siquiera representa a toda la burgue sía. Está compuesto por las capas superiores de la burguesía, por los notables. El equívoco que existe desde la Edad Media sobre la naturaleza de esta tercera clase, que es teóricamente el conjunto de todos los que no figuran en las dos primeras y que, de hecho, se limita a la parte más rica o la más ins truida del resto, desembocará en el conflicto planteado durante la Revolu ción francesa de 1789 entre los que quieren concluir la revolución con la victoria de la élite, del tercer estado, y quienes quieren hacer de ella el triunfo de todo el pueblo.

De hecho, en la sociedad de lo que se ha llamado la primera edad feudal, hasta mediados del siglo XII aproximadamente, la masa de los trabajadores manuales —un texto del siglo XI de Saint-Vincent del Macones opone aún los pauperiores qui manibus laboran («los más pobres que trabajan con sus ma nos») a los laboratores— sencillamente no existe. Marc Bloch ha observado con sorpresa que los señores laicos y eclesiásticos de esta época transforma ban los metales preciosos en piezas de orfebrería y que las hacían fundir, como hemos visto, en caso de necesidad, considerando como nulo el valor económico del trabajo del artista o del artesano. Pero la tendencia a conside rar que el esquema comprendía toda la sociedad y que, por consiguiente, los laboratores comprendían la masa de los trabajadores, también tuvo su difusión después del siglo XI.

Acabamos de hablar de clase y de aplicar este término a las tres categorías del esquema tripartito, mientras que, tradicionalmente, en esa palabra se veía el concepto de «órdenes», y a las tres funciones corresponderían en la época medieval tres órdenes.

Ese vocabulario es ideológico, normativo, incluso si, para ser más eficaz, tenga que ofrecer una cierta concordancia con las «realidades» sociales. El término ordo, más carolingio que propiamente feudal, pertenece al vocabulario religioso y se aplica, por lo tanto, a una visión religiosa de la sociedad, a los clérigos y a los laicos, a lo espiritual y a lo temporal. Así pues, no puede haber en ese vocabulario más que dos órdenes: el clero y el pueblo, clerus y populus, y los textos, por lo demás, dicen con suma frecuencia: utraque ordo («ambos órdenes»). Algunos juristas modernos han querido establecer una distinción entre la clase, cuya definición sería económica, y el orden, cuya de finición sería jurídica. De hecho, el orden es un término religioso pero, igual que la clase, se apoya en bases socioeconómicas. La tendencia de los autores y los utilizadores del esquema tripartito de la Edad Media a hacer de las tres «clases» tres «órdenes», responde a la intención de sacralizar esta estructura social, de hacer de ella una realidad objetiva y eterna creada y querida por Dios y de imposibilitar cualquier género de revolución social.

Reemplazar ordo por conditio («condición»), como se hizo a veces en el siglo XI, y hacia el 1200 por «estado», significa, por lo tanto, un cambio pro fundo. Esta laicización de la visión de la sociedad sería ya importante por sí sola. Pero es que, además, va acompañada de una derogación del esquema tripartito que corresponde a una evolución capital de la misma sociedad medieval.

Sabido es que el instante en que aparece una nueva clase que hasta en tonces no ha tenido su lugar en el esquema tripartito de una sociedad, cons tituye un momento crítico en la historia de ese esquema. Las soluciones adoptadas por las diferentes sociedades —Georges Dumézil las ha estudiado en lo que atañe a las sociedades indoeuropeas— son diversas. Tres de ellas apenas trastocan la visión tradicional: la que consigue mantener apartada la nueva clase, negándole un lugar en el esquema; la que la amalgama y la fun de con una de las tres preexistentes; e incluso la más revolucionaria, la que, para hacerle un lugar, transforma el esquema tripartito en esquema cuatripartito. En general, esta clase aguafiestas suele ser la de los comerciantes que señalan el paso de una economía cerrada a una economía abierta y la aparición de una clase económica poderosa que no se contenta con someterse a la clase clerical y a la militar. Se ve claramente cómo la sociedad medieval tradi cional ha probado esas soluciones inmovilistas leyendo en un sermón inglés del siglo XIV: «Dios ha hecho los clérigos, los caballeros y los labradores; pero el demonio ha hecho los burgueses y los usureros», o en un poema alemán del siglo XIII que la tercera clase, la de los usureros, Wucherer, gobierna des de entonces a las otras tres.

El hecho capital es que, en la segunda mitad del siglo XII y en el trans curso del XIII, el esquema tripartito de la sociedad —incluso si se sigue en contrándolo como tema literario e ideológico durante mucho tiempo aún— se descompone y cede ante un esquema más complejo y más flexible, resulta do y reflejo de una transformación social.

A la sociedad tripartita sucede la sociedad de los «estados», es decir, de las condiciones socioprofesionales. Su número varía al gusto de los autores, pero se encuentran en ella algunas constantes, sobre todo la mezcla de una clasificación religiosa, basada en criterios clericales y familiares, con una división según las funciones profesionales y las condiciones sociales. Un sermonario alemán del 1220 aproximadamente enumera hasta 28 estados: 1, el papa; 2, los cardenales; 3, los patriarcas; 4, los obispos; 5, los prelados; 6, los monjes; 7, los cruzados; 8, los conversos; 9, los monjes giróvagos; 10, los sa cerdotes seculares; 11, los juristas y los médicos; 12, los estudiantes; 13, los estudiantes errantes; 14, las monjas de clausura; 15, el emperador; 16, los re yes; 17, los príncipes y condes; 18, los caballeros; 19, los nobles; 20, los escu deros; 21, los burgueses; 22, los comerciantes; 23, los vendedores al por me nor; 24, los heraldos; 25, los campesinos obedientes; 26, los campesinos rebeldes; 27, las mujeres... y 28, ¡los hermanos predicadores! De hecho, se trata de una doble jerarquía paralela de clérigos y de laicos, conducidos los primeros por el papa y los segundos por el emperador.

El nuevo esquema es todavía el de una sociedad jerarquizada en la que se desciende de la cabeza a la cola, salvo alguna excepción como en el Libro de Alejandro, español, de mediados del siglo XIII, donde la enumeración de los estados comienza por los «labradores» para terminar por los nobles. Pero se trata de una jerarquía diferente de la de los órdenes de la sociedad tripartita, de una jerarquía más horizontal que vertical, más humana que divina, que no pone en entredicho la voluntad de Dios, que no es de derecho divino y que, en cierto modo, se puede modificar. También aquí la iconografía pone de ma nifiesto un cambio ideológico y mental. La representación de los órdenes su perpuestos (que continuará aún y se reforzará incluso en tiempos del absolutismo monárquico) queda reemplazada por una figuración de los estados en fila india. No hay duda de que los poderosos: papa, emperador, obispos, ca balleros son los que dirigen el baile, pero, ¿hacia dónde? No hacia lo alto, sino hacia abajo, hacia la muerte. Porque la majestuosa sociedad de los órde nes ha cedido el puesto al cortejo de los estados arrastrados en esa danza macabra.

Esta desacralización de la sociedad va acompañada de una fragmenta ción, de una desintegración que es al mismo tiempo el reflejo de la evolución de las estructuras sociales y el resultado de una maniobra más o menos cons ciente del clero que, viendo cómo se le escapaba la sociedad de los órdenes, debilita a la nueva sociedad dividiéndola, atomizándola y dirigiéndola a la muerte. ¿No viene acaso la gran peste de 1348 a poner de manifiesto que la voluntad de Dios es castigar a todos los «estados»? La destrucción del es quema tripartito de la sociedad va unida al desarrollo urbano de los siglos XI a XIII, desarrollo que es preciso situar, como hemos visto, en el contexto de una división creciente del trabajo. El esquema tripartito se desmorona al mis mo tiempo que el esquema de las siete artes liberales y también a la vez que se tienden los primeros puentes entre las artes liberales y las artes mecánicas, entre las disciplinas intelectuales y las técnicas. El taller urbano es un crisol donde se disuelve la sociedad tripartita y donde se elabora la nueva imagen.

La Iglesia termina por adaptarse de grado o por fuerza. Los teólogos más abiertos comienzan a proclamar que todo oficio, que toda condición se pue de justificar si se ordena a la salvación. Gerhoh de Reichersberg, a mediados del siglo XII, en el Líber de aedificio Dei, evoca «esta gran fábrica, este gran ta ller que es el universo» y afirma: «Quien por el bautismo ha renunciado al diablo, aunque no se haga clérigo o monje, se entiende que ha renunciado al mundo de tal manera que, ricos o pobres, nobles o siervos, comerciantes o labradores, todos cuantos han hecho profesión de fe cristiana deben rechazar lo que les es hostil y seguir lo que les conviene; en efecto, cada orden (el vo cabulario sigue siendo el del concepto de órdenes), y más en general cada profesión halla en la fe católica y la doctrina apostólica una regla adaptada a su condición, y si libra bajo ella el buen combate podrá también conquistar la corona», es decir, la salvación. Por supuesto que este reconocimiento va acompañado de una vigilancia atenta. La Iglesia admite la existencia de esta dos, pero les impone como etiqueta distintiva pecados específicos, pecados de clase, inculcándoles una moral profesional.

Al principio, esta nueva sociedad es la sociedad del diablo. De ahí el no table éxito que tuvo en la literatura clerical, a partir del siglo XII, el tema de «las hijas del diablo», casadas con los estados de la sociedad. En las guardas de un manuscrito florentino del siglo XIII, por ejemplo, leemos:

El diablo tiene nueve hijas, a las que ha casado
a la simonía… con los clérigos seculares
a la hipocresía…con los monjes
a la rapiña…con los caballeros
al sacrilegio…con los campesinos
a la simulación…con los alguaciles
al fraude…con los comerciantes
a la usura…con los burgueses
a la pompa mundana…con las matronas
y la lujuria, a la que no ha querido casar, pero que ofrece a todos como amante común.

Florece toda una literatura homilética que ofrece sermones ad status, es decir, dirigidos a cada uno de los «estados». Las órdenes mendicantes, en el siglo XIII, le otorgan en sus predicaciones un lugar privilegiado. El cardenal dominico Humberto de Romans, a mediados del siglo XIII, se encarga de codificarlos.

La coronación de este reconocimiento de los «estados» es su introduc ción en la confesión y en la penitencia. Los manuales de confesores que, en el siglo XIII, definen los pecados y los casos de conciencia acaban por catalogar los pecados por clases sociales. A cada estado sus vicios, sus pecados. La vida moral y espiritual se socializa según la sociedad de los «estados».

Juan de Friburgo, a finales del siglo XIII, en su Confessionnale, un resu men de su gran Summa confessorum para uso de los confesores «más simples y menos expertos», ordena los pecados en catorce rúbricas, que son otros tantos «estados»: 1, obispos y prelados; 2, clérigos y beneficiados; 3, curas de parroquia, vicarios y confesores; 4, monjes; 5, jueces; 6, abogados y procura dores; 7, médicos; 8, doctores y maestros; 9, príncipes y otros nobles; 10, es posos; 11, comerciantes y burgueses; 12, artesanos y obreros; 13, campesinos; 14, laboratores.

En esta sociedad rota, los jefes espirituales conservan, a pesar de todo, la nostalgia de la unidad. La sociedad cristiana debe formar un cuerpo, un corpus. Ideal preconizado por los teóricos carolingios y por el papado de las cru zadas a partir de Urbano II.

Cuando la diversidad parece triunfar, un Juan de Salisbury, hacia el 1160, intenta aún, en el Polycraticus, salvar la unidad de la cristiandad, comparan do la sociedad laica cristiana con un cuerpo humano en el que las diversas ca tegorías profesionales constituyen los miembros y los órganos. El príncipe es la cabeza; los consejeros, el corazón; los jueces y los administradores provinciales, los ojos, los oídos y la lengua; los guerreros, las manos; los funcionarios de las finanzas, el estómago y los intestinos; los campesinos, los pies.

En ese mundo de combates dualistas que es la cristiandad medieval, la sociedad es ante todo el teatro de una lucha entre la unidad y la diversidad, como lo es, de forma más general, de un duelo entre el bien y el mal. Porque durante mucho tiempo el sistema totalitario de la cristiandad medieval identificará el bien con la unidad y el mal con la diversidad. En el detalle cotidiano se establecerá una dialéctica entre la teoría y la práctica, y la afirmación de la unidad se acomodará con frecuencia a una inevitable tolerancia.

En primer lugar, ¿quién es la cabeza de ese cuerpo que es la cristiandad? De hecho, la cristiandad es bicéfala, tiene dos cabezas: el papa y el emperador. Pero la historia medieval está hecha más de desacuerdos y de luchas que de entendimiento entre esas dos cabezas, quizá sólo conseguido de forma efímera por Otón III y Silvestre II en torno al año mil. El resto del tiempo, las relaciones entre las dos cabezas de la cristiandad manifiestan la rivalidad existente entre los niveles más altos de los dos órdenes dominantes, pero concurrentes, de la jerarquía clerical y de la laica —de los clérigos y de los guerreros, del poder chamánico y de la fuerza militar.

Sin embargo, el duelo entre el sacerdocio y el Imperio no siempre apare ce en estado puro. Hay otros protagonistas que remueven las cartas.

Por parte del sacerdocio, las cosas se aclaran con bastante rapidez. Una vez comprobada la imposibilidad de hacer que el patriarca de Constantinopla y la cristiandad oriental admitan la primacía romana —hecho consumado mediante el cisma del 1054—, la primacía del papa apenas es discutida por alguien en la Iglesia de Occidente. Gregorio VII da un paso decisivo a este respecto con el Dictatus papae del 1075, donde afirma entre otras cosas: «Sólo el pontífice romano es llamado a justo título universal... El es el único cuyo nombre se debe pronunciar en todas las iglesias..., a quien no está con la Iglesia romana no se le puede considerar católico...». En el transcurso del siglo XII, de «vicario de san Pedro» se transforma en «vicario de Cristo» y, mediante el proceso de canonización, controla la consagración de los nuevos santos. Durante los siglos XIII y XIV, sobre todo gracias a los progresos de la fiscalidad pontificia, hace de la Iglesia una verdadera monarquía.

A su lado o en contra suya, el emperador está muy lejos de ser la cabeza de la sociedad laica de forma tan indiscutida. En primer lugar, hay eclipses imperiales mucho más prolongados que las cortas vacantes del solio pontificio, la más larga de las cuales, relativamente excepcional, es la de los treinta y cuatro meses que separan la muerte de Clemente IV en noviembre de 1268 y la elección de Gregorio X en septiembre de 1271 durante el gran interregno entre la muerte de Federico II (1250) y la elección de Rodolfo de Habsburgo (1273). Tampoco hay que olvidar que, muy a menudo, un plazo bas tante largo separa la elección en Alemania, que hace del elegido un simple «rey de los romanos», de la coronación en Roma, sólo a partir de la cual el emperador lo es de hecho. Sobre todo, la hegemonía del emperador a la cabeza de la cristiandad es más teórica que real. Con frecuencia combatido en Alemania , discutida su autoridad en Italia, es, por lo general, ignorado por los príncipes más poderosos. A partir del período otoniano, los reyes de Francia no se sienten, en modo alguno, sometidos al emperador. Desde co mienzos del siglo XII, los canonistas ingleses y españoles, tanto como los franceses, niegan que sus reyes sean subditos de los emperadores y de las leyes imperiales.

El papa Inocencio III reconoce en 1202 que, de facto, el rey de Francia no tiene superior en lo temporal. Un canonista declara en 1208 que «todo rey tiene en su reino los mismos poderes que el emperador en su im-perio»: unusquisque enim tantum iuris habet in regno suo quantum imperator in imperio. Los Etablissements de san Luis declaran: «El rey no depende de nadie si no es de Dios y de sí mismo». En resumidas cuentas, se consolida la teoría según la cual «el rey es emperador en su reino». Por otra parte, desde comienzos del siglo X se asiste a lo que Robert Folz llama el «fraccionamien to de la noción de imperio». El título de emperador adquiere una dimensión limitada. De forma muy significativa aparece en dos países que se han libra do de la dominación de los emperadores carolingios: las islas Británicas y la península Ibérica, y en los dos casos manifiesta la pretensión a la supremacía sobre una región unificada: los reinos anglosajones, los reinos ibéricos cristianos. El sueño imperial dura apenas un siglo en Gran Bretaña.

En España, la quimera imperial se mantiene durante más tiempo. El «imperio español» tiene su apogeo con Alfonso VII que se hace coronar emperador en León en 1135. Después de él, la monarquía castellana se divide, Es paña se fragmenta en los «cinco reinos» y el título de emperador de España desaparece para no hacer más que una corta aparición con Fernando III en el 1248, tras la toma de Sevilla a los musulmanes. De este modo, la idea de imperio, aunque parcial y fragmentaria, iba siempre ligada a la idea de unidad.

Paralelamente, los emperadores alemanes, a pesar de ciertas declaraciones de su cancillería o de sus aduladores, restringen cada vez más a Alemania y su prolongación italiana sus pretensiones al Sacro Imperio romano germá nico. En primer lugar a Alemania, sobre todo a partir del momento en que el emperador es elegido por un colegio de príncipes alemanes. Ya Federico Barbarroja, que había tomado el título de emperador antes de su coronación en Roma el 18 de junio de 1155, había llamado a los príncipes que le habían ele gido «cooperadores en la gloria del emperador y del Imperio». La idea del imperio universal reviste una última forma, deslumbradora, bajo Federico II, que corona sus pretensiones jurídicas a la supremacía mundial con una visión escatológica. Mientras que sus adversarios hacen de él el Anticristo o el pre cursor del Anticristo, él se presenta como el Emperador del Fin del Mundo, el salvador que llevará al mundo a la edad de oro, el immutator mirabilis, nue vo Adán, nuevo Augusto y, muy pronto, casi otro Cristo. En 1239 ensalza a su villa natal de Iesi, en las Marcas, como a su propio Belén.

Pero de hecho, el comportamiento de los emperadores fue siempre mu cho más prudente. Se contentan cono una preeminencia honorífica, con una autoridad moral que les confiere una especie de patronazgo sobre los demás reinos.

De este modo, el bicefalismo de la cristiandad medieval se refiere menos al papa y al emperador, que al papa y al rey (rey-emperador), o como expresa aún mejor la fórmula histórica, al sacerdocio y al Imperio, al poder espiritual y al poder temporal, al sacerdote y al guerrero.

Es cierto que la idea imperial conservará fervientes defensores incluso después de haber quedado obsoleta. Dante, el gran apasionado de la cris tiandad medieval, el hambriento de unidad, suplica, conmina, injuria al emperador que no cumple su función, su deber de jefe supremo y universal.

Pero el verdadero conflicto se entabla entre el sacerdos y el rex. ¿Cómo ha intentado cada uno de ellos resolverlo a su favor? Reuniendo los dos poderes en su persona, el papa convirtiéndose en emperador y el rey convirtiéndose en sacerdote. Cada uno de ellos ha procurado realizar en sí mismo la unidad rex-sacerdos.

En Bizancio, el basileus había conseguido que se le considerara como un personaje sagrado y ser el jefe religioso a la vez que político, lo que en la his toria se conoce como el cesaropapismo. Parece ser que Carlomagno había intentado reunir en su persona la doble dignidad imperial y sacerdotal. La im posición de manos durante la consagración del año 800 recuerda el gesto de la ordenación sacerdotal, como si Carlomagno estuviese desde entonces in vestido de un «sacerdocio real». Es un nuevo David, un nuevo Salomón, un nuevo Josías. Pero cuando se le llama rex et sacerdos, lo que se le atribuye es, como precisa Alcuino, la función sacerdotal de predicar, no las funciones carismáticas. Ningún texto lo describe como un nuevo Melquisedec, el único rey-sacerdote en sentido estricto del Antiguo Testamento.

Pero los reyes y emperadores prosiguieron a lo largo de toda la Edad Media sus tentativas para hacerse reconocer un carácter religioso, sagrado, casi sacerdotal.

El principal medio de su política en este sentido es la consagración y la coronación, ceremonias religiosas que hacen de ellos el ungido del Señor, el «rey coronado por Dios», rex a Deo coronatus. La consagración es un sacra mento. Va acompañada de las aclamaciones litúrgicas, de los laudes regiae, en las que Ernst Kantorowicz ha detectado justamente el reconocimiento so lemne por parte de la Iglesia del nuevo soberano, añadido así a la jerarquía celeste. Esas aclamaciones litúrgicas, entonadas después de las letanías de los santos, manifiestan «la unión entre los dos mundos, más aún que su sime tría». Proclaman «la armonía cósmica del Cielo, de la Iglesia y del Estado».

La consagración es una ordenación. El emperador Enrique III argumenta en el 1046 a Wazon, obispo de Lieja: «Yo también, que he recibido el derecho de mandar a todos, he sido ungido con el óleo santo». Uno de los propagan distas de Enrique IV en su lucha contra Gregorio VII, Gui de Osnabrück, escribe en 1084-1085: «El rey debe ser puesto aparte de la multitud de los laicos; él, como ungido con el óleo sagrado, participa del ministerio sacerdotal». En el preámbulo de un documento fechado en 1143, Luis VII de Francia recuerda: «Sabemos que, conforme a las prescripciones del Antiguo Testamen to, y en nuestros días a la ley de la Iglesia, únicamente los reyes y los sacerdotes son consagrados con la unción del santo crisma. Conviene, pues, que quienes, únicos entre todos, unidos entre sí por el crisma sacrosanto, están colocados a la cabeza del pueblo de Dios, procuren a sus subditos tanto los bie nes temporales como los espirituales, y se los procuren también los unos a los otros».

El ritual de esta consagración-ordenación está señalado en los ordines como «la orden de la consagración y de la coronación de los reyes de Francia» del manuscrito de Chálons-sur-Marne, que data aproximadamente de 1280 y se conserva en la Biblioteca Nacional de París (manuscrito latino 1246). Sus preciosas miniaturas nos presentan algunos de los episodios más significativos de esta ceremonia religiosa en la que se pone de relieve, por una parte, al militar —entrega de las espuelas y de la espada— y, por otra, al per sonaje casi sacerdotal, mediamte la unción sobre todo, pero también por la entrega de esos símbolos religiosos que son el anillo, el cetro y la corona.

P.-E. Schramm ha esclareccido los símbolos religiosos que daban todo su significado a las insignias imperiales y reales. La corona imperial, que tenía la forma de una diadema hecha por ocho plaquitas de oro encajadas y un aro que circunda la cabeza y en el que se dibujan ocho pequeños campos semicirculares, toma de la cifira ocho el símbolo de la vida eterna. La coro na imperial, lo mismo que el octógono de la capilla palatina de Aquisgrán, es la imagen de la Jerusalén celestial, con muros cubiertos de oro y de joyas. «Signo de gloría», como la llama el Ordo, anuncia el reino de Cristo me-diante la cruz —símbolo del triunfo—, el ópalo blanco único —el «huérfa no», orphanus—, signo de preeminencia, y las imágenes de Cristo, de Da vid, de Salomón y de Ezequíais. El anillo y el largo báculo —virga— son las réplicas de las insignias episcopales. Al emperador también se le entrega la santa Lanza o Lanza de san Mauricio, que se lleva hasta él y que pasa por contener un clavo de la cruz de Cristo.

Recuérdese que los reyes de Francia y de Inglaterra ostentan el poder, «al tocar las escrófulas», de curar a quie nes están afectados por ellas, es decir, a los escrofulosos. Que, en definiti va, el rey prefiere el poder carismático a la fuerza militar lo dice claramen te un texto del carmelita Jeam Golein en su Traite du sacre, «Tratado de la consagración», escrito en 1374 a petición de Carlos V: el rey «debe prestar a Dios su homenaje, puesto que le ha dado el reino, que le viene de él y no solamente de la espada, como pretendían los antiguos, sino de Dios, como lo testimonia en su moneda de oro cuando dice: Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat. No dice: la espada reina y vence, sino: «Cristo ven ce, Cristo reina, Cristo impera».

Por parte del pontificado, tiene lugar un intento paralelo de absorber la función imperial, sobre todo a partir del siglo VIII y de la falsa Donación de Constantino. El emperador declara en ella que entrega al papa la ciudad de Roma y que se traslada por esta razón a Constantinopla. Este le autoriza a llevar la diadema y las insignias pontificales y concede al clero romano los or namentos senatoriales. «Hemos decretado también que nuestro venerable Padre Silvestre, pontífice supremo, lo mismo que todos sus sucesores, debe rán llevar la diadema, es decir, la corona de oro purísimo y de piedras preciosas que le hemos concedido, tomándola de nuestra cabeza».

Silvestre rechazó la diadema para aceptar sólo un alto gorro blanco, el phrygium, insignia real, también de origen oriental. El phrygium evolucionó  rápidamente hacia la corona, y un ordo romano del siglo IX la llama ya regnum. Cuando reaparece, hacia finales del siglo XI, «ha cambiado de forma y de sentido»: se ha convertido en la tiara. El círculo de la base se transforma en una diadema adornada de piedras preciosas. Una corona con florones la reemplaza en el siglo XII y una segunda se superpone a ella en el siglo XIII. Aparece después una tercera, probablemente con los papas de Aviñón, dan do lugar al triregnum. Ya Inocencio III, a principios del siglo XIII, había ex plicado que el papa lleva la mitra in signum pontificii, como signo del ponti ficado, del sacerdocio supremo y el regnum, in signum Imperii, como signo del Imperio. Al rex-sacerdos le corresponde un pontifex-rex.

El papa no lleva la tiara durante el ejercicio de sus funciones sacerdotales, sino en las ceremonias en las que aparece como un soberano. A partir de Pascual II, en 1099, los papas son coronados al subir al solio pontificio. Des pués de Gregorio VII, su «entronización» en el Laterano va acompañada de la «investidura», el revestimiento del manto de púrpura imperial, la cappa rúbea, cuya posesión, en caso de disputa entre dos papas, establecía la legitimidad frente a un antipapa sin manto. Desde Urbano II, el clero romano recibe el nombre de Curia, nombre que evoca a la vez el antiguo senado romano y una corte feudal.

De este modo el papado —y éste es un aspecto esencial de la reforma gregoriana— no sólo se ha separado a sí mismo y, con él, ha comenzado a separar a la Iglesia, de una cierta servidumbre al orden feudal laico, sino que se ha afirmado como cabeza de la jerarquía laica tanto como de la religiosa. A partir de ese momento se esfuerza por manifestar y por hacer efectiva la subor dinación del poder imperial y real a su propio poder. Bien conocidos son los infinitos litigios, la inmensa literatura nacida en torno a la querella de las investiduras, por ejemplo, que no es más que un aspecto y un episodio de la gran lucha del sacerdocio y del Imperio, o mejor aún, como hemos visto, de los dos órdenes. Recuérdese a Inocencio III multiplicando los Estados vasallos de la Santa Sede.

 Retengamos, por ser los más significativos, algunos símbolos en torno a los cuales el conflicto tomó cuerpo: teorías e imágenes a la vez, como sucede casi siempre en el Occidente medieval. Ése fue el caso de las dos espadas y las dos luminarias. Sin embargo, ¿quién había ayudado a los reyes más que la Iglesia?

León III había hecho a Carlomagno. Los benedictinos de Fleury (Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire) y de Saint-Denis contribuyeron en gran medida al establecimiento de los capetos. La Iglesia utilizaba la ambigüedad —de la que hablaremos más adelante— de la realeza, cabeza de la jerarquía feudal, pero cabeza al mismo tiempo de una jerarquía de otro orden, la del Estado, la de los poderes públicos, que va más allá del orden feudal. La Iglesia favorece el poder real contra su rival, el poder militar, el sacerdote ayuda al rey a dar ja que al guerrero. Por supuesto que lo hace para convertirlo en su instrumen to, para asignar a la realeza el papel esencial de protectora de la Iglesia, la verdadera Iglesia del orden sacerdotal, la Iglesia ideal de los pobres. La función que la Iglesia medieval asigna a la realeza es la de brazo secular que ejecuta las órdenes de la clase sacerdotal y se mancha en su lugar utilizando la fuerza física, la violencia, derramando la sangre de la que ella se lava las manos.

Toda una literatura clerical define esta función del rey. Son los numero sos Espejos de príncipes que florecieron, sobre todo, en los siglos IX y XIII, en el que san Luís se esfuerza, tanto en el plano moral como en el espiritual, por ser el rey modelo.

El concilio de París del 829 definirá —en términos que repetirá y desa rrollará dos años más tarde Jonás, obispo de Orleans, en su De institutione re gia, que será el modelo de los Espejos de príncipes de toda la Edad Media, los deberes de los reyes: «El ministerio real, declaran los obispos, consiste espe cialmente en gobernar y en regir el pueblo de Dios en la equidad y en la justicia y en procurar la paz y la concordia. En efecto, debe ser en primer lugar el defensor de las iglesias, de los servidores de Dios, de las viudas, de los huérfanos y de todos los otros pobres e indigentes. También debe mostrarse, en la medida de lo posible, terrible y lleno de celo para que no se produzca ningún género de injusticia; y si se produjera alguna, para no permitir que al guien conserve la esperanza de no ser descubierto en la audacia del mal obrar, sino que todos sepan que nada quedará impune».

A cambio, la Iglesia sacraliza el poder real. Por lo tanto, es preciso que todos los subditos se sometan fielmente y con una obediencia ciega al rey, puesto que «quien se resiste a ese poder, se resiste al orden querido por Dios».

Y en favor del emperador y del rey, más que del señor feudal, los clérigos establecen un paralelismo entre el cielo y la tierra y hacen del monarca la per sonificación de Dios sobre la tierra. La iconografía tiende a hacer que se con funda al Dios de majestad con el rey en su trono.

Hugo de Fleury, en el Tractatus de regia potestate et sacerdotali dignitate, dedicado a Enrique I de Inglaterra, llega incluso a comparar al rey con Dios Padre y al obispo con Cristo solamente. «Uno sólo reina en el reino de los cielos, el que lanza el rayo. Es natural que no haya más que uno sólo después de él que reine en la tierra, uno sólo que sea un ejemplo para todos los hombres.» Así hablaba Alcuino, y lo que él afirma del emperador vale para el rey desde el momento en que éste es «emperador en su reino».

Pero si el rey se desvía de este programa, si deja de someterse, la Iglesia se encarga de recordarle enseguida su indignidad y de negarle ese carácter sa cerdotal que él se esfuerza por conseguir. Felipe I de Francia, excomulgado a causa de su matrimonio con Bertrada de Montfort, es castigado por Dios, según Orderico Vital, con enfermedades ignominiosas y pierde su poder curativo, según Gilberto de Nogent. Gregorio VII recuerda al emperador que, al no saber expulsar a los demo nios, es bastante inferior a los exorcistas.

Honorio de Autun afirma que el rey es un laico. «El rey, en efecto, no puede ser más que laico o clérigo. Si no es laico, es clérigo. Pero si es clérigo, debe ser ostiario, o lector, o exorcista, o acólito, o subdiácono, o diácono, o presbítero. Si no tiene ninguno de esos grados, no es clérigo. Si no es ni laico ni clérigo, tiene que ser monje. Pero su mujer y su espada le impiden pasar por tal.»

Se palpan aquí las razones del encarnizamiento de Gregorio VII y de sus sucesores para imponer a los clérigos la renuncia al oficio de las armas y so bre todo el celibato. No se trata de un interés moral. Se trata, al guardar el orden sacerdotal libre de la mancha de la sangre y del esperma, líquidos impuros sometidos a tabúes, de separar la clase sacerdotal de la de los guerreros, confundidos con los demás laicos, aislados y rebajados.

Basta que un obispo, Thomas Becket, sea asesinado por caballeros, posiblemente por instigación de Enrique II, para que el orden sacerdotal se desencadene contra el orden militar. La extraordinaria propaganda hecha por la Iglesia en toda la cristiandad a favor del mártir al que se dedican iglesias, altares, ceremonias, estatuas y frescos, pone de manifiesto la lucha de los dos órdenes. Juan de Salisbury, colaborador del prelado asesinado, aprovecha la oportunidad para llevar hasta el extremo la doctrina de la limitación del po der real que la Iglesia, prudentemente, había afirmado desde el mismo momento en que, a causa de sus propias necesidades, tuvo que exaltarlo.

Al mal rey —el que no obedece a la Iglesia— se le tacha de tirano y que da privado de su dignidad. Los obispos del concilio de París del 829 habían definido: «Si el rey gobierna con piedad, justicia y misericordia, merece su título de rey. Si esas cualidades le faltan, no es un rey, sino un tirano». Ésa es la doctrina inmutable de la Iglesia medieval, y santo Tomás de Aquino se ocupará de apoyarla en sólidas consideraciones teológicas. Pero la Iglesia medieval no ha sido muy precisa, ni en la teoría ni en la práctica, a la hora de extraer las consecuencias prácticas de la condena del mal rey convertido en tirano. Menudean las excomuniones, los entredichos, las deposiciones. Sólo Juan de Salisbury, o casi, osó ir hasta el final de la doctrina y, donde no parece posible otra solución, incluso aboga por el tiranicidio. De este modo, el «asunto Becket» demuestra que el duelo de los dos órdenes tenía que acabar lógicamente en un arreglo de cuentas.

Pero en teoría las armas de la Iglesia eran más espirituales. A las preten siones imperiales y reales, los papas replican mediante la imagen de las dos es padas, que simbolizan, a partir de los Padres, el poder espiritual y el poder temporal. Alcuíno las había reivindicado para Carlomagno. San Bernardo había elaborado una doctrina compleja que, a pesar de todo, terminaba remitiendo las dos espadas al papa. Pedro es el detentor de las dos espadas. El sacerdote usa la espada espiritual, el caballero la temporal, pero sólo en nombre de la Iglesia, a una señal (nutu) del sacerdote, contentándose el emperador con transmitir la orden. Los canonistas de finales del siglo XII y del XIII no lo dudan. Al convertirse el papa en vicario de Cristo, y al ser éste el único deten tor de las dos espadas, sólo el papa —su lugarteniente— dispone de ellas aquí en la tierra.

Lo mismo ocurre con las dos luminarias. El emperador romano se había identificado con el sol. Algunos emperadores medievales intentan reanudar esta asimilación. El papado corta por lo sano esta iniciativa a partir de Gregorio VII y, sobre todo, de Inocencio III. Toma del Génesis la imagen de las dos fuentes de luz: «Dijo luego Dios: "Haya en el firmamento de los cielos luminarias para separar el día de la noche, y servir de señales a las estaciones, días y años; y luzcan en el firmamento de los cielos, para alumbrar la tierra". Y así fue. Hizo Dios las dos grandes luminarias, la mayor para presidir al día, y la menor para presidir a la noche, y las estrellas; y las puso en el fir mamento de los cielos para alumbrar la tierra y presidir al día y a la noche». Para la Iglesia, la luz mayor, el sol, es el papa, la luz menor, la luna, el emperador o el rey. La luna no posee luz propia, sólo tiene un resplandor presta do que le viene del sol. El emperador, luminaria menor, además, es el jefe del mundo nocturno frente al mundo diurno gobernado y simbolizado por el papa. Si se piensa en lo que significaban el día y la noche para los hombres de la Edad Media, se comprenderá que la jerarquía laica no fuera para la Iglesia más que una sociedad de fuerzas sospechosas, la mitad tenebrosa del corpus social.

Sabido es que si el papa impidió al emperador o al rey absorber la fun ción sacerdotal, no obstante fracasó en su intento de hacerse con el poder temporal. Las dos espadas quedaron en manos separadas. A punto de desa parecer el emperador a mediados del siglo XIII, es Felipe el Hermoso quien da jaque mate a Bonifacio VIII. Pero, casi por doquier en la cristiandad, las manos de los príncipes cristianos empuñaban ya con firmeza la espada temporal.

Así pues, a los dos órdenes dominantes no les quedaba otro camino que olvidar su rivalidad y pensar sólo en su solidaridad, para llevar a buen térmi no su tarea común de dominar a la sociedad. «Buenas gentes, decía —en lengua vulgar para que se le entendiera mejor— el obispo de París, Mauricio de Sully hacia el 1170—, dad a vuestro señor terrenal lo que le debéis. Tenéis que creer y entender que a vuestro señor terrenal le debéis vuestros censos, talas, compromisos, servicios, transportes y cabalgadas. Dádselo todo, ínte gramente, en el tiempo y el lugar debido».

Hay ilustres ejemplos históricos y, en la actualidad, también ciertas excepciones —a veces dichosas, a veces dramáticas— que demuestran que entre na ciones y lenguas no existe identidad. ¿Quién se atrevería a negar que la di versidad de lenguas es más un factor de separación que de unidad? Los hombres de la cristiandad medieval tuvieron una clara conciencia de ello.

Lamentaciones de los clérigos que hacen de la diversidad de las lenguas una de las consecuencias del pecado original, que asocian este mal a esa ma dre de todos los vicios: Babilonia. Rangel de Lucques, a comienzos del siglo XII, afirma: «Del mismo modo que antaño Babilonia, mediante la multiplica ción de las lenguas, añadió a los antiguos males otros nuevos y peores, la multiplicación de los pueblos multiplicó la cosecha de crímenes». Triste comprobación del pueblo, como aquellos campesinos alemanes del siglo XIII que, en la historia de Meier Helmbrecht, no reconocen a su hijo pródigo a su regreso al fingir éste que habla varias lenguas.

«Queridos míos, dijo en bajo alemán, que Dios os reserve todas sus feli cidades.» Su hermana corrió hacia él y lo tomó en sus brazos. Él le dijo en tonces: «Gratia vester!» Los niños acudieron enseguida, los ancianos padres venían detrás, y los dos le recibieron con una alegría sin límites. A su padre le dijo: «¡Deu sol!», y a su madre, según la moda de Bohemia: «¡Dobra ytra!» El hombre y la mujer se miraron y la dueña de la casa dijo: «Hombre, nos equivocamos, éste no es nuestro hijo, es un bohemio o un wende». El padre dijo: «¡Es un welchel No es mi hijo que Dios conserve, aunque de todas for-mas se le parece». Entonces Gotelinda, la hermana, dijo: «No es vuestro hijo, a mí me ha hablado en latín, sin duda es un clérigo». «A fe mía, dijo el criado, que, a juzgar por sus palabras, ha nacido en Sajonia o en Brabante. Ha hablado en bajo alemán, debe ser un sajón.» El padre dijo sencillamente: «Si tú eres mi hijo Helmbrecht, yo seré todo tuyo, cuando hayas pronunciado una palabra según nuestros usos y a la manera de nuestros abuelos, a fin de  que te pueda comprender. Dices siempre "deu sol" y yo no entiendo su sen tido. Honra a tu madre y a mí, que siempre lo hemos merecido. Di una pala bra en alemán y yo mismo, no el criado, cuidaré de tu caballo...».

La Edad Media, tan dada a visualizar sus ideas, para representarse esa calamidad de la diversidad de lenguas, encontró el símbolo de la torre de Babel y, a imitación de la iconografía oriental, hizo de ella, la mayoría de las veces, una imagen terrorífica, catastrófica. Esta imagen angustiosa de la torre de Babel comienza a presentarse y a multiplicarse en las imaginaciones occidentales alrededor del año mil. Su más antigua representación en Occidente se halla en un manuscrito del poeta anglo-sajón Caedmon (siglo VII) de finales del siglo X o de comienzos del XI.

Los clérigos han intentado exorcizar esta sombra medieval de Babel. Su instrumento: el latín. Éste hubiera podido conseguir la unidad de la civilización medieval y, por encima de ella, de la civilización europea. Sabido es que Ernst Robert Curtius ha defendido brillantemente esta tesis. Pero, ¿qué latín? Un latín artificial del que van desgajándose poco a poco sus verdaderos herederos, las lenguas «vulgares», que esterilizan aún más todos los renacimientos, comenzando por el carolingio. Latín de cocina, dirán los humanistas. Por el contrario, diríamos nosotros, a pesar del éxito literario de algunos grandes escritores como san Anselmo o san Bernardo y la impresionante construcción del latín escolástico, no pasa de ser un latín inodoro y sin sabor, latín de casta, latín de los clérigos, instrumento más de dominación sobre la masa que de comunicación internacional. Ejemplo mismo de la lengua sagrada que aisla al grupo social que tiene el privilegio, no de comprenderla —lo que importa poco—, sino de hablarla aunque sea a trancas y barrancas. En el año 1199 Giraud de Barré recoge una serie de «perlas» de boca del clero inglés. Eudes Rigaud, arzobispo de Ruán desde 1248 a 1269, anota otras de boca de sacerdotes de su diócesis. El latín de la Iglesia medieval tendía a convertirse en la incomprensible lengua de los hermanos Arvales de la antigua Roma. La realidad viviente del Occidente medieval es el triunfo progresivo de las lenguas vulgares, la multiplicación de los intérpretes, de las traducciones, de los diccionarios.

El retroceso del latín ante las lenguas vulgares no se produce sin la intervención del nacionalismo lingüístico. El hecho es que una «nación» en formación se afirma defendiendo su lengua. Jakob Swinka, arzobispo de Gniezno a finales del siglo XIII, se lamenta ante la Curia de que los franciscanos alemanes no entienden el polaco y manda pronunciar las plegarias en el idioma vernáculo ad conservacionem et promocionem lingue Colonice («para la defensa y promoción de la lengua polaca»). La Francia medieval es un buen ejemplo de que la nación tiende a identificarse con la lengua; la unificación de la Francia del norte con la del mediodía, la lengua de oíl con la lengua de oc no se consiguió sin grandes dificultades. A partir del encuentro en Worms de Carlos el Simple con Enrique I el Cazador (o el Pajarero) en el 920, una batalla sangrienta opuso, según Richer, a los jóvenes caballeros alemanes y franceses «encolerizados por el particularismo lingüístico».

Según Hildegarda de Bingen, Adán y Eva hablaban alemán. Otros pre tenden una preeminencia del francés. En Italia, a mediados del siglo XIII, el autor anónimo de un poema sobre el Anticristo, escrito en francés, afirma: ...la lengua de Francia es tal que quien la aprende al inicio nunca podrá de otro modo hablar ni otra lengua aprender.

Y Brunetto Latini escribe su Trésor en francés «porque esta manera de hablar es más deleitosa y más común a todas las gentes». Cuando, rota ya la unidad del Imperio romano, las naciones bárbaras ha bían asentado su diversidad y la «nacionalidad» había dejado de lado o reem plazado la «territorialidad» de las leyes, los clérigos habían creado un género literario en el que se atribuía a cada nación una virtud y un vicio nacionales. Con el crecimiento de los nacionalismos, después del siglo XI, el antagonismo parece triunfar, ya que únicamente los vicios acompañan desde entonces, como atributo nacional, a las diversas «naciones». Eso se ve con toda claridad en las universidades donde estudiantes y maestros se agrupan por «naciones» que, por otra parte, están lejos de corresponder todavía a una sola «nación» en el sentido territorial y político. Así, según Jacobo de Vitry, se ven calificados «los ingleses de borrachos con rabo [serán los "ingleses con cola" de la Guerra de los Cien Años], los franceses de orgullosos y afeminados, los alemanes de brutales y ladrones, los normandos de vanos y jactanciosos, los poitevinos de traidores y aventureros, los borgoñones de inconstantes y estúpidos, los lombardos de avaros, viciosos y cobardes, los romanos de sediciosos y calumniadores, los sicilianos de tiránicos y crueles, los brabanzones de sanguinarios, incendiarios y bandoleros, los flamencos de pródigos, glotones, blandos como la manteca y vagos». «Después de lo cual, concluye Jacobo de Vitry, de los insultos se pasaba a las manos.»

De este modo, los grupos lingüísticos quedaban asimilados a los vicios lo mismo que los grupos sociales estaban casados con las hijas del diablo.

Sin embargo, lo mismo que ciertos espíritus clarividentes justificaban la división en grupos socioprofesionales, otros legitimaban la diversificación lingüística y nacional. Para ello se acogían a un excelente texto de san Agustín: «El africano, el sirio, el griego, el hebreo y todas las demás lenguas constituyen la variedad del vestido de esta reina, la doctrina cristiana. Pero, lo mismo que la varie dad del vestido coincide en un mismo vestido, así todas las lenguas coinciden en una sola fe. ¡Que haya variedad en el vestido, pero no roturas!».

Esteban I de Hungría afirmaba hacia el 1030: «Los huéspedes que vienen de diversos países traen lenguas, costumbres, instrumentos, armas diversas, y toda esta diversidad es un ornamento para el reino, una riqueza para la corte y, para los enemigos exteriores, una causa de temor. Porque un reino que tiene una sola lengua y una sola costumbre es débil y frágil». Y así como Gerhoh de Reichersberg había dicho en el siglo XII que no hay oficio vil y que toda profesión puede conducir a la salvación, Tomás de Aquino, en el XIII, afirma que todas las lenguas pueden llevar a la sabiduría divina: Quaecumque sint illae linguae seu nationes, possunt erudiri de divina sapientia et virtute. Se intuye aquí la sociedad totalitaria en peligro dispuesta a llegar al plu ralismo y a la tolerancia.

Si el derecho medieval aceptó la ruptura de la unidad, no lo hizo sin pre via resistencia. Durante largo tiempo, la regla de la unanimidad se impone. Una máxima legada por el derecho romano y transmitida al derecho canóni corige la práctica medieval: Quod omnes tangit ab ómnibus comprobari debet («Lo que concierne a todos, debe aprobarlo la colectividad»). La ruptura de la unanimidad supone un escándalo. El gran canonista Huguccio, en el siglo XIII, afirma que el no sumarse a la mayoría es turpis, «vergonzoso», y que «en un cuerpo, en un colegio, en una administración, la discordia y la diversidad son denigrantes». Está claro que esta unanimidad no tiene nada de «demo crática», ya que, cuando los gobernantes y los juristas se ven obligados a re nunciar a ella, la reemplazan por la noción y la práctica de la mayoría cuali tativa: la maior et sanior pars («la parte principal y mejor»), donde sénior explicita a maior y le da un sentido cualitativo y no cuantitativo. Los teólogos y decretistas del siglo XIII, que constatarán con tristeza que «la naturaleza humana es proclive a la discordia», natura hominis prona est ad dissentiendum, subrayarán que esa inclinación no es más que una corrupción de la naturaleza como resultado del pecado original.

El genio medieval suscitó constantemente comunidades, grupos, lo que se llamaba entonces universitates, término que designaba toda clase de corporaciones, de colegios, y no exclusivamente la corporación que nosotros llamamos «universitaria». Obsesionada por el grupo, la mentalidad medieval lo ve integrado por un mínimo de personas. A partir de una definición del Digesto: «Diez hombres forman un pueblo, diez borregos, un rebaño, pero basta con cuatro o cinco cerdos para hacer una piara», los canonistas de los siglos XII y XIII discuten acaloradamente para sa ber si hay grupo a partir de sólo dos o tres personas. Lo esencial es no dejar solo al individuo. Aislado, no puede sino comportarse mal. El gran pecado consiste en singularizarse.

Si intentamos analizar la individualidad del hombre del Occidente medieval, reconoceremos pronto que cada uno de los individuos no sólo perte nece a diversos grupos o comunidades, como en toda sociedad, sino que, en la Edad Media, parece disolverse en ella más que afirmarse como individuo.

Si el orgullo es «la madre de todos los vicios», se debe a que no es más que «individualismo exagerado». No hay salvación más que en el grupo, el amor propio es pecado y perdición.

Por eso el individuo medieval se ve envuelto en una red de obediencias, de sumisiones, de solidaridades, que acabarán por entrecruzarse y contrade cirse, hasta el punto de permitirle liberarse de ellas y afirmar su voluntad me-diante una inevitable elección. El caso más típico es el del vasallo de varios señores que se puede ver obligado a elegir entre ellos en caso de conflicto. Pero en general y durante mucho tiempo esas dependencias se concillan en-tre sí, se jerarquizan para sujetar más estrechamente al individuo. De hecho, de todas esas ataduras, la más fuerte es el vínculo feudal.

Es significativo el hecho de que, durante largo tiempo, el individuo feudal no exista en su singularidad física. Ni en la literatura ni en el arte apare cen los personajes descritos o pintados con sus particularidades. Cada uno se reduce a un tipo físico, el que corresponde a su rango, a su categoría social.

Los nobles tienen el cabello rubio o rojo. Cabellos de oro, cabellos de lino, con frecuencia rizados, ojos azules, ojos veros —sin duda aportación de los guerreros nórdicos de las invasiones al canon de la belleza medieval—. Cuando por casualidad un gran personaje escapa a esta convención física, como el Carlomagno de Eginhard que, efectivamente, como ha revelado su esqueleto medido tras la apertura de su tumba en 1861, medía los 7 pies (1,92 m) que le atribuye su biógrafo, su personalidad moral queda ahogada bajo una serie de tópicos El cronista dota al emperador de todas las cuali dades aristotélicas y estoicas propias de su rango Con mayor razón, la auto biografía es rara y, a menudo, también convencional, y hay que esperar a fi nales del siglo XI para que Otloh de Saint Emmeran, el primero, escriba sobre sí mismo Se trata aún de un Libellus de suis tentationibus, varia fortuna et scriptis, que sólo busca ofrecer lecciones morales a través del ejemplo del autor, como hará incluso un espíritu tan independiente como Abelardo en la Historia calamitatum mearum («Historia de mis desgracias [ejempla res]») Mientras tanto, en 1115, el De vita sua del abate Gilberto de Nogent, a pesar de su aspecto mas libre, no es más que una imitación de las Confesiones de san Agustín.

El hombre medieval no tiene ningún sentido de la libertad según la concepción moderna Libertad para el significa privilegio, y la palabra se utiliza preferentemente en plural La libertad es un estatus garantizado, es, según la definición de G Tellenbach, «el justo puesto ante Dios y ante los hombres», es la inserción en la sociedad No hay libertad sin comunidad La libertad no puede residir más que en la dependencia, puesto que el superior garantiza al subordinado el respeto de sus derechos El hombre libre es el que tiene un protector poderoso Cuando los clérigos, en tiempos de la reforma gregoriana, reclamaban la «libertad de la Iglesia», entendían con ello liberarse de la dominación de los señores terrestres para no depender directamente sino del mas alto señor, de Dios

El individuo, en el Occidente medieval, pertenecía en primer lugar a una familia Familia en sentido amplio, patriarcal o tribal Bajo la dirección de un cabeza de familia1, ésta ahoga al individuo, imponiéndole una propiedad, una responsabilidad y una acción colectivas.

Este peso del grupo familiar nos es bien conocido por lo que se refiere a la clase señorial, donde el linaje impone al caballero sus realidades, sus deberes y su moral El linaje es una comunidad de sangre compuesta de «parien tes» y de «amigos carnales», es decir, de parientes por alianza, probablemente Por lo demás, el linaje no es el resultado de una vasta familia primitiva, sino una etapa en la organización de un grupo familiar flexible que encontra mos ya en las sociedades germánicas de la alta Edad Media la «Sippa».

Hay importantes investigaciones —que se apoyan en gran medida en los antropólogos— que estudian las estructuras del parentesco en la Edad Media (nota de la edición de 1981)  miembros del linaje están unidos por la solidaridad de la estirpe, que se manifiesta sobre todo en el campo de batalla y en terreno del honor.

Roldan, en Roncesvalles, se niega durante largo tiempo a hacer sonar el olifante para llamar en su socorro a Carlomagno, por temor a que sus parientes se vean deshonrados por ello La solidaridad del linaje se manifiesta de un modo particular en las venganzas privadas, las faides. La vendetta fue algo reconocido, practicado y ala bado en el Occidente medieval.

La ayuda que se tiene derecho a esperar de un pariente lleva a la afirmación corriente de que la gran riqueza consiste en poseer una numerosa parentela.

El linaje parece corresponder al estadio de la familia agnaticia, cuyo fun damento y finalidad son la conservación de un patrimonio común. La originalidad de la familia agnaticia feudal consiste en que tanto la función militar como las relaciones personales, que no son más que un grado de fidelidad más elevado, revisten tanta importancia para el grupo masculino del linaje como su mismo papel económico. Ese complejo de intereses y de sentimientos suscita por otro lado en la familia feudal tensiones de una excepcional violencia. El linaje presenta mayor tendencia todavía a los dramas que a la fidelidad. Rivalidad entre hermanos, en primer lugar, puesto que la autoridad no corresponde ya por principio al hermano mayor sino a aquel en quien los demás hermanos reconocen mayor capacidad para el mando. Es la lucha entre los hijos de Guillermo el Conquistador [de Inglaterra] y entre Pedro el Cruel y Enrique de Trastamara —por añadidura, sólo medio hermanos— en la Castilla del si glo XIV El linaje feudal daba nacimiento del modo más natural a los Caínes.

También daba nacimiento a hijos irrespetuosos. La escasa separación de las generaciones, la brevedad de la esperanza de vida, la necesidad para el se ñor, jefe militar, de demostrar su autoridad cuando esta aún en edad de legi timar su rango en la batalla, todo eso exaspera la impaciencia de los jóvenes feudales De ahí la sublevación de los hijos contra los padre. Razones eco nómicas y de prestigio se conjugan, por otra parte, para que el joven señor, al llegar a su mayoría de edad, se aleje de su padre, vaya —en una aventura ca balleresca— en busca de mujeres, un feudo o el simple placer de camorras, o bien se haga caballero andante.

Tensiones nacidas asimismo de los casamientos múltiples y de la presen cia de numerosos bastardos. La bastardía, vergonzosa entre los humildes, no lleva consigo ningún oprobio entre los poderosos. En la literatura épica del momento se hallan todas estas tensiones capaces de ofrecer a los escritores los mejores temas para obras dramáticas Los cantares de gesta están llenas de dramas familiares.

Como es normal en una familia agnaticia, un lazo especialmente impor tante es el que se establece entre tío y sobrino, más precisamente entre el her mano de la madre, avunculus, y el hijo de ésta. También aquí, los cantares de gesta ofrecen un gran número de parejas tío-sobrino: Carlomagno-Roldán, Guillermo de Orange-Viviano, Raúl de Cambrai-Gautier...

Esta familia, agnaticia más que patriarcal, se encuentra también en la cla se campesina. Pero aquí se confunde más estrechamente con la explotación rural, con el patrimonio económico. Agrupa a todos los que viven bajo el mis mo techo y se dedican al cultivo de la misma tierra. Esta familia campesina, que constituye la célula económica y social fundamental de sociedades simi lares a la del Occidente medieval, sin embargo, nos es mal conocida. Aun siendo una comunidad real, carece de expresión jurídica propia. Se ajusta perfectamente a lo que se llamaría en la Francia del antiguo régimen la communauté taisible, cuyo nombre mismo —taisible significa «lo que se calla», «lo que se oculta», casi un secreto— indica claramente que el derecho reco nocía de mala gana su existencia.

En el seno de esta entidad primordial, la familia, es difícil percibir el lu gar que la mujer y el niño han ocupado y la evolución que su condición va ex-perimentando.

Que a la mujer se la vea como a ser inferior, de eso no cabe la menor duda. En esta sociedad militar y viril, con una existencia siempre amenazada y donde, por consiguiente, la fecundidad es más una maldición (de ahí la in terpretación sexual y procreadora del pecado original) que una bendición, no se aprecia en absoluto a la mujer. Y da la impresión de que el cristianismo haya hecho muy poco por mejorar su posición material y moral. Ella es la gran responsable en lo que atañe al pecado original. Y en las formas de la ten tación diabólica, ella es, también, la peor encarnación del mal. Vir est caput mulieris («El hombre es la cabeza de la mujer»), había dicho claramente san Pablo (Ef. 5,23), y el cristianismo lo cree y lo enseña después de él. Cuando hay en el cristianismo una promoción de la mujer —y muchos se han com placido en reconocer en el culto de la Virgen, triunfante durante los siglos XII y XIII, un cambio en la espiritualidad cristiana, mediante el cual se subraya la liberación de la mujer pecadora llevada a cabo por María, la nueva Eva, cam bio perceptible aún en el culto de la Magdalena, que se desarrolla a partir del siglo XII, como se ha podido probar en torno a la historia del centro religioso de Vézelay—, esta rehabilitación no se halla al origen sino al término de una mejora de la situación de la mujer en la sociedad. El papel de las mujeres en los movimientos heréticos medievales —sobre todo el catarismo— o paraheréticos —por ejemplo las beguinas— es la señal de su insatisfacción por el puesto que se les reserva en la sociedad. Pero aun aquí es conveniente mati zar. En primer lugar, si bien la mujer no resulta tan útil como el hombre en la sociedad medieval, no por ello deja de representar —dejada aparte su fun ción procreadora— un papel nada desdeñable desde el punto de vista eco-nómico.

La mujer campesina es casi, por lo que se refiere al trabajo, la equivalente, si no la igual del hombre. Cuando Helmbrecht intenta persuadir a su hermana Gotelinda para que huya de la casa de su padre campesino para ca sarse con un truand, un picaro, que la hará vivir como una dama, para con vencerla le dice: «Si te casas con un campesino, jamás mujer alguna habrá sido más desgraciada que tú. Tendrás que hilar, machacar el lino, agramar el cáñamo, hacer la colada y arrancar las remolachas». Las mujeres de la clase superior, si bien es cierto que tienen ocupaciones más «nobles», no por eso dejan de tener una actividad económica importante. Ellas dirigen los gineceos donde los oficios de lujo —tejido de telas preciosas, bordado, tapice ría— satisfacen una buena parte de las necesidades vestimentarias del señor y de sus compañeros. Dicho de forma más prosaica, son las obreras textiles del grupo señorial. Para designar a los dos sexos, tanto el vocabulario vulgar como el jurídico recurren a expresiones como «el lado de la espada» y «el lado de la rueca».

En la literatura, el género poético asociado a la mujer y al que Pierre Le Gentil denomina, por lo demás, «canción de mujer», ha recibido el nombre tradicional de «canción de tela», cantada en el gineceo, en el obrador donde se hila. En las capas superiores de la sociedad, las mujeres siempre han gozado de un cierto prestigio. Por lo menos algunas de ellas. Las grandes damas brillaron con gran resplandor, cuyo reflejo ha conservado, una vez más, la literatura. Diferentes por el carácter o el destino, dulces o crueles, desgraciadas o dichosas, Berta, Sibila, Guilburga, Kriemhilda, Brunilda for man una cohorte de heroínas de primera fila. Son como el doble terrestre de esas figuras femeninas religiosas que florecen en el arte románico y el gótico: madonas hieráticas que se humanizan, que después se alteran y amaneran, vírgenes sabias y vírgenes necias que intercambian largas miradas en el diálo go del vicio y de la virtud, Evas turbadas y turbadoras en las que el maniqueísmo medieval parece interrogarse: «¿Ha creado el cielo este conjunto de maravillas para la morada de una serpiente?». En la literatura cortesana, ciertamente, las damas inspiradoras y poetisas —heroínas de carne o de en sueño: Eleonor de Aquitania, María de Champagne, María de Francia, lo mismo que Isolda, Genoveva o la Princesa Lejana— desempeñan un papel  superior: ellas son las inventoras del amor moderno. Pero ésa es otra historia, sobre la que insistiremos más adelante.

Se ha pretendido con frecuencia que las cruzadas, al dejar a las mujeres solas en Occidente, provocaron un acrecentamiento de sus poderes y de sus derechos. Recientemente, David Herlihy ha sostenido todavía que la condi ción de las mujeres, sobre todo en la capa superior de la sociedad señorial y en la Francia meridional e Italia, mejoró en dos ocasiones: en la época carolingia y en tiempo de las cruzadas y de la reconquista. La poesía de los trovadores sería el reflejo de esta promoción de la mujer abandonada. Pero dar crédito a un san Bernardo que evoca una Europa de la que han desaparecido sus hom bres o a un Marcabru cuando hace suspirar a una «castellana» porque todos sus enamorados han partido a la segunda cruzada es tomar por realidades ge nerales los deseos de un propagandista fanático de la cruzada y la ficción de un poeta imaginativo.

El estudio de las actas jurídicas demuestra que, en lo que concierne en cualquier caso a la gestión de los bienes de la pareja, la si tuación de la mujer empeoró del siglo XII al XIII. No ocurre lo mismo con el niño. A decir verdad, ¿hay niños en el Occidente medieval? A juzgar por las obras de arte, no lo parece. Los ángeles, que más tarde serán normalmente niños, que incluso se convertirán en esos pe-queñuelos equívocos, medio ángeles, medio amorcillos, los putti, en la Edad Media, sea cual fuere el sexo que se les atribuya, estarán representados por adultos. Cuando ya en la escultura la Virgen se ha convertido en una mujer real, tan bella como dulce y femenina —evocando el modelo concreto y, con frecuencia, sin duda, querido, que el artista ha tratado de inmortalizar—, el niño Jesús sigue siendo un horroroso retaco que no interesa ni al artista, ni a quienes le encargaron la obra, ni al público. Habrá que esperar hasta el final de la Edad Media para que se extienda un tema iconográfico en el que se aprecia un nuevo y vivo interés por el niño, interés, por otro lado, que, en ese tiempo de mortalidad infantil elevada es, ante todo, inquietud: el tema de la matanza de los niños inocentes que, en la devoción, halla su eco en el cre ciente auge de la fiesta de los Santos Inocentes. Los hospicios de niños abandonados, puestos bajo su patrocinio, a duras penas se encuentran antes del si glo XV.

Esa Edad Media utilitaria, que no tiene tiempo para apiadarse o maravillarse ante el niño, a duras penas alcanza a verlo. Como hemos dicho, no hay niños en la Edad Media. No hay más que adultos pequeños. Además, el niño no suele contar para formarlo con ese educador habitual en las socie dades tradicionales: el abuelo. La esperanza de vida es demasiado corta en la Edad Media como para que muchos niños hayan podido conocer a su abue lo. Apenas salidos del recinto de las mujeres, donde por su carácter de niños o se les toma en serio, se ven lanzados a las fatigas del trabajo rural o del aprendizaje militar. El vocabulario de los cantares de gesta es ilustrador en este sentido. Las mocedades del Cid pintan al joven héroe adolescente y pre coz como es natural en las sociedades primitivas, hecho ya un hombre. El niño aparecerá con la familia doméstica, ligada a la cohabitación restringida al grupo estrecho de los ascendientes y descendientes directos, familia do méstica que nace y se multiplica con el medio ambiente urbano y la forma ción de la clase burguesa. El niño es un producto de la ciudad y de la bur guesía que, por el contrario, deprime y ahoga a la mujer. La mujer queda avasallada por el hogar, mientras que el niño se emancipa y, de repente, pue bla la casa, la escuela, la calle.

El individuo, excepto en la ciudad, aprisionado por la familia, que le im pone las servidumbres de la posesión y de la vida colectivas, se ve absorbido también por otra comunidad: la señoría en la que vive. Es cierto que entre el vasallo noble y el campesino, sea cual fuere su condición, la diferencia es con siderable. No obstante, aunque a niveles diversos y disfrutando de mayor o menor prestigio, los dos pertenecen a la señoría o, mejor aún, al señor de quien dependen. Uno y otro son el «hombre» del señor; para el uno en un sentido noble, para el otro en un sentido humillante. Los términos que muy a menudo acompañan a la palabra precisan, por otro lado, la distancia que existe entre sus condiciones. «Hombre de boca y de manos» para el vasallo, por ejemplo, evoca una cierta intimidad, una comunión, un contrato que le sitúa, aunque en un nivel inferior, en la misma clase que su señor. «Hombre de dependencia» (homo de potestate), para el campesino, le hace depender, es decir, estar bajo el poder del señor. Ahora bien, a cambio de la sola protec ción y de la contrapartida económica de la dependencia —aquí el feudo y allí la tenencia— ambos tienen con relación al señor una serie de obligaciones: ayudas, servicios, pagos, y ambos están sometidos a su poder de tal forma que en ningún otro dominio se manifiesta con mayor claridad que en el campo judicial.

De entre las funciones acaparadas por los señores feudales en perjuicio del poder público, no hay otra que sea más pesada para quienes dependen del señor que la función judicial. Es cierto que al vasallo se le llama con más frecuencia para que se siente en el lado bueno del tribunal —como juez junto al señor o en su lugar— que en el malo. Sin embargo, se halla también so metido a sus veredictos, por los delitos en los que el señor sólo tiene jurisdicción inferior y por los crímenes si también posee la jurisdicción superior. En ese caso, la prisión, la horca y la picota, siniestras prolongaciones del tribunal señorial, son los símbolos más bien de la opresión que de la justicia. Los pro gresos de la justicia real supusieron, no obstante, antes que una mejora de la justicia en sí misma, un apoyo para la emancipación de los individuos que, en la comunidad más amplia del reino, veían sus derechos mejor garantizados que en el grupo más restringido, y sólo por ese hecho más coactivo, si no ya opresivo de la señoría. Pero esos progresos fueron lentos. San Luis, uno de los soberanos más preocupados por combatir la injusticia y por afirmar a la vez el poder real, es especialmente respetuoso de las justicias señoriales. Gui llermo de Saint-Pathus cuenta a este propósito una anécdota significativa. El rey, rodeado de una multitud de vasallos, escuchaba en el cementerio de la iglesia de Vitry el sermón de un dominico, el hermano Lamberto. Cerca de allí «un grupo de gentes» hacía tanto ruido en una taberna que no se enten día nada de lo que el predicador decía. «El bendito rey preguntó a quién per tenecía la justicia en aquel lugar y le respondieron que a él. Ordenó entonces a algunos de sus sargentos hacer callar a esas gentes que turbaban la palabra de Dios, y así se hizo.» El biógrafo del soberano termina diciendo: «Se cree que el bendito rey preguntó que a quién pertenecía la justicia en aquel lugar por temor a usurpar —si hubiese pertenecido a otro y no a él —la jurisdicción de otro...».

Así como el vasallo hábil puede hacer jugar en beneficio propio la multi plicidad, incluso a veces la contradicción entre sus deberes feudales, del mis mo modo el subdito astuto del señor puede sacar provecho del juego embro llado de esas jurisdicciones que se entrelazan. Pero para la masa esto da lugar, con frecuencia, a opresiones adicionales.

En definitiva, el individuo que triunfa es el despabilado, el astuto. La opresión del múltiple colectivismo de la Edad Media ha conferido así a la pa-labra «individuo» ese sentido turbio, sospechoso, que aún conserva. El indi viduo es aquel que no ha podido escapar del grupo si no es por medio de una mala acción. Es carne, si no de horca, al menos de policía. El individuo es siempre sospechoso.

No hay duda de que la mayoría de las comunidades reclaman de sus miembros una dedicación y unas cargas que no son sino la contrapartida de una protección. Pero el peso del precio pagado es bien claro, mientras que la protección no siempre es real ni evidente. En principio, la Iglesia deduce el diezmo a los miembros de esa otra comunidad que es la parroquia, con el fin de socorrer las necesidades de los pobres. Ahora bien, ¿no va ese diezmo, con frecuencia, a engordar al clero, al menos al alto clero? Que eso sea verdad o  mentira, la mayoría de los parroquianos lo creen así y el diezmo es, por lo tan to, una de las contribuciones más odiosas del pueblo medieval.

Beneficios y sujeción parecen equilibrarse todavía más en el seno de otras comunidades en apariencia más igualitarias: las comunidades campesinas y las comunidades urbanas. Las comunidades rurales oponen con frecuencia una resistencia victoriosa a las exigencias señoriales. Su base económica es esencial. Ellas son las en cargadas de repartir, administrar y defender esos terrenos de pasto y de explotación forestal que constituyen los bienes «comunales». Su mantenimien to resulta vital para casi todas las familias campesinas, que no podrían subsistir sin el apoyo decisivo que encuentran en ellas para la alimentación de su cerdo o de su cabra, o para su aprovisionamiento de leña. No obstante, la comunidad aldeana no es igualitaria. Algunos jefes de familia —de ordina rio los ricos y, a veces, los simples descendientes de familias tradicionalmente notables— dominan y gestionan en beneficio propio los negocios de la comunidad.

En muchas aldeas inglesas del siglo XIII había aldeanos más acomodados que adelantaban dinero, ya fuera mediante préstamos indivi duales (desempeñaban entonces el papel que los judíos no desempeñaban o habían dejado de desempeñar en las campiñas inglesas), o abonando las nu merosas sumas, a veces elevadas, que adeudaba la comunidad: multas, gastos judiciales, pagos comunes. Es el grupo, casi siempre compuesto por los mis mos nombres en un período determinado, de los warrantors, de los garantes, que aparecen en las actas de la aldea. Con frecuencia son ellos quienes for man la guilda, la cofradía de la aldea, puesto que la comunidad aldeana, en general, no es la heredera de una comunidad rural primitiva, sino una forma ción social más o menos reciente, contemporánea de ese mismo movimiento que, tanto en el campo como en la ciudad, al socaire del desarrollo de los si glos X al XII, creó instituciones originales. En el siglo XII, en las comarcas del Ponthieu y del Laonnais, estallan insurrecciones comunalistas, simultáneas en las ciudades y en el campo, donde los aldeanos se integran en comunas co lectivas, basadas en una federación de aldeas y de villorrios.

En Italia el nacimiento de las comunas rurales es simultáneo al de las comunas urbanas. Más aún, se presiente ya el papel fundamental en los dos casos de las solidarida des económicas y morales que se han establecido entre grupos de «vecinos». Estas viciniae o vicinantiae fueron el núcleo de las comunidades de la época feudal. Fenómeno y noción fundamentales a las que se oponen, como verémos, los fenómenos y las nociones relativos a los extranjeros. El bien proce de de los vecinos, el mal de los extranjeros. Sin embargo, una vez convertidas en comunidades estructuradas, las viciniae se estratifican y aparece al frente de ellas un grupo de boni homines, de hombres buenos, de «hombres pru dentes» o prohombres, de notables, de entre los cuales se reclutan los cónsu les o los oficiales, los funcionarios comunales.

Lo mismo ocurre en la ciudad, donde las corporaciones o cofradías, que garantizan la protección económica, física y espiritual de sus miembros, no son ni mucho menos las instituciones igualitarias que se imagina con fre cuencia. Si mediante el control del trabajo son capaces de combatir más o menos eficazmente el fraude, el descuido o la falsificación, si mediante la organización de la producción y del mercado son capaces de eliminar la competencia hasta el punto de convertirse en cárteles proteccionistas, permiten también —so pretexto de «justo precio» (justum pretium) que no es más que el precio del mercado (pretium in mercato), según ha demostrado John Baldwin al analizar las teorías económicas de los escolásticos— que funcionen los mecanismos «naturales» de la oferta y la demanda. El sistema corporativo, proteccionista en el plano local, es liberal en el contexto más amplio donde se inserta la ciudad. De hecho favorece las desigualdades sociales, nacidas tanto de ese «dejar hacer» en los niveles superiores, como del proteccionis mo que, al nivel local, funciona en beneficio de una minoría. Las corporaciones están jerarquizadas, y si el aprendizes un patrono en potencia, el criado es un inferior sin grandes esperanzas de promoción. Pero sobre todo las cor poraciones dejan fuera de ellas a dos categorías cuya existencia falsea fundamentalmente la planificación económica y social armoniosa que teóricamen te el sistema está destinado a instaurar.

Por arriba, una minoría de ricos que mantienen por regla general su potencia económica gracias al ejercicio, directo o por persona interpuesta, del poder político —son jurados, regidores, cónsules— escapan a la fiscalización de las corporaciones y actúan a su antojo. Tan pronto se agrupan en corpora ciones, como el Arte di Calimala en Florencia, mediante las cuales dominan la vida económica y hacen sentir su peso sobre la vida política, como ignoran pura y simplemente las trabas impuestas por las instituciones corporativas y sus estatutos. Esta minoría son, sobre todo, los mercaderes de amplio radio de acción, importadores y exportadores, los mercatores o los «que dan trabajo», que controlan localmente una mercancía, desde la producción de la materia prima hasta la venta del producto fabricado. Un documento excepcionalmente notable, ofrecido en una obra clásica por Georges Espinas, nos ha dado a conocer a uno de estos personajes, sire Jehan Boinebroke, mercader pañero de Douai a finales del siglo XIII. La Iglesia exigía de los fieles, y espe cialmente de los comerciantes y mercaderes, que al menos a su muerte resti tuyesen mediante testamento, para asegurarse el cielo, las sumas que habían percibido indebidamente por usura o por exacciones de cualquier clase. La fórmula figuraba, pues, de modo habitual entre las últimas voluntades de los difuntos, pero raramente surtía efecto. En el caso de Jehan Boinebroke, en cambio, sí lo surtió. Sus herederos invitaron a sus víctimas a que acudiesen para hacer su reclamación o para indemnizarlos.

Hemos conservado el texto de algunas de estas reclamaciones. En ellas destaca el terrible retrato de un personaje que no debió ser un caso aislado sino el representante de una ca tegoría social. Procurándose a bajo precio la lana y los productos de tintorería, paga «poco, mal o nada», y muy a menudo en especie, según lo que se llama ría después el truck system, a los inferiores, campesinos, obreros, pequeños artesanos, a los que mantiene sujetos por el dinero —es prestamista usurero—, el trabajo y el alojamiento, ya que, como medio de presión suplementa ria, facilita morada a sus empleados. Los aplasta, en fin, mediante su poderío político. Regidor por lo menos nueve veces, lo es especialmente en 1280, cuando reprime ferozmente una huelga de tejedores de Douai. Su domina ción sobre sus víctimas es tal —puesto que no es sólo la dominación de un hombre quizás excepcionalmente malo, sino la de toda una clase— que los mismos que a su muerte se atreven a reclamar lo hacen con timidez, aterrori zados aún por el recuerdo de ese tirano que es el perfecto retrato de los tira nos feudales. En el nivel más bajo de la escala social hallamos también una clase excluida de la corporación, una masa desprotegida de la que volvere mos a hablar.

Queda aún por decir que si las comunidades rurales y urbanas oprimie ron más que liberaron al individuo, estaban constituidas sobre un principio que hizo temblar al mundo feudal. «Comuna, nombre detestable», exclama a comienzos del siglo XII el cronista eclesiástico Gilberto de Nogent en una fór mula célebre. El elemento revolucionario en el origen del movimiento urbano y de su prolongación en el campo —la formación de las comunas rurales— estaba en que el juramento que liga entre sí a los miembros de la comunidad urbana primitiva es, a diferencia del contrato de vasallaje, que une a un in ferior con un superior, un juramento igualitario. La jerarquía feudal vertical queda reemplazada por una sociedad horizontal. La vicinia, el grupo de ve cinos hermanados por una proximidad fundada en primer término sobre el terreno, se transforma en una fraternidad, fraternitas. La palabra y la realidad que expresa tienen un éxito especial en España donde florecen las «her mandades», y en Alemania donde la fraternidad jurada, Schwurbruderschaft, recoge todo el poder emotivo de la antigua fraternidad germánica. Lleva consigo la obligación de la fidelidad entre los burgueses, la Treue. La frater nidad se convierte, finalmente, en comunidad ligada por juramento: conjuratio o communio. Es la Eidgenossenschaft germánica, la comuna francesa o italiana.

Aunque las ciudades medievales no hubieran representado de hecho ese desafío a la feudalidad, esa excepción antifeudal descrita con tanta frecuen cia, no por eso es menos cierto que se presentan ante todo como un fenóme no insólito y, para los hombres de la época del desarrollo urbano, como rea lidades nuevas en el sentido escandaloso que la Edad Media atribuye a este adjetivo.

La ciudad, para esos hombres de la tierra, del bosque y de la landa, es a la vez un objeto de atracción y de repulsa, una tentación —como el metal, como el dinero, como la mujer.

La ciudad medieval, sin embargo, no parece a primera vista un monstruo espantoso por su tamaño. A comienzos del siglo XIV, muy pocas ciudades so-brepasan, y de poco, los cien mil habitantes: Venecia, Milán. París, la mayor ciudad de la cristiandad septentrional, no llegaba sin duda a los doscientos mil habitantes que se le han atribuido a veces con gran generosidad. Brujas, Gante, Toulouse, Londres, Hamburgo, Lübeck y todas las demás ciudades de esta importancia, las de primera fila, contaban de veinte mil a cuarenta mil habitantes.

Por lo demás, como se ha observado a veces con toda razón, la ciudad medieval continúa muy compenetrada con el campo. Los ciudadanos llevan en ella una vida semirrural. En su interior, sus murallas albergan viñas, huer tos, incluso prados y campos, ganado, estercoleros.

No obstante, el contraste ciudad-campo fue mayor en la Edad Media que en casi todo el resto de las sociedades y de las civilizaciones. Los muros de una ciudad son una frontera, la más fuerte de las conocidas en esta épo ca. Las murallas, con sus torres y sus puertas, sirven para separar dos mundos. Las ciudades consolidan su originalidad, su particularidad, y reproducen de forma ostentatoria en sus sellos esas murallas que las protegen. Trono del bien, es decir, Jerusalén; sede del mal, es decir, Babilonia, la ciudad en el Occidente medieval siempre es el símbolo de lo extraordinario. Ser ciudadano o campesino, he ahí una de las grandes líneas de separación surgidas en la sociedad medieval.

Entre los siglos X y XIII, en un impulso del que Henri Pirenne continuará siendo el inmortal historiador, la faz de las ciudades de Occidente cambia. Hay una función que se hace esencial en ellas, que reanima las viejas ciuda des y crea otras nuevas: la función económica, función comercial y también artesanal. La ciudad se convierte en el hogar de lo que los señores feudales detestan: la vergonzosa actividad económica. ¡Y se lanza el anatema contra las ciudades!

En 1128 arde la pequeña ciudad de Deutz, situada frente a Colonia, al otro lado del Rin. El abad del monasterio de San Heriberto, el célebre Ruperto, teólogo bastante apegado a las tradiciones, ve ahí inmediatamente la cólera de Dios que castiga el lugar que, siguiendo el desarrollo de Colonia, ha llegado a ser un centro de cambio, guarida de infames mercaderes y artesa nos. Y esboza, a través de la Biblia, una historia antiurbana de la humanidad. Caín fue el inventor de las ciudades, el constructor de la primera de ellas, imi tado luego por todos los malos, los tiranos, los enemigos de Dios. Los pa triarcas, por el contrario, y en general los justos, los temerosos de Dios, vi vieron bajo la tienda, en el desierto.

Instalarse en las ciudades es elegir el mundo y, de hecho, el progreso urbano, mediante la fijación al suelo, y el de sarrollo de la propiedad, fomentan una mentalidad nueva y, ante todo, la elección de la vida activa.

Lo que favorece aún más el desarrollo de una mentalidad urbana es el nacimiento, a corto plazo, de un patriotismo ciudadano. No hay duda, como veremos, de que las ciudades son el teatro de una dura lucha de cla-ses y que las clases dirigentes serán las instigadoras y las primeras benefi ciarías de ese espíritu urbano. Por lo demás, incluso los grandes comer ciantes, al menos en el siglo XIII, saben exponer su dinero y su persona. En 1260, cuando una guerra feroz enfrenta Siena a Florencia, uno de los prin cipales comerciantes-banqueros sienenses, Salimbene dei Salimbeni, hace entrega a la comunidad de 118.000 florines, cierra sus establecimientos y se lanza a la guerra.

Mientras que la señoría rural no había logrado inspirar a la masa de los campesinos que vivían en su seno más que el sentimiento de la opresión de la que eran víctimas, mientras que el castillo roquero, aunque les ofreciese en ciertos casos refugio y protección, no proyectaba sobre ellos más que una sombra detestada, la silueta de los monumentos urbanos, instrumento y sím bolo de la dominación de los ricos en las ciudades, inspiraba en el pueblo ciu dadano sentimientos donde la admiración y el orgullo terminaban por triunfar. La sociedad urbana había conseguido crear valores en cierto modo comunes a todos los habitantes: valores estéticos, culturales, espirituales. «II bel San Giovanni» del Dante era el objeto de la veneración y del orgullo de todos los florentinos.  Orgullo urbano que es, ante todo y sobre todo, el de las regiones más urbanizadas: Flandes, Alemania, Italia del norte y del centro.

Sin embargo, ¿qué representan esos islotes urbanos en tierra de Occidente y cuál es su porvenir? Su prosperidad no puede alimentarse, en defini tiva, más que de la tierra. Incluso las ciudades más enriquecidas por el comercio, Gante y Brujas, Genova, Milán, Florencia, Siena y Venecia, la cual tiene que luchar además contra el obstáculo de su topografía marítima, se ven forzadas a asentar su actividad y su poderío en su entorno rural, en lo que las ciudades italianas llamaron su contado, su «campiña», de donde procede el nombre de contadini con que se conoce a los campesinos italianos.

Entre las ciudades y sus contornos rurales las relaciones son bastante complejas. A primera vista, la atracción urbana es favorable para la población de la campiña. El campesino que emigra a ella recobra ante todo la libertad: al venir a la ciudad, o bien se halla automáticamente libre, puesto que la ser vidumbre no se conoce en suelo urbano, o bien la ciudad, al convertirse en dueña y señora de la campiña de los alrededores, libera inmediatamente a los siervos. De ahí el famoso axioma alemán: Stadtlufi macht frei («el aire de la ciudad hace libres»).

Sin embargo, la ciudad es también la explotadora de su campiña. Se comporta con ella como si fuese el señor. La señoría urbana, que ejerce su derecho de ban sobre su banlieue, la explota sobre todo económi camente: le compra a buen precio sus productos (grano, lana, productos lác teos para su avituallamiento, su artesanado, su comercio) y le impone sus mercancías, incluso aquellas de las que sólo es pura intermediaria: la sal, por ejemplo, que se convierte en un verdadero impuesto al obligar a los campesi nos a comprar en cantidades determinadas y a precio tasado. Las milicias urbanas se forman muy pronto con campesinos enrolados, como los soldados de la campiña de Brujas, el «Franco de Brujas». Las ciudades desarrollan un artesanado rural barato, que controlan por completo. Muy pronto sienten miedo de sus campesinos. Lo mismo que los señores del campo se encierran en sus castillos al caer la noche, así las ciudades, tan pronto como oscurece, levantan sus puentes levadizos, echan las cadenas a sus puertas, arman sus muros con centinelas que vigilan ante todo a su más próximo y más posible enemigo: el campesino de los alrededores. Esos productos de la ciudad: los universitarios y los juristas, elaboran a finales de la Edad Media un derecho que aplasta al campesino.

El sueño de sociedad, si no unida, al menos armoniosa, perseguido por la Iglesia, chocó con las ásperas realidades de las oposiciones y de las luchas so ciales. El cuasi monopolio literario en manos de los clérigos, por lo menos hasta el siglo XIII, disimula la intensidad de la lucha de clases en la Edad Media y puede dar la impresión de que sólo algunos laicos malvados —señores o campesinos— trataban de vez en cuando de alterar el orden social alzán dose contra las personas o los bienes de la Iglesia. No obstante, los escritores eclesiásticos han desvelado lo suficiente como para que pudiéramos detectar la permanencia de esos antagonismos que estallaban a veces en bruscas ex plosiones de violencia.

La más conocida de esas oposiciones es la que enfrenta a burgueses y a nobles. ¡Es espectacular! El marco urbano ha amplificado su eco y los escritos —relatos de cronistas, actas, estatutos, paces que han sancionado a menudo sus peripecias— han prolongado su repercusión. Los casos bastante frecuentes —narrados con horror por los escritores eclesiásticos— en que las revueltas urbanas se producían contra los obispos, señores de la ciudad, nos han dejado narraciones emotivas en las que aparece, con el progreso de las nuevas clases, un sistema también nuevo de valores que ya no respeta el carácter sagrado de los prelados.

He aquí los acontecimientos de Colonia en 1074 narrados por el monje Lamberto de Hersfeld. «El arzobispo pasó el tiempo de Pascua en Colonia con su amigo, el obispo de Münster, al que había invitado a pasar las fiestas con él. Cuando el obispo quiso regresar a casa, el arzobispo ordenó a sus guar dias que buscaran un barco conveniente. Tras mucho indagar, encontraron un buen barco que pertenecía a un rico comerciante de la ciudad y lo reclamaron para el uso del arzobispo. Los empleados del comerciante que se cuidaban del barco opusieron resistencia, pero los hombres del arzobispo amenazaron con maltratarlos si no obedecían inmediatamente. Los empleados del mercader corrieron a buscar a su amo, le contaron lo que había ocurrido y le pregunta ron qué debían hacer.

El comerciante tenía un hijo valiente y vigoroso. Estaba emparentado con las principales familias de la ciudad y, por su carácter, era muy popular. Reunió a toda prisa a sus hombres y a cuantos jóvenes de la ciu dad como le fue posible, se lanzó hacia el barco, ordenó salir a los sargentos del arzobispo y los arrojó fuera por la fuerza... Los amigos de ambos partidos tomaron las armas y daba la impresión de que una gran batalla se estaba pre-parando en la ciudad. Las noticias de la lucha llegaron a oídos del arzobispo, que envió inmediatamente refuerzos para ahogar el motín y, como había mon tado en cólera, amenazó a los jóvenes sublevados con un duro castigo en la próxima sesión de su corte [de justicia]. El arzobispo poseía todas las virtudes y había probado frecuentemente su excelencia en todos los ámbitos, tanto es tatales como eclesiásticos. Pero tenía un defecto. Cuando montaba en cólera, no era capaz de controlar su lengua y maldecía a cada quien sin distinción con las más violentas expresiones. Al fin parecía que la revuelta iba a calmarse, pero el joven, que estaba encolerizado y envanecido por su primer éxito, no dejó de provocar todo el disturbio que pudo. Recorrió la ciudad, dirigiendo discursos al pueblo sobre el mal gobierno del arzobispo, acusándole de impo ner cargas injustas al pueblo, de privar a los inocentes de sus bienes y de in sultar a honrados ciudadanos... No le resultó difícil levantar al populacho...

Por otro lado, todos pensaban que el pueblo de Worms había obtenido un éxito expulsando a su obispo, que los gobernaba con demasiada severidad. Y como ellos eran más numerosos y más ricos que el pueblo de Worms y tenían armas, no les agradaba que se pudiera pensar que no eran tan valientes como el pueblo de Worms, y les pareció vergonzoso estar sometidos como mujeres al poder del arzobispo que los gobernaba de forma tiránica...»

Por el célebre relato de Gilberto de Nogent se sabe igualmente que en Laón, en 1111, la revuelta de los ciudadanos acabó con la muerte del obispo Gaudri y la profanación de su cadáver, al que un amotinado cortó el dedo para arrancarle el anillo.

Los cronistas eclesiásticos se muestran más admirados que indignados frente a esos movimientos urbanos. Es cierto que el carácter de tal o cual pre lado explica a sus ojos, si no la justifica, la cólera de los burgueses y del pueblo. Pero, cuando éstos se levantan contra el orden feudal, contra la sociedad aprobada por la Iglesia, contra un mundo que, convertido al cristianismo, no debiera esperar otra cosa que el paso de la ciudad terrestre a la ciudad celestial —es el tema de Odón de Freising en su Historia de las dos ciudades—, la historiografía eclesiástica confiesa su incomprensión.

Así es como en Mans, en el 1070, los habitantes se levantan contra Guiller mo el Bastardo ocupado en conquistar Inglaterra, y el obispo se dirige a él en busca de refugio. «Formaron entonces —escribe el cronista episcopal— una asociación que llamaron comuna, se unieron mediante juramento y obligaron a los señores de la campiña de los alrededores a jurar fidelidad a su comuna. Enar decidos por esta conspiración, comenzaron a cometer numerosos crímenes, condenando a gentes indiscriminadamente y sin motivo, cegando a unos por las razones más nimias y, cosa que causa horror decirla, ahorcando a otros por fal tas insignificantes. Quemaron incluso los castillos de la región durante la cua resma y, lo que es peor, durante la Semana Santa. Y todo lo hicieron sin razón.»

Pero el principal frente de las tensiones sociales es el campo. La lucha se hace endémica entre señores y campesinos. A veces se desata en crisis de gran violencia. Todo ello es debido a que, si en las ciudades de los siglos XI al XIII, las revueltas están encabezadas por los burgueses ansiosos por ase gurarse el poder político que garantiza el libre ejercicio de sus actividades profesionales, y por lo tanto su fortuna, y les confiere un prestigio proporcional a su poder económico, en el campo, en cambio, las revueltas de los campesinos no tienen sólo por objeto mejorar su situación, fijando, dismi nuyendo o aboliendo los servicios y las prestaciones gratuitas que cargan pesadamente sobre ellos, sino que son con frecuencia la simple expresión de la lucha por la vida. La mayoría de los campesinos constituyen esta masa casi al borde del límite alimentario, del hambre y de la epidemia. Lo que se llamará en Francia la jacquerie extrae de esa triste realidad una singular fuerza desesperada. Si existe también en la ciudad —acabamos de verlo en la Colonia del 1074— el motor del odio, si las nuevas capas sociales alber gan un deseo de venganza por el desdén que les dedican los señores ecle siásticos y laicos, esta motivación afectiva es mucho más fuerte todavía en el campo, a la medida del inmenso desprecio que los señores sienten por los campesinos.

A pesar de las mejoras en su suerte conseguidas por los cam pesinos durante los siglos XI y XII, muchos señores no les reconocen aún a finales del siglo XIII —por más que haya una diferencia esencial entre su condición y la de la esclavitud antigua— más propiedad que la de su per-sona y desnuda. El abad de Burton, en el Staffordshire, lo recuerda así a sus campesinos cuyo monasterio había confiscado todo el ganado (ochocientos bueyes, ovejas y cerdos), cuando ellos obtienen del rey, después de haberlo seguido de residencia en residencia con mujeres y niños, una orden de res titución de sus ganados. El abad les declara que no poseen más que su vientre, nihil praeter ventrem. Olvidaba que, por culpa suya, ese vientre estaba a menudo vacío.

Los textos repiten a porfía que el campesino es una bestia salvaje. Es de una fealdad repugnante, bestial, a duras penas tiene figura humana. Según Coulton, es «el Calibán medieval». Su destino natural es el infierno. Tiene que estar dotado de una habilidad especial para conseguir —como por engaño— el cielo. Ése es el tema de la fábula Du vilain qui gagna le paradis par plaid, el villano que consiguió el paraíso por pleito.

La misma hostilidad respecto del ser moral del campesino. De «villano», la época feudal derivó «villanía», es decir, la fealdad moral.

«Los campesinos que trabajan para todos, escribe Geoffroi de Troyes, que se fatigan en cualquier tiempo, en cualquier estación, que se entregan a obras serviles desdeñadas por sus amos, se ven constantemente abrumados, y eso para hallar lo necesario para la vida, el vestido y las frivolidades de los de más... Se les persigue mediante el incendio, la rapiña y la espada; se les arro ja a las prisiones y se les encadena y después se les obliga a rescatarse, o bien se les mata violentamente mediante el hambre, se les entrega a toda suerte de suplicios...»

Con motivo de la gran revuelta de 1381, los campesinos ingleses clama ban, según Froissart: «Somos hombres hechos a semejanza de Cristo y se nos trata como a bestias salvajes».

Como muy bien ha escrito Frantisek Graus, los campesinos «no sólo se ven explotados por la sociedad feudal, sino que, además, la literatura y el arte los ridiculizan».

El franciscano Berthold de Regensburg señalaba en el siglo XIII que ape nas si había algún santo campesino (mientras que, por ejemplo, en 1119, Ino cencio III había canonizado a un comerciante, Homebón de Cremona).

Nada hay de extraño en esas condiciones ya que el fondo de la mentali dad campesina es una constante impaciencia, un perpetuo descontento. «Los campesinos siempre están encolerizados, dice un poema goliardico de Bohe mia, y su corazón jamás está contento.»

La iconografía, de manera más o menos abierta, representa con frecuen cia la lucha del campesino contra el caballero: es David contra Goliat. La vestimenta con que aparecen ambos personajes es un claro testimonio de la intención.

Sin embargo, la forma habitual de la lucha de los campesinos contra los señores es la guerrilla sorda del merodeo por las tierras del señor, de la caza furtiva en sus bosques, del incendio de sus cosechas. Es la resistencia pasiva mediante el sabotaje de los trabajos obligatorios, la negativa a entregar los pa gos en especie, a pagar las tasas. A veces se llega a la deserción, a la huida.

En 1117, el abad del monasterio de Marmoutier, en Alsacia, suprime los trabajos obligatorios de los siervos y los reemplaza por un pago en dinero. Toma esta decisión a causa de «la incuria, la inutilidad, la holgazanería y la pereza de quienes los ejecutaban».

En su tratado de Housebondrie, escrito a mediados del siglo XIII, Walter de Henley, siempre preocupado por acrecentar por todos los medios el rendimiento agrícola, multiplica las recomendaciones para la vigilancia del tra-bajo de los campesinos.

La iconografía nos muestra a los vigilantes señoriales, bastón en mano, espiando a los trabajadores. Aun reconociendo que la fuer za del trabajo del caballo es superior a la del buey, Walter de Henley estima con cierto desengaño que es inútil para el señor hacer el considerable desembolso que representa la compra de un caballo, ya que «la malicia de los la bradores impide que el arado arrastrado por un caballo vaya más de prisa que uno tirado por bueyes».

La hostilidad de los campesinos hacia el progreso técnico es aún más lla mativa. Esa hostilidad no se explica, como las revueltas de los obreros contra la máquina a comienzos de la revolución industrial, por el temor a un paro tecnológico, sino porque el maquinismo medieval iba acompañado de un monopolio de la máquina en beneficio del señor que hacía obligatoria y onerosa su utilización en provecho suyo. Las revueltas de los campesinos contra los molinos «banales» señoriales serían numerosas. A la inversa, habrá señores —sobre todo abades— que harán destruir los molinos manuales de sus campesinos para obligarlos a llevar el grano a su molino y pagar la correspondiente maquila. Ya en el 1207, los monjes de Jumiéges mandan destruir las últimas muelas manuales que quedaban en una de sus tierras. En Inglaterra, una célebre lucha con motivo de los molinos hidráulicos enfrentó a los mon jes de Saint-Albans a sus campesinos. El abad Ricardo II, triunfante al fin en 1331, convirtió en trofeos las muelas confiscadas: las utilizó para pavimentar su locutorio.

Entre las formas más insidiosas de la lucha de clases hay que situar en lu gar privilegiado las innumerables protestas que se llevaron a cabo con moti vo de los pesos y medidas. La determinación y la posesión de los patrones que fijan la cantidad de trabajo y de los pagos constituye un medio de domi nación económica fundamental. Witold Kula ha abierto magistralmente la vía a esta historia social de los pesos y medidas. Acaparados por los unos, pro testados por los otros, los pesos y medidas, conservados en la casa señorial, en el castillo, en la abadía o en la casa comunal de los burgueses en las ciuda des, son el objeto de una lucha constante. Los numerosos documentos que evocan los castigos impuestos a campesinos o a artesanos por utilizar falsas medidas (crimen equiparado al del desplazamiento de los mojones del dominio) llaman nuestra atención sobre este aspecto de la lucha de clases.

Así como la multiplicación de las jurisdicciones favorecía la arbitrariedad de los señores, el número y la variabilidad (al capricho del señor) de las medidas eran un instrumento de opresión señorial. Cuando los reyes de Inglaterra tratan en el siglo XIV de imponer un patrón real para las principales medidas, dejan exentas de él las rentas y arrendamientos cuya medida se deja a la dis creción de los señores.

La lectura de las fábulas, de los tratados jurídicos y morales, de las actas judiciales produce la impresión de que la Edad Media fue el paraíso de los tramposos, la edad de oro del fraude. La opresión de las clases dueñas de la medida lo explica. Y la Iglesia, que hizo del fraude un pecado grave, no pudo atajar esas manifestaciones de la lucha de clases.

El enfrentamiento entre las clases, fundamental en el campo, reaparece muy pronto en las ciudades, no ya como la lucha de los burgueses victoriosos contra los señores, sino como la del pueblo bajo contra los ricos burgueses. De hecho, desde finales del siglo XII hasta el siglo XIV se va dibujando una nueva línea de fractura social en las ciudades que enfrenta a ricos y pobres, a débiles y poderosos, al popolo minuto y al popolo grosso. La formación de esta categoría urbana dominante, a la que se ha denominado el patriarcado, com puesto por un grupo de familias que acumulan la propiedad inmobiliaria ur bana, la riqueza, el dominio sobre la vida económica y el control de la vida política mediante el monopolio de los cargos municipales, hace que se levan te frente a ella la masa de los nuevos oprimidos.

A partir de finales del siglo XII se ven aparecer meliores burgenses o maiores oppidani cuyo dominio se va consolidando rápidamente Ya en 1165, en la población de Soest, en Westfalia, se mencionan esos «mejores, bajo cuya auto ridad la ciudad prosperaba y en quienes residía lo esencial del derecho y de los negocios», meliores… quorum auctoritate pretaxata villa nunc pollebat et in quibus summa iuris et rerum consistebat, y en Magdeburgo, en 1188, un estatuto urbano estipula que «en la asamblea de los burgueses se prohibió a los necios proferir palabras contrarias al orden y oponerse en cualquier cosa que fuere a la voluntad de los meliores». De este modo, pobres y ricos se enfrentaban en las ciudades. En las de lengua francesa, donde hasta ahora se había hablado tradicionalmente de oficios «fundados sobre el trabajo y sobre la mercancía», trabajo y mercancía se disocian. Los trabajadores manuales se levantan muy pron to contra aquellos que, a su vez, les tratan de ociosos Ya a finales del siglo XIII, las huelgas y los motines contra los «ricos hombres» se multiplican y, en el siglo XIV, a favor de la crisis, se suscitan violentas revueltas en la mayoría de las ciudades.

A pesar de la tendencia maniquea de la Edad Media a simplificar todo conflicto como el enfrentamiento de dos campos, el de los buenos y el de los malos, no hay que pensar por ello que la lucha de clases se limitaba a esos duelos señores-campesinos, burgueses pueblo La realidad era más comple ja, y una de las razones principales del fracaso de los débiles frente a los ricos fue, además de su debilidad económica y militar, las divisiones internas que incrementaban su impotencia.

Entre las capas inferiores urbanas hay que hacer al menos una distinción entre el popolo minuto de los artesanos y los criados y la masa de trabajadores manuales asalariados que no se beneficiaba de ninguna protección corporativa peones librados al azar del mercado y de la mano de obra, rebaño reunido a diario en la plaza de contratación (en París la plaza de la Gréve), donde los contratistas o sus encargados venían a buscar a un proletariado constantemente amenazado por el paro. A finales del siglo XIII éstos se convierten, para Juan de Friburgo, en su Manual sumario de confesores, en la ca tegoría inferior de los laboratores. Se puede observar aquí, como muy bien ha demostrado Bronislaw Geremek respecto al París de los siglos XIII y XIV, que el trabajo y el trabajador se han convertido, con ellos, en una mercancía.

No cabe la menor duda de que la explotación de la mano de obra feme nina ha ocupado un lugar privilegiado en esta opresión de los «dadores de trabajo». Es famosa la triste canción de las obreras de la seda que Crhistián de Troyes intercala (hacia 1180) en Yvain, como «Canción de la camisa» de la Edad Media.

Siempre tejeremos telas de seda
pero no iremos por eso mejor vestidas,
siempre seremos pobres, iremos desnudas
siempre tendremos hambre y sed,
jamas podremos ganar tanto
que podamos comer mejor
Tenemos pan sin cambio alguno
poco por la mañana, por la tarde menos,
pues del fruto de nuestras manos
ninguna tendrá para vivir
mas que cuatro dineros de la libra,
y con eso nunca podremos
tener para carne y para vestir,
pues quien gana en la semana
veinte sueldos, siempre pena
Siempre estamos en la mayor miseria,
pero con nuestro salario medra
aquel para quien trabajamos,
velamos buena parte de la noche
y todo el día para poder ganar
Nos amenazan con quebrantar nuestros miembros cuando reposamos: así que no osamos reposar.

(«Toujours draps de soie tisserons/Et n'en serons pas mieux vétues,/Tou jours serons pauvres et nues/Et toujours faim et soif aurons;/]amais tant gagner ne saurons/Que mieux en ayons a manger./Du pain en avons sans changer/Au matin peu et au soir moins;/Car de l'ouvrage de nos mains/N'aura chacune pour son vivre/Que quatre deniers de la livre,/Et de cela ne pouvons pas/Assez avoir viande et draps;/Car qui gagne dans sa semaine/Vingt sous n'est mié hors de peine.../Et nous somes en grand misére,/Mais s'enrichit de nos salaires/Ce-lui pour qui nous travaillons;/Des nuits grand'partie veillons/Et tout le jour pour y gagner. /On nous menace de rouer/Nos membres, quand nous reposons./Aussi reposer nous n'osons.»)

Las mujeres se hallan de igual modo en el centro de una lucha aparente mente menos dramática. Son el objeto de la rivalidad masculina de las dife rentes clases sociales. Esos juegos divertidos entre machos y hembras son, sin embargo, una de las más ásperas expresiones de la lucha de clases. El des precio de las mujeres hacia los hombres de una determinada categoría social es una de las heridas más dolorosas que éstos pueden recibir. Quizá parezca extraño ver a los clérigos tomar parte en el conflicto. No obstante, el cura, el monje, libertino y lleno de éxitos, es uno de los personajes más habituales de los cuentos populares.

La poesía lírica canta, en fin, con frecuencia en las pastorelas el amor de los caballeros por las pastoras. En la realidad, tales empeños no terminan siempre felizmente. El conde poeta Thibaud de Champagne confiesa, en ver so, que dos campesinos le hicieron poner pies en polvorosa cuando se disponía a levantar las faldas de una pastora.

La lucha de clases en el Occidente medieval se duplica, como es sabido, por las enconadas rivalidades en el interior de las clases. Los conflictos entre feudales, prolongación de las luchas de clan, las guerras procedentes de la faida germánica, forma medieval de la vendetta señorial, llenan la historia y la li teratura. Esas enemistades violentas y colectivas, esos «odios sempiternos», «esas viejas rencillas perfectamente atizadas» son, por lo demás, privilegios de clase. En las lizas de los torneos, en pleno campo, en los asedios de los castillos, las confrontaciones entre las familias feudales pueblan la historia medieval.

A pesar de sus pretensiones, la clase señorial no tiene el patrimonio exclu sivo de tales conflictos. En el seno de la sociedad urbana, las familias burgue sas se entregan, solas o animando partidos, a luchas sin cuartel por el liderazgo del patriciado o por el dominio de la ciudad. No es extraño que Italia, urbani zada más pronto, haya sido el principal teatro de esas rivalidades ciudadanas y burguesas. En 1216, una serie de vendettas oponen en Florencia a dos grupos de familias, a dos consorterie, la de los Fifanti-Amidei y la de los Buondelmonte. Por una ruptura de promesa matrimonial, afrenta tanto más cruel para los Fifanti-Amidei cuanto que el prometido Buondelmonte no se presenta el día en que toda la consorteria de la prometida le espera en traje de boda en el Ponte Vecchio, el traidor cae asesinado cuando, algún tiempo después, se dirige a la catedral para casarse con otra. Al insertarse este hecho en la lucha entre los dos candidatos al imperio, Otón de Brunswick y Federico Hohenstaufen, que de genera pronto en una lucha entre el emperador y el papa, la rivalidad de las dos familias florentinas se convierte en la lucha entre güelfos y gibelinos.

Quizá menos frecuente, pero bastante notable es la actitud individual de miembros de las clases superiores que, por interés, idealismo o, en el caso de clérigos pobres, toma de conciencia de una solidaridad mayor con los po bres que con los clérigos, se lleva a cabo la lucha a lado de los revolucionarios de las categorías inferiores y, a veces, se les dota de los jefes instruidos que ellos no tienen. Esos «traidores» a su clase se hallan entre el clero o entre la burguesía pero, sólo excepcionalmente, entre la nobleza. En 1327, los «diez mil» villanos y ciudadanos pobres que marchan contra los monjes de Bury St. Edmunds van capitaneados por dos sacerdotes que portan los estandartes de los rebeldes. Misterioso personaje es Enrique de Dinant, ese tribuno de Lieja de los años 1253-1255, ese patricio que lleva al populacho al asalto del pa triciado. Fernand Vercauteren, siguiendo el ejemplo de los cronistas del siglo XIII, ve en él a un ambicioso que se sirve del pueblo y de su descontento para tratar de convertirse en un nuevo Catilina. Pero sólo conocemos a esos agita-dores populares a través de sus enemigos. Jean d'Outremeuse nos dice de Enrique de Dinant que «hacía levantar al pueblo contra su señor y contra los clérigos y que no había dificultad para creerle... Era un hombre de buena cuna, culto y picaro, pero fue tan falso, traidor y ambicioso que no valía nada por la envidia que tenía de cada uno». Desconfiemos de estos juicios que cuelgan a quienes se rebelan la etiqueta de envidiosos. Invidia, la envidia es, según los moralistas (clérigos), según los manuales de confesores, el gran pe cado de los campesinos, de los pobres. Este diagnóstico hecho por los intérpretes de los poderosos, con frecuencia sólo sirve para silenciar la revuelta de los oprimidos, la indignación de los justos. A todos los grandes jefes de las grandes revoluciones del siglo XIV, a un Jacobo y a un Felipe van Artevelde, a un Esteban Marcel se les tachará de «envidiosos».

Al margen de estos casos individuales, cabe preguntarse si dos potencias no han escapado —por definición— a la lucha de clases, manteniéndose fuera de ella y buscando la manera de apaciguarla: la Iglesia y la realeza. La Iglesia, de acuerdo con el ideal cristiano, estaba llamada a mantener igualada la balanza entre pobres y ricos, campesinos y señores, más aún, a hacer de contrapeso a la debilidad de los pobres mediante su apoyo y a hacer reinar la armonía social, a la cual, en el esquema tripartito de la sociedad, había dado su bendición.

Es cierto que, en el ámbito de la caridad, en la lucha contra el hambre, su acción nunca fue menospreciable; es cierto también que su rivalidad con la clase militar la inclinó a veces a obrar en favor los campesinos o de los ciuda danos contra el adversario común y que animó de manera especial los movimientos de paz beneficiosos para todas las víctimas de la violencia feudal. Pero sus reiteradas declaraciones de arbitraje imparcial entre débiles y fuer tes apenas pueden disimular el hecho de que, la mayoría de las veces, eligie ra concretamente tomar el partido de los opresores. Inmersa en el siglo, integrada en un grupo social privilegiado que ella misma había transformado en orden, es decir sacralizado, por la gracia de Dios, se veía naturalmente inclinada a decantarse por la parte en la que ella se hallaba de hecho.

Conviene señalar que los campesinos se mostraron sobre todo hostiles contra los señores eclesiásticos, probablemente porque la distancia entre el ideal que profesaban y su comportamiento debía excitar de manera especial su cólera y, sin duda alguna, porque al estar mejor llevados los archivos y las cuentas monásticas, los señores eclesiásticos obtenían con mayor seguridad, gracias al derecho apoyado en sus actas y sus censos, las exacciones que los señores laicos les arrancaban de ordinario por la violencia.

Parece justo dar la razón a la autocrítica de aquel dignatario eclesiástico anónimo —confundido por error con san Bernardo— que exclamaba en el siglo XII: «No, no puedo decirlo sin derramar lágrimas, nosotros los jefes de la Iglesia somos más tímidos que los toscos discípulos de Cristo en la época de la Iglesia naciente. Negamos y callamos la verdad por temor a los seculares; ¡negamos a Cristo, a la verdad misma! Cuando el raptor cae sobre el po bre, nos negamos a socorrerlo. Cuando un señor atormenta al pupilo o a la viuda, no nos oponemos. ¡Cristo está en la cruz y nosotros sólo guardamos silencio!».

La posición y la actitud de la realeza no carecen de analogía con las de la Iglesia. Por otro lado, las dos se prestaron con frecuencia un mutuo apoyo en la lucha común, cuya consigna se dirigía contra las tiranías individuales, la defensa del interés general y la protección de débiles contra poderosos.

La realeza aprovechó hasta el máximo todas las armas que la estructura social le proporcionaba: obligar a todos los señores a que le prestasen el ho menaje ligio o feudal; negarse a prestar homenaje por las tierras que tenía en feudo, con el fin de afirmar que estaba no solamente en la cumbre, sino por encima de toda jerarquía feudal; hacerse reconocer un derecho de protección —«reconocimiento» o «patronazgo»— sobre numerosos establecimientos eclesiásticos; imponerse en el mayor número posible de contratos de «pari dad», que hacían de los reyes los copartícipes en señorías situadas fuera del dominio real y en regiones donde su influencia era débil; cristalizar en bene ficio suyo el ideal de fidelidad que era la esencia de la moral y de la sensibili-dad feudales. Al mismo tiempo, buscó siempre sustraerse al control de los se ñores. Haciendo hereditaria la corona, amplió el dominio real, impuso en todas partes a sus oficiales (funcionarios), trató de sustituir las huestes, con tribuciones y jurisdicciones feudales por un ejército nacional, una fiscalidad de Estado y una justicia centralizada.

Es significativo que los campesinos quisieran ponerse bajo la protección real, aunque se hallara más alejada que la de los señores del país. También es cierto que las capas inferiores, sobre todo campesinas, cifraron con frecuencia sus esperanzas en la persona del rey de quien esperaban que les librase de la tiranía señorial. San Luis cuenta con emoción a Joinville la actitud del pueblo respecto a él con motivo de una re-vuelta de barones durante su minoría de edad: «Y el santo rey me contó que, estando en Montlhéry, ni él ni su madre se atrevían a volver a París hasta que los habitantes de París viniesen a buscarlos con las armas. Y me contó que desde Montlhéry hasta París, los caminos estaban llenos de gentes armadas y sin armas y que todos le aclamaban, rogando a Nuestro Señor que le diese buena y larga vida y le defendiese y guardase contra sus enemigos». Ese mito real tendrá una larga vida. Sobrevivirá —hasta las explosiones finales, como las de 1642-1649 en Inglaterra y de 1792-1793 en Francia— a todas las expe riencias en que la realeza demostró que, al enfrentarse a un peligro grave de subversión de la sociedad, también ella se volvía hacia su campo natural, el de los feudales, con quienes compartía intereses y prejuicios. Bajo Felipe Augus to, los campesinos de la aldea de Vernon se rebelaron contra su señor, el ca bildo de Notre-Dame de París, y se negaron a pagar el censo. Enviaron una delegación al rey, quien dio la razón a los canónigos y espetó a los delegados de los campesinos: «¡Maldito sea el cabildo si no os manda al estercolero!» (in unam latrinam).

Pero el rey se encuentra a veces solo frente a las clases sociales. Lejos de dominarlas, se siente amenazado por cada una de ellas. Exterior a la so ciedad feudal, teme que ésta le aniquile. Tal fue la pesadilla de Enrique I de Inglaterra, según la crónica de Juan de Worcester. Cuando el rey estaba en Normandía en 1130 tuvo una triple visión. Vio primero cómo una multitud de campesinos asediaba su cama con sus instrumentos de trabajo, re chinando los dientes y acosándolo mientras le obligaban a oír sus quejas. Después, una multitud de caballeros, vestidos con sus corazas, protegida la cabeza con el yelmo, armados con lanzas, dardos y flechas le amenaza ban con darle muerte. Por último, una asamblea de arzobispos, obispos, abades, decanos y priores asediaban su lecho, con sus báculos levantados contra él.

«He aquí, gime el cronista, lo que asustaba a un rey vestido de púrpura, cuya palabra, según dice Salomón, debe aterrorizar como el rugido de un león.» Ese león al que ridiculiza precisamente Renart, en el Román, y con él a toda la majestad monárquica. Los reyes, a pesar de su prestigio, siempre fueron un poco extraños al mundo medieval.

También hubo en el Occidente medieval otras comunidades, además de las que acabamos de evocar, comunidades que se solapaban más o menos a las clases sociales y a las que la Iglesia favorecía especialmente, al ver en ellas un medio de diluir la lucha de clases.

Eran las cofradías, cuyos orígenes son mal conocidos y cuya relación con las corporaciones está bastante oscura. Mientras éstas tienen un significado profesional, aquéllas debieron ser casi exclusivamente religiosas. Tales son las cofradías de las vírgenes y de las viudas, a las que la Iglesia tiene en particular estima. Una obra de espiritualidad muy en boga en los si glos XII y XIII el Espejo de vírgenes (Speculum virginum), compara los frutos de la virginidad, de la viudedad y del matrimonio. Una miniatura célebre ilustra la comparación: las mujeres casadas no recogen más de treinta veces la si miente (cifra ya mítica para la Edad Media), mientras que las viudas la reco gen sesenta veces y las vírgenes cien.2 Sin embargo, más que formar categorías intersociales, las vírgenes tienden a confundirse sobre todo con las mon jas de clausura, y las viudas con la muchedumbre de pobres en ese tiempo en que la falta de un hombre que ganara el pan hacía caer en la miseria a la mayoría de aquellas que no podían o no querían volver a casarse.

Más vividas debieron ser las clases de edad, no aquellas que los clérigos transponían en las categorías teóricas y literarias de las edades de la vida, sino aquellas que se integraban en tradiciones concretas, características en las civilizaciones tradicionales, las sociedades militares y las sociedades campesinas. Entre esas clases separadas por la edad, una representaba en particular una realidad estructurada y eficaz: la clase de los jóvenes, la misma que, en las sociedades primitivas, corresponde a los adolescentes, que han recibido con juntamente la iniciación. En efecto, era un aprendizaje y una verdadera iniciación lo que tenían que pasar los jóvenes de la Edad Media. Pero también en este aspecto reaparecen las estructuras sociales, encuadrando esta estratificación en otro orden. Los jóvenes son distintos entre los guerreros y entre los campesinos. El aprendizaje de los primeros es el de las armas, del comba te feudal, que termina por la iniciación de la armadura, mediante la cual se entra en la clase: la caballería. Para los campesinos es el ciclo de las fiestas folclóricas de primavera que, entre san Jorge (23 de abril) y san Juan (24 de junio), se revelan a los jóvenes de la aldea los ritos destinados a asegurar la prosperidad económica de la comunidad, ritos con frecuencia constituidos por cabalgatas o ejecutados a caballo (se las encuentra en el ciclo iconográfi co de los trabajos de los meses en abril o en mayo) y que terminan con la prueba del salto por encima de las hogueras de la fiesta de San Juan. La ciudad condujo con frecuencia a la ruptura de esas tradiciones y de las solidaridades que eran su base. No obstante, quedaron residuos de ellas: la inicia-ción de los jóvenes escolares y estudiantes —los «novatos»— , destinada a hacerles perder su carácter salvaje, campesino (¿existe una relación entre el «Jacques» que designa en Francia el campesino de finales de la Edad Media y el nombre de Zak —Jak— dado en Polonia al novato universitario?), o la de los jóvenes aprendices en el curso del período anterior a su calificación como maestros en el oficio y, más particularmente, de la Gran Vuelta que de bían realizar, o la que los jóvenes pasantes recibían en las curias.

Parece que, en contraposición, la clase de los viejos —los «ancianos» de las sociedades tradicionales— no ha desempeñado un papel importante en la cristiandad medieval, sociedad de gentes que mueren jóvenes, de guerreros y campesinos que valen únicamente en la época de su plena fortaleza física, de clérigos dirigidos por obispos y por papas a quienes, dejando aparte los es-candalosos adolescentes del siglo X —Juan XI sube al trono de San Pedro en  el 931 a los veintiún años y Juan XII, en el 954, a los dieciséis—, se elige en plena juventud (Inocencio III, en 1198, a los 35 años aproximadamente). La sociedad medieval ignoró la gerontocracia. Todo lo más, su sensibilidad se pudo conmover ante los imponentes ancianos de barba blanca —como se les ve en los pórticos de las iglesias, ancianos del Apocalipsis y profetas, ante los que describe la literatura, como Carlomagno, el viejo emperador «de barba blanca», o ante los ermitaños, tal como se imaginan y representan, patriarcas medievales de longevidad impresionante.


También hay que pensar en la importancia de las relaciones que se enta blaban en ciertos centros de la vida social, en relación más o menos estrecha con la estructura de las clases sociales y la diversidad de los géneros de vida.

El primero de esos centros está animado por el clero: es la iglesia, centro de la vida parroquial. La iglesia, en la Edad Media, no es sólo un hogar de vida espiritual común —muy importante por otro lado, puesto que en él se forman, en torno a los temas de propaganda de la Iglesia, mentalidades y sen sibilidades—, sino también un lugar de asamblea. Se celebran en ella reunio nes, sus campanas llaman a la gente en caso de peligro, sobre todo de incen dio. En ella tienen lugar conversaciones, juegos, mercados. La iglesia, a pesar de los esfuerzos del clero y de los concilios por limitarla a su papel de casa de Dios, es un centro social de múltiples funciones, comparable a la mezquita musulmana.

Así como la sociedad parroquial es el microcosmos organizado por la Iglesia, la sociedad castrense integra la célula social formada por los señores en sus castillos. En ella se agrupan jóvenes hijos de vasallos, enviados allí para servir al señor y llevar a cabo su aprendizaje militar —ocasionalmente para servir de rehenes—, los domésticos señoriales y toda la parafernalia de gen tes destinadas a satisfacer las necesidades de diversión y de prestigio de los feudales. Ambigua posición la de estos ministriles, troveros y trovadores, obligados a cantar las alabanzas y los valores esenciales de sus empleadores, estrechamente dependientes de los salarios y de los favores de sus amos; con frecuencia deseosos, lográndolo alguna vez, de convertirse a su vez en seño-res —es el caso del Minnesanger que llega a caballero y logra el derecho a usar escudo de armas (el famoso manuscrito de Heidelberg, cuyas miniaturas Rolf Sprandel está llevando a cabo en Wurzburgo una investigación sobre las actitudes frente a la edad en el Medioevo representan a los Minnesanger y sus blasones, dan testimonio de esta promo ción por el noble arte de la poesía lírica)—, pero también con frecuencia la cerados por su posición de artistas dependientes de los caprichos de un guerrero, intelectuales animados de ideales opuestos a los de la casa feudal, dispuestos siempre a convertirse en acusadores de sus amos. Las producciones literarias y artísticas del medio castrense son muy a menudo un testimo nio más o menos oculto de oposición a la sociedad feudal.

Los medios populares cuentan con otros centros de reunión. En el cam po, el molino, al que el campesino debe llevar su grano, hacer cola hasta que le llega su turno y esperar después su harina, es un lugar de reunión. Es fácil imaginar que allí se comentaban con frecuencia las innovaciones rurales, que desde allí se difundían, y que las revueltas campesinas también se fraguaban allí. Hay dos hechos que nos demuestran la importancia del molino como centro de reunión de los campesinos. En primer lugar, los estatutos de las ór-denes religiosas del siglo XII prevén que los monjes vayan a ellos a pedir li mosna. En segundo lugar, las prostitutas pululan por sus alrededores hasta el punto que san Bernardo, dispuesto a anteponer la moral al interés económi co, incita a los monjes a destruir esos centros de vicio.

En la ciudad, los burgueses tienen sus mercados, sus salas de reunión, como la de la corporación de los Marchands de l'eau, que agrupa a los co merciantes parisienses más importantes y que con tanta razón se ha llamado el Parloir aux Bourgeois («Locutorio de los burgueses»).

En la ciudad y en la aldea, el gran centro social es la taberna. Puesto que se trata en general de una taberna «banal», perteneciente al señor, y puesto que el vino o la cerveza que allí se beben son, la mayoría de las veces, pro porcionados o tasados por él, el señor fomenta su asistencia. El cura, por el contrario, lanza vituperios contra ese centro de vicio en el que se da libre cur so a los juegos de azar y a la borrachera y donde se hace la competencia a las reuniones parroquiales, a los sermones, a los oficios religiosos. Recuérdese la taberna cuya algarabía ahogaba la voz del dominico a quien escuchaba san Luis. La taberna no sólo reúne a los hombres de la aldea o del barrio —ése es otro cuadro de solidaridades urbanas que adquirirá tanta importancia a fi nales de la Edad Media, lo mismo que la calle, donde se agrupan los hombres de una misma procedencia geográfica o de un mismo oficio—, sino que de sempeña además, con frecuencia, en la persona del tabernero, el papel de banco de préstamos y acoge a los extranjeros dado que, la mayoría de las veces, es al mismo tiempo un albergue. De ese modo, la taberna es un nudo esencial en la red de relaciones. Desde ella se difunden las noticias portado ras de realidades lejanas, las leyendas, los mitos.

Las conversaciones que en ella se mantienen forjan las mentalidades. Y como la bebida calienta los espíritus, la taberna contribuye poderosamente a dar a la sociedad medieval ese tono apasionado, esas embriagueces que hacen fermentar y estallar la violencia interior.

A veces se ha dicho que la fe religiosa es la que ha proporcionado a cier tas revueltas sociales el cemento y el ideal que necesitaban sus reivindicacio nes materiales. La forma suprema de los movimientos revolucionarios habría sido la herejía. No cabe duda de que las herejías medievales fueron adopta das más o menos conscientemente sobre todo por categorías sociales descon tentas de su suerte. Incluso en el caso de una participación activa por parte de la nobleza meridional en la primera fase de la cruzada de los albigenses al lado de los herejes, se ha podido poner de relieve la importancia de sus que jas respecto de la Iglesia que, al aumentar los impedimentos por consangui nidad para el matrimonio, favorecía la fragmentación de los dominios de la aristocracia laica, que caían así más fácilmente en sus manos. Ante todo es cierto que muchos movimientos heréticos, al condenar a la sociedad terrestre y especialmente a la Iglesia, contenían un fermento revolucionario muy po deroso. Eso es lo que ocurre con el catarismo, con la ideología más difusa del joaquinismo, con los diversos milenarismos, cuyos aspectos subversivos ya hemos subrayado. Sin embargo, las herejías han reunido coaliciones sociales heterogéneas, en el interior de las cuales las divergencias de clase han debili tado la eficacia del movimiento. En el catarismo —en cualquier caso bajo su forma albigense—, cabría distinguir entre una fase nobiliaria en la que la aris tocracia es la dirigente, una fase burguesa, en la que comerciantes, notarios y notables de las ciudades dominan el movimiento, abandonado por la noble za después de la cruzada y del tratado de París, a finales del siglo XIII y, en fin, una fase formada por secuelas de aspecto más abiertamente democrático, en la que los artesanos de los pueblos, montañeses y pastores pirenaicos conti núan casi solos la lucha.

Además, las consignas propiamente religiosas de las herejías hacen des vanecerse, finalmente, el contenido social de esos movimientos. Su programa revolucionario degenera en anarquismo milenarista que adopta utopías como soluciones terrestres. El nihilismo, que apunta de modo especial al trabajo, más duramente condenado por numerosos herejes que por cualquier otro —el perfecto cátaro no debe trabajar—, paraliza la eficacia social de las re vueltas acogidas bajo el signo de la religión. Las herejías fueron la forma más aguda de la enajenación ideológica.

Pero esas herejías resultaban peligrosas para la Iglesia y para el orden feu dal. Por esa razón se persiguió a los herejes y se les rechazó hacia los espacios de exclusión de la sociedad que, durante los siglos XII y XIII, gracias al impul so de la Iglesia, se fueron delimitando cada vez más. Bajo la influencia de los canonistas, en el momento en que se establece la Inquisición, la herejía que da definida como un crimen de «lesa majestad», un atentado al «bien públi co de la Iglesia», al «buen orden de la sociedad cristiana». Así lo hace en su Summa (hacia 1188) Huguccio, el más importante decretista de ese instante decisivo.

A la vez que a los herejes, se pone también en el índice, se acosa y se aco rrala a los judíos (el IV concilio de Letrán, en 1215, les impone la obligación de llevar una insignia distintiva, la rueda) y a los leprosos (las leproserías se multiplican después del III concilio de Letrán, en 1179).

Sin embargo, ese tiempo es también aquel en que se admite en la socie dad cristiana a ciertas categorías de parias. La alta Edad Media había multi plicado los oficios sospechosos. La barbarización había permitido resucitar los tabúes atávicos: tabú de la sangre, que se dirige contra los carniceros, los verdugos, los cirujanos e incluso los soldados; tabú de la impureza, de la su-ciedad, que alcanza a los bataneros, los tintoreros, los cocineros, las lavande ras (Juan de Garlande, a comienzos del siglo XIII, recuerda la aversión de las mujeres hacia los obreros textiles de «uñas azules» que desempeñaron, junto con los carniceros, un papel de primer orden en las revueltas del siglo XIV); tabú del dinero que, como hemos visto, se explica por la actitud de una sociedad en la que predomina la economía natural. A tales tabúes, los invasores germánicos añaden el desprecio del guerrero por parte de los trabajadores, y el cristianismo su desconfianza frente a las actividades seculares, prohibidas en todo caso a los clérigos y, por ello, cargadas de un peso de oprobio que recae sobre los laicos que las ejercen.

Sin embargo, bajo la presión de la evolución económica y social que trae consigo la división del trabajo, la promoción de los oficios, la justificación de Marta frente a María, de la viuda activa que, en los pórticos de las catedrales góticas, hace honorablemente pareja con la vida contemplativa, el número de las ocupaciones ilícitas o despreciadas se reduce casi a nada. El franciscano Berthold de Regensburg, en el siglo XIII, incluye todos los «estados del mundo» en la «familia de Cristo», con la sola excepción de los judíos, juglares y vagabundos, que forman la «familia del diablo».

Pero esta cristiandad, que se ha integrado ya a la sociedad nueva nacida del progreso de los siglos XI-XII, que ha llegado a su «frontera», se muestra aún más despiadada con los que no quieren doblegarse al orden establecido o con los que no quiere admitir en él. Su actitud, por lo demás, sigue siendo ambigua frente a esos parias. Parece detestarlos y a la vez los admira, los teme con una mezcla de atracción y de terror. Los mantiene a distancia, pero fija esa distancia de manera que quede lo bastante próxima como para tenerlos a su alcance. Lo que ella denomina su caridad para con ellos se parece mucho a la actitud del gato que juega con el ratón. Así sucede con las leproserías, que deben hallarse situadas a «un tiro de piedra de la ciudad» para poder ejercer con los leprosos «la caridad fraterna». La sociedad medieval necesita esos parías, apartados porque son peligrosos, pero visibles porque, mediante los cuidados que les dispensa, se crea una buena conciencia y, más aún, pro yecta y fija en ellos, mágicamente, todos los males que aleja de sí. Leprosos, por ejemplo, que tanto están en el mundo como fuera de él, como aquellos a los que el rey Marc entregó a la culpable Isolda, en la terrible narración de Berul, ante la cual retrocedió el tierno y cortés Thomas:

«Pues bien, cien leprosos, deformados, con la carne roída y blanquecina, llegados sobre sus muletas al castañeteo de las carracas, se amontonaban ante la pira y, bajo sus párpados hinchados, sus ojos ensangrentados gozaban del espectáculo.

»Yvain, el más repugnante de los enfermos, llamó al rey con voz aguda: —Señor, quieres tirar a tu mujer a ese brasero; eso es muy justo, pero demasiado rápido. Ese gran fuego pronto la quemará, ese fuerte viento pronto dispersará sus cenizas. Y cuando esta llama se apague su pena habrá terminado. ¿Quieres que te muestre un castigo peor, de tal forma que pueda seguir viviendo, pero con gran deshonor, y siempre deseando la muerte? Dilo, rey, ¿lo quieres?

»El rey contestó:
»— Sí, que viva, pero con gran deshonor y peor que la muerte. A quien me enseñe tal suplicio lo tendré en mayor estima.
»— Señor, te diré, pues, brevemente lo que pienso. Ved, tengo aquí a cien compañeros. Danos a Isolda y que nos sea común. El mal activa nuestros deseos. Dala a los leprosos. Jamás señora habrá tenido peor fin. Mira, nuestros harapos están pegados a nuestras llagas que rezuman. Ella que, junto a ti, gozaba de ricas telas forradas de cibelina, de joyas, de salas adornadas de mármol, que disfrutaba de buenos vinos, del honor, de la alegría, cuando vea la corte de sus leprosos, cuando tenga que entrar en nuestros tugurios hediondos y acostarse con nosotros, ¡entonces, Isolda la bella, la rubia, reconocerá su pecado y se lamentará por no poder morir en ese hermoso fuego de espinos!

»El rey al oírlo se levanta y permanece en pie durante un largo rato. Al fin se precipita hacia la reina y la toma por la mano. Ella grita: —¡Señor, por piedad, quemadme, esto no, quemadme!
»El rey la levanta, Yvain la toma y los cien enfermos se apelotonan en tor no a ella. Al oírlos gritar y chillar, todos se derriten de piedad; pero Yvain está gozoso; Isolda se va, Yvain se la lleva. Fuera de la ciudad desciende el asqueroso cortejo.»

Arrastrada por su nuevo ideal de trabajo, la cristiandad expulsa incluso a los ociosos, ya sean voluntarios u obligados. Lanza a los caminos a ese mundo de tarados, de enfermos, de parados que van a mezclarse con la turbamulta de los vagabundos. Frente a todos esos desgraciados, a los que identifica con Cristo, actúa como frente a Cristo fascinante y aterrador. Es sintomático que cuando alguien quiere vivir verdaderamente como Cristo, por ejemplo san Francisco de Asís, no solamente se mezcla con los parias, sino que no quiere ser más que uno de ellos. El mismo se presenta como un pobre, un extranjero, un juglar, el «juglar de Dios». ¿Cómo no iba a ser esto un escándalo?

Los cristianos mantienen con los judíos, a lo largo de toda la Edad Media, un diálogo que entrecortan con persecuciones y matanzas. El judío usurero, es decir, el prestamista irreemplazable, es odioso pero a la vez necesario y útil. Judíos y cristianos discuten sobre todo en torno a la Biblia. Las conferencias públicas y las reuniones privadas son incesantes entre clérigos y rabinos. A finales del siglo XI, Gilberto Crispín, abad de Westminster, relata en una obra de mucho éxito su controversia teológica con un judío procedente de Maguncia. A mediados del siglo XII, Andrés de Saint-Victor, preocupado por renovar la exégesis bíblica, consulta a los rabinos. San Luis relata a Joinville una discusión entre clérigos y judíos en el monasterio de Cluny aunque, por cierto, desaprueba esa clase de reuniones. «El rey añadió: "Nadie debe, si no es un buen clérigo, disputar con ellos; en cuanto a los laicos, cuando oyen hablar mal de la ley cristiana, no deben defenderla de otro modo que clavando la espada en el vientre tanto como pueda entrar".»

Ciertos príncipes, abades, papas y, sobre todo, ciertos emperadores ale manes protegen a los judíos. No obstante, después del siglo XI, el antijudaísmo se exagera y, en el siglo XIII, se transforma en antisemitismo. Con la primera cruzada las persecuciones se incrementan. Así, en Worms y en Maguncia: «El enemigo del género humano no tardó, relatan los Anales sajones, en sembrar cizaña mezclada con el grano, en suscitar pseudo-profetas, en mezclar falsos hermanos y mujeres desvergonzadas con el ejército de Cristo. Mediante su hipocresía, mediante sus mentiras, mediante sus corrupciones impías turbaron el ejército del Señor... Les pareció conveniente vengar a Cristo en la cabeza de los paganos y de los judíos. Por eso mataron a novecientos judíos en la ciudad de Maguncia, sin perdonar a las mujeres ni a los niños... Causaba lástima ver grandes montones de cadáveres que se sacaban de la ciudad de Maguncia en carretas».

Con la segunda cruzada, en 1146, surge la primera acusación de muerte ritual, es decir, del asesinato de un niño cristiano, cuya sangre se tenía que incorporar al pan ázimo, y de profanación de la hostia, crimen aún mayor a los ojos de la Iglesia, puesto que se considerará como un deicidio. Las falsas acusaciones no cesarán en delante de proporcionar a los cristianos chivos expiatorios en tiempos de descontento o de calamidad. En algunos lugares, con motivo de la gran peste de 1348, los judíos, acusados de haber envenenado los pozos, fueron degollados. Sin embargo, la gran causa de la segregación de los judíos estriba en la evolución económica y la doble formación del mundo feudal y del mundo urbano. No se puede admitir a los judíos en los sistemas sociales —vasallaje y comunas— a que da lugar esta evolución. No se puede pres tar homenaje a un judío, ni intercambiar un juramento con él. De este modo los judíos se hallan poco a poco excluidos de la posesión e incluso de la concesión de la tierra, lo mismo que de los oficios, comprendido el comercio. No les quedan más que las formas marginales o ilícitas del comercio y de la usura.

Sin embargo, habrá que esperar al concilio de Trento y a la Contrarreforma para que la Iglesia instituya y preconice los guetos, las juderías. En la época de la gran recesión del siglo XVII y del absolutismo monárquico se instaurará el «gran encierro», cuya historia ha analizado Michel Foucault en lo que atañe a los locos. Locos que la Edad Media trató también de manera ambigua. A veces son casi unos inspirados y, el bufón del señor, que será el loco del rey, se convierte en un consejero. En la sociedad campesina, el tonto del pueblo es un fetiche para la comunidad. En el juego de la feuillée, el dervés, el joven campesino loco, saca la moraleja del relato. Se observa incluso que se realiza un cierto esfuerzo para distinguir diversas categorías de locos: los «furiosos» y los «frenéticos», que son enfermos a los que se puede pensar en cu rar o, más bien, en encerrarlos en hospitales especiales [nosocomios] de los que uno de los primeros fue el hospital de Bethléem o Bedlam, en Londres, construido a finales del siglo XIII; los «melancólicos» cuya extravagancia puede ser también física, ligada a los malos humores, pero que tienen más necesidad del cura que del médico; y, por último, la gran masa de los posesos a quienes sólo el exorcismo puede liberar de su temible huésped.

Muchos de esos posesos se confunden fácilmente con los hechiceros. Ahora bien, nuestra Edad Media no es la gran época de la brujería, que se retrasará hasta el período de los siglos XIV-XVIII. Entre los herejes y los posesos, los brujos encuentran difícilmente un lugar. Se dirá que son los herederos, cada vez más escasos, de los brujos paganos, de los adivinadores campesinos de la suerte a quienes los penitenciales de la alta Edad Media persiguen en el marco de la evangelización rural. Por otra parte, en estos penitenciales es donde se inspiran Réginon de Prüm para su Canon (hacia el 900) y Burchard de Worms para su Decreto (hacia el 1010). Se ven en ellos lechuzas o lamias, monstruos fabulosos, especie de vampiros, y los lobos-duende (que en alemán se los conoce por Werenwulf, dice Burchard, lo cual viene a subrayar el carácter popular de tales creencias y de los perso najes vinculados a ellas). Mundo de la campiña salvaje, sobre el que la Iglesia no ejerce más que una influencia muy limitada y se mantiene prudente a la hora de sus incursiones. ¿No acepta acaso que un duende haya venido a velar sobre la cabeza del rey anglosajón san Edmundo decapitado por los vikingos?

Sin embargo, a partir del siglo XIII, la razón de Estado, apoyada en el renacimiento del derecho romano, desencadena la caza de brujas. Nada tiene de extraño ver a los soberanos más «estatistas» entregarse a ella con todo el empeño.

Los papas, que ven en los brujos, lo mismo que en los herejes, rebeldes de «lesa majestad», turbadores del orden cristiano, figuran entre los primeros en perseguirlos. Ya en 1270, un manual de inquisidores, la Summa de officio Inquisitionis, dedica un capítulo especial a los «augures e idólatras» culpables de organizar el «culto a los demonios».

Federico II, siguiendo a Azón de Bolonia que, en su Summa super Codicem (hacia el 1220), declara a los malefici reos de pena capital, persigue a los brujos, y el dux Jacopo Tiepolo dicta contra ellos un estatuto en 1232.

Pero el más encarnizado en perseguirlos, el más acérrimo en acusar de brujería a sus enemigos fue Felipe el Hermoso, en cuyo reinado se llevaron a cabo un cierto número de procesos donde la razón moderna de Estado que dó de manifiesto de la forma más monstruosa: vilipendio de los acusados, ex tracción de confesiones por cualquier medio y, sobre todo, aplicación del mé-todo de la amalgama, con el que se acusaba a los inculpados, en desordenada confusión, de todos los delitos posibles: rebelión contra el príncipe, impiedad, brujería, desenfreno y, sobre todo, sodomía.

Se acaba de esbozar la historia de la sodomía medieval. En los siglos XI y XII hay poetas que elogian a la antigua el amor de los jóvenes mancebos, y los textos monásticos dan a entender de vez en cuando que el medio clerical masculino probablemente no fue insensible al amor socrático. La alta Edad Media parece haber sido indulgente con una auténtica gay society. Pero en el siglo XIII se asiste a la denuncia de la sodomía —herencia de los tabúes sexuales judíos, en completa oposición con la ética grecorromana— como el más abominable de todos los crímenes y, a través de un aristotelismo curio samente sacado a la luz, se sitúa el pecado «contra naturaleza» en la cumbre de la jerarquía de los vicios. No obstante, como ocurre con los bastardos, despreciados cuando son de baja extracción y tratados como hijos legítimos en las familias principescas, a los homosexuales de alto rango (como los reyes de Inglaterra Guillermo el Rojo y Eduardo II) jamás se les molestará. Por lo demás, parece que si los juicios son cada vez más severos, en la práctica, la re-presión de la homosexualidad no fue muy rigurosa.

En cualquier caso, la sodomía fue uno de los principales crímenes atribuidos a los templarios, víctimas del más famoso proceso montado por Felipe el Hermoso y sus consejeros. La lectura de las actas del proceso de los templarios pone de manifiesto que el rey de Francia y su círculo habían establecido, a comienzos del siglo XIV, un sistema de represión judicial que no tiene nada que envidiar a los más célebres procesos de nuestra época.

Se montaron procesos similares contra el obispo de Troyes, Guichard, acusado de haber tratado de dar muerte a la reina y a otras personas de la corte de Felipe el Hermoso mediante maleficios sobre una estatuilla de cera, llevados a cabo con la colaboración de un hechicero, y también contra el papa Bonifacio VIII, sospechoso de haberse desembarazado más discreta-mente de su desdichado predecesor Celestino V.

La confinación de los leprosos se produjo también en esta época, pero la coyuntura de la lepra, sin duda por razones biológicas, no es la misma que la de la brujería. La lepra, sin desaparecer por completo, retrocede de manera considerable en Occidente a partir del siglo XIV. En cambio, se encuentra en su apogeo en los siglos XII-XIII. Las leproserías se multiplican entonces (la toponimia ha conservado su recuerdo: por ejemplo, en Francia, las leproserías, los arrabales bautizados con el nombre de La Madeleine, los villorrios y aldeas que recuerdan el término mésel, sinónimo de leproso, etc.). Luis VIII lega median te testamento, en 1227, cien sueldos a cada una de las dos mil leproserías del reino de Francia. El tercer concilio de Letrán, en 1179, en el que se autoriza la construcción de capillas y de cementerios en el interior de las leproserías, con tribuirá a hacer de ellas mundos cerrados, de los cuales no pueden salir los leprosos más que haciendo el vacío ante ellos mediante el ruido de una carraca que deben hacer resonar sin tregua, al igual que los judíos, al enarbolar su rue da, hacen que los buenos cristianos se aparten. No obstante, el ritual de la «se paración» de los leprosos, que se generalizará durante los siglos XVI y XVII, y que se efectúa en el curso de una ceremonia en la que el obispo, por medio de gestos simbólicos, separa al leproso de la sociedad y hace de él un muerto para el mundo (a veces incluso debe bajar a una tumba), es aún raro en la Edad Me dia, incluso desde el punto de vista jurídico, ya que el leproso conserva los derechos de una persona sana, excepto en Normandía y en la región de Beauvais.

A pesar de todo, un número considerable de prohibiciones pesan sobre los leprosos y ellos constituyen también el chivo expiatorio preferido en tiem pos de calamidad. Después de la gran hambruna de 1315-1318, los judíos y los leprosos fueron perseguidos en toda Francia y declarados sospechosos de haber envenenado pozos y fuentes. Felipe V, digno hijo de Felipe el Hermoso, hizo que se levantaran procesos contra los leprosos de Francia y, tras arrancar sus confesiones por medio de la tortura, a muchos de ellos se les condenó a la hoguera.

Los ladrones ilustres, lo mismo que los bastardos y los pederastas nobles, nada tienen que temer. Pueden continuar ejerciendo sus funciones y vivir en tre la gente honrada. Así Balduino IV, rey de Jerusalén, Raúl, conde de Vermandois y Ricardo, aquel terrible abad de Saint-Albans que hizo pavimentar su locutorio con las piedras de molino arrebatadas a sus campesinos.

También los enfermos, sobre todo los lisiados, forman parte de los excluidos. En ese mundo donde la enfermedad y la discapacidad se consideran signos externos del pecado, quienes se ven afectados por ellas son malditos de Dios y, por lo tanto, de los hombres. La Iglesia los acoge de forma provi sional —el tiempo de estancia en los hospitales es, por lo general, muy cor-to— y alimenta esporádicamente —los días de fiesta— a alguno de ellos. Para los demás, su único recurso es la mendicidad y la errancia. Pobre, enfermo y vagabundo son casi sinónimos en la Edad Media; los hospitales se hallan si tuados frecuentemente cerca de los puentes y de los pasos de la montaña, esos lugares de tránsito obligado para los vagabundos. Guy de Chauliac, al describir la actitud de los cristianos con motivo de la peste negra de 1348, dice que en ciertos lugares se acusaba del azote a los judíos, a quienes luego se degollaba; en otros, a los pobres y mutilados (pauperes et truncati), a quie nes se expulsaba. La Iglesia se negaba a ordenar sacerdotes a quienes pade cieran algún achaque. Aún en 1346, por ejemplo, Juan de Hubant, fundador en París del Colegio del Ave María, excluye de las becas a los adolescentes que tengan «una deformidad corporal».

El excluido por excelencia de la sociedad medieval es el extranjero. La cristiandad medieval, sociedad primitiva y cerrada, rechaza a ese intruso que no pertenece a las comunidades conocidas, a ese portador de lo desconocido y de la inquietud. San Luis se preocupa de ellos en sus Établissements, en el capítulo «del hombre extranjero», y lo define como el «hombre desconocido en las tierras». En un estatuto de Goslar, en 1219, se meten en un mismo saco «histriones, juglares y extranjeros». El extranjero es aquel que no es un hom bre fiel, un hombre sujeto, aquel que no ha jurado obediencia a nadie, el que, en la sociedad feudal, «carece de reconocimiento».

Por eso la cristiandad medieval ponía de relieve alguna de sus lacras; ciu dades y campiñas, en las cercanías de los castillos, lejos de ocultar sus lugares y sus instrumentos de represión, los ponían más bien de manifiesto: la horca sobre la gran rueda a la salida de las ciudades o al pie del castillo, la picota en el mercado, en el patio o delante de la iglesia y, sobre todo, la cárcel, cuya presencia era el signo externo del poder judicial supremo, de la alta justicia, del rango social más elevado. Nada tiene de extraño el hecho de que la ico-nografía medieval en las ilustraciones de la Biblia, en las historias de los már tires y de los santos, representara preferentemente las cárceles; en él se ocul taba una realidad, una amenaza, una pesadilla siempre presente en el mundo medieval.

A quienes la sociedad medieval no podía atar o encerrar los abandonaba en los caminos. Enfermos y vagabundos erraban de una parte a otra solos, en grupos, en filas, mezclados a los peregrinos y a los mercaderes. Los más vi gorosos y los más desesperados engrosaban el ejército de bandidos apostados en los bosques.

Texto de Jacques Le Goff (Traducción de Godofredo González ) en "La Civilizacón del Occidente Medieval", Paidós- Barcelona, 1999 (titulo original "La Civilisation de l'Occident Medieval ), pp. 227-286. Digitalizacion, adaptación y ilustración para publicación en ese sitio por Leopoldo Costa.

Nessas grandes casas, as relações sociais eram também semiprivadas, semipúblicas, já que os lugares domésticos, como diz um verso do Roman de Renart, eram frequentados por "privados ou estranhos ou amigos". Três categorias de comensais. Os "estranhos" eram aqueles que nenhuma relação afetiva particular ligava ao dono da casa. Talvez seus "privados" se distinguissem de seus "amigos" pelo fato de que lhe estavam ligados pelo sangue: "por amizade", diz o Roman, o lobo e o raposo se chamam de tio e sobrinho. A diferença se devia antes, sem dúvida, a que dos "privados" a casa era a moradia titular, enquanto os "amigos", se tinham livre acesso a essa casa e a seu chefe, ali não tinham residência. Estavam de passagem como os ocupantes da hospedaria monástica.

Os privados formavam o que o francês medieval chama de "ménage" [família] ou a "maisnie", de que se encontra definição jurídica em um auto dos Olim datado de 1282: "Sua própria família permanecendo em sua casa, isso deve ser entendido daqueles que fazem suas próprias tarefas e as suas custas": moradia comum, alimento comum, uma equipe dirigida por um chefe e cujos membros sob suas ordens trabalham juntos em uma tarefa comum — o exato equivalente da fraternidade monástica. Esse corpo podia ser bastante numeroso: na Inglaterra do século XIII a casa de Thomas de Berkeley reunia mais de duzentas pessoas, e o bispo de Bristol precisava de cem cavalos para transportar a dele quando se deslocava. A coesão de um grupo tão vasto provinha do fato de que ele era mantido por uma única mão ou antes, como se dizia na época, "conservado" (retém), sustentado inteiramente por um patrono. O que os "privados" do século XI, do século XII esperavam desse patrono não era fundamentalmente diferente daquilo que reclamava do seu, segundo um formulário merovíngio, meio milênio antes, tal homem que se confiasse a ele: "O alinhamento e o vestuário (victum et vestitum) tanto sobre minhas costas quanto para meu leito, e me calçar, tu mo proporcionarás, e tudo o que possuo permanecerá em teu poder". Entrega de si — semelhante à do monge quando faz profissão — em troca de tudo aquilo de que o corpo e a alma podem ter necessidade. E o direito para aquele que distribui os víveres, que assegura o teto, de corrigir, de flagelar. Falei de um corpo: membros, uma cabeça, um "chefe"— caput mansi, como diz um auto dos arquivos clunisianos no limiar do século XII, cabeça de um "manse" [morada], de uma célula de residência, e de tudo o que ela contém.

Entretanto, como a "família" monástica, esta era francamente dividida em duas partes. De um lado, e comendo separadamente um pão menos nobre, mais escuro, aqueles que serviam (servientes) e que muitas vezes, nas casas muito grandes, estavam estabelecidos no burgo contíguo à morada (parece-me evidente que a população "burguesa" foi, no início do renascimento urbano do século XI, constituída em grande parte pelo "privado", pela domesticidade — especializada em diversos "ofícios"— do senhor, bispo, conde ou castelão). Do outro lado, os senhores, Mas, na sociedade profana, e nisso diferindo da sociedade monástica, agrupavam-se a seu lado, tratados da mesma maneira, os auxiliares encarregados das duas funções principais, a de oração e a de combate, os clérigos em primeiro lugar, formando, quando a casa era de alguma importância, um colégio de cônegos (e por mais leigo que fosse, o senhor participava dessa comunidade, tomava assento em seu centro, em posição magistral) e, por outro lado, os cavaleiros.

A propósito desses servidores de primeira classe, vê-se imediatamente como é difícil separar o privado do público, e os "privados" dos "amigos". Pois as preces que se recitavam na capela do senhor beneficiavam a toda a senhoria, e sua morada era uma fortaleza de onde a paz e a justiça se irradiavam para o território vizinho. Em consequência, aos guerreiros propriamente domésticos vinham juntar-se periodicamente todos os homens residentes nas cercanias em casas próprias e que tinham vocação de combater; durante esse estágio, eles entravam no privado do senhor do castelo, dele recebiam sua ração e seu arreamento, tornavam-se por um tempo seus privados e, quando voltavam para suas casas, permaneciam seus amigos, ligados pela homenagem que fazia deles parentes suplementares. Aliás, o verdadeiro parentesco, de filiação ou de aliança, unia ao chefe de família a maior parte dos clérigos ou dos cavaleiros que o assistiam: eles eram seus filhos, seus sobrinhos, seus primos, legítimos ou bastardos; aos outros, ele dera por esposa filhas de seu sangue, e enquanto que, estabelecendo-os por meio desse casamento, afastava-os de sua casa, unira-os a esta por um laço mais poderoso que os obrigava, que obrigava seus descendentes a voltar a fundir-se de tempos em tempos em sua família.

Com efeito, a exemplo do mosteiro, a morada aristocrática assumia uma função de acolhida que se pode dizer estrutural. Também ela se abria aos pobres, admitidos, como na casa de Lázaro, a recolher o que caía da mesa senhorial, e era uma bênção para o senhor e para toda a casa ver-se assim espoliados por esse parasitismo necessário e ritual. Como o mosteiro, a casa nobre acolhia jovens, para formá-los. Era uma escola que ensinava aos rapazes bem-nascidos os usos de cortesia e de valentia, em que os filhos das irmãs do senhor, os filhos de seus vassalos vinham normalmente fazer seu aprendizado. Ela acolhia enfim os passantes, "amigos" ou "estranhos", parasitas também eles necessários, desde que fossem de boa condição, e um dos gestos essenciais, no simbolismo do poder patronal, era convidá-los a sentar-se à mesa, na sala, para ali saciar-se, ali beber até a embriaguez, e ali estender-se, à noite, para dormir. Em certos dias, a casa não acolhia apenas hóspedes casuais, atraía a seu âmbito privado todas as casas satélites. Assim, por ocasião das cortes solenes, nas grandes festas da cristandade, Natal, Páscoa ou Pentecostes: nesses momentos, a sala, na morada principesca, reencontrava sua função primitiva, basilical, de regalia, dissolvendo-se o privado inteiramente no público. E em todas as casas, grandes ou pequenas, a hospitalidade alcançava seu paroxismo por ocasião das festas nupciais. A "família" do casado projetava-se então fora do recinto ao encontro da esposa que avançava escoltada por sua própria parentela, conduzia-a para a porta, introduzia-a, guiava-a até o quarto, detendo-se por um momento, no entanto, no espaço intermediário, semipúblico, para um festim desta vez desmedido.
 
ORDEM E DESORDEM

Quanto à disposição dos poderes que regiam essa sociedade complexa e em grande parte móvel, a identidade com as estruturas monásticas é, de início, uma vez mais, notável: um pai, um só, como no céu, que no entanto jamais devia agir sem conselho; um conselho masculino, hierarquizado, os jovens sob o jugo dos mais velhos; um pai cujo poder se devia a que, ocupando o próprio lugar de Deus, toda a vida na morada parecia emanar de sua pessoa. A diferença, considerável na verdade, era que, nessa casa, não se vivia em tão estreita proximidade dos anjos, em tão larga distância do carnal, a ponto de a sociedade doméstica ser assexuada, devendo seu chefe, responsável por uma linhagem, prolongar por uma nova geração sua existência e disseminar mulheres entre as casas vizinhas a fim de com elas congraçar-se, portanto procriar. Sua função genital, primordial, obrigava-o a possuir uma mulher em seu leito. Um casal estava estabelecido no centro da rede dos poderes. O feminino encontrava-se posicionado, por certo, sob o inteiro domínio do masculino; contudo, porque essa mulher era a esposa, porque devia ser a mãe dos herdeiros — e, quando não conseguia, não se hesitava muito, no século XI, em recusá-la —, uma parcela do poder de seu "senhor", como ela dizia, projetava-se sobre ela: "dama" (domina), ela também se mostrava dominante, e na medida mesma em que, em posição de parceira sexual legítima e por suas capacidades genéticas, contribuía de maneira decisiva para a extensão da casa.

Pois se tratava disso: o privado que se viu sobretudo até o presente na defensiva, encolhido atrás dos muros, em sua casca, a clausura, tendia, na realidade, como todo organismo vivo, a abrir-se, a expandir-se, e tudo se ordenava na casa, especialmente a autoridade atribuída a seu chefe, para que sua vitalidade estivesse em seu auge: sempre mais parentes, sempre mais amigos, sempre mais servidores. Eis por que se descobre, no mais profundo do castelo de Ardres, uma cela de fecundação e, conjunta, a incubadeira onde amas-de-leite estavam estabelecidas para dispensar a esposa dos cuidados com sua progenitura a fim de que, sem tardar, fosse novamente engravidada. Eis por que as crianças, desde que atingiam a idade da razão, eram divididas em dois compartimentos distintos: um cuidadosamente fechado, para ali conservar meninas, futuras mães, até que fossem transportadas, uma após outra, em cortejo, para uma outra morada da qual se tornariam damas; o outro aberto, onde os meninos não viriam alojar-se senão de passagem, como hóspedes, pois eram soltos, lançados ao exterior para ali apossar-se de tudo o que pudessem, especialmente esposas.

No entanto, o que saía da fecundidade do pater famílias não bastava, e o primeiro dever do senhor, após o de engendrar e de casar, sua preocupação maior, era a de levar a família a crescer mais, atraindo, "conservando" comensais. Esse projeto governava a economia doméstica: nenhuma intenção de investir, e se se tinha o cuidado de acumular reservas no quarto, no celeiro, na adega, não era senão na previsão das festas em que as riquezas da casa seriam alegremente esbanjadas. Constitutio expansae, "organização da despesa", tal é o título de um plano de reforma dos recursos que foi transcrito em meados do século XII em um dos cartulários da abadia de Cluny. Ele visava, com efeito, ajustar o rendimento do patrimônio às necessidades imperiosas de uma indispensável largueza. Nos tempos feudais, a vida privada não estava de modo algum friorentamente curvada sobre a poupança; ela se derramava em generosidades expansivas a fim de multiplicar os amigos — a verdadeira riqueza, como repetiam à saciedade as obras da literatura profana.

O patrono era obrigado, consequentemente, a oferecer em sua casa satisfação plena das necessidades do espírito e do corpo. As primeiras, na época, tinham precedência, em princípio, sobre as outras, e, entre os serviços domésticos, os espirituais passavam por ocupar o nível superior. Eles não eram prestados apenas na capela, mas também na sala, e mesmo no quarto, pois o pai de família era o primeiro encarregado deles. Como no mosteiro, a função paterna era pedagógica. O elogio do conde Baudouin II de Guines mostra esse "letrado", ele próprio incapaz de ler, colecionando livros, mandando traduzir os textos latinos na língua que ele podia compreender, comentando as leituras que acabava de ouvir, fazendo perguntas, discutindo, instruindo-se para melhor instruir. Mantinha junto dele um pessoal auxiliar, em parte temporário — "mestres", graduados da escola albergados por algum tempo para trabalhar nas traduções, enriquecer a biblioteca, ou então desses parentes integrados a uma comunidade eclesiástica, cônegos ou monges, que, de passagem, beneficiavam seus irmãos, seus primos com seu saber especializado —, em parte permanente - os clérigos domésticos, os capelães. Estes pregavam. No entanto, seu senhor os empregava de bom grado também em Compor divertimentos, textos falados, cantados, em língua vulgar, encenações, que sabia lhe valeriam, mais que os sermões edificantes, o reconhecimento dos "amigos".

Para agradar, com efeito, ele se esforçava em vencer o tédio que espreitava esses guerreiros, esses caçadores, durante as inevitáveis interrupções de sua atividade esportiva. Mas bem sabia que os agradaria mais, que seria tanto mais obedecido, servido e amado se satisfizesse os desejos de seus corpos. Aplicava-se então em conduzir os seus, tão frequentemente quanto possível, à perseguição da caça, ao encontro de protagonistas, na batalha ou no torneio. Zelava para que sua morada estivesse bem provida de mulheres para todos os serviços, seu guarda-roupa fornido de "vestes", como se dizia, suficientes para as distribuições rituais, nas grandes festas. Sem esses presentes, esse "benefícios" periódicos, como governar a família, como, sobretudo, cumprir honrosamente o ofício patronal? Em 1219, Guilherme, marechal da Inglaterra, em seu leito de morte, está distribuindo seus bens pessoais; legou todo o dinheiro aos homens de Igreja a fim de que rezem por sua alma; lembram-lhe que ainda restam no quarto muitas togas de escarlate, forradas de veiros, oitenta peles ao menos, todas novas e das quais se poderia tirar bom preço para comprar muito mais orações; Guilherme se irrita: o Pentecostes se aproxima, seus cavaleiros têm direito, nesse dia, a ornamentos novos, e os terão; o senhor não pode falhar, e sua moral lhe ordena, no próprio limiar do trespasse, dar precedência ao dever de munificência doméstica sobre a preocupação de sua salvação. Vestir, mas em primeiro lugar saciar, proporcionar o mais abundante, o mais saboroso, o que agrada à boca e se distingue do comer vulgar, esse companagium que, para os senhores e seus hóspedes, não constitui, como para o comum dos servidores, simples e discreto acompanhamento do pão, mas o principal do alimento. E, para isso, jamais olhar a despesa. Pois, no quarto onde procriava, na sala onde alimentava, o senhor não detinha poder em seu privado senão na proporção de sua aptidão para dar, e sempre mais.

Como o abade do mosteiro, ele era ajudado em sua gestão por oficiais domésticos cujas tarefas se dividiam, na era feudal, mais ou menos como, ainda há pouco, no palácio carolíngio. Seu primeiro auxiliar era sua esposa, detentora de um poder análogo àquele de que dispunha a rainha no século IX: ela dirigia tudo o que na casa era feminino — e assimilado ao feminino, como as crianças de pouca idade —, reinava sobre as reservas e controlava o que entrava na morada. Vê-se, por exemplo, a mulher do senhor Ardres vigiando o recebimento das taxas arrecadadas sobre as famílias camponesas, e porque uma dessas dependentes, muito pobre, não pudera entregar o carneiro prescrito, a dama, em compensação, fez com que lhe fosse dada uma menina; criou-a e, quando estava suficientemente crescida, casou-a, acasalou-a, explorando suas capacidades de procriação, zelando como um bom pastor para que o rebanho aumente, cooperando com seu marido na extensão da "família"; vemo-la, da mesma maneira, governando a proliferação doméstica, tomar sob sua proteção tal criada grávida e, restabelecendo a boa ordem, obrigar o pretenso sedutor a desposá-la, imperiosa, corrigindo, aterrorizando todas as mulheres na morada, curvando-as à sua vontade — como também acabara por dobrar-se, segundo Jean de Marmoutier, sob a pressão da rainha da França, a órfã de um grande vassalo que o soberano pretendia casar contra a sua vontade, que ele próprio não podia forçar e que encarregara sua esposa de quebrar-lhe a resistência.

Outros adjuntos assistiam o senhor e a senhora, encarregados cada um de um "ofício" (ministerium), da direção de um serviço especializado. O regulamento interno de uma enorme casa, a corte de Hainaut, proporciona uma das visões mais claras desses serviços e de seu funcionamento. Em 1210, dois velhos, escolhidos entre os mais "privados" do penúltimo conde, seu irmão bastardo e seu capelão, tinham vindo recitar publicamente o costume mais antigo, que se queria restabelecer e fixar. Tudo tendia então a institucionalizar-se, a enrijecer-se, e os ofícios, lucrativos, estavam já inteiramente apropriados, vendáveis com o acordo do patrono, hereditários, alguns possuídos por mulheres, ou por maridos autorizados por suas esposas, ainda que, normalmente, o filho mais velho sucedesse a seu pai morto ou muito idoso após ter aprendido, herdeiro presuntivo, o "ofício" na curia. A despeito de tal esclerose, os "ministeriais" continuavam a ser considerados como membros plenos da família, comendo com o senhor, por certo dormindo na casa, providos de um cavalo, o que os situava acima do comum, até mesmo de dois se eram cavaleiros; todos os anos, recebiam as "vestes", um manto e uma túnica; além disso, a "livrée", isto é, pagamentos para completar a seu modo seu equipamento; enfim, para aqueles encarregados do serviço de armas, um soldo — como os commilitones do conde, seus companheiros de guerra que cavalgavam mais proximamente a seu lado, em seu conroi [tropa a cavalo], a equipe de combate muito estreitamente unida; não se trata deles nesse documento, mas sabe-se que eram da mesma idade (coetani) que o chefe, na maioria seus parentes, seus camaradas desde a infância, sagrados cavaleiros no mesmo dia que ele, formando na casa um corpo mais unido, mais privado, semelhante ao colégio dos cônegos, e situados, parece, como os cônegos, acima dos simples ministeriais. Estes, no entanto, viviam igualmente na estreita intimidade do senhor, obrigados a acompanhá-lo em todas as suas expedições militares "para defender seu corpo".

Contudo, de modo algum todos na mesma posição: nesse nível, nessa vasta morada, as funções eram completamente hierarquizadas. Três ofícios, no documento que exploro, são considerados principais, e estes derivam diretamente dos três "ofícios" leigos que ajudavam outrora o soberano carolíngio em sua casa, que foi o modelo inicial de toda vida privada nobiliária. O senescal-mor, o camareiro-mor e o copeiro-mor ocupavam esses ofícios. Eles passavam por servir o conde no principado inteiro, mas, com toda a evidência, seu cargo tornado honorífico não os obrigava mais a viver na casa, apenas lhes valia acesso ao príncipe, um lugar a seu lado nos cortejos onde seu poder era exibido. Sob esses altos personagens, percebem-se com efeito três organizações domésticas autônomas, correspondentes às três habitações do conde, das quais cada uma constituía a cabeça de uma entidade política: dois castelos, Mons e Valenciennes, flanqueados cada um por uma colegiada — a de Mons preeminente, porque ali repousavam os ancestrais da dinastia (não devemos esquecer os mortos, incluídos na família, associados à vida privada pelas cerimônias comemorativas periódicas) —, depois uma terceira casa, menos solidamente constituída, dominando uma senhoria recentemente adquirida, Ostrevent. Existia um camareiro suplementar. Com efeito, quando a sra. Marguerite, "a esposa do Baudouin [V] que está enterrado no centro do coro de Mons"— era a irmã do conde de Flandres —, fora cedida a um marido, este não era então senão o herdeiro do I lainaut; seu pai ocupava a morada ancestral; o novo casal precisava de sua própria casa; os esposos estabeleceram-se em outro lugar, em Lille, nas terras da dama; esta era servida por suas mulheres; ela casara uma delas e fizera do marido seu próprio camareiro; funcionava, desde então, um "quarto" particular da condessa, "em todo lugar", diz o texto, de modo nenhum ligado a uma casa, e que geria o "móvel", essa parte específica da posse feminina, o enxoval. Graus, portanto, múltiplos: a pessoa do conde, a da condessa, graus entre as casas, e, em cada uma das principais, dois grandes serviços, dos quais um dominava o outro, já que os cargos se distribuíam como, no edifício, o espaço de convívio: um serviço da mesa, isto é, da sala, dirigido pelo senescal e pelo copeiro; um serviço do quarto, mais privado, cujo administrador era o camareiro, que vinha após o senescal mas antes do copeiro, encarregado da adega, portanto do mais baixo.

A mesa, ou antes, as mesas (mensae) eram postas na sala ou, desde que o tempo o permitisse, ao ar livre. Aparato, como no mosteiro: não convinha alimentar-se acocorado, nem em pé, às pressas. Comer era um ato solene, público. Era conveniente que dependesse do ofício mais altamente posicionado. O senescal zelava pela parte mais nobre da ração, pelo "companage" [tudo aquilo que se come com o pão], as "esques" (escae, comidas), compradas fora e preparadas na cozinha, principalmente a carne, que cabia ao primeiro servidor (e essa procedência da carne é esclarecedora) apresentar e cortar diante do senhor; sob sua autoridade serviam, segundo sua posição, sete oficiais subalternos: o "comprador" e o "guardião das comidas" em primeiro lugar; os três "cucas" que cozinhavam; o zelador, encarregado de manter os fogos na casa, o da cozinha e aquele, mais brilhante, que realçava o esplendor da sala; o porteiro, acolhendo, instalando os hóspedes; enfim, o cortador, responsável pelo corte, mas também pelo sal. Quanto à bebida de qualidade, isto é, ao vinho, também estava sob o controle de um oficial maior, o copeiro. Em Mons, no começo do século XIII, uma mulher ocupava esse posto, filha de cavaleiro, herdeira de seu pai, mas também cônega e por isso pouco disponível. "A sua ordem", o vinho era levado às mesas e, se lhe aprazia, era servido por suas mãos ao conde e à condessa. De fato, dois substitutos comumente ocupavam seu lugar. Em segunda posição, ele próprio dirigindo dois armazenistas, vinha "aquele que conservava o vinho e que o servia nos cântaros e nas taças" (por essa razão dependia dele o "ofício" muito inferior do oleiro). Mais abaixo figurava o saquiteiro, fornecedor desse alimento que, para os senhores, signo de sua distinção, não era mais que acessório, as migalhas; quatro pessoas dependiam ainda desse subalterno, um fornecedor, um padeiro "hereditário" estabelecido fora da corte, no povoado, com os artesãos independentes, um guarda dos pães, ou mais exatamente das fatias, dos pedaços sobre os quais se colocavam as carnes, ele próprio comandando "o homem que colocava essas fatias sobre as mesas". No fim da lista, o responsável pelo lardo, situando as ordenações domésticas em último lugar, o toicinho, alimento popular como o pão e tirado do fundo da cozinha, da parte mais inferior da casa.

Em Mons, o "camareiro menor"— subordinado de um camerarim, ele próprio subordinado ao grande camareiro do Hainaut — devia vigiar o quarto e as coisas preciosas que ali se encontravam encerradas; encarregado, consequentemente, das "roupas", do tecido, devia também arrumar as camas "para toda a corte", as quais, na maior parte, eram estendidas a cada noite na sala; ele fornecia a água que seu superior apresentava ao conde e à condessa, enquanto ele próprio dava água antes da refeição aos clérigos e aos cavaleiros; enfim, sob o controle do camareiro titular, que sem dúvida se reservava a administração das moedas, o camareiro menor fabricava as velas e as distribuía, especialmente aquelas que, fincadas em um pão, iluminavam o conde, a condessa e o senescal, e só eles, quando estavam à mesa.

De um lado, então, a mesa, a luz, o fogo claro, a exibição; do outro, as camas, a noite, a vela, o retraimento. A sala era equipada principalmente para o festim, ele próprio representação, ostentação da ordem necessária. O conde e a condessa, o casal dominante, ocupavam o centro do espetáculo, objetos de uma honra particular, servidos pelos mais altos domésticos; mas junto deles, quase em seu nível, mantinha-se o senescal, que tinha direito, como o senhor, pois que major domus, primeiro da casa, ao pão de sal ao lado de sua porção, à luz diante dele. E já que se tratava de encenação pública, de demonstração de poder, importava que os oficiais da mesa fossem cavaleiros; eles recebiam o mesmo equipamento, o mesmo fornecimento de trajes que os companheiros de armas do patrono; acompanhavam-no toda vez que ele montava a cavalo, com os cozinheiros e o zelador: sua atividade, diurna, projetava-se para o exterior, para as ações ao ar livre. Ao passo que o quarto aparece, à leitura desses costumes, como encerramento, concha; nada desse vinho que convém à festa, às larguezas; longe da luz, para lavar o que macula e afastar as trevas, a água lustrai e as luminárias profiláticas.

Essa assistência multiplicada e o recurso ao cerimonial como instrumento de disciplina eram necessários ao senhor para manter em ordem a sociedade doméstica. O tumulto estourava, com efeito, de todos os lados. Da parte dos homens, o perigo uma da violência aberta, armada, brotando naturalmente entre homens de guerra e de torneio. Era preciso então eliminar constantemente a cobiça e os rancores, reanimar sem descanso a "amizade". Tarefa difícil em razão da rivalidade permanente de que a corte era o local, da inveja dos mais novos em relação aos mais velhos, da competição aberta entre os "comensais" disputando os favores do senhor e os da dama, cada um encarniçado em eclipsar todos os outros, denegrindo-os, desafiando-os, desferindo-lhes a cada ocasião golpes baixos — em razão de uma emulação, fonte de rumor e furor. Para conter a turbulência, três procedimentos entravam em jogo. A expulsão, em primeiro lugar, dos mais agitados; essa foi sem dúvida uma das funções da Cruzada, e a mais benéfica; um papel análogo era desempenhado pela viagem, financiada pelo pai de família, que arrastava ritualmente para longe da casa, por um ano, dois anos, após a cerimônia da sagração como cavaleiro, o filho mais velho e os outros "cavaleiros novos"; todos os jovens eram assim chamados a extravasar na errância, provisoriamente, o excesso de seu ardor. Sabe-se também que se impunha o uso de enviar os filhos, desde que saíssem da infância, para formar-se em outro lugar — simples troca, na verdade, já que a casa, livre dos rapazes de seu sangue, era obrigada a acolher outros, mas essa transferência não deixava, sem dúvida, de amortecer também um pouco os choques. Reputo os ritos do amor cortês como um segundo meio de amansar a juventude. O que se sabe desse jogo e de seu desenvolvimento desde meados do século XII leva a pensar que o senhor propunha sua esposa como um chamariz, uma espécie de isca, oferecendo-a, até certo ponto, como a aposta de um concurso cujas regras gradativamente mais sofisticadas obrigavam os participantes, os cavaleiros celibatários e os clérigos da casa, a dominar cada vez melhor seus impulsos. Enfim, o chefe de casa detinha um poder judiciário, o direito de arbitrar as querelas, de corrigir os erros; e se ele nada podia decidir sem o conselho dos seus, estes eram obrigados a dar-lho, a falar diante dele, a exibir para ele suas discórdias e, na sala — como na sala capitular do mosteiro —, as queixas exibidas, as razões aceitas, recompensas e reprimendas eram periodicamente distribuídas; a menos que, apelando ao julgamento de Deus, o caput mansi decidisse presidir, no pátio, a uma batalha, a um duelo, a uma dessas rixas organizadas no decorrer das quais extravasava-se a violência dos rivais.

Esse sistema de regulação foi eficaz? Os traços de seus fracassos são descobertos facilmente no pouco que resta da literatura familiar. Assim, na história — panegírica — dos senhores de Ardres, e que não é bem documentada senão sobre quatro gerações, um assassinato doméstico, ao menos, é evocado, o do senior, morto na floresta, dizia-se, pelos criados de sua cozinha. Na história — também panegírica — dos senhores de Amboise, e também ela bem documentada sobre quatro gerações apenas, é mencionado o assassinato de um cunhado, camuflado em acidente de guerra; os dois irmãos do último dos senhores de que se trata nesse texto foram mortos por seus familiares, um cm emboscada e o outro por envenenamento; ao passo que está constantemente presente a agitação dos cavaleiros dos castelos, organizados em partidos opostos, apoiando um o filho, o Outro o pai, um irmão caçula contra um irmão mais velho, um genro contra o irmão da esposa, não se deixando esse tumulto dominar-se facilmente: o senhor do castelo de la Haye (era um intruso, o esposo da herdeira) e seu irmão acabaram por ser abatidos pelos guerreiros de sua casa, que não podiam mais suportar sua presença. Contudo, no espaço doméstico, o perigo era em primeiro lugar percebido como vindo insidiosamente das mulheres, portadoras do veneno, dos sortilégios, da cizânia, e dos desmaios, as doenças inesperadas, os falecimentos sem causa aparente, o senhor encontrado morto uma manhã em seu leito, intumescido, tudo aparecia como provocado pelas artimanhas das mulheres, e da dama principalmente.

O PERIGO: AS MULHERES E OS MORTOS

A ameaça contra a ordem estabelecida parecia então surgir surdamente do mais íntimo, do mais privado da sociedade cortês, a palavra cortês convém, com efeito: não era o caso de inquietar-se muito com a perturbação provocada pelas mulheres submissas sobre quem pesava muito fortemente o poder da dona da casa. O problema da paz, da paz privada, colocava-se a propósito das bem-nascidas. Elas eram por isso estreitamente vigiadas, subjulgadas. O eixo mais sólido do sistema de valores a que se fazia referência na casa nobre para bem conduzir-se apoiava-se sobre este postulado, ele próprio fundado na Escritura: que as mulheres, mais fracas e mais inclinadas ao pecado, devem ser trazidas à rédea. O dever primeiro do chefe da casa era vigiar, corrigir, matar, se preciso, sua mulher, suas irmãs, suas filhas, as viúvas e as filhas órfãs de seus irmãos, de seus primos e de seus vassalos. O poder patriarcal sobre a feminilidade via-se reforçado, porque a feminilidade representava o perigo. Tentava-se conjurar esse perigo ambíguo encerrando as mulheres no local mais fechado do espaço doméstico, o quarto — o "quarto das damas", que não se deve tomar, com efeito, por um espaço de sedução, de divertimento, mas sim de desterro: elas eram ali encerradas porque os homens as temiam. No quarto, eles penetravam, e o senhor, muito livremente: os romances mostram-no comumente, à noite, após a ceia, para ali se dirigindo para comer sua fruta, tranquilo, a cabeça sobre os joelhos das donzelas da família que o "massageiam", penteiam-no, tiram-lhe os piolhos — esse era um dos prazeres próprios aos seniores, a esses felizardos que dominavam uma casa. Outros homens eram introduzidos no quarto para os divertimentos íntimos, para a leitura ou para o canto, mas escolhidos pelo patrono, requisitados a entrar, acolhidos em visita temporária: a literatura de ficção, única fonte de informação ou quase, não situa nenhum indivíduo do sexo masculino, com exceção do chefe da casa e de seus rapazes residentes muito jovens, no quarto, a não ser feridos, doentes, entregues até sua cura aos cuidados femininos. O gineceu, entrevisto pelos homens mas do qual são naturalmente excluídos, aparece a seus olhos como um domínio "estranho", um principado separado do qual a dama, por delegação de seu senhor, detém o governo, ocupado por uma tribo hostil e sedutora cuja parte mais frágil é muitas vezes encerrada mais estreitamente, mais bem protegida em uma comunidade religiosa, um convento interno regido por uma regra sob a autoridade de uma superiora que não é a esposa do senhor, mas uma viúva da parentela ou uma moça que não se conseguiu casar. A parte feminina da família constitui então um corpo, um Estado no Estado, e senhor de si mesmo, escapando ao poder de qualquer homem, salvo do chefe da casa, mas o poder deste não é senão de controle, como suserano, e muitas vezes se veem eclesiásticos disputá-lo com ele sob pretexto de direção das consciências.

A esse grupo de mulheres, inquietantes, estavam destinadas tarefas específicas, pois era preciso que estivessem ocupadas, sendo a ociosidade considerada particularmente perigosa para esses seres fracos em demasia. O ideal era uma divisão equilibrada entre a oração e o trabalho, o trabalho do tecido. No quarto, lava-se, bordava-se, e, quando os poetas do século XI fazem tentativas de dar a palavra às mulheres, compõem canções "de fiar". Das mãos femininas saíam, de fato, todos os enfeites do corpo e os tecidos ornamentados que decoravam o próprio quarto, a sala e a capela, isto é, uma parte considerável do que chamaríamos de criação artística, sacra e profana, mas assentada em materiais tão perecíveis que dela só subsistem hoje ínfimos fragmentos.

Contudo, as orações e essas obras, realizadas em equipe como o eram, da parte dos homens, a guerra e a caça, não os livravam, persuadidos da perversidade estrutural da natureza feminina, de uma inquietação obsedante, fantasmática: o que fazem as mulheres juntas, só entre elas, quando estão encerradas no quarto? Evidentemente, fazem o mal.

Em um tempo em que a Igreja conservava ainda quase que por inteiro o monopólio da escrita e pelo qual quase exclusivamente o pensamento dos eclesiásticos é acessível ao historiador, são os moralistas que mais claramente parecem obsedados pela preocupação com os prazeres condenáveis que, sem nenhuma dúvida, as mulheres, no gineceu, têm sozinhas ou então com suas companheiras e com as crianças. Pois a mulher, a jovem mulher, lê-se em uma das versões da vida de santa Godeliève composta no início do século XII, está sempre entregue ao aguilhão inevitável do desejo; ela o satisfaz comumente na homossexualidade, e essa suspeita grave é instigada pela prática geral de dormirem vários do mesmo sexo na mesma cama. Entre elas, aliás, em seu espaço privado particular, as mulheres passam por trocar os segredos de um saber no qual os homens não têm nenhuma participação e que é transmitido às mais jovens por essas "velhinhas" presentes em inúmeros relatos, aquelas por exemplo que, na casa paterna de Guibert de Nogent, atavam ou desatavam as agulhetas, aquelas que ensinavam nas aldeias as operações mágicas que um Étienne de Bourbon perseguia no século XIII. O poder masculino se sentia impotente diante dos sortilégios, dos filtros que debilitam ou então curam, acendem o desejo ou extinguem-no, Detinha-se à porta do quarto onde os filhos eram concebidos, postos no mundo, os doentes cuidados, os defuntos lavados, onde, sob o império da mulher, no mais privado, estendia-se o domínio tenebroso do prazer sexual, da reprodução e da morte.

A sociedade doméstica era então atravessada por uma separação nítida entre o masculino e o feminino, institucional, e que repercutia sobre a maior parte dos comportamentos e das atitudes mentais. No interior da morada, a única conjunção oficial, ostensiva, pública, unia o senhor e a dama, e toda a organização da morada era disposta para que esse encontro fosse perfeito, isto é, fecundo. Muitos outros no entanto ali se produziam, ilegítimos estes, ocultos. Por mil indícios discerne-se a exuberância de uma sexualidade privada que se mostra nos lugares e nos tempos mais propícios, os do segredo, do obscuro, na sombra do pomar, no celeiro, nos recantos, e durante as trevas noturnas que nem sequer eram varadas, como no mosteiro, por algum toco de vela. Nesse espaço mal compartimentado, era fácil aos homens introduzir-se no leito das mulheres; se se acredita nos moralistas e nos romancistas, a passagem inversa era no entanto mais frequente: sem obstáculo às uniões fugazes, a casa é mostrada repleta de mulheres que consentem, provocantes. Tratava-se por certo de criadas, mas que não eram mais que a arraia-miúda, e nem a literatura doméstica nem o romance falam muito delas. Tratava-se de parentas, sogras, cunhadas, tias, e adivinha-se, pululante, o incesto fortuito. Entre essas parentas, as mais ativas, segundo o que nos dizem, eram as bastardas da família, filhas do pai, dos tios cônegos, e elas próprias mães de futuras concubinas. E quanto às "donzelas", filhas legitimas do senhor? Eram elas tão livremente oferecidas aos cavaleiros errantes, segundo os ritos da boa hospitalidade, quanto o pretende a literatura de divertimento? E os homens, eram, tão frequentemente quanto é relatado na biografia dos santos, tirados de seu sono por fêmeas insaciáveis?

E certo, em todo caso, que o convívio que reunia em torno do par conjugal tantos homens e mulheres não casados, sua promiscuidade inevitável, a conduta prescrita em relação aos hóspedes, amigos ou estranhos, diante de quem era de bom-tom exibir as mulheres da casa como se exibia o tesouro, por vaidade, mantinham no espírito do senhor responsável pela ordem doméstica e pela glória familiar uma preocupação principal, a da honra. A história da honra que há muito tempo Lucien Febvre convidava a escrever ainda não foi escrita. Ao menos, é evidente que nos tempos feudais a honra, empanada pela vergonha, era assunto masculino, público, mas que dependia essencialmente do comportamento das mulheres, isto é, do privado. O homem era desonrado pelas mulheres submetidas ao seu poder e, em primeiro lugar, pela sua. O grande jogo, tal como é descrito pela literatura cortês, convidava os homens jovens, para manifestar seu valor, a seduzir a dama, a dela apoderar-se. Um jogo, mas que se inscrevia em um quadro real, no vivido. Incontestavelmente, a esposa do senhor era cobiçada, e o desejo que inspirava, sublimado em puro amor. era empregado, como vimos, como um meio de disciplinar a juventude doméstica. Sólidas proibições impediam tomá-la realmente. No entanto, acontecia que fosse tomada por violência, o lugar atribuído à violação na intriga das narrativas de divertimento reflete com toda a evidência a realidade: como não estabelecer um paralelo entre Renart, o raposo, tirando seu prazer da rainha, e Geoffro Plantageneta forçando Alienor de Aquitânia na casa de seu esposo, o rei da França? Ocorria também que a dama se entregasse. Obsessão do adultério, e todos os olhares espiando, os invejosos a espreitar o encontro dos amantes. A defesa da honra consistia em primeiro lugar em erguer um anteparo diante do público: o temor de ser desonrado pelas mulheres da casa explica ao mesmo tempo a opacidade arranjada em torno da vida privada e o dever de vigiar de perto as mulheres, de mantê-las tanto quanto possível enclausuradas, e se era preciso fazê-las sair, para as cerimônias ostentatórias ou para as devoções, de escoltá-las. Em torno da mulher em viagem, a família se transportava para fora da morada, assegurando sua "conduta", para que não fosse "seduzida". Durante a longuíssima peregrinação que fez a Roma em meados do século XI, Adèle de Flandres permaneceu encerrada em uma espécie de casa ambulante, uma liteira de cortinas constantemente fechadas. Mulheres enclausuradas, fugindo, por vezes, ao amanhecer, como Corba d'Amboíse, raptada, feliz por sê-lo, por seu primo, à saída da missa, em Tòurs. Mulheres encerradas no recinto, para que homens da casa não sejam maculados por suas extravagâncias, para que estas permaneçam ocultas, no segredo da privacy. Salvo se sua falta, se o adultério era proveitoso, se era boa a ocasião para se desembaraçar de uma esposa estéril ou aborrecida, de uma irmã da qual se temia que reclamasse parte de herança. Então o chefe da casa revelava, denunciava, publicava — tornava pública — a falta feminina, a fim de poder legitimamente castigar a culpada, expulsá-la da casa, quando não decidia queimá-la viva.

E preciso evocar uma outra ameaça que pesava sobre a sociedade familiar: ela vinha dos mortos, presentes, exigentes, e que habitualmente voltavam à noite, no mais íntimo, no quarto onde seu corpo fora há pouco preparado para o sepultamento, buscando novos cuidados. Como no mosteiro, um lugar lhes era reservado no convívio privado a fim de que sua alma não penasse, não viesse perturbar os vivos. Desde que a família tivesse os meios para isso, e eram precisos meios consideráveis, preparava um receptáculo para os despojos de seus defuntos; fundava um mosteiro, uma colegiada onde todos seriam enterrados; uma necrópole assim se instituía, morada obrigatória para os mortos da linhagem, dispostos ali em boa ordem, como um anexo da casa destinado a essa parcela da família, tão perigosa quanto a parcela feminina e, como ela, confinada. Celebrava-se nesse local não apenas a comemoração do falecido na missa do primeiro aniversário da morte, mas também seu aniversário regular, e, nesse dia, a família comia com ele como se fazia no mosteiro, ou antes por ele, em seu lugar, a fim de com ele conciliar-se. O que fizeram, em Bruges, em 1127, imediatamente após tê-lo morto, os assassinos do conde de Flandres, protegidos na capela, "sentados em torno do ataúde, depositando sobre este o pão e as taças como sobre uma mesa, comendo e bebendo sobre o corpo, acreditando que com isso ninguém tentaria a vingança", que o assassinado perdoaria. Entretanto, era no momento mesmo da passagem que os ritos de acompanhamento se haviam inicialmente acumulado, em uma representação em que se vê, como no mosteiro, imbricar-se o público e o privado.

Cerimônia pública, transporte de um lugar privado, o quarto, o leito, a um outro lugar privado, fechado, a sepultura, mas atravessando necessariamente o espaço público; portanto, necessariamente festivo, tanto quanto as bodas e pelo próprio desenrolar de um cortejo, toda a casa, em fila, em ordem, oferecendo a imagem de sua coesão atrás do defunto do qual era a última ostentação, do qual eram também as últimas larguezas públicas, distribuídas entre os pobres, enquanto se desenrolava um vasto banquete; públicas eram igualmente durante essa fase as manifestações do luto, um espetáculo em que as mulheres representavam o papel principal, gritando, rasgando suas roupas, lacerando o próprio rosto. No entanto, essa demonstração sucedia a outros ritos, estes muito privados — um privado na verdade numeroso, gregário. Esse ritual de partida tinha início na sala: diante de todos os seus "privados", mas também de seus "amigos", o agonizante anunciava suas últimas vontades, as disposições da sucessão, procedia à entronização de seu herdeiro, em voz alta e por meio de gestos bem visíveis. Assim, em Audenarde, em torno de Baudouin V de Hainaut preparando-se para o trespasse, como para uma assembleia de paz pública, todas as relíquias da região tinham sido trazidas e todos os fiés convocados a jurar sobre elas a concórdia. Mais íntima era a agonia, que tinha lugar no quarto. O poema composto em honra de Guilherme, marechal da Inglaterra, morto em 1219, oferece um dos mais preciosos relatos da morte de um príncipe nesse tempo. Guilherme, desejando morrer em casa, fizera-se conduzir a uma de suas mansões desde que seu mal se agravara. Ali convocou todos os seus, e em primeiro lugar seu filho mais velho, para que o ouvissem dispor da herança, escolher sua sepultura, para que o vissem, mudando de traje, tomando o de templário, entrar plenamente em uma outra fraternidade, beijar pela última vez, chorando, sua esposa. Terminado esse cerimonial da ruptura, muito semelhante àquele que se respeitava quando o chefe da casa deixava seu espaço privado para uma viagem, a cena se despovoava. Contudo, o moribundo não devia ser deixado só; as pessoas se revezavam para velá-lo noite e dia; pouco a pouco, ele se despojava de tudo: cedera aquilo de que não era senão o depositário, o patrimônio; cedia agora todos seus bens pessoais, o dinheiro, os ornamentos, as roupas; saldava suas dívidas, implorava o perdão daqueles que lesara em vida; pensava em sua alma, confessava seus pecados; enfim, às vésperas do trespasse, as portas do outro mundo começavam a entreabrir-se para ele.

Guilherme viu assim dois homens brancos virem postar-se um à sua direita, o outro à sua esquerda; no dia seguinte, ao meio-dia, ele despediu-se, mas uma despedida privada, de sua mulher e de seus cavaleiros: "Eu vos confio a Deus, não posso mais estar convosco. Já não posso defender-me da morte". Separando-se do grupo que comandara, despindo-se de seu poder, remetendo-o a Deus. Só, pela primeira vez desde o seu nascimento.
 
PARENTESCO

Nas páginas que acabamos de ler, Georges Duby colocou intencionalmente entre parênteses o que dizia respeito aos laços carnais; tratou da família medieval não considerando a família no sentido moderno: distinção necessária entre os dois eixos que devem orientar a análise. Naturalmente, as relações de parentesco e as de convívio interferem muitas vezes, mas isso nada tem de automático. Ao não separar com suficiente nitidez a coabitação da consanguinidade, ao persistir no emprego indiferenciado do termo ambíguo de "família", muitos historiadores do passado afundaram em dificuldades (tal como a referência, ritual e exasperante, porque cientificamente infundada, à "família ampla germânica").

A relação de parentesco entra de pleno direito, assim como a de convívio, em um estudo da "vida privada". Seria possível desenvolver sua apresentação de maneira paralela: como as da morada, as metáforas da linhagem têm um vasto lugar na representação das solidariedades religiosas ou políticas; a exemplo das grandes casas, as vastas parentelas, que chamam a atenção privilegiada dos especialistas em história sociopolítica, dão testemunho, por sua extensão, nos séculos XI e XII, da privatização dos poderes, prestando-se ao mesmo paradoxo da alienação da relação privada; enfim, a autonomia do indivíduo ou do casal encontra-se posta em causa pelo irresistível império da "linharem", assim como pela inoportuna presença do círculo doméstico - em um tempo em que, decididamente, o privado está em toda parte e em parte alguma.

No entanto, o parentesco é uma relação muito mais abstrata que o convívio; levanta, portanto, problemas específicos. É preciso começar por delimitar o que pode ser essa "linhagem" que as fontes medievais dão a ver sob aspectos muito diversos e que os comentadores modernos negligenciam definir. Evitando um fastidioso inventário historiográfico, citarei apenas como exergo os dois capítulos que Marc Bloch consagrou a essa questão, em 1939, em A sociedade feudal: livro fundador da história medieval francesa atual e do qual se admira sempre o caráter vivo, fecundo e inspirador — ainda que, sobre esse ponto como sobre vários outros, os progressos realizados desde então pela história, pela antropologia e pela coordenação entre elas obriguem também a fazer sua crítica.

Marc Bloch considera os laços do sangue justamente antes daqueles da vassalagem e relativiza com justa razão a importância destes ao mostrar que não fazem senão completar a trama tecida pelos primeiros para dar coerência a uma sociedade que se poderia chamar, de preferência a "feudal", feudo- (ou vassalo-) linhagista: uns e outros são correntemente postos no mesmo plano pelos homens da Idade Média, e os grupos mais fortemente estruturados são aqueles que os combinam — caráter lígio e linhagem dão assim, por ocasião da batalha de Mansourah (1250), segundo o testemunho de Joinville, uma eficácia ideal à tropa de Gui de Mauvoisin. O parentesco é analisado por Bloch em termos de solidariedade jurídica (mobilização para as guerras privadas, detenção de direitos patrimoniais comuns). Um equívoco paira infelizmente sobre a coabitação, pois ele não se liberta da ideia de que os parentes vivem sob o mesmo teto ou, em todo o caso, sistematicamente na vizinhança uns dos outros. Isso não o impede de abrir uma perspectiva fundamental: ele quer que seja apreendida a diferença entre a sociedade medieval e a nossa até nessa célula aparentemente elementar e natural. "Tanto pela tonalidade sentimental como pela extensão", escreve ele, "a parentela era coisa diferente da pequena família conjugal de tipo moderno": alguma coisa de menos afetivo e no entanto de muito constrangedor, e que para Bloch, como para seus contemporâneos influenciados inoportunamente por Lévy-Bruhl, tem a conotação implícita de primitivismo no mau sentido do termo. Reforçando essa impressão, vem a suspeita de que a força da parentela se instaura à custa do casal: "Sem dúvida, seria deformar muito as realidades da era feudal situar o casamento no centro do grupo familiar"; de fato, a mulher só pertence "parcialmente"à linhagem de seu marido, já que a viuvez, ipso facto, dela a exclui (ou dela a liberta). Contudo, graças à Igreja e ao Estado, uma incontestável modernidade desponta com a aurora do século XIII: uma em nome dos direitos da pessoa, o outro em nome da paz pública, e ambos, ao mesmo tempo, em benefício, bem entendido, de seus interesses, trabalham sem descanso no afrouxamento das coerções do parentesco.

Delimitação dos contornos da "linhagem" e desvendamento de suas funções, interrogação sobre as suas relações com a "família conjugal", enfim, busca de uma tendência evolutiva na virada dos anos 1180: tomo de empréstimo aqui a Marc Bloch seus três temas principais, para tratá-los sucessivamente. Os trabalhos que A sociedade feudal suscitou fazem com que haja nesse livro, hoje, partes mortas, como em toda obra científica datada de algumas décadas; sua grandeza é reconhecida, em compensação, por certo número de intuições que seus sucessores não exploraram suficientemente ou que não podem senão confirmar, transformando-as em conceitos. Assim, é pressentida a importância da filiação indiferenciada: a observação sobre a equivalência das linhas paterna e materna não ocorre apenas como um acessório sob a pena de Bloch, pois ela lhe permite rebater a qualificação possível da "linhagem" como unidade Constitutiva ou como realidade substancial da sociedade; por causa de um "sistema bífido", "a zona das obrigações de linhagem perpetuamente mudava de contornos". Há aqui um objeto histórico difícil de apreender, por razões ao mesmo tempo documentais e estruturais: essas vastas parentelas no seio das quais vem abrigar-se e alienar-se o homem feudal, mas que são também, tratando-se de um nobre, o meio e a expressão de seu poder, o que são elas exatamente?

Texto de Georges Duby, Dominique Barthélemy e Charles de La Ronciére em "História da Vida Privada volume 2,  da Europa Feudal à Renascença", capítulo 2, organizado por Georges Duby, Companhia das Letras, São Paulo, 2009, Título original "Histoire de la Vie Privée — Vol. 2: De L'Europe Féodale à la Renaissance"; tradução de Maria Lúcia Machado. Digitalizado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

“Night [Demon].” Now regarded in Jewish lore to be the most prominent of the four queens of demons, the nature of Lilith has undergone many reinterpretations throughout Jewish history. The origins of Lilith are probably found in the Mesopotamian lilu, or “aerial spirit.” Some features of Lilith in Jewish tradition also resemble those of Lamashtu, a Babylonian demoness who causes infant death. There is one mention of lilot (pl.) in the Bible (Isa. 34:14), but references to Lilith demons only become common in post-biblical Jewish sources. Furthermore, the characterization of Lilith as a named demonic personality really only begins late in antiquity. The Dead Sea Scrolls (Song of the Sage 4Q510–11), speak of lilot as a class of demonic beings:

"And I the Sage declare the grandeur of His radiance in order to frighten and terri[fy] all the spirits and ravaging angels and the bastard spirits, demons, liliths, owls and [jackals] and those who strike unexpectedly …" 1

This assumption of multiple lilot is replicated in amulets and magical formulae well into the medieval period. Even the gender of the creature is not fixed. incantation bowls, for example, explicitly protect against “lilot, whether male or female …”

In time, what eventually emerges from these biblical and medicinal-magical traditions is three overlapping interpretations of Lilith: the etiological Lilith, a spirit that accounts for certain common but puzzling human physical processes—Death in childbirth, sudden infant death, and male nocturnal emissions; the midrashic Lilith, a creature born out of the medieval interpretation of problematic biblical passages; and the cosmic Lilith, an entity described in esoteric texts that personifies the existence of evil in the divine order.

Jewish tradition gradually fixes on Lilith as a female demon. In Talmud and Midrash, she is described as a demon with a woman’s face, long hair, and wings (Nid. 24b; Eruv. 100b). She is a succubus , seducing men in their sleep and then collecting their nocturnal emissions in order to breed demonic offspring (Shab. 151b; Gen. R. 18:14). Later commentaries on the Talmud explain Lilith does this because her consort, Samael, has been castrated by God. She has many demonic children, the most famous being Ormuzd (B.B. 73b). In amulet incantations contemporary to the Talmud, she is addressed as a demon that preys on women in childbirth and as the spirit of infanticide, the killer of children, a theme that become more prominent in medieval sources (Zohar I:148a–b; Zohar II:267b).

The use of “Lilith” as the proper name of a specific demonic personality first gets solidified in the Midrash. The most famous legend of Lilith is the one first appearing in the medieval satirical text Alef-Bet of Ben Sira. In that document, Lilith is identified as the first woman God created along with Adam. The case for there having been two women in the Garden of Eden is based on the two disparate accounts of the creation of woman that appear in Genesis (Gen. 1:27 versus Gen. 2:18–23):

"He created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said, “I will not lie below,” and he said, “I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while am to be in the superior one.” Lilith responded, “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.” But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: “Sovereign of the universe!” he said, “The woman you gave me has run away.” At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels to bring her back".

Said the Holy One to Adam, “If she agrees to come back, fine. If not she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.” The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, “We shall drown you in the sea.”

“Leave me!” she said. “I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.”

When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: “Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.” She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels’ names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.2

This account, incidentally, is a Jewish variation of a story about a demon curbed by three pursuers that also appears in Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, and Slavonic legends. This midrashic version of Lilith’s origins proves to have only a minor influence of traditional Jewish thinking, eventually getting integrated into amulets as part of the etiological tradition in Sefer Raziel, but only really achieving wide-spread circulation in the modern era, with the printed re-publication of ABBS.

Lilith appears in a third and very different incarnation in the highly influential Treatise of the Left Emanation, written in the 13th century by the Kabbalist Isaac Cohen, where she is portrayed as the evil antipode to Eve, and the female personification of cosmic evil, the consort and mother of princely demons:

"[I]t is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one, similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one, reflecting what is above. This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces. The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael. Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other … You already know that evil Samael and wicked Lilith are like a sexual pair who, by means of an intermediary, receive an evil and wicked emanation from one and emanate to the other … The heavenly serpent is a blind prince, the image of an intermediary between Samael and Lilith. Its name is Tanin’iver. The masters of tradition said that just as this serpent slithers without eyes, so the supernal serpent has the image of a spiritual form without color—these are “the eyes.” The traditionalists call it an eyeless creature, therefore its name is Tanin’iver. He is the bond, the accompaniment, and the union between Samael and Lilith. If he were created whole in the fullness of his emanation he would have destroyed the world in an instant".3

Lilith has a mount she rides, Tanin’iver, “blind dragon.” She can command hundreds of legions of demons. Intriguingly, the Treatise of the Left Emanation starts to come full circle, once again referring to multiple Liliths, as did the ancients. This tradition of there being two (or more) Liliths also appears in Pardes Rimmonim, and becomes a commonplace part of kabbalistic cosmology in 17th- and 18th-century works.

This interpretation of Lilith, as the female face of cosmic evil, also occupies a significant place in the Zohar, where she is the evil counterpart of the Shekhinah (II: 118a–b; III: 97a). There is also a tradition in the Zohar that Lilith was the Queen of Sheba who came to test Solomon.

In other, later mystic texts, she is one of the four queens, or the four mothers, of demons. She is the most prominent of the four, being queen of the forces of Sitra Achra, the impure, or left side of divine emanations, which run loose in the world. In the early modern Kabbalistic text, Emek ha-Melech, the three interpretations of Lilith put forth in earlier literatures are reconciled:

And all this ruination came about because Adam the first man coupled with Eve while she was in her menstrual impurity—this is the filth and the impure seed of the Serpent who mounted Eve before Adam mounted her … Behold, here it is before you: because of the sins of Adam the first man all the things mentioned came into being. For Evil Lilith, when she saw the greatness of his corruption, became strong in her husks, and came to Adam against his will, and became hot from him and bore him many demons and spirits and lilin (23b–d) … Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent (Isa 27:1). She seduces men to go in tortuous ways … And know that Lilith too will be killed. For the groomsman [Blind Dragon] who was between her and her husband [Samael] will swallow a lethal potion at a future time, from the hands of the Prince of Power. For then, when he rises up, Gabriel and Michael will join forces to subdue and bring low the government of evil which will be in heaven and earth. (84d) 4

Defenses against Lilith include providing amulets inscribed with the angelic names Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Samnaglof (or Sandalfon) (Sefer Raziel, Illustration) to women in childbirth and to newborns, not sleeping alone in a house, and tapping an infant on the nose if he appears to be responding to something the parent cannot see. psalms, particularly Psalms 16, 91, 121, and 126, are effective in driving off Lilith (Shimmush Tehillim, 121, 126). There is also a ritual that can be performed during and after intercourse to drive her away (Zohar III:19). German Jews of the 18th century had a more elaborate ritual, involving the new mother sleeping with a sword, dagger, or sword-shaped charm under her pillow and arising each night for the first thirty-one nights to slash the air around the bed (assuming the child slept in the bed with her) to fend off the threat.5

In modern times, inspired by the singular Ben Sira portrayal of her as a woman who stands up to male domination, Lilith has become a rallying point among feminists in critiquing the overwhelmingly male-oriented perspective of traditional Judaism, and she has been adopted as a symbol of feminist resistance to male spiritual hegemony.6

It should be pointed out, however, that modern claims that Lilith was an early Hebrew goddess later censored out of the tradition by the authors of the Scriptures has no basis whatsoever in the historical record. This claim appears to depend entirely on appealing to the Ben Sira narrative, but that story is sui generis, and there is no precedent for any belief in Lilith as either “Wife of Adam” or “Wife of YHVH” prior to the 10th century CE.7

Notes

1. Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 371, 373.
2. D. Stern and M. Mirsky, Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 182–183.
3. Dan, Early Kabbalah, 175, 179.
4. Patai, Gates to the Old City, 458.
5. Sperber, The Jewish Life Cycle, 26–27.
6. Aviva Cantor Zuckoff, “The Lilith Question” Lilith Magazine Online, http://www.lilith.org/about.thm.
7. G. Dennis and A. Dennis, “Vampires and Witches and Commandos, Oy Vey: Comic Book Appropriations of Lilith” Shofar, 32:3 (2014).

By Geoffrey W. Dennis in "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism", second edition, Llewellyn Publications, USA, 2016. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Gold was in great demand in the Maghrib and in Europe to lubricate a monetary system. Salt was needed in the Sudan, 'vhere the body loses much salt through perspiration. So, the precious yellow metal 'vas exchanged in the trans-Saharan trade for the indispensable salt. It was because of their great need for salt that the people of the goldfields reluctantly came out to trade with foreigners. Ca da Mosto says that the people of Mali consumed much salt lest their blood would dry up.1 According to Fernandes the owners of the gold put salt on their thick lips, 'lest these would dry up and fall down'. He adds that the Sudanese heal many internal diseases with salt.2 Leo Africanus reported that whenever people of the Sudan ate bread, they used to lick a piece of salt.3 So highly was salt valued that people far inland in the Sudan, close to the goldfields, bought it for an equivalent weight of gold.4

Maritime salt from the Atlantic coast was carried into the interior in some places, 5 but was unsuitable for distribution over vast and remote areas in the hot and humid climate of the Sudan. On the other hand, salt bars extracted from mines in the Sahara were dry and solid enough to be carried undamaged over long distances. There were several deposits of salt in the Sahara, which became principal sources for the salt trade in different periods.

Nearest to Bilad al-Sudan were the salt mines of Awlil mentioned by al-Bakri (in the country of the Juddala) and by al-Idrisi (on an island near the coast). 6 These were the salines of Trarza in southern Mauritania, not far from the Senegal river. The salt of Awlil was taken either by caravans overland, or by boats upstream to Takrur, to Silla, and as far as the goldfields of Bambuk. In Bambuk this salt had to compete with the salt bars of the Sahara, which were of better quality, because they were thicker and more solid.

Taghaza, about half way between Sijilmasa and the Sahel, was the principal salt mine between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries. al-Bakri described the mine of Tatental (probably Taghaza), twenty days travel from Sijilmasa, where salt was dug about two fathoms under the ground and cut like stones. In this mine the fort and houses were built of salt stones. Salt buildings in Taghaza were reported also by Ibn Sa'id, al-Qazwini, Ibn Battuta (who visited Taghaza) and by V. Fernandes. The labourers in the mine were slaves of the Massufa. No food was produced in Taghaza, and the people there lived on dates brought from Sijilmasa and Dar'a, on millet imported from the Sudan and on camels' meat. It was a miserable and unhealthy place, yet 'in spite of its wretchedness, transactions in tremendous sums of gold took place in the village of Taghaza'. 7

As a result of intensive exploitation the mines of Taghaza were gradually exhausted and impoverished. Raymond Mauny points to the decline in quality of the salt by reviewing information of different periods. Whereas Ibn Battuta reported that two salt bars made a camel's load, Leo Africanus -who visited the mine about a century and a half later- found that a camel carried four salt bars. In other words, between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries the size and weight of a salt bar wer'e reduced by half. This is confirmed by Fernandes, a contemporary of Leo, who says that it was very difficult to load up the salt bars of Taghaza because these were too thin, and tended to crumble. 8 Fernandes recorded also that Taghaza had been deserted some time before because its water pits dried up. This, however, was for a short time only. In 1582 the Tuaregs, allies of the Songhay, evacuated Taghaza and opened the new salt mines of Taodeni, following the Moroccan conquest of Taghaza. 9 They left behind exhausted mines.

As the productivity of Taghaza declined, the salt mine of Idjil, between Rio de Oro and Fort Gouraud, gained importance. Its name- Ygild- was first mentioned by V. Fernandes. It is likely, however, that about half a century earlier Ca da Mosto had referred to the same mine- six days travel north of Wadan - though he still called it Taghaza.10

V. Fernandes described the pattern of the salt trade of Idjil. Traders from Wadan, which flourished on this trade, bought a camel load of salt at Idjil for one and a half mithqals. In Wadan itself the price reached two or three mithqals. From Wadan the salt was taken to Tichitt, where it fetched up to seven rnithqals for a camel's load. The merchants of Walata came to buy the salt at Tichitt and sent it to Timbuktu, where a camel load was sold for a hundred or a hundred and twenty mithqals.11 A seventy-fold increase in the price of a camel load between Idjil and Timbuktu, a distance of about 875 miles, may be somewhat exaggerated. Ibn Battuta says that a camel's load of salt from Taghaza was sold for eight to ten mithqals at W alata, and for twenty to thirty, and sometimes even forty, mithqals at the capital of Mali.12 Whatever the exact prices of the salt at each market town on the trade routes, it is certain that for such a bulky commodity the cost of transportation was much higher than the basic cost of the salt. Gold, on the other hand, was easier to carry. This is why it is reported that of the four hundred camels charged with salt on the way south, only twenty-five came back north with gold. The other camels were sold in the Sahel.13

From Timbuktu the salt was sent by canoe up the Niger river to Jenne.14 Part of the salt reached Mali on camels over the Sahel.15 At Jenne or at Niani, the capital of Mali, the salt bars were broken in to smaller pieces to be carried to the goldfields on porters' heads, at the service of the Wangara traders. The same traders and porters carried the gold northwards.

Gold was found as powder or in nuggets. It was used in the courts of the kings of Ghana and Mali to decorate state emblems.16 Undoubtedly there were goldsmiths in the towns of the Sahel, who introduced this art from the Maghrib. Early in the sixteenth century V. Fernandes mentioned Jewish goldsmiths at Walata.17 Current traditions in Mauritania attribute Jewish origin to Moorish goldsmiths, and it is possible that these were descendants of Jews who had come down from southern Morocco, perhaps from Wadi Dar'a.18

Part of the gold was worked in the towns of the Sahel. al-Bakri noted that the gold of Awdaghust- considered the best in the world - was exported as twisted threads. The dinars struck in Tadmekka were called 'balds', because they carried no inscriptions.19 Proper gold coins, dinars, were struck north of the desert only. In the tenth century al-Mas'udi reported that the gold bartered in the Sudan was coined into gold dinars in Sijilmasa.20 Two centuries later, al-Idrisi said that the gold of Wangara was bought by traders of Wargala and the Western Maghrib. They carried it to their own countries, where dinars were minted.21

Kanem in the Central Sudan had no gold to offer, and its trade was mainly in slaves. Zawila, on the route from Kanem to Tripoli, became the most famous centre for the slave trade in the Sahara.22 In the Western Sudan, where gold dominated the market, slave trading was on a more limited scale. This difference in the role of gold and slaves between the Western and the Central Sudan respectively, had far-reaching historical consequences. For the gold trade it was vital that peace and security should prevail over all the country between the gold sources and the market towns of the Sahel. This trade encouraged the formation of states, their integration in large-scale empires, and the spread of Islam far inland to the south. An intensive slave trade, on the other hand, was based on continuous raids, which bred terror and hostile relations between the raiding kingdoms in the north and the invaded countries to the south, the sports ground for slave raiders. This may be one of the reasons why Kanem and Bornu had throughout their history antagonized 'savage' tribes on their southern frontiers; why a series of 'neo-Sudanic' states did not develop in the immediate hinterland of Bornu, which remained pagan until the nineteenth century.

Though of lesser importance than in the Central Sudan, and second to the gold trade, slave trading in the Western Sudan did exist. Slaves were important in different stages of the trans-Saharan trade. They worked in the salt mines of Taghaza and in the copper mines of Takedda. They were porters in the service of the Wangara traders in the southern section of the trading system, where beasts of burden 'vere of little use. 23 At the end of the fifteenth century the Mandinga (Dyula) traders bought slaves in Elmina, whom the Portuguese had shipped from Benin. These slaves were needed as porters to carry gold and other commodities.24 Slaves also constituted a source of wealth for the royalty and the nobility.

War captives were made slaves and sold to traders.25 But there were also organized raids to obtain slaves. Armed bands from Silla, Takriir, and Ghana raided the country of the Lamlam for slaves, as did the people of the trading towns of Barisa and Ghiyarii. These slaves were sold to merchants from the Maghrib.26 Lamlam is the name given to the stateless peoples, who lived outside the orbit of the Sudanic kingdoms and were fair game for the latter. Portuguese sources reported that chiefs used to capture their own subjects to be sold as slaves to the Europeans.27 This is by no means typical of Sudanic rulers. It may have been the immediate result of the new demand for slaves near the coast following the arrival of the Portuguese. In some societies people were sold into slavery for serious crimes, such as theft or adultery.28

No contemporary account exists of the way slaves were carried across the Sahara to the Maghrib. It vvas not, perhaps, so different from what Caillie described in the 1820s. He travelled in a caravan of 1400 camels. Slaves were put on camels which carried loads of lesser weight such as ostrich feathers and cloth; others went on foot. They 'vere given very little water and suffered more than others from the heat. Some of the Moors in Caillie' s caravan treated the slaves very harshly. 29

Ibn Battuta joined a caravan from Takedda to Sijilmasa which carried six hundred slaves, very probably from Bornu.30 Just as Morocco obtained slaves from Bornu in the Central Sudan, so Tripoli traded in slaves with Gao in the Western Sudan. Leo Africanus recorded that the merchants of Mesrata (east of Tripoli) traded in European goods, bought from the Venetians, for Sudanese slaves.31 That these slaves could have come from the Western Sudan is suggested by the presence of 'Abd al-Wasi' al-Masrati (from Mesrata) at the court of Askiya Dawud in Gao, where he proposed to buy five hundred slaves.32

The trade was indeed very complex; in 1446 Joao Fernandes reported that the Arabs and the Azenegues (Sanhaja) of the Western Sahara captured Negroes, and sold them to the Moors or took them themselves as far as Barca in the kingdom of Tunisia.33 A decade later Ca da Mosto found that slave caravans conducted by the Arabs were divided at Wadan; one part was taken to Barca and then to Sicily, one part to Tunisia, another to the coast of Barbary, and a fourth to the Portuguese in Arguin.34

In southern Morocco and the oases of the northern Sahara, mainly in trading centres such as Tagaoust, Dar'a or Wargala, Leo Africanus noted a great number of black people and mulattos born of Sudanese slave women.35 In Morocco Sudanese slaves were owned by commoners, and in Fes it was a custom to add a slave girl to the gift given to a fiancee.36

More important were the Sudanese slaves in the service of the rulers of the Maghrib. They formed the bodyguard of the Zirid rulers of Ifriqiya.37 When Ibn Tashfin sought to strengthen his position vis-a-vis Abu Bakr ibn 'Umar, and was preparing for future military exploits, he bought two thousand Sudanese slaves to serve in his army.38 Most of the servants of the royal household in Fes were Sudanese slaves, and Sudanese eunuchs guarded the royal harem.39

From Morocco Sudanese slaves were sent across the straits to Andalusia. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Sudanese slaves were recorded in Cordova and Algeciras. In the fourteenth century they appeared in the Christian states of Catalan, Valencia, Majorca, in Marseille and Montpellier. Yet at these northern latitudes they were never found in great numbers. Towards the end of the fourteenth, and during the fifteenth, centuries Sudanese slaves appear in European documentation. In Naples they amounted to 83 per cent of the servile population. In Sicily they were employed in agriculture. Genoa and Venice also had black slaves at that period, which Malowist associated with the scarcity of labour in Europe.

Significantly, most of the Sudanese slaves in Southern Europe were attested to have come from 'the Mountains of Barca', or Cyrenaica.40 This fits very well with the information of Joao Fernandes and Ca da Mosto from the 1400s to the 1450s, that some of the slaves of the Western Sudan were taken to 'Monde Barque', or the Mountains of Barca. At that time, however, Europeans became involved directly in the slave trade along the Atlantic coast.

When the Portuguese reached the Saharan coast they used to make forays from their ships to kidnap Moors, whom they brought to Portugal. Later, captured Moors were exchanged for black slaves brought by the Moors from the Sudan. South of the mouth of the Senegal river a more regular trade developed with the African rulers. The Portuguese were more successful in obtaining slaves than gold. They paid for the little gold and the many slaves in cloth and in other manufactured textiles, in beads, in tin or in silver, but most important of all, in horses. Horses were in great demand among the African chiefs, who were ready to pay for these in slaves.41

Horses were wanted by chiefs for military purposes and for prestige. The thousand horses in the stables of the Kaya-Magha (of Wagadu) were individually looked after. The Diawara rulers of Kingui created a formidable force of cavalry.42 The king of Ghana had small horses which "were of local breeding.43 In Timbuktu, according to Leo Africanus, short horses only were bred, and these were used by the merchants and courtiers. The better horses came from the Maghrib and were first offered to the ruler. The price of horses in Timbuktu was four or five times the price in Europe. 44 Ibn Battuta found that horses in Mali were more expensive than camels. 45 The king of Mali is said to have had about ten thousand cavalry mounts. He also had to provide horses for his army captains and paid considerable sums for Arab horses brought by merchants from beyond the desert. 46 The artisans of Beni Goumi in the northern Sahara used to invest their earnings in horses they bought in Fes, and later sold them to merchants going down to the Sudan.47

When the Portuguese reached the Atlantic coast, they responded to the demand for horses by the African chiefs of Djolof, Sine-Salum and the Malinke. Fernandes was told that the Djolof chiefs bought horses mainly for prestige, and did not even mind buying sick horses.48 Nevertheless, cavalry was the striking force in the Sudan and afforded military superiority over an army of bowmen. A better supply of horses in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries may have strengthened the power of chiefs closer to the coast, who posed a serious challenge to the military superiority of Mali.

The close connection between slaves and horses is shown by the fact that in Ifriqiya the nakhkhas traded in both: he transported horses on the way south and slaves on the way back north.49 The king of Bornu raided his neighbours to the south and captured slaves. These slaves were exchanged for horses brought by merchants from the Maghrib. With these horses his army became stronger, his raids more effective and the number of captured slaves increased. 50 One may draw parallels between the trade in horses in the Sudan and the trade in fire-arms in the Gulf of Guinea; horses, like fire-arms, were paid for in slaves, and both contributed to the intensity of slave raiding.

Salt, gold, and slaves were among the earliest staples of the trans-Saharan trade. It was through exchanging these basic commodities that the trade system became more complex. New items of more luxurious character were introduced as a result of the cultural contacts which followed trading relations. The rural people in the Sudan, according to Ibn Sa 'id, used to go naked, but the Muslims covered their privy parts. Most of them wore skins, but those who mixed with the white men [i.e., the foreign traders] put on imported clothes of cotton and wool. 51 This suggests that clothing was introduced and diffused through trade and Islam.

In the tenth century Ibn al-Faqih noted that the Sudanese people of Ghana wore skins. 52 A century lateral-Bakri described the commoners in Ghana wearing robes of cotton, silk, or brocade. Only the king and the crown prince had the right to wear sewn clothes according to the Muslims' fashion. Away from the capital, in the province of Sama, the people went naked, and women only covered their sexual parts with skins. 53 The people of Malal, in the country of the Lamlam, were naked according to al-Idrisi. 54 When the king of Malal was converted to Islam he was given a cotton dress. 55 Islam helped in creating a market for clothes and encouraged the increase of imports as well as the expansion of local manufacturing.

It is significant that the cotton tree and the manufacture of cloth were first reported from Takriir, the earliest Muslim state. 56 The cloth industry in the western Sudan, which started in the eleventh century, reached its highest point of prosperity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Production was for the local Sudanese market and for export to the Sahara and the Maghrib. 57 The more important centres of trade and Islam, Timbuktu and Jenne, were also famous as centres of weaving. In the seventeenth century there were twenty-six workshops of tailors in Timbuktu, each with fifty to a hundred apprentices. 58

The development of a local textile industry did not reduce the volume of cloth imports. These .were mainly luxurious clothes such as the Egyptian dress of the wealthy people in Walata and the European imported clothes of the king of Mali. 59 Silk products were exported to the Sudan from Tunisia and Granada.60

About 1470 Bendetto Dei reported an active trade of European cloth in Timbuktu. 61 Leo African us met the same in Gao. 62 These European products reached the entrepots of the Sahel across the desert. By that time the Portuguese on the Atlantic coast had begun to trade in cloth, responding to a great demand by the local traders. 63 On the Casamance, where the people wove fine cloth, the Portuguese exchanged their cloth for the local woven cloth. 64 In Elmina the Portuguese met with a demand for Moroccan cloth, as the people there developed a taste for this cloth, which had reached them for some time through the Dyula commercial network. The cloth was, however, very expensive because of high transport oosts incurred in the long overland route and because it changed hands many times. The Portuguese bought the cloth in Morocco, and by taking it directly by sea, sold it on the African coast at lower prices. 65

Copper, used mainly for ornaments, is often mentioned among the imports. It came from southern Morocco, 66 and later also from the Byzantine empire. 67 The twelfth-century 'lost caravan' discovered by Monod in the Sahara carried some two thousand rods of copper at the total weight of about a ton. as Some silver, tin, and lead also reached the Western Sudan as well as perfumes, bracelets, arms, and books. Beads of stone, coral, and glass were in demand both for ornaments and as currency. Musk extracted from the civet cat, spices, ambergris, ostrich feathers, hides, and kola nuts were among the exports.

While grains, sorghum, and millet were exported from the Sudan to the Sahara for the consumption of the Sudanese, the Arab and Berber communities in the Sahel imported wheat from North Africa. They also imported sugar, raisins, and dried dates and figs. 69

Three arboreal products were important in the trade of the Western Sudan: the gum tree of the Sahel, the shea butter of the savannah and the kola of the forest. The gum tree was observed near Awdaghust in the eleventh century and its products were exported to Andalusia. 70 There is little information in the Arabic sources on the trade in gum. Arabic gum was among the products brought to the Portuguese factory of Arguin at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 71 It became of considerable importance in the European trade on the Mauritanian coast from the seventeenth century. The oil extracted from the shea butter, or the karite, was used for cooking, for light, and for manufacturing soap. 72 The shea butter was exported to the north and was observed by Malfante at Tuat in 144 7. 73 Kola, however, was by far the most commercialized fruit in West Africa.

'The nut' (al-jau'z) is mentioned among the articles exported from the Sudan by the Maqqari brothers in the thirteenth century. 74 In 1586, the private physician of the Moroccan Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur al-Dhahabi described harrub al-Sudan ('carob of the Sudan'), also called goro. The fruit came from a place called Bitu close to the gold mines. It was transported in bags covered by wet leaves which kept the fruit fresh until it reached the Maghrib. The author saw the fruit, and he recorded the information about the tree and its location from a merchant who was trading with the Sudan.75

The Akan forest is the only region where both gold and kola were abundant and it was very likely this region that the sixteenth-century Maghrib source referred to as 'Bitu close to the gold mines'. 76 The gold mines and the kola plantations are said to have been the two principal sources of the wealth of Mali. 77 The bitter fruit, a diet of many Sudanese in the fourteenth century, may well have been the kola. 78 By the sixteenth century there is clear evidence for its vvidespread consumption, and that people became almost addicted to it. 79 Kola nuts were given as presents by the askiyas. 80

This scanty evidence indicates that during the age of the great empires the kola nut already fulfilled many of its more recent economic and social functions. 81 Kola is chewed and its liquid acts as a stimulant which helps to overcome thirst. Because of its value the kola comprises a most appropriate present and is often exchanged between a host and his guests or a chief and his subjects. The kola grows in the forest, but it is consumed mostly by people of the savannah and the Sahel. Hence its importance in generating long-distance trade.

A small amount only of the kola was exported to the Maghrib, and most of it was destined for markets south of the Sahara. The volume of the gold trade and its destination were conditioned by the changing relations of West Africa with the outside world. The kola trade, on the other hand, was an internal African affair. From the seventeenth century, when the gold trade declined, the kola trade expanded in response to an ever growing demand. During these centuries, the kola trade was crucial in the spread of Islam between the Sahel and the fringes of the forest.

Notes

I. Ca da Mosto (1895), 56.
2. Fernandes (1938), 87.
3. Leo Africahus (1956), II, 574.
4. Abu Hamid al-Andalusi (1925), 42; al-'Umari (1927), 83.
5. Fernandes (1951}, 75; Pacheco Pereira (1956), 83; Jobson (1932), 120; Mauny (1961), 324, 362; Rodney (1970), 18-20.
6. al-Bakri (1911), 171/tr. (1968), 66; al-Idrisi (1866), 2jtr. 2; Ibn Sa'id (1958), 23-4; Mauny (1961), 325-6, 357-8; Gaden (1910).
7. Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 377-8; Ibn Sa'id (1958), 47; al-Qazwini (1848), 16; Leo Africanus (1956), II, 455; Fernandes (1938), 89.
8. Mauny (1961), 359; Ibn Battuta, loc. cit.; Leo Africanus, loc. cit.; Fernandes (1938), 9. According to Pacheco Pereira (1956, 41) a camel carried five bars of salt.
9. T. al-Sudan, 106-7, 160-1/tr. 174, 193-4.
10 Fernandes (1938), 79; Ca da Mosto (1895), 54.
11. Fernandes (1938), 83-5; caravans from Wadan to Timbuktu were mentioned also by Ca da Mosto (1895), 44-5 and Diogo Gomes (1959), 20.
12. Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 378.
13. Ca da Mosto (1895), 55; Mauny (1961), 290.
14. Fernandes (1938), 85.
15. Ca da Mosto (1895), 57.
16. al-Bakri (1911), 176/tr. (1968), 70, 72; al-'Umari {1927), 65-6; Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 404-6.
17. Fernandes (1938), 85.
18. Meunie (1961), 28, 130; Delafosse (1924b), 158-9.
19. al-Bakri (1911), 159, 181/tr. (1968), 53, 78.
20. al-Mas'iidi, Akhbar al-zaman, in Youssouf Kamal III, 628.
21. al-Idrisi (1866), 8/tr. 9.
22. al-Ya'qubi, K. al-Buldan (1892), 45/tr. 205; al-Istakhri (1870),
40; al-Bakri (1911), 11/tr. (1913), 28-9.
23. al-Qazwini (1848), 16; Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 378, 440-1; Leo Africanus (1956), II, 479; Fernandes (1938), 87.
24. Teixeira da Mota (Manding Conference); see also Wilks (1961), 32, Fage (1962), 343-4.
25. Malfante in La Ronciere (1925), I, 151; Leo Africanus (1956), II, 468; Fernandes (1951), 55.
26. al-Idrisi (1866), 4, 6, 9/tr. 4, 7, 11.
27. Ca da Mosto (1895), 76---7; Fernandes (1951), 21.
28. al-Bakri (1911), 173/tr. (1968), 69; Jobson (1932), 72.
29. Caillie (1830), II, 358-9, 365.
30. Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 444-5; on slaves from Bornu to Takedda, see ibid., 441-2.
31. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 414.
32. T. al-Fattask, 104/tr. 193.
33. Zurara (1960), 216-17.
34. Ca da Mosto (1895), 48.
35. Leo Africanus (1956), I, 94; II, 424, 429.
36. ibid., I, 209.
37. Idris (1962), II, 525, 530-l.
38. Ibn 'Idhari (1961), 56-7,
39. al-'Umari (1927), 210; Leo Africanus (1956), I, 238.
40. Verlinden (1966); Malowist (1968), 174-6.
41. Zurara (1960), 123-4, 132, 190, 217, 248-50, 256; Ca da Mosto (1895), 39, 48; Fernandes (1938), 47, 63, 71; Fernandes (1951), 7, 19, 27, 43, 77; Pacheco Pereira (1956), 47, 53.
42. T. al-Fattash, 40, 41/tr. 72, 76.
43. al-Bakri (1911), 177 jtr. (1968), 74.
44. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 468, 471.
45. Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 425.
46. al-'Umari (1927), 66-7.
47. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 433.
48. Ca da Mosto (1895), 88, 116-17; Fernandes (1951), 7, 20-1,37, 43,
69; Pacheco Pereira (1956), 53, 59, 61, 73.
49. Idris (1962), II, 684.
50. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 480-1; see also Fisher (1970), 68-71.
51. Ibn Sa'id (1958), 24-5.
52. Ibn al-Faqih (1885), 87.
53. al-Bakri (1911), 175, 178/tr. (1968), 72, 75.
54. al-Idrisi (1866), 6/tr. 7.
55. al-Bakri (1911), 178/tr. (1968), 74.
56. ibid., 173/tr. 68-9.
57. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 465, 467.
58. T. al-Fattash, 180/tr. 315.
59. Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 387, 406.
60. Ca da Mosto (1895), 48.
61. La Ronciere (1925), I, 163.
62. Leo Africanus (1956), II, 471.
63. Fernandes (1938), 61, 63, 71, and (1951), 35, 37; Pacheco Pereira (1956), 47, 53, 65.
64. Fernandes (1951), 59. The Portuguese may have sold this Casamance cloth in Morocco, where Sudanic cloth was in demand. In the nineteenth century cloth and clothes were among the merchandise carried from Timbuktu to Morocco (Caillie, 1830, II, 365).
65. Teixeira da Mota (Manding Conference); see also Fage (1962).
66. al-Bakri (1911), 159/tr. (1968), 53; al-Idrisi (1966) 3/tr. 3; al-Dimashqi (1866), 268; Leo Africanus (1956), I, 115-16, II, 421.
67. La Ronciere (1925), I, 156.
68. Mauny (1970), 154.
69. Mauny (1961), 368-80.
70. al-Bakri (1911), 158/tr. (1968), 52.
71. Pacheco Pereira (1956), 39.
72. See al-'Umari (1927), 62; Ibn Battuta (1922), IV, 312-13.
73. La Ronciere (1925), I, 155.
74. Ibn al-Khatib (1319 A.H.), II, 137; al-Maqqari (1949), VII, 131/ (1840-3), I, 303; Peres (1937), 413.
75. Renaud (1928), 51-3.
76. There is, however, yet another region of gold and kola: Jobson (1932, 184-5) tasted the kola on the Gambia: 'The Portingals will make as if they bring them into the river, by a trade they have in a great baye beyond Cacho, where they meete with a people, that brings them gold, and many of these nuts'. He may refer to Sierra Leone.
77. T. al-Fattash, 39/tr. 67.
78. al-'Umari (1927), 63.
79. T. al-Sudan, 92/tr. 152.
80. T. al-Fattash, 95, 97, 122, 162, 167/tr. 180, 182, 223-4, 288, 293.
81. Person (1968), 101-15.

By Nehemia Levtzion in "Ancient Ghana and Mali" Holmes & Meier Publishers, London, UK, 1980, excerpts pp. 171-182. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Lucifer’s plan was to create varying kinds of paganism. Believers who refused to convert would be offered a form of paganism rising up from within the true religion. Paganism absorbed the majority of believers when they were lulled into a false religion that looked very much like the real thing they were used to. Next, a destructive war annihilated most of the few who still held to the truth. Finally, through a root of bitterness, the rest became just like the Cainites.

In chapter two we learned that Lucifer’s lie was that the creator God was fading away and people and angels would become gods in His place. This lie became the basis for the pre-flood false religion and all the pagan religions after the Flood.

In the Beginning

In the book of Genesis we learn that God created the heavens and earth in seven days. As revealed throughout the Bible, God is a personal, intelligent, loving Being that wishes to have a personal relationship with each human being.

When Adam fell, he took on a sin nature. All his children inherited this sin nature. Eventually all humanity, except Noah and his family, degenerated into apostasy. They rejected the knowledge and worship of the one true God, turning to idols and what would later be called paganism.

The following quotes from the Bible, early church fathers, and the ancient history books of the Jews, give us a glimpse of what pre-flood paganism actually was. From these we can put together thirteen points that paint a clear picture of what the great lie consisted of and how it destroyed the ancient world.

The apostle Paul wrote that the pre-flood world knew God’s truth. They understood that God was completely separate from His creation. They also knew His power and Godhead were eternal, that there would never be any other gods. All of nature showed them that Lucifer’s Doctrine of Emanations was a lie. They deliberately rejected the true knowledge of God and willingly accepted Lucifer’s lie. They began to believe that their ancestors were evolving into gods and they began making idols.

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”
Romans 1:20-23 KJV

1.  Individual Idols

The first point is each person made his own individual idol for his own home. Having idols proves they were not atheists. We will see that each idol was different because each person was worshiping his own ancestor. If they worshiped their ancestors, they must have believed their ancestors, and eventually they too, would evolve into gods. See Teraphim in the chapter on Babylon.

“And the sons of men went and they served other gods, and they forgot the Lord who had created them in the earth: and in those days the sons of men made images of brass and iron, wood and stone, and they bowed down and served them. And every man made his god and they bowed down to them, and the sons of men forsook the Lord all the days of Enosh and his children;”
Jasher 2:4-5

Eve

The Sumerians, thought by many Christians to be representatives of the pre-flood world, worshiped a goddess they referred to as Nin.ti. Nin.ti is usually translated the “Lady of Life,” but the literal translation is the “Lady of the Rib.” This is just one more example of pre-flood peoples worshiping their ancestors, including Adam and Eve.

2.  Evolve into a god

Satan tempted Eve by saying she could become just like God. In pre-flood paganism, Satan told people they could become gods themselves. First century magicians thought after death they would become daemons, or helper spirits like elves or angels. But we learn through church father Tertullian, in the original pre-flood idolatry, people believed after death they were supposed to become a god.

“In this way, even by magic, which is indeed only a second idolatry, wherein they pretend that after death they become demons, just as they were supposed in the first and literal idolatry to become gods.”Tertullian Treatise on the soul 57

“God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.”
Genesis 3:5 NLT

3.  The original Creator God no longer exists

The third point of their pagan religion is that they taught the original Creator God no longer exists. The original creative force/god emptied itself into creation and no longer existed. We learned in chapter two, this was Lucifer’s original lie.

“And they called to Noah, saying, Open for us that we may come to thee in the ark – and wherefore shall we die? And Noah, with a loud voice, answered them from the ark, saying, Have you not all rebelled against the Lord, and said that he does not exist?”Jasher 6:18-19

Again, these people were idolaters, not atheists. They believed that the original God ceased to exist or at least was greatly diminished and would soon disappear for all eternity.

4.  Salvation is not needed.

The fourth point is there was no need for salvation. Any kind of salvation would be done “by their own strength.”  All will make it to godhood on their own, eventually. Magic just speeds up the process. This also included the idea that there is no hell.

“The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Genesis 6:5 NIV

“They were despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength.” Josephus Ant. 1.3.1

5.  Observed omens in the sun and moon and

6.  Charted their movement through the Zodiac.

The fifth and sixth points are that they used a form of astrology that centered on predicting omens, like eclipses, in the sun and moon and charted their courses through the zodiac. This was practiced as a means to summon the magic energies for rituals and to contact their ancestor gods at the appropriate times.

“And Cainan grew, and his father taught him writing, and he went to seek for himself a place where he might seize for himself a city. And he found a writing which former generations had carved on the rock, and he read what was thereon, and he transcribed it and sinned owing to it; for it contained the teaching of the Watchers in accordance with which they used to observe the omens of the sun and moon and stars in all the signs of heaven. And he wrote it down and said nothing regarding it; for he was afraid to speak to Noah about it lest he should be angry with him on account of it.” Jubilees 8:1-5

7.  No horoscopes

The pre-flood astrology did not have the idea of a horoscope. The horoscope was invented after the Flood by the Chaldeans. In the pre-flood version astrology was only used to predict the next scheduled date for magic rites and the next time one could contact a god or goddess ancestor.

“The Horoscope was invented by the Chaldean astrologers.”Hippolytus Heresies 4.3

8.  Invented by demons

The pre-flood magic system, including astrology, was the invention of demons.

“Demons invented the concept of fate with astrology to enslave man into worshiping them.”
Tatian to the Greeks 9

9.  Ritual use of Blood

Blood sacrifices, magic, demonology and ritual drinking of blood was used by post-flood Canaanites. The ritual use of blood was also part of the pre-flood religion. All animal sacrifices involved blood, but they are always referred to as animal sacrifices. When a ritual called for a blood sacrifice instead of an animal sacrifice we know it means the use of blood. The blood is what was needed, not necessarily the sacrifice of a living animal.

“In the twelfth generation, when God had blessed men, and they had begun to multiply, they received a commandment that they should not taste blood, for on account of this also the deluge had been sent… In the fourteenth generation one of the cursed progeny (Canaanites) first erected an altar to demons, for the purpose of magical arts, and offered there blood sacrifices.”
Recognitions of Clement 1.30

God knew this false religion would return after the Flood; so He commanded Noah to ensure his children would not consume blood when eating meat.

“Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” Genesis 9:3-4 NASB

10.  Evolution / Reincarnation

All pagan religions teach reincarnation with evolution. A pagan religion can’t have one without the other. Likewise the religions of the Christians and Jews teach special creation along with resurrection. These two can’t be divorced, either. If we can prove evolution will be a part of the harlot church, we then know reincarnation will be, too.  The book of Revelation shows the end time church becomes part of the Mystery Babylon religious system. Second Peter’s prophesy states that it begins by the church rejecting creation and Noah’s Flood, in favor of Evolution. This is taking place today in many denominations.

“There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.”
2 Peter 3:3-6

“I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast… This title was written on her forehead: “Mystery Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.”
Revelation 17:3,5 NIV
 
11.  Evolution without karma

The belief that each person was evolving into a higher life form was part of the pre-flood religion. Post-flood paganism added the doctrine of “transmigration of souls,” which means if your “karma” or life style is very bad, instead of evolving into a higher life form, one may “de-evolve” or come back as a lower form of life. The doctrine of “karma” was not part of the original paganism. This makes sense, because Lucifer wanted everyone to believe there is no hell and we are all okay, so you can only go forward. We will see this again in the post-flood histories.

“But I cannot here omit that which some erring philosophers say, that men and the other animals arose from the earth without any author.”
Lactantius Divine Institutes 2.11

“Plato, that ancient Athenian, who also was the first to introduce this opinion (the doctrine of transmigration of souls).”
Irenaeus Against Heresies 2.33

12.  Ghosts, Demons, and Nature Spirits

Nature spirits were thought to be the life force in all of creation. This is connected to pantheism. If at death our spirits could evolve into a god, then the worship of demons and ghosts would be prominent. Notice their idols were not just demons and nature spirits, but also phantoms. “Phantom” is the Greek word for ghost.

“You who serve stones, and ye who make images of gold, and silver, and wood, and stones and clay, and serve phantoms, and demons, and spirits”
Tertullian Idolatry 1.4

13. Homosexual Marriage

There has always been homosexuality. It has always been classified as a sin before God. The Canaanites practiced homosexual rituals in the worship of their gods and goddesses, but since the time of Noah there has never been a nation that sanctioned homosexual marriage. But the rabbis state this did occur right before Noah’s Flood. This may have been a part of the pre-flood religion; or it just may have been a result of it.

In Romans 1, the apostle Paul seems to indicate that idolatry produced immorality; and together idolatry and immorality caused the Great Apostasy. That, in turn, resulted in extreme forms of homosexuality, which caused God to destroy the world.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”Romans 1:22-28

The ancient rabbis seem to believe this also. They stated the practice of ordaining homosexual marriage was the last step in the downward spiral that caused God’s judgment.

“Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, 'The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal.'” Genesis Rabbah 26:4-5; Leviticus Rabbah 23:9

“Rabbi Hiyyah taught: The passage reads ‘I am the Lord, your God’ two times – I am the One Who punished the generation of the Flood, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt; and in the future I will punish those who do as they did. The generations of the Flood werekings, and were wiped off the earth when they were soaked in sexual sin.”Leviticus Rabbah 23:9 (commentary on Leviticus 18:3)

“And what did they do? A man got married to a man, and a woman to a woman, a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman was married to two (men). Therefore it is said, "And you shall not walk in their statutes”
Sifra Acharei Mot, Parashah 9:8 (Commentary on Leviticus 18:3)

Church fathers Clement of Alexandria (ECF 2.77) and Tatian (ECF 2.143) tell us that the ancient Romans and barbarians considered homosexuality and pederasty crimes punishable by death. In the first century, however, homosexuality and pederasty were widely practiced by the Romans.

When all this came about and Noah and his family were the only ones left still faithful to God, God instructed Noah to build the Ark and the world was then destroyed by a flood of water.

“And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”Genesis 6:12-13

Conclusion

These points give the following picture for pre-flood paganism:

The original creator/force emptied itself into creation. The spirit/life exists in everything (this is called pantheism). There is no need for salvation because everyone will eventually evolve into a god. Contacting your ancestors who have already ascended, and using magic, are short cuts to obtaining godhood. Using astrology to calculate the proper times for magic rites and speaking to your dead ancestors speeds up the process of godhood evolution.

One can’t “de-evolve” (compared to Hinduism’s doctrine of karma). Contacting the nature spirits may also help in your evolution. The magic rites included blood rituals.

On the following page is a master chart compiling all the above data from the source material. In a later chapter we will examine the Canaanite occultic practices individually and add them to the master chart.


 Pre-Flood paganism included:

1.        A unique individual god/idol in each home
2.        Evolution into a god or goddess after death
3.        The original creator God ceased to exist
4.       Salvation not needed
5.        Observation of the sun and moon for omens
6.        Astrology focusing on the sun, moon, and zodiac
7.        Astrology without horoscopes
8.       Invented by demons
9.        Ritual use of blood
10.     Evolution/Reincarnation
11.      Evolution without karma (no de-evolving)
12.     Ghosts, demons, nature spirits
 13.     Homosexual marriage

By Ken Johnson in " Ancient Paganism - The Sorcery of the Fallen Angels", CreativeSpace, USA, 2009, excerpts chapter 3. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

LA ALIMENTACIÓN

Los cereales son la base de la alimentación, preparados sobre todo en forma de pan. La avena se come en forma de papilla, esencialmente en las regiones atlánticas de Europa. El trigo es el cereal más buscado al final de la Edad Media. El centeno no se da más que en los terrenos más rudos y el mijo es una especialidad del Sudoeste. Un recién llegado es el alforfón que comienza a difundirse por Bretaña.

Los habitantes de las ciudades medievales gustan del pan blanco, de trigo puro, cernido muy fino. Mezclado con salvado, el pan de los pobres es moreno, el mismo que las rebanadas sobre las cuales se colocan los alimentos en las comidas. Si bien los campesinos están obligados a cocer el pan en el horno del señor, las ciudades rebosan de panaderos.

Las legumbres forman parte cotidianamente en la alimentación de los campesinos. La col en particular, es el rey de los jardines medievales. En las ciudades, mercaderes ambulantes venden legumbres verdes (espinacas, puerros o coles) que servirán para confeccionar pures y sopa. Las legumbres son desdeñadas por los nobles que las consideran alimento de campesinos, particularmente las raíces que provienen de la tierra.

Elementos importantes de las raciones alimenticias de los campesinos y monjes, las leguminosas son cultivadas en pleno campo. Las frutas supuestamente convienen a los nobles, en la mesa de los cuales se les encuentra. Las peras cocidas en vino son a menudo el postre que se toma al final de la comida.

A excepción de la leche humana para los lactantes, la leche no era recomendada por los médicos que le reprochaban su excesiva humedad. Los productos lacteos no pueden teóricamente consumirse más que los días permitidos del año (de lunes a jueves), es decir ni en cuaresma, ni los viernes o sábados. Difícil de conservar, la leche se consume frecuentemente como queso o mantequilla. En cuaresma, se cocina con aceite. Por ser muy caro el aceite de oliva en muchas regiones se utiliza el aceite de nuez (anacardo). Almacenado en jarras de gres en las bodegas, la mantequilla también se conserva en plaquetas envuelta en hojas de col.

En los últimos siglos de la Edad Media los hábitos alimentarios son carnívoros y caracterizados por un gran desarrollo de la carnicería. Ciervos, jabalíes, garzas y faisanes, cazados en montería o al vuelo (con halcones generalmente), son las piezas nobles. Existe también una caza menor al lazo o con trampas, que procura liebres y pequeñas aves a los habitantes del campo. La iglesia impone no comer carne durante la cuaresma y los días menores de la semana (de lunes a jueves). La consumición de pescado es entonces muy importante, mas de 100 días al año, particularmente del arenque, el pescado de los pobres.

La sal es el medio de conservación mas extendido. El tocino salado da gusto a la sopa del campesino y el arenque de barricas (que se sala en el barco de pesca y después se conserva en toneles), conforma su alimentación común durante las largas semanas de cuaresma.

Las especies, la mayoría importadas desde muy lejos, han jugado un papel importante en la cocina medieval. Sin embargo, también se busco el producirlas en Europa, por ejemplo el azafrán. El gusto de las especies exóticas une a toda la sociedad medieval, pese a su coste la pimienta perfuma los platos más modestos.

La cebolla constituye una legumbre muy extendida entre los campesinos. Como el ajo, posee numerosas propiedades medicinales.

La viticultura se desarrolla considerablemente en la Edad Media. Raros son los campesinos que no cultivan algunas cepas. Se prefieren los vinos ligeros y sobre todo blancos. Los vinos rojos corsos llegaran a estar de moda en el siglo XIV.

Hasta el siglo XIV, el azúcar es todavía considerada como un medicamento y la cocina francesa no la usa más que en las comidas para enfermos. Mostazas y otras especies confitadas son servidas al final de las comidas para acelerar y mejorar la digestión de los comensales.

Mezclada o no con vino y especies, la miel puede formar parte de la composición de ciertas bebidas.



LA COCINA

La cocina es asunto de las mujeres en el medio popular. Pero en las grandes cocinas especializadas de los señores y los príncipes, un universo muy jerarquizado de hombres vigila el aprovisionamiento y la preparación de las comidas para una familia numerosa.

El centro de la vivienda campesina es el hogar. Instalado en la pieza principal, abierto en el mismo suelo, sirve a la vez de fuente de calor y de luz, y también de lugar para la preparación de las comidas.

En el equipamiento de base de la cocina, se encuentra el caldero, los pucheros y ollas de tierra cocida y la sartén de hierro, que permiten tres tipos de cocción: por ebullición, la cocción lenta en las brasas del fuego y la fritura. Las parrillas y brochetas (espetón), no aparecen más que en los centros urbanos o en los castillos.

En las moradas señoriales o principescas, la cocina está separada de la estancia donde se come, y situada sea en la planta baja, o más frecuentemente en construcciones aisladas.

En la siguiente imagen se observa que las cocinas están separadas del comedor. Los manjares tienen como consecuencia todas las posibilidades de llegar fríos a la mesa, incluso si se acondicionan a veces galerías abiertas para el transporte de los mismos.

En las cocinas espaciosas y bien equipadas de los grandes, se mueve un mundo de hombres muy jerarquizado: cocineros, “espetoneros” encargados de los asados, soperos, salseros, que deben rendir cuentas tanto de su trabajo su cocina como de las existencias y gastos de la misma.

El vino envasado en toneles justo después de la vendimia comienza a ser consumido desde comienzos del año. En las grandes casas, un sirviente especial, el escanciador, asegura el servicio del vino.

Fabricadas a partir de especies diluidas en un liquido acido, las salsas no utilizan ningún cuerpo graso. El espesamiento se obtiene mediante la miga de pan, las almendras y nueces machacadas e incluso con la yema de huevo. La “cameline” una salsa francesa del siglo XIV, está compuesta de pan tostado remojado en zumo de uva sin madurar, sazonada con jengibre, pimienta y sobre todo con canela.

La preparación de empanadas y pâtes a base de carne o pescado, tienen gran aceptación. Los cocineros las preparan ellos mismos. El resto de la población que no dispone de horno, debe comprarlas en los pasteleros.

En la Edad Media, se aprecian los manjares fuertemente coloreados en amarillo o rojo, lo que se conseguía con azafrán o con la “sangre de dragón” (savia de un árbol resinoso procedente del las tierras del Océano Indico). Alternado por razones religiosas la carne y el pescado, la cocina medieval practica el disfrazar las comidas. Así por ejemplo recetas ambiguas como “El esturión contrahecho de ternera”.

En las ciudades medievales, los mercaderes de comida tenían el derecho de asar las carnes y aves, de fabricar las salchichas de cerdo aromatizadas al hinojo y con especies y pese a la prohibición que se les había hecho, también comercializaban las morcillas preparadas con sangre. Alimentaban asi a todos aquellos que no disponían en sus casas de una cocina.

La mesa se prepara para las comidas con una tabla y caballetes de madera. Este sistema estaba adaptado a la vida itinerante de las cortes y a que no existían habitaciones diferenciadas para comedor en las viviendas. La mesa era en general cubierta por un mantel blanco largo y estrecho que caía por los costados permitiendo así limpiarse las manos y la boca.

Solo los más ricos poseían su propio cuchillo, su cuchara y su copa. La escudilla o recipiente para tomar los potajes y la tabla o tajo para las carnes eran normalmente utilizados entre dos comensales. La vajilla de oro o plata es un lujo raro, lo mismo que el vidrio o cristal.


LAS COMIDAS

Los miniaturistas nos convidan a las mesas medievales. Como trabajaban para los príncipes y para los poderosos o las categorías sociales más acomodadas, es sobre las mesas de los ricos sobre las cuales se dirigen sus miradas y raras son las iluminaciones de mesas campesinas a excepción de las que se encuentran en las biblias y calendarios.

En la Edad Media, se comía dos veces al día. El almuerzo entre las 10 y 11 de la mañana, y la cena entre las 16 y 19 horas según los casos.

La alimentación al final de la Edad Media es muy rica en carne. Sera necesario esperar al siglo XIX para encontrar en la ciudad y sobre todo en el campo un nivel tan alto de consumo de carne.

Entre los campesinos, un desayuno podía ser consumido al alba, retrasando la hora del almuerzo. Los horarios son en esos casos dictados por el ritmo de los trabajos del campo.

El pan representaba la alimentación básica en la época medieval. Frente a una ración de pan que se sitúa entre 500 gramos y un kilo diario por persona, carnes, pescados, legumbres, frutas, grasas y quesos no hacían más que de acompañamiento al pan.

Cuando llegan invitados de improvisto, un burgués parisién del siglo XIV recomendaba preparar una sopa rápida y muy simple, a base de perejil, de mantequilla y de restos de carne con agua hirviente y especies. Por último se baten huevos y se añaden al caldo en ebullición.

Los comensales comen con los dedos, pero con los tres primeros dedos de la mano derecha solamente. También se lavan las manos antes y después de las comidas. Los sirvientes les presentan aguamaniles, cuencos y servilletas.

Los comensales son servidos en la mesa por sirvientes omnipresentes, para cortar la carne, servir el vino, pasar los platos. El número de servidores aumenta con el nivel social de los comensales. En la burguesía, las comidas son servidas por las mujeres. Entre los más pobres, la esposa realiza el servicio de mesa.

El servicio está muy reglamentado, bajo la dirección del mayordomo. El panetero, es quien instala el mantel, dispone los cubiertos de la mesa, prepara las rebanadas de pan y trae la sal. El escanciador asegura el servicio del vino que rebaja con agua. El frutero sirve ciruelas secas y avellanas.

La mesa de honor está aislada bajo un dosel, mientras que el grueso de los comensales se reparten en la mesa lateral ocupando un solo lado. El ballet de los servidores es dirigido por el mayordomo, mientras que al lado del aparador y cerca del príncipe vigilan otros sirvientes, prestos a responder a sus menores deseos. Los músicos animan la comida.

Cerca del príncipe se encuentra el escudero trinchador que corta su pan y su carne y le sirve. Es un noble que tiene el derecho de comer el resto de la carne que ha cortado para el príncipe y de beber el mismo vino que él.

En el castillo, los comensales son invitados a pasar a la mesa al son del cuerno. El cuerno o la trompeta anuncian así cada cambio de servicio. Es lo que el cronista Froissart llamaba “Anunciar el plato”.

En los banquetes festivos, la comida a la francesa estaba compuesta de tres a cinco servicios, comprendiendo cada uno varios platos dispuestos al mismo tiempo sobre las mesas.

Después de un primer servicio, compuesto de frutas y otros manjares de la estación, vienen los platos en salsa en mayor o menor cantidad llamados sopas, después los asados, piezas de caza o aves a la brocheta, o también pescados. Siguen los postres culinarios y un número variable de servicios acaban la comida.

Acabados los postres el cocinero presenta entonces un pavo real cocido, y generalmente relleno pero recubierto de todas sus plumas como cuando estaba vivo. Es el momento en que se deja entrar a los juglares, actores y músicos.

En el servicio de postres, se sirven platos simples como la “fromentée” (postre preparado con trigo cocido y molido, caldo de carne, leche, yemas de huevo y aromatizado con jengibre y azafrán). Después de los primeros postres se despeja la mesa y se continúa con los dulces confitados, pasteles y frutos generalmente secos. En los festines suntuosos la comida se prolonga con la sobremesa acompañada del “hypocras” (vino especiado), y gofres (pasta o wafle, especie de torta con masa crujiente parecida a una galleta tipo oblea). Para finalizar, “el fuera de hora” (podíamos llamarle “el digestivo”), se sirve en los apartamentos privados del señor, que degusta con algunos familiares, vino, frutos cocidos y especies, para favorecer la digestión.

La ubicación de los comensales en la mesa esta reglada según el rango social. En el centro, el señor de la casa, y el resto a su alrededor según su importancia. En forma de navío, el barco de mesa, recipiente de oro o plata decorado con piedras preciosas y esmaltado, recibe los cubiertos del señor: vaso, plancha o tajadera, cuchara, servilleta y salero. Se puede colocar allí también alimentos: especies y frutos confitados o a veces las “carnes” dejadas para los pobres.

Durante el banquete de bodas, la recién casada, rodeada de sus damas de honor, es servida en la mesa por su marido. Ella debe comer poco, mostrando así que sabe controlar sus deseos.

Durante la comida de caza, el señor, en esta representación el Conde de Foix, en una mesa montada en pleno campo, mientras que sus monteros se contentan con manteles colocados en el suelo y comparten las escudillas.

Para compensar la ausencia de carne, la cocina monástica desarrolla mil maneras de preparar huevos y pescados. En origen, solo los monjes enfermos tenían derecho a comer carne. Pero al final de la Edad Media, todos los hermanos “se rinden” a la enfermedad general, no respetando esta norma.

Obligados al silencio durante las comidas, los monjes desarrollan todo un lenguaje de signos para comunicarse: Pasar el pan, pedir de beber….

Albergues y tabernas son frecuentados por los peregrinos, los mercaderes o los estudiantes. Su cartel o letrero representa frecuentemente el plato que le ha dado renombre. Sin embargo la taberna no tiene siempre buena reputación. Se le considera un lugar potencial de excesos de bebida y sobre todo de juegos de azar, llega a convertirse en la antesala del infierno.

El alimento caliente e irritante, especialmente la carne estaba asociada a la sexualidad. “La carne llama a la carne”, sermoneaban los predicadores de la época.

Momento de placer consolidando encuentros o precediendo retozos amorosos, el baño es frecuentemente acompañado de una colación. Teóricamente establecimientos de baños las saunas, ofrecen en realidad toda suerte de placeres; las alegrías de la carne se mezclan allí a las del baño y a los banquetes.

La gula es uno de los siete pecados capitales que consiste en comer demasiado o con demasiada ansia. Por ello, los tragones y golosos son castigados en el infierno con la pena de comer eternamente alimentos infames: sapos, escorpiones, arañas y serpientes. Cuando no son los pecadores mismos quienes sirven de manjar.

Texto en http://expositions.bnf.fr "Galerie d'Histoire des Représentaions - Gastronomie Médievale", traducción de Cesar Ojeda. Digitalizacion, adaptación y ilustración para publicación en ese sitio por Leopoldo Costa.

By 395 AD the Roman Empire had changed considerably since the time of its first emperor Augustus (27 BC–14 AD). Increased external pressures, deteriorating economic conditions and political disorder aggravated by dynastic insecurity and the ambitions of generals led to the abandonment of outlying provinces and a period of prolonged upheaval in the third century. A major reorganization introduced by Diocletian (284–305) and continued by Constantine (306–37) saw the elevation of the emperor into a remote autocrat along Eastern lines, the creation of a large bureaucracy and a division of the army into a two-tier force consisting of elite mobile units and poorer quality local troops.

In an attempt to improve local efficiency and to minimize the risk of revolt Diocletian doubled the number of provinces and grouped them into dioceses under vicarii, while Constantine established a separation of powers between civil governors and military commanders. After defeating his opponents at the Milvian Bridge (312), Constantine became a Christian and promoted what had been a minority faith by appointing Christians to key positions and endowing the Church with lands and buildings. Theological divisions remained acute, however, and pagan rites were not proscribed until the reign of Theodosius I (378–95). Constantine’s transfer of the capital to the strategic site of Byzantium, re-named Constantinople in 330, reflected both his commitment to his new faith and the increasing importance of the East in the empire.

These changes produced a measure of political and economic stability although Constantine’s dynasty was riven by family disputes and it died out after the death of the short-lived pagan emperor Julian fighting the Persians in 363. During the reigns of the succeeding emperors barbarian pressure on the frontiers increased, partly as a result of the arrival of the Hun nomads in Europe in the 370s. The Visigoths successfully requested asylum in the empire in 376, but ill-treatment led them to turn against the Romans and to wipe out a Roman army at the battle of Adrianople (378), in which the emperor Valens was killed.

This defeat was a great blow to Roman prestige, but the direct effects were limited. The Goths were granted lands in the Balkans as foederati (allies) and order was restored by the staunchly Christian Spanish emperor Theodosius I.

Following Theodosius’ death in 395 a critical stage in the transformation of the Roman world occurred with the division of the empire between his sons Honorius (West) and Arcadius (East). While the myth of imperial unity was maintained, tension grew between the two courts. The Eastern empire remained relatively powerful as a result of its greater wealth and population and its relative immunity from barbarian pressure and the dangerous influence which German mercenaries exercised in the West.

Christianity became strongly entrenched, and, despite bitter christological controversies, served to reinforce imperial authority by treating the empire as an instrument of divine policy. In the West, however, fundamental economic and social weaknesses were aggravated by court intrigues, the self-interest of the senatorial elite and frequent revolts by usurpers. While Roman administration, society and culture remained resilient at the highest levels, the decentralization of the pars occidentalis was reflected in the growth of non-Roman cultures (as in Britain and North Africa) and the rise of local political allegiances (as in Gaul) even before the full effects of the barbarian migrations were felt in the fifth century.

By T.S.Brown in "Atlas Medieval Europe" edited by Angus MacKay and David Ditchburn, Routledge, UK, 1997, excerpt p.7. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

A aguardente de cana era um subproduto da indústria do açúcar, consumido no Brasil Colônia e exportado para as costas africanas. A cachaça serviu como moeda de troca para a compra de escravos que vinham trabalhar nos grandes engenhos.

Segundo o historiador e antropólogo Luís da Câmara Cascudo (1898-1986), em "Prelúdio da Cachaça" (Editora Itatiaia), “a cachaça nasceu da indústria do açúcar, bastarda e clandestina, merecendo depois proclamação de legitimidade 'per rescriptum principis'. Tornou-se bebida nacional, determinando uma literatura oral de impressionante vitalidade”.

Para o historiador Caio Prado Júnior (1907-1990), “a aguardente é um produto mais democrático que o aristocrático açúcar, exclusivo dos senhores de engenho”. Em seu livro "O Mito da Cachaça Havana – Anísio Santiago" (Edições Cuatiara), Roberto Carlos Morais Santiago lembra que a descoberta da cachaça teria ocorrido casualmente, durante o processo de produção de rapadura e açúcar mascavo.

O caldo da cana era fervido em tachos de cobre para ficar limpo e concentrado em massa de boa espessura. Desta, retirava-se espuma ou borra com grandes escumadeiras. A borra fermentada, acumulada em cochos de pau, transformava-se em garapa azeda ou vinho de cana. Esse subproduto complementava a alimentação de animais e escravos nos próprios engenhos, sendo chamado de cagaça, palavra da qual teria se derivado o termo cachaça.

Há uma outra versão, segundo a qual a bebida era usada para amolecer carne de porco ou cachaço. A destilação da garapa azeda em alambiques de barro deu origem à aguardente nacional.

Jairo Martins da Silva, em "Cachaça, o Mais Brasileiro dos Prazeres", levanta outra hipótese para o início da destilação da cachaça no Brasil. “Os portugueses, acostumados a tomar bagaceira, improvisaram uma bebida com a substância residual do caldo de cana, conhecida como borra, garapa azeda ou garapa doida. Provavelmente fermentada, ela produzia o mesmo efeito prazeroso”.

O certo é que os senhores de engenho provaram e aprovaram a bebida dos escravos. A aguardente entrou na casa-grande e nas bodegas, e foi recebida nos salões, passando a ter importância econômica. Tanto que a Coroa portuguesa expediu uma Carta Régia, em 13 de setembro de 1649, proibindo a fabricação da aguardente em todo o país, com duas exceções: não se aplicava a Pernambuco e o uso da bebida restringia-se à população escrava, não sendo permitida a venda, apenas a produção para consumo próprio.

A ordem da Corte foi ignorada, pois a cachaça havia caído no agrado dos governantes locais. Senhores de engenho, comerciantes e destiladores reagiram, continuaram a produzir e vender a bebida. Em 1661, finalmente, o Rei D.Afonso VI, sob a regência da rainha D. Luísa de Gusmão, suspendeu a proibição. A solução encontrada pela metrópole portuguesa foi o aumento constante dos impostos sobre a sua comercialização.

No período entre 1756 e 1766, foi instituído o “subsídio voluntário” dos estabelecimentos que vendiam “aguardente da terra”, assim como dos proprietários que a vendessem. Originalmente concebido com vistas a contribuir para a reconstrução de Lisboa, devastada por terremoto em 1755, o tributo acabou renovado por mais dez anos, de 1768 a 1778. Em 1772, foi criado o “subsídio literário” para subvencionar os “mestres régios” (professores de primeiras letras), revogado após a Independência.

No final do século XVII, a descoberta de ouro em Minas Gerais e o surgimento de vários povoados em lugares altos e úmidos da Serra do Espinhaço foram acompanhados do deslocamento da cachaça para o interior do estado. Os garimpeiros passam a consumir a cachaça levada pelos tropeiros para amenizar o frio. As trilhas eram interligadas a Paraty, por onde o ouro era escoado para Portugal através da baía da Ilha Grande.

O crescente comércio da cachaça, mesmo na época da proibição, estimulou o surgimento de alambiques clandestinos na região, que chegou a ter cerca de 150 engenhos. Como se dizia à época, “onde mói um engenho, destila um alambique”, registra Câmara Cascudo. A fama da região como produtora cresceu tanto que Paraty passou a ser sinônimo de cachaça, sendo comum pedir um “cálix de paraty”.

A cachaça no Brasil Colônia adquiriu tamanha popularidade que o aumento do consumo da bebida passou a ameaçar a fabricação dos produtos similares europeus. Daí as sucessivas tentativas de proibição de Portugal, já que ela competia com o vinho e a bagaceira, a famosa aguardente produzida com bagaço de uva.

A bebida tornou-se símbolo de resistência aos colonizadores. Atingiu o ápice no século XIX, transformando-se, também, em sinal de brasilidade. Tanto os rebelados da revolução de Pernambuco, em 1817, quanto os inconfidentes das Minas Gerais, três décadas antes, consumiam a bebida nas lutas de Independência, como forma de rebeldia e protesto. Em 1822, o próprio imperador Dom Pedro II teria brindado à Independência do Brasil com uma boa dose de pinga.


A partir de 1889, a cachaça perde o glamour. Os republicanos que assumiram o poder passaram a discriminá-la como símbolo do decadente passado imperial. A moda agora era consumir produtos vindos da Europa. Somente a partir do Movimento Modernista de 1922 é que a popular caninha começa a recuperar seu status como símbolo de brasilidade, ao lado do samba, do Carnaval e da feijoada.

Texto publicado em "Cachaças -Minas Gerais", publicado pelo SEBRAE/MG, editor: Adriano Macedo,  textos: Adriano Macedo, Breno Procópio e Jorge Fernando dos Santos, Impressão: Gráfica e editora Mafali, excerto pp. 24-26. Digitalizado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

What was it like to do philosophy in the Middle Ages? I will try to answer that question by looking at relevant sociopolitical and economic circumstances, specific institutional settings for practicing philosophy, and several competing or cooperating intellectual currents. At the end of the chapter, I will say something about the place of authority in medieval thought, the philosophical sources available to medieval thinkers at different points in the period, and the literary genres into which they put their own ideas.

Briefly, the story runs as follows. What we know as medieval philosophy emerged in the late Roman Empire from a surprisingly complete mutual accommodation of Christian belief and classical thought. It then passed through centuries of dormancy in the West, while at the same time it began afresh in the Islamic world. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries philosophy reemerged in a new Europe, in altered formand against resistance. Then, both augmented and challenged by the work of Islamic and Jewish thinkers, it enjoyed in the thirteenth century a golden age of systematic analysis and speculation corresponding to a new degree of rationalization in politics and society. And finally? The significance of fourteenth-century thought remains contested, despite substantial recent scholarship demonstrating its brilliance. As my narrative ends, therefore, readers will need to move from context to content, acquainting themselves in succeeding chapters with the ideas and arguments on which their own assessment of medieval philosophy, not just the fourteenth century, must depend.

Before beginning, we should notice an obvious but important fact. Medieval thinkers did not know that they were medieval. The expression “Middle Age” (Latin medium aevum; thence medievalis, “medieval”) was first used to designate the period between the “ancient” and “modern” worlds in the seventeenth century. In later historical writing and popular consciousness a radical opposition is often posited between the Middle Ages (or “Dark Ages”) and the initial phase of the modern era called, since the nineteenth century, the Renaissance. As we shall see, even the least philosophical of medieval centuries were not wholly benighted, and the relations between medieval and Renaissance thought are a good deal more complex than is suggested by depictions of the latter as a revolutionary enlightenment.

Emergence of Medieval Philosophy in the Late Roman Empire

The emergence of medieval philosophy looks surprising not only from a “reason alone” view of philosophy but also in light of a polemic of opposition between Christianity and philosophy dating back to St. Paul’s disparagement of “the wisdom of the world” (specifically, the wisdom sought by Greeks) and his warning against “philosophy and empty deceit” (1 Corinthians 1:20–24, Colossians 2:8). It was an incompatibility that the early north African apologist Tertullian (c. 160–c. 230) celebrated as absolute. His taunting question “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” was a challenge to the cognitive commitments of his  philosophically minded contemporaries (On Prescription Against Heretics 7 [428] 8–10). If today we think of philosophy as requiring complete insulation from the engagements of religious belief, we can imagine ourselves as displaying the same attitude in reverse.

But historically speaking,Tertullian’s conception of a dividing line between religion and philosophy was oddmanout. Indeed, when Paul himself was actually confronted with philosophers at the hill of the Areopagus in Athens, he took a conciliatory line, noting agreement between his own preaching and the verses of a Stoic poet (Acts 17:28). In the ancient Mediterranean world, philosophy did not consist of arcane reflection on the nature of what can be known or the value of what must be done, abstracted from the day-to-day business of living in society. It called instead for the engagement of the whole person in striving to know truth and to do good. For philosophers themselves it amounted to an all-absorbing way of life.1 Indeed, by the second and third centuries ce, philosophy, as practiced by Stoics, Platonists, and Epicureans, and Christianity, as professed among educated Greek and Roman converts, were beginning to look very much alike. Philosophy had come, in E. R. Dodds’s words, “increasingly to mean the quest for God.”2 In such a world, it was easy for a person like Justin (d. 163/67), searching among the philosophers for an answer to the riddle of life, to end up a Christian, and ultimately a martyr.

As an apologist for his faith he continued to wear the philosopher’s distinctive garb and advertised Christianity as philosophy in the fullest sense of the word (Dialogue with Trypho 8 [411] 198b). There was, to be sure, a literature of controversy pitting Christian against pagan thinker, but the sometimes bitter tone of this writing was partly due to the fact that the antagonists were fighting over common intellectual ground. The third-century Christian writers and teachers Clement of Alexandria and his pupil, Origen, and their pagan counterparts Plotinus and his disciple, Porphyry, spoke the same philosophical language, drew from the single conceptual reservoir of emergent Neoplatonism, and even traveled in the same circles.3

Medieval philosophy was born in precisely this intellectual setting. Not by coincidence, these were also the circumstances under which Christianity came to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. It is indeed only a slight exaggeration to characterize the legal conversion initiated in the early fourth century by the emperor Constantine as an epiphenomenon arising out of this more general cultural milieu. The way had already been prepared by the spread of Jewish communities and their religion throughout the Mediterranean, with a corresponding Hellenization of Jewish thought from acquaintance with Greek philosophical ideas. By the third century a common currency of learned discourse flourished among the elite –pagan, Jewish, and Christian. Constantine’s contribution was simply to make the Christian variant of this discourse the dominant one, eventually oppressively so, from the fourth century on.

But the conceptual apparatus, intellectual inclinations, and interpretative tools that were used in the course of this process were neither specifically Christian nor very new. In other words, the conversion simply ensured that the philosophizing of Christian thinking previously underway should continue apace and come to typify the culture of learning in late Rome. It likewise inaugurated the first of three phases in the career of medieval philosophy.

The style of thinking characteristic of this phase is exemplified in Augustine, the Latin rhetorician turned Christian philosopher and later bishop of Hippo in north Africa until his death in 430. Persuaded, as he later explained in his Confessions, by Cicero’s “exhortation to philosophy” that he must forsake his life of vanity and promiscuity and devote himself to the internal quest demanded by the love of wisdom, he set out on a path leading by way of knowledge “upwards [away] from earthly delights” to God (Confessions III 4 [59]). Here, a crucial direction-setting role fell to “some books of the Platonists translated from Greek into Latin,” almost certainly works of the Neoplatonists Plotinus and possibly Porphyry. These writings led Augustine to the conviction that the universe emerged from and inevitably tended back toward a unique principle of good that is itself God, a reality shining above, yet still within, each of us as the eternal light of truth (VII 9–10).4 In Augustine’s eyes, the further step from Neoplatonism to Christianity was natural, almost inevitable. “Now that I had read the books of the Platonists and had been set by them toward the search for a truth that is incorporeal . . .

I seized greedily upon the adorable writing of Your Spirit, and especially upon the apostle Paul” (VII 20–21). From this point of view, Paul’s words to the Athenians at the Areopagus were plainly an exhortation to continue in their chosen way of life to the perfection of truth and right behavior laid bare in Christianity (VII 9, referring to Acts 17:28). The philosopher’s pursuit of wisdom was therefore not just compatible with Christian teaching. It was received, raised sublime, and rendered fully realizable through God’s revelation and grace in Christ.

Christian intellectuals of Augustine’s day thus had no doubt that they were following the philosopher’s way. Accordingly, they incorporated as much as they could of the classical philosophical heritage, both habits of mind and conceptual content, into their patterns of discourse and way of life. Stoicism and Neoplatonism, the Antique schools that appeared most supportive of previous Christian intellectual and practical commitments, were taken over virtually intact into Christian speculative and moral schemes. For example, Augustine’s mentor, the learned and socially eminent bishop Ambrose of Milan, followed Cicero’s On Duties in writing his guide to the considerable secular as well as religious duties of a bishop.

Augustine himself explored the psychological and theological implications of Neoplatonic theories of emanation in his treatise The Trinity. And in one of the most prominent indicators of Christian aspiration to inherit the mantle of Graeco-Roman higher studies, he labored during the last fifteen years of his life to produce in his masterpiece, The City of God, proof that Christianity could compete on equal terms with the best that pagan erudition had to offer.5

The immediate stimulus for Augustine’s historical and transhistorical account of the human condition in The City of God was the accusation that abandonment of the old gods of paganism was responsible for the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. When Augustine died, the Vandals were at the gates of Hippo. From the early fifth century the western parts of the empire – modern Italy and Libya to the Atlantic – were increasingly brought under military control of barbarian, largely Germanic, armies, those groups of soldiers and their families referred to in textbooks as tribes. Such Teutonic interlopers
established their political preeminence in what Romans taught them to call kingdoms. Their overlordship did not, however, drastically reduce the influence of Roman elites or diminish the importance of Latin culture and Latin learning among the ruling classes. In the early sixth-century Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy, for example, Latin high culture shone as brilliantly as at any point since Cicero.

In this setting, official patronage of philosophical studies led to an emphasis on the purely speculative or theoretical that went beyond Augustine and Ambrose. The prominent senator Boethius, Roman consul and adviser to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, undertook a complete translation of and commentary on the works of Plato and Aristotle, in the hope of bringing Latin philosophical discourse to a level of sophistication hitherto found only in Greek. His execution in 525 on charges of treason prevented him from advancing beyond the logical works making up Aristotle’s Organon. Besides these exegetical writings, however, Boethius also left behind a brilliant epitome of Greek wisdom, The Consolation of Philosophy, and a few short treatises in which he applied philosophical analysis to questions of theology.

This body of work established a lexicon of Latin equivalents for Greek terms and concepts upon which medieval philosophy would draw for another thousand years. Cassiodorus, a Roman of even higher social standing and similarly adviser at the Ostrogothic court, managed a less technically prodigious but perhaps equally influential feat. His Institutes of Divine and Secular Letters offers a syllabus for Christian education in which the canon of rhetorical and philosophical classics continued to play a major role.

In the Greek-speaking orbit of the eastern Roman Empire, it was the otherworldly character of late Antique philosophy which came to the fore in the late fifth and sixth centuries. The Elements of Theology, written by the Neoplatonist Proclus, head of the Academy founded by Plato in Athens, is an important example. Among Christians, the same mystical tendency, perhaps intensified by contact with the angelology of Hellenized Jewish literature on contemplating the divine, appears in a series of short treatises on subjects such as the divine names and the celestial hierarchy written in Syria or Palestine. Authored by someone plainly beguiled by Proclus’s ideas, these works circulated under the name of Dionysius, mentioned in Acts 17:34 as one of those ancient pagans Paul confronted at the Areopagus who was converted by the apostle’s words. Under so august an imprimatur, the works of Pseudo-Dionysius rose to a position of great prominence in subsequent Christian traditions of Neoplatonizing mystical theory and practice.6

The early centuries following the conversion of the Roman Empire thus witnessed the maturation of a current of Christian speculation in great part continuous with late Antique patterns of thought that either preceded the conversion or were evident after it outside Christian circles. Consequently, this first phase of medieval philosophy responded to some of the concerns of philosophy as practiced today.We can plot it along a historical trajectory connecting the philosophy of classical Greece with that of the modern world.

The situation changed dramatically from the late sixth century on. After Boethius and Cassiodorus, educated discourse in the western part of the empire became less hospitable to the kind of reflection involved in Augustine’s vision of Christian life as the successful completion of the philosopher’s quest for wisdom. Glimpses of the earlier tradition are found in Spain, politically subject at the time to kingdoms of the Germanic Visigoths. Work continued there in the Latin encyclopedic tradition, into which much of Greek speculation had been poured in the centuries of Rome’s greatness.

Most renowned in our period are the Etymologies of Isidore, bishop of Seville. Elsewhere in the West, attention was devoted increasingly only to narrative, affective, and practical ends. Even writing on solely religious subjects became less theological, in the sense of being less engaged in the systematic examination and exploration of doctrines, and more devotional and inspirational. In the eastern part of the empire, the Emperor Justinian is commonly assumed to have closed the schools of philosophy in Athens in 529. If there actually was such a closure (the argument has been made that pagan philosophers continued to attract students in Athens after Justinian), it should not be thought of as delivering the deathblow to Graeco-Roman philosophical thought.7 Already here, too, “philosophy” even in Christian form, as promoted from Justin to Boethius, was hardly at the center
of learned attention any longer.

Monastic Discipline and Scholarship

This brings us to the second part of our story, which runs to the middle of the eleventh century and focuses on theWest. From the end of the sixth century the western half of the Mediterranean world suffered a series of profound economic and demographic shocks, which drew it further and further away, commercially, politically and, finally, culturally, from the still vital centers of Roman empire and economy in the Greek-speaking East.8

What followed was not the extinction of the classical Latin learning that had nourished the first phase of medieval philosophy, but a narrowing of focus and a redirecting of interest. Already since the fifth century in Gaul, the sixth in Italy, public schools of Latinity and literature had disappeared. Prominent Romans, and Germans who aspired to eminence, learned their letters in the home, perhaps with a private tutor. These were the individuals who carried on what was to remain of literate discourse, as the politics and economy of empire withered away. It was among Christian bishops and in the households or familiae of dependents and advisers gathered around them where such learning occasionally rose above an elementary level. Increasingly, however, the tools did not include what previous generations had called philosophy, nor even, among the three fundamental linguistic arts known as the trivium, logic or dialectica. What was learned at home was simply grammar, which included familiarity with the classics of Latin prose and poetry, and the rudiments of rhetoric or style. The products composed in the episcopal foyers of higher culture were primarily sermons, accounts of miracles, and history.9

Thus began what I have called a period of dormancy for medieval philosophy.With one startling exception, there is little in these centuries we today would identify as “philosophical,” and perhaps more importantly, not much that Augustine or Boethius would have called philosophy either. Instead, the inspiration and vehicle for learning and literacy lay with a new culture of Latin monasticism. When abstract speculative and analytic thought emerged again in the late eleventh century, however, it emerged in the monastic milieu, which therefore deserves our attention.

By tradition, the origins of Christian monasticism are traced to the heroic founders Antony and Pachomius in early fourth-century Egypt. Some of the desert communities of ascetics that sprang up from these beginnings interacted significantly with the center of Hellenistic learning in Alexandria. Guided by the ideal of Christian philosophy epitomized by Origen, they situated the monk’s quest for holiness along the path of the philosopher’s pursuit of wisdom.10

But those currents most influential for early western developments followed another course. Here Antony’s search for inner peace and indifference to the world through passionate combat with the demons of temptation and despair provided the model for ascetic discipline. It was a mission at once more practical than speculative and more routinizing than developmental.

In the early fifth century this way of life was introduced into the western Mediterranean on the islands of Lerins, off what is now southern France, and in Marseilles. These areas rapidly became training grounds for monastic discipline in the Latinate West, schools of monastic practice and springboards for proselytism into Roman territory to the north and west. They were not, however, schools for letters. As with the contemporary episcopal centers of late Antique erudition, entry into these communities required a minimal foundation in grammar and rhetoric, but the goal here was not to advance Christian scholarship or shape learned Christian sensibilities. Their program thus mirrored even less Augustine’s idea of the search for wisdom. The aim was to acquire the habits of the monastic heroes and beat down the desires of the flesh. Besides the Bible, the literature most relevant to the monastic curriculum consisted of saints’ lives and homely accounts of monastic virtue, the most famous of which were circulated in various collections as the Apophthegmata patrum or Sayings of the Desert Fathers.11

It is in this light that we must view the invocation of Psalm 34:12 in the Rule of Benedict, written in mid-sixth-century Italy and normative within western monasticism from the ninth century on. There God calls out to his human handiwork: “Who is the man that will have life, and desires to see good days?” The expected response is to “[lay] aside [one’s] own will [so as to] take up the all-powerful and righteous arms of obedience to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ” ([362] 43).

The quest for goodness, already for several centuries defined as the Christian equivalent of the philosopher’s way of life, is now interpreted to mean withdrawal behind claustral walls in assumption of a discipline of communal prayer and personal submission to one’s abbot. For those willing to follow a directive of this sort, classical figures like Socrates and Plato, or, still closer to home, Augustine and Boethius, no longer provide appropriate exemplars. Ruder, more heroic models step forth, greatest of all the fourth-century Gallo-Roman hermit, Martin of Tours. Tellingly, his lessons for living were transmitted not by means of dialogue, confession, or meditation, but rather in the life of a saint.12

Not that the Latin monastic milieu was entirely hostile to more speculative sorts of learning. A tradition of active scholarship originated in Ireland, which had been converted to Christianity in the fifth century, just as Roman military authority was being displaced in the rest of western Europe by Germanic warbands. Here, where the Graeco-Roman social order had never taken root, there arose a Christian learning that depended on the grammatical and rhetorical minimum of the Antique syllabus but which, unlike on the continent, where letters survived in the homes of the elite, was generated entirely within the monastic milieu in which it was applied.

By the mid-seventh century this Latin-Irish hybrid of personal mortification and the discipline of Roman letters had been transplanted via missionary activity to northern England. There a cluster of monastic foundations nurtured an efflorescence of literacy in which some of Augustine’s intellectual vision reappears. The double monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow yielded the finest fruit of this culture in the prolific writer and virtual type of central medieval monastic scholar, Bede (d. 735). Besides composing biblical commentaries, Bede was, so to speak, an expert on time: he wrote both a history of the English church and a treatise on the esoteric calculations involved in determining the date of Easter.

On the basis of eighth-century English monastic learning, along with a likely infusion from the apparently still uninterrupted cultivation of late Latin higher studies in northern Spain, a remarkable if relatively brief cultural phenomenon arose on the European continent in the protective shadow of a dynasty of expansionist Frankish kings, Charlemagne and his immediate successors.13 In the writings of Carolingian scholars during the late eighth and first three-quarters of the ninth century there breaks to the surface a taste for speculation and inquiry, and an application of the nearly forgotten art of logic.

For the first time in the West since the fifth century, theological controversy about specific doctrines engaged the curiosity of intellectuals eager to reason about their faith. The philosophical giant among them, and a sometimes alarming figure for later thinkers to deal with, was John Scottus Eriugena (d. c. 877). Born in Ireland (hence “Eriugena”), he knew Greek and read and translated Pseudo-Dionysius. John’s access to the Platonizing mystical tradition provided some of the elements for his Periphyseon, a daring speculativevision of “natures” coming from and returning to God.

Yet the exceptional erudition of the Carolingian period was just that, an exception – in Eriugena’s case a stunning one. Western monastic culture of the central Middle Ages fostered a learning inclined toward ascesis, capable of producing marvelous choreographies of chant, prayer, and liturgy but hardly works of speculative import.14 We must wait another two centuries for significant philosophizing in the West. Elsewhere the situation was very different.

Islam

In 622 the Arab prophet Muhammed fled from his native city of Mecca to the more welcoming Medina, where he began in earnest his ultimately successful mission of bringing to the whole of the Arabian peninsula what he presented as God’s final revelation to humankind. Here, at the opposite extremity of the Roman world from Ireland, so important about the same time for the medieval West, there arose in a whirlwind a movement, both religious and profoundly social, that within a century would sweep up much of what remained of the politically integrated parts of the Roman Empire, along with its even more ancient imperial rival, Persia. By the 720s the military and political domain of Islam stretched from Spain in the west through northern Africa, Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, to the Tigris and Euphrates valley, Persia, and the frontiers of India in the east. A core of the eastern Roman Empire was preserved in Greece, the Balkans, and Asia Minor. This was what nowadays is called the Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople. However, the bulk of the lands in which the Christian version of Hellenized learning still retained some vitality fell under a new dispensation.

It is important to note that despite its expansionism and its insistence on absolute submission among believers to the new rule of faith embodied in the Qur’an, the conquering Muslim political elite was not intolerant of either the peoples or the cultures over which it established hegemony. In Syria, for example, late Antique philosophy, as exemplified in the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria, Origen, Porphyry, and even the more mystical Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius, continued to be promoted among a learned stratum at the top of the dominated society. By the late ninth century this type of literate discourse had established a beachhead within Arabic intellectual circles. Al-Kindi, a sometime resident of the city of the caliphs at Baghdad, is commonly venerated as the father of Arab philosophy, both for his own writings and for the work he encouraged in others. For the next two hundred years, the central period of monasticism in the West, it was preeminently in the Islamic world that the intellectual quest for wisdom persisted and advanced. Here we may place a beginning of the third major phase in the history of medieval philosophy.

Already, with al-Kindi, Muslim interest in Greek philosophy displayed a particular fascination with the works of Aristotle. In this it paralleled a direction Boethius had taken three centuries before, which undoubtedly facilitated the reception of Arabic thought in the West when Boethius’s work itself was revived around the end of the eleventh century. But the rapidity with which the Islamic world developed a mastery of the whole Greek heritage and began to chart a path of its own is astounding. The great Persian polymath Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037) produced the most impressive speculative synthesis since the early Neoplatonists. In its influence on critics and defenders alike, both in Islam and in the West, Ibn Sina’s thought easily bears comparison with that of Kant or Hegel in modern times.

In Spain, site of an emirate opposed to Baghdad since the mid-eighth century and then home of the caliphate of C´ ordoba from 929, a separate flowering of the same extraordinary culture began only slightly later. Here the dynamism of Jewish communities ensured that learned Jews would play a prominent role. The strongly Neoplatonizing Fountain of Life, written in Arabic by the eleventh-century Jewish poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron), was influential among Muslims and also, in Latin translation, in later Christian circles to the north. By the twelfth century the focus had narrowed even more sharply on Aristotle than before, and the interpretative sophistication applied to his works by Spanish intellectuals had taken a qualitative step beyond all earlier treatments.

 Moses Maimonides, a Jew born and educated in Cordoba but active for many years as a physician in Cairo, pointed the way with his Guide for the Perplexed, written, like Gabirol’s work, in Arabic. In Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a contemporary Cordovan physician and lawyer who ended his days in Marrakesh in 1198, Muslim scholarship produced a monumental series of commentaries on Aristotle’s writings that provided a focus for some of the most important philosophical debates of the following centuries. Later Christian thinkers, for example, would find enunciated in Averroes the challenging ideal of a purely philosophical way of life superior to the way of religious faith.

Taken in its entirety, the evolution of speculative thought in the Muslim world marked a considerable enrichment of the philosophical heritage of late Antiquity. And Arabic achievements in mathematics and natural philosophy, especially astronomy, laid the foundations for later medieval science in theWest and ultimately set the stage for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century.



The Rise of the West and the Reemergence of Philosophy

By the year 1050 the western European territories of the old Latin world had absorbed, Christianized, and politically acculturated Germanic lands all the way to Scandinavia, as well as Slavic regions in central Europe. The West now projected a more formidable presence on the global stage. Here, in the homeland of the monastic learning of Bede and the magnificent Benedictine abbeys of the central Middle Ages, philosophy reawakened. The first stirrings were independent of developments in Islam. We may thus speak of two separate beginnings of the third phase of our story, one in Islam with al-Kindi and his successors, another in Europe with Anselm and Abelard. In the sometimes turbulent confluence of these two currents of thought we shall find some of the major achievements of high-medieval philosophy.

The roots of the western social transformation reach back at least to the tenth century in what would become an economic revolution across medieval Europe. By a combination of technological innovations (including the wheeled plough, horseshoes, and the horse collar) and a reconfiguring of the social structure that was tied to the spread of feudalism and the increased power of feudal lordships, northeastern Europe evolved between 900 and 1100 from a sparsely populated rural landscape of virtually subsistence agriculture to a more complex topography of surplus production, rapidly rising population, emergent towns (or even small cities), and the beginnings of significant markets and commerce.15

It was this fundamental transformation, from a backward to a dynamic society, that explains the rise of the West in late medieval and early modern times. Internal signs of the new order can be seen in the reinvigoration of royal monarchies in France and England, the appearance of self-governing urban communes in Italy, and reform in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the church, evidenced in a push toward clerical celibacy and greater independence from secular control. Externally, the change announced itself in a more aggressive posture toward Latin Europe’s neighbors. The Reconquista –the military expansion of northern Christian principalities into the central and eventually southern heartlands of Muslim Spain – was well underway by mid-eleventh century. In 1054 an increasingly self-assured and uncompromising papacy in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople. The schism with Eastern Orthodoxy remains to this day. Most famously, in 1095 there began the first of those massive, and for two hundred years periodic, invasions of western soldiers of fortune and salvation into the Mediterranean east, the Crusades.

The importance of all this for European, indeed for world history, can scarcely be exaggerated. Here lies the origin of what is seen today as western global hegemony, the desirability, inevitability, durability, or even reality of which is hotly debated but which nevertheless seems to haunt the collective consciousness as a sort of pan-ethnic nightmare or dream-come-true.

With regard to philosophy, these events meant the birth of a society in which the learned were free to turn their efforts to analysis and speculation for their own sake, and eventually to that use of pure reason on which philosophy prides itself today. Symptoms of the new habits of mind, and of a type of literate culture entirely different from any of those described before, first appeared within the very institutions of scholarly activity and literary production most characteristic of western Europe in the central Middle Ages: the monasteries. These had not only been at the vanguard of the preaching, religious devotions, and historical writing of our second medieval period, but had also provided the pedagogical foundation for it. As indicated above, that foundation included grammar and rhetoric but generally not the other linguistic art of Antiquity, logic. Beginning in the eleventh century, some of the most learned monks started to search among the logical texts of Aristotle and Boethius, which were conserved in their libraries, for something they felt was missing from their education.

A powerful voice promoting the fascination with logic was heard at one of the centers for ecclesiastical and spiritual reform, the abbey of Bec in the duchy of Normandy. There the Italian prior Lanfranc, who had previously composed a commentary on the epistles of St.Paul in which he analyzed their logical as well as rhetorical and grammatical structure,16 took up the challenge to apply the tools of dialectic to matters of religious doctrine currently in dispute. In the controversy and exchange of treatises between Lanfranc and Berengar of Tours over the nature of the Eucharist, the art of logic assumed a place of prominence in the discourse of the literate elite for the first time in Latin western Europe since the Carolingian period. By the end of the eleventh century even more persuasive advocates had begun to be heard, such as the embattled early nominalist, Roscelin, and Anselm of Aosta, who was Lanfranc’s successor as prior at Bec and eventually also as the second Norman archbishop of Canterbury.

Medieval speculation achieved a new clarity and rigor in Anselm’s writings. The most famous of these among philosophers, the Proslogion, sets forth what can be read as a reason-based proof of God. It provided the historical foundation for what later became known as the “ontological argument.” The Proslogion was originally entitled “Faith Seeking Understanding.” Here, in a meditation fully grounded in the Benedictine monastic tradition, reappear the lineaments of Augustine’s ideal of a Christian intellectual quest for wisdom. Describing himself as “one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and seeks to understand what he believes,” Anselm insisted, not only that the use of reason did not undermine faith, but that it was in fact fully appropriate to it. “I am not,” he said, “trying, O Lord, to penetrate thy loftiness . . . but I desire in some measure to understand thy truth.” His celebrated characterization of the project he was engaged in is this: “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand” (Proslogion, preface and ch. 1).17

This new model for intellectual endeavor revived a form of discourse long absent from the West. It also altered the character of that discourse. With its exceptional emphasis on logic, it infused the erudition of the high Middle Ages with a deeply analytic hue. In his dialogues on such subjects as truth, free will, and the fall of the Devil, even the devout contemplative Anselm can sound more like a late thirteenth-century university master than like the rhetorically molded Augustine. The bent for logic took hold in the late eleventh-and early twelfth-century West at a breathtaking pace. By 1100 it had found a champion at Paris in the person of Peter Abelard, whose brilliance outshone all contemporaries and pointed toward the first significant advances in logical theory since the late Antique Stoics. Twelfth-century thinkers were indeed so much aware of what they were adding to the heritage of Aristotle and Boethius, especially in propositional logic and the theory of terms, that they coined a phrase for the dialectic of their own day, the logica modernorum or “logic of the moderns.”18

Such a desire to apply the tools of reason, honed by dialectic, extended to every area of learning. The first signs of the new habits of thought in Berengar and Lanfranc had appeared in discussion of an important but limited theological subject, the sacrament of the Eucharist.With Abelard in the early twelfth century the methodical study of religious belief took flight. Now the full panoply of rational speculation and logical analysis was turned toward understanding the whole range of Christian faith and practice. The result was a virtual reinvention of theology as systematic and in places highly abstract discourse, a marked departure from the memorative and associative meditative habits of the monastic past.

Abelard spoke for a new sensibility when he defended his pathbreaking efforts in theology. He explained that he was responding to “students who were asking for human and logical reasons on this subject, and demand[ing] something intelligible rather than [the] mere words” they were fed in the traditional sacred learning of their day (Abelard, Historia calamitatum [152] 78).

The same thirst for reasoned understanding was felt with regard to human conduct and the external world. Abelard’s Ethics presents an intentions-based explication of moral accountability that commands respect to this day on its philosophical merits. And where previously a minimal natural philosophy centered on astronomy and the calendar had sufficed, along with the rich symbolic interpretations of biblical and literary exegesis, learned minds of the twelfth century began to demand causal explanations of processes and careful categorizing of the properties and types of things. Echoing Abelard on religious thought, Adelard of Bath, an Englishman who led the drive toward new methods of inquiry about externalities, insisted that God had endowed humankind with reason just so that we could ferret out the rules under which the created world operated. Far from undermining a fundamental confidence that God was ultimately responsible for all that was and all that happened, such an understanding revealed the extraordinary providence of a Divinity who chose to work through regular but mediating causation.19

Indeed, the growing tendency among twelfth-century thinkers to view the cosmos as a rationally ordered structure, amenable to investigation and analysis by the rational mind, has prompted some historians to describe this period as a time of the “Discovery of Nature.”20 There can be no doubt that “natura” and its Greek equivalent, “physis,” were increasingly used by Latin scholars both to describe the external world and to indicate the regularities upon which its workings depended.

A convenient way to conceptualize this ordered harmony was readily available in Neoplatonic cosmological texts preserved in monastic libraries. Indeed, the prototype itself could be used: the single work of Plato that had been translated into Latin in the late Empire, his Timaeus. The popularity in France of treatises in natural philosophy built upon a Platonizing metaphysics and vision of the universe has encouraged historians to propose that there was a specific School of Chartres, an episcopally supervised center of learning where key writers of such works were to have studied and taught and from which their views were disseminated throughout the Latin West. Though it is no longer fashionable to think of Chartres as the physical location of a school of this sort, a Platonic worldview did shape most approaches to nature in western Europe in the twelfth century.21

A similar inclination also made Latin intellectuals receptive to the vigorous traditions in natural philosophy and mathematics in Islamic territories to the south and east: Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily. The cultivated medical and philosophical circles of Toledo, Cordoba, Valencia, and Seville, where Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin met in a truly multivalent scholarly environment, drew individuals like Adelard from England and Gerard of Cremona from Italy, who steeped themselves in Jewish and Muslim learning and began to translate texts into Latin: firstly the speculative riches from this part of the world and eventually works from the classical Greek and Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean. Southern Italy was also a locus of intense activity, particularly at the centers of medical learning in and around Salerno, where texts were composed that transmitted much of Greek and Islamic natural philosophy to the West.

So radical a shift in educated attitudes and interests, and so massive an infusion of learning from foreign sources, could hardly avoid provoking opposition. At stake was nothing less than the fate of two divergent if not necessarily opposing cultural forms. On the one hand stood the old liturgical, devotional, and meditative routine of the monasteries; on the other, the new thirst for speculation and analysis applied to everything in mind and the world. For some of those committed in spirit to the older rhythms of Latin monastic culture, the relation of Abelard’s style of theology to genuine Christian faith was much like the relation of Athens to Jerusalem in the eyes of Tertullian.

Prominent among such cultural conservatives was the influential religious reformer and preacher, Bernard of Clairvaux. Spurred on by traditional teachers of sacred studies, he managed the condemnation of some of Abelard’s doctrines in 1140 at the ecclesiastical Council of Sens, the second to be called against the great logician become theologian. In a letter to Pope Innocent II, composed for the occasion, Bernard pilloried the pedagogical methods of such a man who, he said, would “[put] forward philosophers with great praise and so [affront] the teachers of the Church, and [prefer] their imaginations and novelties to the doctrine and faith of the Catholic Fathers.” Making clear that it was Abelard’s method as much as the substance of what he said that brought offense, Bernard alluded to Abelard’s own justification, sure that his antagonist’s words would stand as their own condemnation: “I thought it unfitting that the grounds of the faith should be handed over to human reasonings for discussion, when, as is agreed, it rests on such a sure and firm foundation” (Letter 189 [23] 89; emphasis added).

Yet for all Bernard’s prominence as an institutional reformer and spokesperson for a newly triumphant ecclesiastical hierarchy, his call for a united stand against the novel learning was doomed to failure.22 The enthusiasm for speculative wisdom and an analytical approach to interpretation was too powerful to be suppressed. Already, before Bernard, institutions were developing which nurtured and disseminated the new ways among an ever-widening cohort of logicians and speculative thinkers – indeed, philosophers in both the late Antique and modern senses of the word.

By the end of the eleventh century circles of erudition again gathered around prominent bishops, as in the latter centuries of the western Roman Empire, but in an original form.We now find what can legitimately be called cathedral schools, with masters paid by the bishop and students drawn from beyond the resident clergy. A scattering of these schools across France and England became known for intellectual specialties: religious teaching at Laon, grammar and dialectic at Paris, rhetoric at Orleans, Arabic and Greek natural philosophy at Hereford. It was to such educational hotspots that bright minds like Abelard were drawn, and, as in his case, it was in such places that they often began their own teaching careers. At times an individual with a reputation like Abelard’s would even offer instruction without seeking formal ecclesiastical sanction, taking on students who paid for their lessons in a sort of private school.

In centers of higher education like these, from cathedral schools to monastic and ad hoc private gatherings of students, the whole Antique curriculum was revived, not just grammar and rhetoric, but also of course logic, third of the arts of the trivium, and now the four mathematical arts or quadrivium as well: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Given the burgeoning interest in natural philosophy, indeed in philosophy of any sort, broadly conceived, it comes as no surprise that the educational program at a few of these locales expanded beyond anything offered in late Rome. We begin to see places where inquiry into nearly every area of thought or practice was formally promoted.

At the heart of it all stood logic, now the paradigm for investigation and summary in all fields. Starting with the reading and literal exposition in the classroom of the fundamental texts in a subject, a formal system of question and answer arose, whereby students could both exercise their logical skills in debate and put the words of the authorities under the lens of critical analysis, advancing toward greater comprehensiveness, increasing consistency of exposition, and enhanced clarity of understanding. This classroom method of analysis, debate, and resolution quickly became standard throughout the emerging schools. The major disciplines of high medieval learning started to take shape, crystallizing around the seed of newly composed and soon universally adopted textbooks that were structured as collections of debating points touching on all significant aspects of the subject field.23 In theology there was the Parisian Peter Lombard’s Sentences of the mid-twelfth century, in canon law the scarcely earlier Decretum of Master Gratian of Bologna, and in logic the numerous commentaries, summaries, and collections of questions associated with various academic factions, particularly at the metropolis of learning in Paris.

Notes

1. See the compelling recent statement of the case by P. Hadot [406]. There is also his Philosophy as a Way of Life [407].
2. E. R. Dodds [402] 92.
3. See ibid. 105–8 and P. Brown [66] 90–93.
4. See P. Brown [66] 94–95 on these Platonists and how they influenced Augustine.
5. See ibid. 299–307.
6. Proclus, Elements of Theology [381]. Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works [78].
7. See A. Cameron [395] and H. J. Blumenthal [393].
8. See recent work on culture in W. A. Goffart [404] and P. Amory [392], and on economy by way of archaeology, in R. Hodges and D. Whitehouse [409].
9. Still the best introduction to this culture of late-Roman, early medieval Europe is P. Rich´e [421] 139–210 and 266–90.
10. On this, see O. Chadwick [397].
11. On this culture of early western monasticism, see again P. Rich´e [421] 100–22 and 290–303.
12. See the perennial favorite among medieval Christian readers, The Life of St. Martin by the learned Roman stylist, Sulpicius Severus [427]. On Martin as paradigm for a type of Christian prominence, see P. Brown [394] 106–27.
13. W. Levison [414].
14. As R. W. Southern has observed, by the eleventh century the reality of the Benedictine life for monks at the most prestigious of monastic communities, Cluny, was almost entirely absorbed in the routine of common celebration of services in the choir ([425] 160–64). Still the best description of the intellectual and spiritual inclinations of this monastic culture is by J. Leclercq [413]. For a more recent take on the same subject, see M. Carruthers [396]. See also J. Coleman [399]. All of the latter, however, draw heavily on developments after 1100.
15. For an introduction, see L. White Jr.’s classic Medieval Technology and Social Change [431].
16. R. W. Southern [146] 33–35, 40–41.
17. For Anselm’s defense of the employment of reason in theological matters as a way of achieving an “understanding” that is “midway between faith and direct vision,” see his letter to Pope Urban II at [138] I (II) 39–41, translated in part by G. Schufreider [144] 240–41.
18. See for a start, L. M. de Rijk [471] and G. Nuchelmans [468].
19. Adelard of Bath, Quaestiones naturales 1 and 4; trans. R. C. Dales [401] 39–40.
20. M.-D. Chenu [507] 4–18.
21. See R.W. Southern’s definitive contribution to the debate in [426] 61–85.
22. Despite his opposition to the new rationalism, Bernard’s own writings represent a considerable reorientation of monastic thought toward Augustinian aspirations to wisdom. The presence of these more “philosophical” rhythms in Latin monastic speculation from the twelfth century on is what makes modern studies of western monastic learning – for example, the three mentioned above at the end of note 14 – typically more reliable guides to high than to central medieval monastic sensibilities.
23. See B. Lawn [412] 10–13.
24. See R. I. Moore [420].
25. See selections from the canons of the council in E. Peters [23] 173–78.
26. R. I. Moore [419].
27. See S. P. Marrone [200].
28. A. de Libera [415].

By Steve P. Marrone in "The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy", edited by A.S. McGrade, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2003, excerpts pp- 10-28. Digitalized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

One of the principal branches of Western occult theory and practice, alchemy is the occult science of matter and its transformations. Commonly misunde1stood as a futile effort to tum lead into gold, as a precuxsor of modern chemistry, or as a primitive form of depth psychology, alchemy is actually a complex, wide-reaching, and subde assemblage of disciplines, united by a common theoretical structure but extending into nearly every imaginable field of human experience.

The basic concept of alchemy is the idea of transmutation. In alchemical thought, every material thing comes into being out of a common substance or combination of substances. This common basis follows patterns laid down by nature, but cannot always complete its naturali course. Thus, for example, all metals start out as a fusion of two principles, usually called "sulphur" and "mercury" (but not identical to the minerals now called by the same names). Given the right proportions of these principles, moderate heat beneath the earth, and enough time, the result of the combination is gold.

As the alchemical proverb has it, though, "Nature unaided fails." Most of the time, sulphur and mercury are not present in the right proportions or degree of purity, the subterranean heat is either inadequate or excessive, or the veins of the rock are broken open by human action before the substance has matured into gold. When this happens, the alchemist must complete Nature's work.

This is done by separating the substance into its components, purifying them, and recombining them under the right conditions to bring them to their perfection. The Latin words solve, "dissolve" and 'coagula', "coagulate:' are standard alchemical terms for the first and last stage of the essential alchemical process. When this is done with metals, according to alchemical tradition, the result is the transmutation of base metals into gold or silver. When it is done with healing herbs, the result is a powerful medicine. When it is done with the human mind, the result is spiritual enlightenment.

These changes, important as they are, are the lesser work of alchemy. They require that each substance to be transmuted has to pass through the whole slow process of separation and recombination. The Great Work of alchemy is the production of a substance that brings perfection to matter quickly, by simple contact: the Philosopher's Stone.

The Philosopher's Stone, or Stone of the Wise, is the result of the Great Work of metals; heated together with lead, mercury, or some other base metal, it is held to transmute the entire mass of base metal to gold in a matter of minutes. While current scientific theories insist that this is impossible, the process of transmutation by means of the Stone was witnessed repeatedly by reputable observers in the Renaissance and early modern periods. It remains possible, despite modern scientific advances, that matter has possibilities that have not yet been discovered though, of course, this by itself does not prove the reality of transmutation.

The word "alchemy" has complex origins. Its English form comes from the Latin 'alchemia', which is from the Arabic 'al-kimiyya', which in turn comes from a Greek word spelled two different ways--'chymia' or 'chemtia. 'Chymia' means "smelting" or "casting," and is related to 'myma', "fluid."'Chemeia', on the other hand, probably descends from the ancient Egyptian word 'Khem', "the Black Land" which is what Egyptians in pharaonic times called their own country; chemeia thus means something close to "the Egyptian art." While some scholars have insisted on one or the other of these origins as the "real" one, the traditional literature of alchemy is full of meaningful puns and wordplay of this sort, and it's quite possible that the creators of alchemy relished the idea of a term that implied both what they were doing and where they originally learned to do it.

The origins of alchemy, like those of the Western occult tradition as a whole, are to be found in the fusion of Greek philosophy with the ancient cultural legacies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The two older cultures brought a wealth of practical experience and a strong connection with spirituality to this union. Throughout the ancient world, the craft of the metalworker had been deeply interwoven with magic and religion. ln ancient Egypt, the god Ptah was the master goldsmith of Heaven, and the chief priests of his primary temple in Memphis had tides such as Great Wielder of the Hammer and He Who Knows the Secret of the Goldsmiths. In the equally ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, the secrets of metalworking were sacred mysteries guarded by elusive language; copper was called "the eagle," crude mineral sulphur was referred to as "bank of the river," and so on. To this fusion of sacred and practical concerns Greek philosophy brought an insistent search for fundamental unities. The Greek philosophers constantly searched for one substance or one process that could explain the world. By the time of alchemy's emergence, the most important school of philosophical thought in the Greek-speaking world was Stoicism, with its teaching of a semi-material 'pneuma' or "breath" that shaped all things;  This concept of the "One Thing" that produced all things became deeply woven into alchemical thought.

The actual genesis of alchemy out of these disparate currents of thought and practice was apparently the work of one man, a Greek-speaking Egyptian named Bolos of Mendes. Essentially nothing is known for sure about Bolos' life. He probably lived in the second century B.C.E., and he wrote several books, which he published under the name of the fifth-century Greek philosopher Democritus of Abdera. He is said to have studied with the Persian magus Ostanes, about whom even less is known. After his time, perhaps in the first century, were two famous female alchemists, Maria and Cleopatra, who were respectively Jewish and Egyptian and were confused by later writers with Miriam, sister of Moses, and Cleopatra the Egyptian queen. Maria was particularly influential as a major theorist as well as the inventor of several important items of alchemical equipment.

Later, in the early third century C.E., Zosimos of Panopolis wrote a number of important alchemical texts and codified the work of many anonymous alchemists who had gone before him. Other later Greek alchemists include Olympiodorus of Thebes, who lived in the early futh century C.E. and wrote an important commentary, and Stephanos of Alexandria, one of the fint Christian alchemists, who lived in the early eighth century C.E.

By that time, on the verge of the great Arab conquests, alchemy was already making its transition out of Greek culture into the Middle East as a whole. An important alchemical school had been established at Harran, on the road east from the Mediterranean coast to India, sometime in late Roman times. The Harranian alchemists pioneered the use of copper as an ingredient in alchemical processes, and left some important books.

By the middle of the fifth century, additionally, Pagans and Christian heretics had begun to flee the Roman Empire in large numbers to escape religious persecution; many of them ended up in the Persian Empire, where they taught Greek philosophy and alchemy, among other things, to their hosts. When the Arabs conquered the Persian Empire in the eighth century, the exiles and their descendants began passing on the same lore to their new Muslim overlords, and launched the long and highly creative tradition of Arabic alchemy. Arab alchemists such as Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan. 72Q-800 C.E.) and Rhazes (Abu-Bakr Muhammad ibn-Zakariya al-Razi, 85()-923 C.E.) made massive improvements in alchemical theory and practice alike. Geber, among the most influential of all alchemists, wrote a crucial work on furnaces, providing detailed information on most of the furnace types that would be used until the end of the Renaissance, and was the first writer to describe the preparation of nitric acid. His contributions to theory were equally substantial; he introduced the sulphur-mercury theory of metals, holding that all metals were formed from the fusion of sulphur, the principle of dryness and flammability, and mercury, the principle of moisture and volatility.  Rhazes, for his part, was a physician with an international reputation, and the author of medical works that were prized from Spain to India; his alchemical contributions included important works on the interface between alchemy and medicine.

Western Europe had little contact with alchemy dwing the time of the Roman Empire, and Rome's fall cut off contact between the West and the areas where alchemical research and wnong were still continuing. It was not until 1144, when Robert of Chester made the first translation of an Arabic alchemical text into Latin, that European scholars and occultists began to get access to alchemical lore. The work Robert translated was a dialogue between the alchemist Morienus and King Khalid of Egypt - both of them, in typical alchemical style, fictional characters - in which some of the basic alchemical terms and processes are outlined. Where many other branches of Arabic learning found an instant audience in the West, alchemy was slower to catch on, partly because of the obscurity of alchemical literature and partly because alchemical practice required a great deal of expensive, complicated equipment. Still, an alchemical subculture gradually emerged, and within a century or so of Robert of Chester's translation, the first European works on alchemy were in circulation.

The alchemy of Europe started out as a tradition closely derived from its Arabic sources, but by the fourteenth century original ideas were entering into it, and the great flowering of alchemical writing and research in the Renaissance and early modern periods saw the emergence of original alchemical theories and operations. The Arabic theory of the two principles, sulphur and mercury, was widely used, but later adapted by Paracelsus (1493-1541), who added sale as a third principle. Another important approach was the Central Niter theory of Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636), which postulated a single substance linked with life energy that made all things by its transformations.

In the last centuries of its prevalence in the West, alchemy expanded into many other fields of knowledge, and for a time seemed likely to become the foundation of a universal science embracing every possible field of knowledge. Approaches to economics based on alchemical ideas were current, and traced out paths that would be followed for centuries to come: in Germany, the alchemist johann Joachim Becher (1632-1682) argued for an alchemical view of trade that prefigured mercantilist economic theory and modern "Free Trade" ideology, while in England, the radical theoretician Gerrard Winstanley (1609-c. 1676) proposed a form of alchemical communism, complete with a labor theory of value closely akin to that of Karl Marx.

Alchemical interpretations of agriculture and biology were common, and gave rise to alchemical fertilizers and a wide range of alchemical medicines. Even theology was not immune-there were entire Christian theologies based on alchemy, of which the writings of Jakob Bohme are the most important.

This final blossoming of alchemical thought was followed, throughout nearly all of the Western world, by a near-total eclipse. The rise of scientific ideologies to dominance in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries forced alchemy underground. There it survived mostly in the German-speaking areas of central Europe.

German Romanticism, with its extensions into science and nature philosopy, drew to some extent on alchemical ideas, and figures of the stature of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dabbled in the Great Art. Several German occult orders, most prominently the Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreuz of the late eighteenth century, also included alchemical lore in their secret teachings. Homeopathy, a health-care system that emerged in nineteenth-century Germany, also drew substantially on older alchemical ideas, especially those of Paracelsus.

Alchemy also survived for a time in the American colonies, with their close cultural ties co Germany and their openness to almost any form of radicalism. Alchemy reached America at a fairly early date -John Winthrop Jr. (1606-1676), governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, was an ardent Hermeticist and a srudent of alchemy who amassed an impressive collection of alchemical writings-and by the eighteenth century had given rise to an alchemical underground that combined Hermetic and alchemical studies with mystical offshoots of Christianity and attempts to fmd buried treasures by magical means. This underground eventually gave rise to the Mormon Church, among other American spiritual movements. By the nineteenth century, however, practical laboratory alchemy was rarely practiced even in America.

Renewed interest in alchemy in recent years has mostly come out of the work of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and his followers, who interpreted alchemy as an ancient art of psychological transformation wrapped up in the language of metalworking. This view has be come extremely popular in the twentieth century, at least in part because it allows alchemy to be reinterpreted in a way that doesn't come into conflict with the concepts of modem materialist science. By way of Jung's theories, alchemical ideas and imagery have been borrowed wholesale for a variety of psychological and spirirual projects, many of which have nothing to do with alchemy in any sense that the old alchemists would have understood.

In the meantime, traditions of alchemical practice have been revived and are practiced today. The work of Frater Albertus (Albert Reidel, 1911-1984), whose Paracelsus Research Society offered one of the first public instructional programs in alchemy in the Western world, was crucial in bringing alchemy into a renewed popularity in the larrer half of the twentieth century; . Reidel's teaching like those of most recent alchemists, take spagyrics as the starting point, and his Alchmist's Handbook (1960) is one of the few practical handbooks of spagyric alchemy available in English.

By John Michael Greer in "The New Encyclopedia of the Occult", Llewellyn Publications, USA, 2003, excerpts pp. 29-32. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Mithraism was the Freemasonry of the Roman world. Whatever its ancestry in the ancient religion of Persia, it became something very different as soon as it left its native soil and took root in late Republican Rome. Like the other cults of Oriental origin, it moved with the vast commerce in human beings that is such a notable, and tragic, feature of the ancient world. Hundreds of thousands of slaves and soldiers, forcibly transported for life away from their homelands, could carry but one thing with them as they travelled: their faith. The cult of Mithras is one that travelled well, from Syria to Scotland, and it did not matter much that off1cial recognition of it in Rome was comparatively tardy, in the later second century A.D.

It is futile to try to correlate the widely scattered monuments and inscriptions with the ancient Persian religion, in the hope of coming up with a single Mithraic creed. But the social aspects arc easily enough described. The adherents were bound to no exclusive allegiance, being permitted like present-day Masons to belong to any church, or none; but they were bound by secrecy, which they observed (as people always did in ancient times) with a holy dread. Hence our relations with Mithraism will always be determined more by curiosity than by certainty. The Mithraic community was all male: women gravitated to the parallel cult of Cybele or the exclusively female one o Bona Dea. The congregations were small: no surviving Mithracum could house more than a hundred, but of course bigger lodges may have formed, and dissolved, at army camps. There were no social barriers, so that slaves and privates could become high initiates. The ceremonies were solemnly enacted and the initiations quite awe-inspiring.

Whether Mithraism resembled Masonry further, in being based on the esoteric truths common to all branches of the Perennial Philosophy, is another matter. The divergence o f symbolism from one Mithraeum to another is quire startling, and scholars have admitted that the local artisans did not always understand what they were depicting. One can go further and say that in that case they must have lacked proper direction, and that perhaps the masters themselves were none too sure of their symbolism and exactly what it meant.

The very impossibility of fitting the basic Mithraic symbols satisfactorily with those of the esoteric inheri tance of mankind suggests that the whole affair may have been an invented religion rather than a revealed one, perhaps on a level with Mormonism which similarly cakes as its starting point an ancient and authentic revelation.

When one studies Mithraic symbolism, one is struck by the constant shifting oflevels: from the astronomical to the metaphysical, from the psychological to the ontological. Who is the Mithras of the Mysteries? He is one of the gods, lower than Ahura Mazda (the Supreme Deity of Light of the Persians) but higher than the visible Sun. He is creator and orderer of the universe, hence a manifestation of the creative Logos or Word. Seeing mankind afflicted by Ahriman, the cosmic power of darkness, he incarnated on earth. His birth on 25 December was witnessed by shepherds. After many deeds (some of them described with the plates) he held a last supper with his disciples and returned to heaven. At the end of the world he will come again to judge resurrected mankind and after the last battle, victorious over evil, he will lead the chosen ones through a river of fire to blessed immortality. It is possible to prepare oneself for this event during life by devotion to him, and to attain a degree of communion with him through the sacramental means of initiation.

No wonder the early Christians were disturbed by a deity who bore so close a resemblance to their own, and no wonder they considered him a mockery of Christ invented by Satan, their own Dark Lord. In a certain way they may have been right. It is my suspicion - which, unfortunately, cannot be bolstered by scholarly evidence- that Roman Mithraism was born from some clairvoyant sense of the coming of Christ, seen through the perspective of Zoroastrian dualism. It is precisely the connections with Christianity that make Mithraism so interesting, and so confusing. Persian dualism is a faith of the Age of Aries (second-first millennia B c), which is the sign of the Sun's exaltation and Mars' rulership ; so Mithras, the solar warrior, is still re-enacting the close of the previous Age of Taurus (fourth-third millennia B C) by slaying the cosmic Bull. All the Arien leaders arc fighters: the ram-horned Moses, Ammon and Mars/Ares himself. Jesus Christ, on che other hand, immolates the age of war in the only way possible: by sacrificing himself as the Ram or Lamb of God. In doing so he ushers in the Age of Pisces (second-first millennia A D), the era which ch erishes in its hea rt an ideal of devotion and love.



Egg-Birth of Mithras

In one of his many syncretistic guises, Mithras springs fully-armed from the broken halves of the cosmic egg, like Phanes Protogonus, the first-born god of light in the Orphic theogony (cf. Pl. 142). The world-egg represents the entirety, in potentia, of one cosmic cycle, and its sundering symbolizes the polarity of positive and negative forces without which no world could unfold in time and space.

Mithras is both the personified creator who breaks the egg, and the mediator between the opposites who eventually heals the rift and reconciles the warring factions. He is born in the sign of Capricorn, i.e. at the winter solstice: the light of the world enters on the darkest day of the year.



Mithras as Sun God

Beyond the mention of his name in the inscription, 'Deo invicto Mitrae', there is nothing to distinguish this figure from Sol. He holds in his right hand a whip to drive his quadriga, and his rays pierce the stone to allow the light of a lamp to shine through from behind. Mithras is sometimes identifted with the Sun, yet sometimes put in actual opposition to it. According to one legend he stole the Sun God's cattle, slaughtered the cosmic Bull, and thus made possible the generation of mankind. The myths of cattle-stealing or cattle-herding gods, such as Hermes and Krishna, allude to the appropriation by spiritual monads of human bodies prepared through physical generation, or in Platonic language to the vivification of 'soma by nous'. his the task of religions to lead these monads up again to their proper home.



The Child Mithras Turning the Zodiac

The divine Child holds in his hand the globe of the earth, just as the Christ Child in medieval icons holds the royal orb surmounted by his symbol, the cross. Both are imagined as lords of a limited, geocentric cosmos: a manifested physical universe which extends as far as the eye can see, i.e. to the stars of the Zodiac, placed 'foursquare' between the winds or archangels. The beasts below, often shown in the tauroctones (bull-slaying monuments), probably represent the elements and four signs of the Zodiac connected with generation: Serpent-Fire-Leo (cf. the shape of the 'Leo' symbol); Dog-Earth-Virgo (dogs are sacred to Mercury, ruler of the sign); Raven-Air-Libra; Scorpion-Water-Scorpio. But Mithraic iconography is so inconsistent the Scorpion is absent here, for example that one cannot offer any blanket fexplanations of its meaning.



Tauroctone

The central image of Mithraic iconography is his slaying of the cosmic Bull which Ormuzd, god of light, had created, in order to save it from the clutches of Ahriman, god of darkness. The myth can be interpreted on several levels. Terrestrially it represents the sun's gift of fertility to crops and creatures: the pouring of vitality into the ground or into the womb from which new life can arise. This is the level explored in Frazer's The Golden Bough Psychologically it is the sacrifice or sublimation of the sexual powers, of which the bull is an obvious symbol, in the interests of higher development, as practised by monks and yogis, Astronomically it marks the end of the Taurean Age of mankind (fourth-third millennia B.C) which preceded the Arien Age (second-first millennia B.C) to which the Persian myths belong.

Theologically it is the action of one of the lower gods, like Jehovah or Jupiter, who 'slay' the archetypal Ideas to create the physical matter without which our world could not exist. (Ahriman, mistakenly called a principle of evil, is only 'dark' because he represents an unknowable, higher level of gods, who have no possible commerce with matter or with the limited time and space signified by the circumscribing Zodiac.) Physically it is the transmutation of matter into energy, taking place between the positive and negative potencies. Metapltysically it is the encounter between the infinite cosmic substance (Taurus) and the binding cosmic idea (Gemini).

Just like the Crucifixion, the Mithraic sacrifice takes place between Sun and Moon and under the eye of the Father God Jupiter. The good and bad thieves also have their correspondences in the two torch-bearers Cautes and Cautopates, who have as many meanings as the sacrifice itself. They are at every level reflections of the primal duality of light and darkness, life and dea th, spirit and matter, etc. Cautopates, with lowered torch, rules the autumn equinox and winter solstice, the barren half of the year ; Cautes, with raised torch, is the return of fertility in spring and summer. But in southern Iranian reliefs their symbolism is reversed, because there the scorching summer sun withers the vegetation which flourishes in the cooler, wetter months. Much of Mithraic iconography seems to belong in the venerable tradition of vegetation symbolism. But to those versed in the Hermetic-Platonic tradition, Cautopates also signiftcs the extinction of the soul's light on its entry into the body, and Cautes its rebirth after ' death'.



Mithraic Magus

The nudity of Greek gods and of the Greeks themselves was repugnant to the people of the Middle East, whose fear of their own sexuality led even before the Muslims to excesses such as the veiling of women. This overdressed Magus, and indeed Mithras himself in his cloak and trousers, must have seemed as exotic to the Graeco-Roman world as the Japanese in kimonos did to nineteenth-century Europe. One garment, the ' Phrygian' cap, became a universal symbol of the Oriental cults, being worn by Mithras, Attis, the Kabeiroi. the Dioscuri, and their servitors. Later it became the headgear of medieval Masons. the sans-culotttes, and La Liberté herself. Its symbolism is one of supreme spiritual attainment, represented also in Osiris.

Like Shiva, another supreme god of cyclic creation and destruction, Aion here has four arms, though what the front ones held we do not know : probably sceptre and keys. The back pair dutch arrows carved onto the wings. The accompanying symbols here are definitely chthonic: three-headed Cerberus,the guard-dog of the underworld, and a mass of snakes. To an ordinary Mithraist the conception of Aion as a god of Hades like Pluto or Serapis was probably more familiar than the lofty explanations of Orphism. The lions' hea ds would denote courage, and the eye on the breast intelligence- though it is of course the 'eye of the heart' through which the soul knows truth. The apron, an Egyptian garment later adopted by Freemasonry, may serve to emphasize the purity to which devotees of Mithras aspired.



Aion

Unlike the cosmic gods who are shown inside the Zodiac, Aion stands above a Zodiac-encircled glo be or wears the signs on his body. Here the signs are indicated by the twelve divisions of his sceptre. The two bands crossing the globe recall the World Soul's method of creation in Plato's Timaeus, by crossing the two circles of world-stuffin the form of an X . Aion is a creator, but not of worlds: he emanates metaphysical principles or gods. In the Persian thcogony he is Zervan, whose two sons are the opposites Ormuzd and Ahriman between which Mithras mediates. So he is in a way the highest aspect of Mithras, being beyond rather than between the opposites.

By Joscelyn Godwin in "Mistery Religions in the Ancient World", Harper & Row Publishers, USA, 1981, excerpts pp. 98-109. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

For 2.5 million years humans fed themselves by gathering plants and hunting animals that lived and bred without their intervention. Homo erectus, Homo ergaster and the Neanderthals plucked wild figs and hunted wild sheep without deciding where fig trees would take root, in which meadow a herd of sheep should graze, or which billy goat would inseminate which nanny goat. Homo sapiens spread from East Africa to the Middle East, to Europe and Asia, and finally to Australia and America – but everywhere they went, Sapiens too continued to live by gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals. Why do anything else when your lifestyle feeds you amply and supports a rich world of social structures, religious beliefs and political dynamics?

All this changed about 10,000 years ago, when Sapiens began to devote almost all their time and effort to manipulating the lives of a few animal and plant species. From sunrise to sunset humans sowed seeds, watered plants, plucked weeds from the ground and led sheep to prime pastures. This work, they thought, would provide them with more fruit, grain and meat. It was a revolution in the way humans lived – the Agricultural Revolution.

The transition to agriculture began around 9500–8500 BC in the hill country of south-eastern Turkey, western Iran, and the Levant. It began slowly and in a restricted geographical area. Wheat and goats were domesticated by approximately 9000 BC; peas and lentils around 8000 BC; olive trees by 5000 BC; horses by 4000 BC; and grapevines in 3500 BC. Some animals and plants, such as camels and cashew nuts, were domesticated even later, but by 3500 BC the main wave of domestication was over. Even today, with all our advanced technologies, more than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants that our ancestors domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC – wheat, rice, maize (called ‘corn’ in the US), potatoes, millet and barley. No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2,000 years. If our minds are those of hunter-gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers.

Scholars once believed that agriculture spread from a single Middle Eastern point of origin to the four corners of the world. Today, scholars agree that agriculture sprang up in other parts of the world not by the action of Middle Eastern farmers exporting their revolution but entirely independently. People in Central America domesticated maize and beans without knowing anything about wheat and pea cultivation in the Middle East. South Americans learned how to raise potatoes and llamas, unaware of what was going on in either Mexico or the Levant. Chinas first revolutionaries domesticated rice, millet and pigs. North America’s first gardeners were those who got tired of combing the undergrowth for edible gourds and decided to cultivate pumpkins. New Guineans tamed sugar cane and bananas, while the first West African farmers made African millet, African rice, sorghum and wheat conform to their needs. From these initial focal points, agriculture spread far and wide. By the first century AD the vast majority of people throughout most of the world were agriculturists.

Why did agricultural revolutions erupt in the Middle East, China and Central America but not in Australia, Alaska or South Africa? The reason is simple: most species of plants and animals can’t be domesticated. Sapiens could dig up delicious truffles and hunt down woolly mammoths, but domesticating either species was out of the question. The fungi were far too elusive, the giant beasts too ferocious. Of the thousands of species that our ancestors hunted and gathered, only a few were suitable candidates for farming and herding. Those few species lived in particular places, and those are the places where agricultural revolutions occurred.

Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power. Evolution gradually produced ever more intelligent people. Eventually, people were so smart that they were able to decipher nature’s secrets, enabling them to tame sheep and cultivate wheat. As soon as this happened, they cheerfully abandoned the gruelling, dangerous, and often spartan life of hunter-gatherers, settling down to enjoy the pleasant, satiated life of farmers.

That tale is a fantasy. There is no evidence that people became more intelligent with time. Foragers knew the secrets of nature long before the Agricultural Revolution, since their survival depended on an intimate knowledge of the animals they hunted and the plants they gathered. Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter-gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.2

Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa.

Think for a moment about the Agricultural Revolution from the viewpoint of wheat. Ten thousand years ago wheat was just a wild grass, one of many, confined to a small range in the Middle East. Suddenly, within just a few short millennia, it was growing all over the world. According to the basic evolutionary criteria of survival and reproduction, wheat has become one of the most successful plants in the history of the earth. In areas such as the Great Plains of North America, where not a single wheat stalk grew 10,000 years ago, you can today walk for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres without encountering any other plant. Worldwide, wheat covers about 2.25 million square kilometres of the globes surface, almost ten times the size of Britain. How did this grass turn from insignificant to ubiquitous?

Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but then began to invest more and more effort in cultivating wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn’t easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them. Wheat didn’t like rocks and pebbles, so Sapiens broke their backs clearing fields. Wheat didn’t like sharing its space, water and nutrients with other plants, so men and women laboured long days weeding under the scorching sun. Wheat got sick, so Sapiens had to keep a watch out for worms and blight. Wheat was defenceless against other organisms that liked to eat it, from rabbits to locust swarms, so the farmers had to guard and protect it. Wheat was thirsty, so humans lugged water from springs and streams to water it. Its hunger even impelled Sapiens to collect animal faeces to nourish the ground in which wheat grew.

The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It was adapted to climbing apple trees and running after gazelles, not to clearing rocks and carrying water buckets. Human spines, knees, necks and arches paid the price. Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as slipped discs, arthritis and hernias. Moreover, the new agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were forced to settle permanently next to their wheat fields. This completely changed their way of life. We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. The word ‘domesticate’ comes from the Latin domus, which means ‘house’. Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens.

How did wheat convince Homo sapiens to exchange a rather good life for a more miserable existence? What did it offer in return? It did not offer a better diet. Remember, humans are omnivorous apes who thrive on a wide variety of foods. Grains made up only a small fraction of the human diet before the Agricultural Revolution. A diet based on cereals is poor in minerals and vitamins, hard to digest, and really bad for your teeth and gums.

Wheat did not give people economic security. The life of a peasant is less secure than that of a hunter-gatherer. Foragers relied on dozens of species to survive, and could therefore weather difficult years even without stocks of preserved food. If the availability of one species was reduced, they could gather and hunt more of other species. Farming societies have, until very recently, relied for the great bulk of their calorie intake on a small variety of domesticated plants. In many areas, they relied on just a single staple, such as wheat, potatoes or rice. If the rains failed or clouds of locusts arrived or if a fungus learned how to infect that staple species, peasants died by the thousands and millions.

Nor could wheat offer security against human violence. The early farmers were at least as violent as their forager ancestors, if not more so. Farmers had more possessions and needed land for planting. The loss of pasture land to raiding neighbours could mean the difference between subsistence and starvation, so there was much less room for compromise. When a foraging band was hard-pressed by a stronger rival, it could usually move on. It was difficult and dangerous, but it was feasible. When a strong enemy threatened an agricultural village, retreat meant giving up fields, houses and granaries. In many cases, this doomed the refugees to starvation. Farmers, therefore, tended to stay put and fight to the bitter end.

Many anthropological and archaeological studies indicate that in simple agricultural societies with no political frameworks beyond village and tribe, human violence was responsible for about 15 per cent of deaths, including 25 per cent of male deaths. In contemporary New Guinea, violence accounts for 30 per cent of male deaths in one agricultural tribal society, the Dani, and 35 per cent in another, the Enga. In Ecuador, perhaps 50 per cent of adult Waoranis meet a violent death at the hands of another human!3 In time, human violence was brought under control through the development of larger social frameworks – cities, kingdoms and states. But it took thousands of years to build such huge and effective political structures.

Village life certainly brought the first farmers some immediate benefits, such as better protection against wild animals, rain and cold. Yet for the average person, the disadvantages probably outweighed the advantages. This is hard for people in today’s prosperous societies to appreciate. Since we enjoy affluence and security, and since our affluence and security are built on foundations laid by the Agricultural Revolution, we assume that the Agricultural Revolution was a wonderful improvement. Yet it is wrong to judge thousands of years of history from the perspective of today. A much more representative viewpoint is that of a three-year-old girl dying from malnutrition in first-century China because her father’s crops have failed. Would she say ‘I am dying from malnutrition, but in 2,000 years, people will have plenty to eat and live in big air-conditioned houses, so my suffering is a worthwhile sacrifice’?

What then did wheat offer agriculturists, including that malnourished Chinese girl? It offered nothing for people as individuals. Yet it did bestow something on Homo sapiens as a species. Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory, and thereby enabled Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially. Around 13,000 BC, when people fed themselves by gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals, the area around the oasis of Jericho, in Palestine, could support at most one roaming band of about a hundred relatively healthy and well-nourished people. Around 8500 BC, when wild plants gave way to wheat fields, the oasis supported a large but cramped village of 1,000 people, who suffered far more from disease and malnourishment.

The currency of evolution is neither hunger nor pain, but rather copies of DNA helixes. Just as the economic success of a company is measured only by the number of dollars in its bank account, not by the happiness of its employees, so the evolutionary success of a species is measured by the number of copies of its DNA. If no more DNA copies remain, the species is extinct, just as a company without money is bankrupt. If a species boasts many DNA copies, it is a success, and the species flourishes. From such a perspective, 1,000 copies are always better than a hundred copies. This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.

Yet why should individuals care about this evolutionary calculus? Why would any sane person lower his or her standard of living just to multiply the number of copies of the Homo sapiens genome? Nobody agreed to this deal: the Agricultural Revolution was a trap.

The Luxury Trap

The rise of farming was a very gradual affair spread over centuries and millennia. A band of Homo sapiens gathering mushrooms and nuts and hunting deer and rabbit did not all of a sudden settle in a permanent village, ploughing fields, sowing wheat and carrying water from the river. The change proceeded by stages, each of which involved just a small alteration in daily life.

Homo sapiens reached the Middle East around 70,000 years ago. For the next 50,000 years our ancestors flourished there without agriculture. The natural resources of the area were enough to support its human population. In times of plenty people had a few more children, and in times of need a few less. Humans, like many mammals, have hormonal and genetic mechanisms that help control procreation. In good times females reach puberty earlier, and their chances of getting pregnant are a bit higher. In bad times puberty is late and fertility decreases.

To these natural population controls were added cultural mechanisms. Babies and small children, who move slowly and demand much attention, were a burden on nomadic foragers. People tried to space their children three to four years apart. Women did so by nursing their children around the clock and until a late age (around-the-clock suckling significantly decreases the chances of getting pregnant). Other methods included full or partial sexual abstinence (backed perhaps by cultural taboos), abortions and occasionally infanticide.4

During these long millennia people occasionally ate wheat grain, but this was a marginal part of their diet. About 18,000 years ago, the last ice age gave way to a period of global warming. As temperatures rose, so did rainfall. The new climate was ideal for Middle Eastern wheat and other cereals, which multiplied and spread. People began eating more wheat, and in exchange they inadvertently spread its growth. Since it was impossible to eat wild grains without first winnowing, grinding and cooking them, people who gathered these grains carried them back to their temporary campsites for processing. Wheat grains are small and numerous, so some of them inevitably fell on the way to the campsite and were lost. Over time, more and more wheat grew along favourite human trails and near campsites.

When humans burned down forests and thickets, this also helped wheat. Fire cleared away trees and shrubs, allowing wheat and other grasses to monopolise the sunlight, water and nutrients. Where wheat became particularly abundant, and game and other food sources were also plentiful, human bands could gradually give up their nomadic lifestyle and settle down in seasonal and even permanent camps.

At first they might have camped for four weeks during the harvest. A generation later, as wheat plants multiplied and spread, the harvest camp might have lasted for five weeks, then six, and finally it became a permanent village. Evidence of such settlements has been discovered throughout the Middle East, particularly in the Levant, where the Natufian culture flourished from 12,500 BC to 9500 BC. The Natufians were hunter-gatherers who subsisted on dozens of wild species, but they lived in permanent villages and devoted much of their time to the intensive gathering and processing of wild cereals. They built stone houses and granaries. They stored grain for times of need. They invented new tools such as stone scythes for harvesting wild wheat, and stone pestles and mortars to grind it.

In the years following 9500 BC, the descendants of the Natufians continued to gather and process cereals, but they also began to cultivate them in more and more elaborate ways. When gathering wild grains, they took care to lay aside part of the harvest to sow the fields next season. They discovered that they could achieve much better results by sowing the grains deep in the ground rather than haphazardly scattering them on the surface. So they began to hoe and plough. Gradually they also started to weed the fields, to guard them against parasites, and to water and fertilise them. As more effort was directed towards cereal cultivation, there was less time to gather and hunt wild species. The foragers became farmers.

No single step separated the woman gathering wild wheat from the woman farming domesticated wheat, so it’s hard to say exactly when the decisive transition to agriculture took place. But, by 8500 BC, the Middle East was peppered with permanent villages such as Jericho, whose inhabitants spent most of their time cultivating a few domesticated species.

With the move to permanent villages and the increase in food supply, the population began to grow. Giving up the nomadic lifestyle enabled women to have a child every year. Babies were weaned at an earlier age – they could be fed on porridge and gruel. The extra hands were sorely needed in the fields. But the extra mouths quickly wiped out the food surpluses, so even more fields had to be planted. As people began living in disease-ridden settlements, as children fed more on cereals and less on mother’s milk, and as each child competed for his or her porridge with more and more siblings, child mortality soared. In most agricultural societies at least one out of every three children died before reaching twenty.5 Yet the increase in births still outpaced the increase in deaths; humans kept having larger numbers of children.

With time, the ‘wheat bargain’ became more and more burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread by the sweat of their brows. The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. Paradoxically, a series of ‘improvements’, each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers.

Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan.

The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty.

Then why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan backfired? Partly because it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently. And partly because population growth burned humanity’s boats. If the adoption of ploughing increased a village’s population from a hundred to no, which ten people would have volunteered to starve so that the others could go back to the good old times? There was no going back. The trap snapped shut.

The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and not for the last time. It happens to us today. How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life?

Sadly not. Back in the snail-mail era, people usually only wrote letters when they had something important to relate. Rather than writing the first thing that came into their heads, they considered carefully what they wanted to say and how to phrase it. They expected to receive a similarly considered answer. Most people wrote and received no more than a handful of letters a month and seldom felt compelled to reply immediately. Today I receive dozens of emails each day, all from people who expect a prompt reply. We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.

Here and there a Luddite holdout refuses to open an email account, just as thousands of years ago some human bands refused to take up farming and so escaped the luxury trap. But the Agricultural Revolution didn’t need every band in a given region to join up. It only took one. Once one band settled down and started tilling, whether in the Middle East or Central America, agriculture was irresistible. Since farming created the conditions for swift demographic growth, farmers could usually overcome foragers by sheer weight of numbers. The foragers could either run away, abandoning their hunting grounds to field and pasture, or take up the ploughshare themselves. Either way, the old life was doomed.

The story of the luxury trap carries with it an important lesson. Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted. Nobody plotted the Agricultural Revolution or sought human dependence on cereal cultivation. A series of trivial decisions aimed mostly at filling a few stomachs and gaining a little security had the cumulative effect of forcing ancient foragers to spend their days carrying water buckets under a scorching sun.

Divine Intervention

The above scenario explains the Agricultural Revolution as a miscalculation. It’s very plausible. History is full of far more idiotic miscalculations. But there’s another possibility. Maybe it wasn’t the search for an easier life that brought about the transformation. Maybe Sapiens had other aspirations, and were consciously willing to make their lives harder in order to achieve them.

Scientists usually seek to attribute historical developments to cold economic and demographic factors. It sits better with their rational and mathematical methods. In the case of modern history, scholars cannot avoid taking into account non-material factors such as ideology and culture. The written evidence forces their hand. We have enough documents, letters and memoirs to prove that World War Two was not caused by food shortages or demographic pressures. But we have no documents from the Natufian culture, so when dealing with ancient periods the materialist school reigns supreme. It is difficult to prove that preliterate people were motivated by faith rather than economic necessity.

Yet, in some rare cases, we are lucky enough to find telltale clues. In 1995 archaeologists began to excavate a site in south-east Turkey called Göbekli Tepe. In the oldest stratum they discovered no signs of a settlement, houses or daily activities. They did, however, find monumental pillared structures decorated with spectacular engravings. Each stone pillar weighed up to seven tons and reached a height of five metres. In a nearby quarry they found a half-chiselled pillar weighing fifty tons. Altogether, they uncovered more than ten monumental structures, the largest of them nearly thirty metres across.

Archaeologists are familiar with such monumental structures from sites around the world – the best-known example is Stonehenge in Britain. Yet as they studied Göbekli Tepe, they discovered an amazing fact. Stonehenge dates to 2500 BC, and was built by a developed agricultural society. The structures at Göbekli Tepe are dated to about 9500 BC, and all available evidence indicates that they were built by hunter-gatherers. The archaeological community initially found it difficult to credit these findings, but one test after another confirmed both the early date of the structures and the pre-agricultural society of their builders. The capabilities of ancient foragers, and the complexity of their cultures, seem to be far more impressive than was previously suspected.

Why would a foraging society build such structures? They had no obvious utilitarian purpose. They were neither mammoth slaughterhouses nor places to shelter from rain or hide from lions. That leaves us with the theory that they were built for some mysterious cultural purpose that archaeologists have a hard time deciphering. Whatever it was, the foragers thought it worth a huge amount of effort and time. The only way to build Göbekli Tepe was for thousands of foragers belonging to different bands and tribes to cooperate over an extended period of time. Only a sophisticated religious or ideological system could sustain such efforts.

Göbekli Tepe held another sensational secret. For many years, geneticists have been tracing the origins of domesticated wheat. Recent discoveries indicate that at least one domesticated variant, einkorn wheat, originated in the Karaçadag Hills – about thirty kilometres from Göbekli Tepe.6

This can hardly be a coincidence. It’s likely that the cultural centre of Göbekli Tepe was somehow connected to the initial domestication of wheat by humankind and of humankind by wheat. In order to feed the people who built and used the monumental structures, particularly large quantities of food were required. It may well be that foragers switched from gathering wild wheat to intense wheat cultivation, not to increase their normal food supply, but rather to support the building and running of a temple. In the conventional picture, pioneers first built a village, and when it prospered, they set up a temple in the middle. But Göbekli Tepe suggests that the temple may have been built first, and that a village later grew up around it.

Victims of the Revolution

The Faustian bargain between humans and grains was not the only deal our species made. Another deal was struck concerning the fate of animals such as sheep, goats, pigs and chickens. Nomadic bands that stalked wild sheep gradually altered the constitutions of the herds on which they preyed. This process probably began with selective hunting. Humans learned that it was to their advantage to hunt only adult rams and old or sick sheep. They spared fertile females and young lambs in order to safeguard the long-term vitality of the local herd. The second step might have been to actively defend the herd against predators, driving away lions, wolves and rival human bands. The band might next have corralled the herd into a narrow gorge in order to better control and defend it. Finally, people began to make a more careful selection among the sheep in order to tailor them to human needs. The most aggressive rams, those that showed the greatest resistance to human control, were slaughtered first. So were the skinniest and most inquisitive females. (Shepherds are not fond of sheep whose curiosity takes them far from the herd.) With each passing generation, the sheep became fatter, more submissive and less curious. Voilà! Mary had a little lamb and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.

Alternatively, hunters may have caught and adopted’ a lamb, fattening it during the months of plenty and slaughtering it in the leaner season. At some stage they began keeping a greater number of such lambs. Some of these reached puberty and began to procreate. The most aggressive and unruly lambs were first to the slaughter. The most submissive, most appealing lambs were allowed to live longer and procreate. The result was a herd of domesticated and submissive sheep.

Such domesticated animals – sheep, chickens, donkeys and others – supplied food (meat, milk, eggs), raw materials (skins, wool), and muscle power. Transportation, ploughing, grinding and other tasks, hitherto performed by human sinew, were increasingly carried out by animals. In most farming societies people focused on plant cultivation; raising animals was a secondary activity. But a new kind of society also appeared in some places, based primarily on the exploitation of animals: tribes of pastoralist herders.

As humans spread around the world, so did their domesticated animals. Ten thousand years ago, not more than a few million sheep, cattle, goats, boars and chickens lived in restricted Afro-Asian niches. Today the world contains about a billion sheep, a billion pigs, more than a billion cattle, and more than 25 billion chickens. And they are all over the globe. The domesticated chicken is the most widespread fowl ever. Following Homo sapiens, domesticated cattle, pigs and sheep are the second, third and fourth most widespread large mammals in the world. From a narrow evolutionary perspective, which measures success by the number of DNA copies, the Agricultural Revolution was a wonderful boon for chickens, cattle, pigs and sheep.

Unfortunately, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of survival and reproduction, with no regard for individual suffering and happiness. Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller with the passing of the centuries.

The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about seven to twelve years, and of cattle about twenty to twenty-five years. In the wild, most chickens and cattle died long before that, but they still had a fair chance of living for a respectable number of years. In contrast, the vast majority of domesticated chickens and cattle are slaughtered at the age of between a few weeks and a few months, because this has always been the optimal slaughtering age from an economic perspective. (Why keep feeding a cock for three years if it has already reached its maximum weight after three months?)

Egg-laying hens, dairy cows and draught animals are sometimes allowed to live for many years. But the price is subjugation to a way of life completely alien to their urges and desires. It’s reasonable to assume, for example, that bulls prefer to spend their days wandering over open prairies in the company of other bulls and cows rather than pulling carts and ploughshares under the yoke of a whip-wielding ape.

In order to turn bulls, horses, donkeys and camels into obedient draught animals, their natural instincts and social ties had to be broken, their aggression and sexuality contained, and their freedom of movement curtailed. Farmers developed techniques such as locking animals inside pens and cages, bridling them in harnesses and leashes, training them with whips and cattle prods, and mutilating them. The process of taming almost always involves the castration of males. This restrains male aggression and enables humans selectively to control the herd’s procreation.

In many New Guinean societies, the wealth of a person has traditionally been determined by the number of pigs he or she owns. To ensure that the pigs can’t run away, farmers in northern New Guinea slice off a chunk of each pig’s nose. This causes severe pain whenever the pig tries to sniff. Since the pigs cannot find food or even find their way around without sniffing, this mutilation makes them completely dependent on their human owners. In another area of New Guinea, it has been customary to gouge out pigs’ eyes, so that they cannot even see where they’re going.7

The dairy industry has its own ways of forcing animals to do its will. Cows, goats and sheep produce milk only after giving birth to calves, kids and lambs, and only as long as the youngsters are suckling. To continue a supply of animal milk, a farmer needs to have calves, kids or lambs for suckling, but must prevent them from monopolising the milk. One common method throughout history was to simply slaughter the calves and kids shortly after birth, milk the mother for all she was worth, and then get her pregnant again. This is still a very widespread technique. In many modern dairy farms a milk cow usually lives for about five years before being slaughtered. During these five years she is almost constantly pregnant, and is fertilised within 60 to 120 days after giving birth in order to preserve maximum milk production. Her calves are separated from her shortly after birth. The females are reared to become the next generation of dairy cows, whereas the males are handed over to the care of the meat industry.8

Another method is to keep the calves and kids near their mothers, but prevent them by various stratagems from suckling too much milk. The simplest way to do that is to allow the kid or calf to start suckling, but drive it away once the milk starts flowing. This method usually encounters resistance from both kid and mother. Some shepherd tribes used to kill the offspring, eat its flesh, and then stuff the skin. The stuffed offspring was then presented to the mother so that its presence would encourage her milk production. The Nuer tribe in the Sudan went so far as to smear stuffed animals with their mother’s urine, to give the counterfeit calves a familiar, live scent. Another Nuer technique was to tie a ring of thorns around a calf’s mouth, so that it pricks the mother and causes her to resist suckling.9 Tuareg camel breeders in the Sahara used to puncture or cut off parts of the nose and upper lip of young camels in order to make suckling painful, thereby discouraging them from consuming too much milk.10

Not all agricultural societies were this cruel to their farm animals. The lives of some domesticated animals could be quite good. Sheep raised for wool, pet dogs and cats, war horses and race horses often enjoyed comfortable conditions. The Roman emperor Caligula allegedly planned to appoint his favourite horse, Incitatus, to the consulship. Shepherds and farmers throughout history showed affection for their animals and have taken great care of them, just as many slaveholders felt affection and concern for their slaves. It was no accident that kings and prophets styled themselves as shepherds and likened the way they and the gods cared for their people to a shepherd’s care for his flock.

Yet from the viewpoint of the herd, rather than that of the shepherd, it’s hard to avoid the impression that for the vast majority of domesticated animals, the Agricultural Revolution was a terrible catastrophe. Their evolutionary ‘success’ is meaningless. A rare wild rhinoceros on the brink of extinction is probably more satisfied than a calf who spends its short life inside a tiny box, fattened to produce juicy steaks. The contented rhinoceros is no less content for being among the last of its kind. The numerical success of the calf’s species is little consolation for the suffering the individual endures.

This discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution. When we study the narrative of plants such as wheat and maize, maybe the purely evolutionary perspective makes sense. Yet in the case of animals such as cattle, sheep and Sapiens, each with a complex world of sensations and emotions, we have to consider how evolutionary success translates into individual experience. In the following chapters we will see time and again how a dramatic increase in the collective power and ostensible success of our species went hand in hand with much individual suffering.

Notes

2 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
3 Gat, War in Human Civilization, 130–1; Robert S. Walker and Drew H. Bailey, ‘Body Counts in Lowland South American Violence’, Evolution and Human Behavior 34 (2013), 29–34.
4 Katherine A. Spielmann, ‘A Review: Dietary Restriction on Hunter-Gatherer Women and the Implications for Fertility and Infant Mortality’, Human Ecology 17:3 (1989), 321–45. See also: Bruce Winterhalder and Eric Alder Smith, ‘Analyzing Adaptive Strategies: Human Behavioral Ecology at Twenty-Five’, Evolutionary Anthropology 9:2 (2000), 51–72.
5 Alain Bideau, Bertrand Desjardins and Hector Perez-Brignoli (eds.), Infant and Child Mortality in the Past (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Edward Anthony Wrigley et al., English Population History from Family Reconstitution, 1580–1837 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 295–6, 303.
6 Manfred Heun et al., ‘Site of Einkorn Wheat Domestication Identified by DNA Fingerprints’, Science 278:5341 (1997), 1,312–14.
7 Charles Patterson, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (New York: Lantern Books, 2002), 9–10; Peter J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby (eds.), The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals (London: Duckworth, 1969), 259.
8 Avi Pinkas (ed.), Farmyard Animals in Israel – Research, Humanism and Activity (Rishon Le-Ziyyon: The Association for Farmyard Animals, 2009 [Hebrew]), 169–99; “Milk Production – the Cow’ [Hebrew], The Dairy Council, accessed 22 March 2012, http://www.milk.org.il/cgi-webaxy/sal/sal.pl?lang=he&ID=645657_milk&act=show&dbid=katavot&dataid=cow.htm.
9 Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); E. C. Amoroso and P. A. Jewell, ‘The Exploitation of the Milk-Ejection Reflex by Primitive People’, in Man and Cattle: Proceedings of the Symposium on Domestication at the Royal Anthropological Institute, 24–26 May 1960, ed. A. E. Mourant and F. E. Zeuner (London: The Royal Anthropological Institute, 1963), 129–34.
10 Johannes Nicolaisen, Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg (Copenhagen: National Museum, 1963), 63.

By Yuval Noah Harari in "Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind", McClelland & Stewart (a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company),2014, chapter 5. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.