Alexander Ulanov. The consequences of the kiss

B Assal, of course, below the lord. But the rite of vassal oath in Europe included a kiss on the lips, which "simultaneously connects in the position ... symmetrical lips of the lord and vassal and puts them on one spatial level, makes them equal." This is not a subordination of a slave to the master, but an equal agreement, with mutual obligations. Let this be at first the relationship only between the feudal lords - the act of inviolability of the personality was also first sent to the English king John by his large vassals for himself, but then gradually spread to the whole society. “The kiss is not mandatory.“ Classical ”in France and the Norman conquest countries after 1000 ... It has spread quite little in the kingdom of Italy. Until the 13th century, it is rare in Germany, it is undoubted because the social gap between the seanor and the vassal was more sharply designated than in other places, and the concern for the hierarchy is greater . ” Communication with the subsequent history is too noticeable. A kiss of equals is not an earthly bow of a Russian service person and not the extension of the nits of the Chinese chino in front of the boss (and speaks only the highest in the Chinese ritual of the vassalite: “Now I am increasing your responsibilities ... I give you land ...”; in the European ritual, the vassal itself declared the desire to serve).

So the gesture or object fills the abstraction with the meanings that contribute to its development. After all, the Middle Ages - did not have a gap between the flows of antiquity and revival, but the "moment of the creation of modern society, civilization" , the beliefs of the foundations of the West, which we see it now.

Le Goff is attracted by transitional moments and differences. The "dialogue of immobility and variability" is important. Therefore, the words of K.S. Luis that a medieval person was neither a dreamer nor a romantic, but an organizer, a codifier, builder of systems, etc. are - Is it possible to talk about a medieval person in general, equal to himself for a millennium?

Much is not so simple as it seems at first glance. Among the sculptures of Notre Dame - St. Marseille, striking with his episcopal staff of the dragon. For the Cathedral of the XII century, the dragon is a symbol of the devil. But other points of view are possible. In the VI century, when the legend of St. Marseille, remembered the connection of the dragon with the elements of water, about its fertilizing power, generating heroes and prophetic dreams. A fight with a dragon is also clearing a place for the founding of a new city, and pacing water flows. A fight with a dragon is associated with a recording legend and with the still not forgotten battles of gladiators with animals in a circus, with an ancient theater, where the viewer is the people. Moreover, according to legend, St. Marseille Dragon did not kill! He simply commanded him to retire to the sea or desert - which the dragon performed (and St. Ilaria did not even expel snakes from the island of Gallinaria at all, but noted the border with the staff, for which it is forbidden to penetrate). Only from the 9th century - exclusively in the church - the dragon began to denote evil and only evil; Then a great many persons appear, piercing the serpent in different poses. And on the sentinel tower of Genta stood a guard of the city - a dragon 3 m 55 cm long and weighing 398 kg. And the people continued on the processions in honor of the Ascension (and, in fact, fertility) to wear a dragon from willow branches and throw cookies into his mouth. This ceased only in the 18th century, when the enlightenment everything declared a fairy tale. But then the church turned out to be a fairy tale.

Even formally, a small change leads to huge consequences (or expresses them). From dividing society into two groups, laity and clergy, they move to division into three: "prayers", "fighting" (in theory - to protect society) and "workers"; So the distinction in the worldly occupation is as important as the distinction in relation to the sacred.

But it is precisely "the attitude to work and time is the main structural and functional aspects of society, and their study is the best way to know the history of society." For the first time, merchants began to accurately measure the time - the duration of the path from one city to another, the duration of labor hired. The distribution of hours was contributed to the disputes of the owners and working textile manufactories on the duration of work. Previously, the bell called for advice, the court, the reflection of the enemy - to extraordinary events. The tower hours are constantly repulsed by the current time of work. "Instead of a time of eventful, manifesting itself only episodically, as an exception, regular, normal time appeared." And "the artist reduces his picture or fresco to one temporary unit, to the isolated moment" - there is a perspective, perception from one point where the eye turned out to be in this moment. And the masters of Oxford and Paris begin to connect the time with the movement. A new concept of time appears - not an essence, but a form standing in the service of the mind, measurable, divided. The struggle begins during the time. In every city - its beginning of the countdown. And the intensified royal power orders that "all the bells of Paris call in accordance with the tower hours of the Royal Palace." Time becomes a value, for the loss of which a person is responsible to God and himself.

The creditor was condemned as a percentage that does not belong to him - during the time. But next to him was a university teacher: after all, knowledge also belongs to God, so it is permissible to take a tuition fee? The university theologian who searched for his excuses justified the merchant. A person is justified by labor. Payment to the teacher - for his work of teaching, not the price of knowledge. The payment to the merchant - for his travels and risk. And the rehabilitation of labor from God begins - he worked like that, creating the world that after six days he was forced to relax. It is worth recalling that the medieval West was drowned in mud compared to the Muslim East, but Allah, who created (and could destroy) the world instantly, no one tried to classify the workers ... And is it not because the parties changed places? Physical work becomes respected in monasteries. A person is aware of himself primarily as a representative of the profession - and at this time the issues of the mandatory annual confession, the issues are asked by Secundum Officia, according to the lesson.

However, not only development, but also ossification is traced. Teachers turn into a closed corporation that protects their privileges. Unable to pay for training, they are gradually replaced from the university, and you have to pay for wine for professors who take the exam and at the table for a notary diploma. As a result, the university becomes the "ideological police in the service of the political power" (the Sorbonne became famous during the hunting period). Between the free thought of Abelar and the speech of Jean Zheason ( "They say that during the rule of tyrants there is no peace, that they rob their subjects; but everything else is so reliable, so well protected that no one dares even a chicken or hazel grouse under the threat of a gallows" ) - only three centuries. And the critical science of the New Age will begin, of course, on a different base. But Le Goff is also interested in the income of the university and squabbles around them so that we try to present ourselves with a medieval professor. Or a student who hate a city policeman who arrests him contrary to the declared legal independence of the universities.

The historian seeks to understand a medieval person deeper than he understood himself. Biographer St. Herman for one of his miracles (the saint returned his voice to the numb roosts in the village through which he passed) apologizes, wondering why the saint was engaged in such trifles - and the historian sees that when the base of Christianity was shifted with the Middle City Supporting in the early Middle Ages to the rural population, the saint was simply obliged to become a little sorcerer.

"Medieval people did not know how to see, observe, but they were always ready to listen and believe everything that they were told. During their travels, they heard remarkable fairy tales, expect to see what they memorized according to rumors." Moreover, through the fables about India , "the West gets rid of the ordinary reality of its fauna" (and the Indians settled mythical one -eyed people in Europe). "But were the people of the medieval West Archaic? And are we not such sects, horoscopes, flying plates and bets on the first three horses in our world?"