Michel Pastoureau symbolic history of the European Middle Ages read. Michelle Pastoureau
Why study history? Here, of course, there is not and cannot be one answer. Some will say: so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Yes. It’s just a pity that from century to century history teaches us that history teaches us nothing. Some say that the state and nation need history to form a unifying ideology, a national idea. Undoubtedly. Although personally, I just don’t like official history - the line between official and official is too thin. Although... But I’d better say about “although” at the end. So here it is. As for me, one of the main meanings of the science of history is that it allows you to doubt the existing order of things: to understand that much of what seems obvious and unchangeable actually only seems so. Because maybe it was different relatively recently, and completely different things seemed obvious to people then. An excellent exercise for the mind, allowing you to get rid of many prejudices. The book by the French historian Michel Pastoureau, originally published in 2004 and translated into Russian in 2012, is an excellent simulator for those who want to improve this skill.
True, it was not written entirely (not only?) for these purposes and is not intended for a wide audience, like books in the now popular no-fiction series, but, first of all, for specialist historians. But. To be fair, I will say that French scientists (at least those in the humanities) write in an atypically light style for scientific works. So you don’t have to be a historian to read “Symbolic History...” and get pleasure from it and some new knowledge. Exactly how much depends on whether you are interested in the history of the Middle Ages, the Christian church and the history of costume, heraldry, semiotics, chess, the work of Walter Scott, and what you already know about it all. The author, by the way, does not strictly adhere to the time frame of the Middle Ages, but tracks how the symbolic meaning of certain concepts, objects, activities and creatures changed from antiquity to the 17th-19th centuries, and even today, so it will be interesting to read even for those who I'm not very interested in the Middle Ages.
There are no sensational discoveries under the beige cover, but personally, I think every reader can discover a lot of interesting things. The author put together his articles and lectures on how certain symbols were used in the Middle Ages (colors, images of plants and animals, natural materials and products made from them...), what meaning was given to them and how this interpretation changed over time. I sifted through the works of my colleagues, outlined topics for possible research, which are still lacking in the affected areas - according to Pastoureau, the field is not yet plowed.
I was very impressed by the first section devoted to animals: not only what properties are attributed to them by church tradition and folk legends, and why images of some animals and birds are found on the coats of arms of noble families more often than others, but also by the attitude towards domestic animals in the Middle Ages. By the way, the Middle Ages did not perceive them as soulless cattle or biorobots (as many in our enlightened age are inclined to do). Animals were believed to have a soul. And since there is a soul, it means that the animal is, to one degree or another, aware of its actions and is capable of answering for them. In practice, this meant, for example, that a pig for damaging property or killing a person could be tried as a person would be tried - up to the death penalty, and a swarm of locusts was sometimes driven out of the fields... with threats of anathema. It sounds shocking, if not crazy, but I still advise you, before becoming indignant at the dense savagery of medieval people, to read a book and comprehend the logic of what was happening. In the same section you can learn many more interesting things: for example, how the lion became the king of beasts, bypassing the bear revered by many European peoples, how the deer turned from a low-prestige prey into an object of royal hunting, and why there are no horses in medieval images of Noah’s Ark until the 13th century.
The following sections of the book are devoted to plants (mainly wood, as a material that was valued much higher than stone); history and symbolism of flowers (in clothing, painting, architecture), heraldry (from the first coats of arms and banners to modern state flags); games (mainly chess) and echoes of medieval traditions in the culture of later eras (here about literature: La Fontaine’s fables, Nerval’s poems and Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”).
I will not retell the contents of the sections - there is no point, I will also say separately what is about colors. It is perhaps one of the most interesting; it gives a lot of food for thought about how differently we can perceive the world than we are used to. Even knowing from the school curriculum that the spectrum was discovered by Newton in the 18th century, it is difficult to imagine that earlier people imagined the color palette differently and, say, did not mix yellow and blue to obtain green paint; the combination of the same green with red was not perceived as bold and contrasting, and in general they were guided not so much by the tone as by the brightness of the colors. But yes, that’s how it happened. Which gives reason to assume that the current norms (color and not only) will someday become a wonderful anachronism.
On the other hand - and this is also curious - many associations associated with those other colors and the functions that these colors perform “grow” from the Middle Ages, which perceived colors radically differently. For example, it is no coincidence that the Nazis in the 20th century made a yellow star as a mark of Jews. Just in the Middle Ages, this cheerful color, sacred since antiquity, present in the clothing of representatives of the upper strata of society, gradually became the color of treachery and lies, and, yes, is associated with the Jewish community. Or, have you wondered what is the reason for the modern dominance of the “universal” black color, and not only in clothing: why from the very beginning of industrial production of equipment to this day the basic models of telephones, televisions, tape recorders, cameras are black? And the roots of this phenomenon go back to the Protestant tradition, originating in Catholic monastic orders and... Spanish court fashion.
The author poses many seemingly trivial questions to himself and the reader, in the spirit of the textbook “Why is the grass green?” Why are the flags rectangular and not triangular or square? Why do Western societies still have ambivalent attitudes towards left-handers? Why is chess black and white and there are exactly 64 squares on the field? And he is looking for impartial, as comprehensive answers as possible to these questions, casually debunking persistent myths like “only the nobility had coats of arms.”
Actually, I can wrap this up - you probably already have an idea about the book and whether it’s worth reading. Although it is also incomplete: in addition to what is said in “Symbolic History...” there is still a lot of interesting information: about the strange, in our understanding, medieval ideas about war, success and low-prestige professions, about the working methods of modern historians, about the fact that the fashion of giving children the names of fictional heroes is much more older than the TV series Game of Thrones...
Well, I remember that at the very beginning I promised to tell you something about distortions of history. I myself, due to natural tediousness, aggravated by a humanitarian education, am a zealous advocate of accuracy and in my own texts I strive to avoid mistakes to such an extent that my historian friends, to whom I turn for advice, in my opinion, are quietly afraid of me: but then again I’ll restrain myself with my desire to “get to the very essence”, I’ll distract you from business/I won’t give you a proper rest and I’ll bombard you with 110 clarifying questions about the next trifle. However, from these very friends, acquaintances and teachers, even when I was a student, I heard a lot about how various fu-so-incompetent people, without bothering to consult with experts, distort the historical truth in films, books and journalistic articles. So complaints are not accepted.
In Pastoureau, apparently due to the fact that his subject is symbolic The story, the position is by no means so irreconcilable, unusual for me, but that’s why it’s interesting. “Historical truth is fluid,” he says: what is a proven fact today can be refuted tomorrow. And he peers with sincere interest at the stereotypical image of the Middle Ages, without trying to debunk it, pointing out where it is incorrect (and it is sooooo far from what is now scientifically proven). Because, says Pastoureau, “the imaginary is always part of reality.” And history (he quotes Mark Blok) “is not only what happened, but also what was made of it.”
The result (for the lazy at once).
An interesting book that you can read, both in order to doubt many of your beliefs about what is unshakable and what is right, and simply to give others the impression of an extremely erudite person. Just keep in mind that, despite the light style of the author, this is not the easiest reading, at least because of the abundance of footnotes and notes, not all, but many of which make sense to read.
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Michel Pastoureau's review provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the history of the European Middle Ages. Moreover, without reading it, our knowledge about this time will not be complete.
The book is included in the top 5 recommended reading on the history of the Middle Ages according to the Postnauka website: “Reading Pastoureau’s book, we still remain in the realm of the imaginary and risk never reaching traditional political and economic history. However, it is likely that ideas about purity and impurity, the sinfulness of professions and games, and the otherness of flowers are more important for understanding the era than the forms of peasant dependence or the War of the Roses.
The French medievalist Pastoureau, an apologist for “symbolic history” as a separate discipline, collected in this book the most successful results of his many years of research into what was important and obvious for a medieval person, but for us is incomprehensible, or even does not exist at all: he talks about the courts over pigs, the demonization of game and the rotation of “kings of beasts,” salutary and destructive plants and trees, the symbolism of flowers and figures, the unworthy craft of dyers and the wicked but extremely popular game of chess.”
In France, “Symbolic History” was published in 2004 and became a synthesis of materials published by Pastoureau in various journals, collective works and collections in the period from 1976 to 2002. The seventeen chapters of the book present these materials in an expanded and revised form.
Despite some narrow specialization, I highly recommend the work not only to medievalists and cultural scientists, but also to everyone interested in the European Middle Ages. First of all, because it opens up the world of the life philosophy of the people of the era.
Pastoureau examines the development of the symbol in the Middle Ages, which became a reflection of the analysis of the surrounding space and the desire to Christianize it. Moreover, this means not just the triumph of the church, but a softening of morals, the establishment of ethical guidelines for a new society. Symbolism to some extent outlined and designated the level of knowledge and moral values that medieval society achieved.
For a medieval person, symbols are not just a “label” - they are road signs.
We see a world where the soul was more important than the flesh, psychology was more important than mechanics, where Tradition was closer to the truth than modern science. However, every civilization is utilitarian, and here one can be convinced that ideology and the “subtle world” gradually gave way to material needs. A fascinating history of the beginnings of the consciousness that later came to the Renaissance, Enlightenment, psychoanalysis. Readers will gain new insights into European legends, medieval romances, and even fairy tales. Again, from the book you can see how much different and common the ancient cultures of Russia and Europe contain and find what we still have preserved.
Pastoureau's world-famous work was primarily on the history of color, and here he says that the medieval world was much more colorful than is commonly believed; that boring black and white is rather characteristic of our time. Chapters devoted to the meaning of flowers occupy almost a third of the publication. In addition, the edifying component of the trials of animals is reported, the history of the “royal flower” - the lily; about coats of arms and heraldry, as people of the Middle Ages understood it, about the popularity of “book” names, about why the lion is the “king of beasts,” and much more.
The Middle Ages had a huge impact on our world. But is it the Middle Ages itself or popular ideas about it? It turns out it's both. And, according to M. Pastoureau, this is wonderful. Heraldic animals in fables, "Ivanhoe", the color preferences of modern civilization, the rules of chess - everything comes from there. After reading the book, you can see how much we did not know about the Middle Ages and how much is connected with them.
We can only regret that this work is only for informational purposes. In many cases, Pastoureau only outlines the range of issues that remain to be addressed by future researchers. However, I believe the book will become a classic.
I would especially like to note the work of the publishing house - not a single typo, high-quality font and paper, good illustrations, reasonable price (circulation 2500 copies, the book is sealed in cellophane film). And what all experts and reader forums note: the brilliant work with the text by translator Ekaterina Reshetnikova: thanks to her, the book is easy and exciting to read, without losing a single gram of the author’s style and meaning.
Michel Pastoureau (b. 1947), medievalist historian, head of the department of history of Western symbolism at the Practical School of Higher Studies (Paris), vice-president of the French Society of Heraldry, stands at the origins of a relatively new scientific discipline - symbolic history. Archeology and semantics of color, the emergence of coats of arms and flags, trials of animals, the emergence and evolution of chess, the mythology of flowers and trees, the bestiary of fables and the iconography of Judas, the influence of the chivalric romance on society and the history of the bestseller - the beginning of the 19th century - the topics he examines in this a book for which material has been collected over three decades. In "The Symbolic History of the European Middle Ages" Prof. Pastoureau summarizes his works on the history of medieval symbolism, which brought him fame and glory as a discoverer.
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