A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance

“Christian churches were built on the foundations of pagan temples, and the names of biblical saints were given to groves which had been considered sacred centuries before the birth of Jesus.” 

Christian missionaries were naive to think that they could simply substitute one set of beliefs for another. Renaming a grove and saying that it was now sacred on behalf of a new God was not enough for pagans who had always believed in multiple gods.

“Medieval astrologers and magicians flourished. Clearly all this met a deep human need, but thoughtful men were troubled.” 

Despite the Christian missionaries’ best efforts, superstitious practices continued even after new converts adopted their message. Manchester does not dismiss these other practices with scorn but recognizes that all rituals at the time seemed to fill a need that the Church could supplement, but not yet replace. 

“‘The Catholic Church holds it better,’ wrote a Roman theologian, ‘that the entire population of the world should die of starvation in extremest agony… than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin.” 

Manchester gives this quote as an example of just how resistant to change the Catholic Church was. There was no room to debate its precepts. It was utterly inflexible. 

“The most baffling, elusive, yet in many ways the most significant dimensions of the medieval mind were invisible and silent. One was the medieval man’s total lack of ego. Even those with creative powers had no sense of self.” 

People in the Dark Ages, in thrall to the Church and constantly occupied with the daily realities of hard labor and frequent death, had little capacity to think of themselves as individuals in any relevant way. This diminished the likelihood of personal ambition, societal reform, or artistic expression. 

“In the medieval mind there was no awareness of time

The medieval world was largely one of survival. Peasants rose, toiled, provided food for their families, and retired to bed. Time was irrelevant other than the passage of the sun and the seasons. Combined with their typically short lifespans, this relative unawareness of the passage of time—and the urgency with which people had to work—made it unlikely for people to take time to reflect or ponder their place in the world, or how they might aspire to greater potential. 

“The papal palace itself was often home to killers and their accomplices. Popes and cardinals hired assassins, sanctioned torture, and frequently enjoyed the sight of blood.” 

Ostensibly, the heads of the Church should be the holiest. Their office suggests that they are closer to God than the laity. And yet, they were at times openly advocating for the worst crimes people can inflict on one another, making it hard for the public to take their platitudes seriously.

“Ironically, the purity of Christ’s vision had been contaminated by its very popularity.”

As Christianity reached further across Europe, its converts grew more diverse. Each additional tribe that was converted brought its own history and set of pagan beliefs with it. As the numbers of Christians grew, so did the diversity of superstitions, rituals, and habits. The believer then assimilated these into his new Christian faith, making standardized belief impossible, particularly when so many were illiterate. 

“Leonardo, sui generis, questioned everything. Rather than accept the world God had created, as Christians had always done, he probed endless into what human ingenuity could achieve by struggling against it.”

Christians revered Leonardo as long as his curiosity did not extend to items or issues that were contrary to scripture. Exploring the world was unacceptable if it meant uncovering anything that contradicted Catholic precepts and dogmas. 

“By the most positive estimate over half of the Continent’s male population was illiterate, and the rate among women was higher—perhaps 89 percent.”

The main tool for the exploration of reason and theology by academics and theologians was writing. But over half of the population could not read. This meant that people either received new information by word of mouth, if they were able to receive it at all.

“The new professors, called humanists, declared the humanities to be superior to medicine, law, and theology—especially theology.”

Even though the humanists ushered in a new era of helpful skepticism, they were still illogical in decreeing that medicine and law were subordinate to the humanities. Their zealotry reveals a different sort of irrationality than the radically religious.

“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it struggles against the divine word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

Elsewhere, Manchester cites reason as a method for determining when sufficient evidence leads one to consider a proposition as a fact. Reason is framed as an enemy of faith by Luther because reason prompts the asking of questions, which contradicts the Church’s decrees that all that must be known to achieve salvation is already available—other learning is irrelevant and possibly dangerous. 

“In defying the organized Church, Luther had done something else. He had broken the dam of medieval discipline. By his reasoning, every man could be his own priest.”

Luther enabled people to self-determine to a degree that had never been possible. Instead of being told what was right and wrong, each person who was willing and able to think could now tend to their own souls as they decided what was right and wrong and how their own views might contradict the edicts of the papacy. 

“His followers, like him, were angry men; wrath was a red thread binding the Lutherans together. More and more—and especially after Leipzig, they resembled an insurgent army, with Wittenberg as its command post and new hymns which sounded like marches.”

Luther and his followers increasingly acted out of rage. This was part of the reason the various groups into which Christianity splintered after the reform were so violent and intolerant—they had sprung from the revolution and spirit of a furious man.

“It might be wiser of you to denounce those who misuse the Pope’s authority than the censure the Pope himself. Old institutions cannot be uprooted in an instant. Quiet argument may do more than wholesale condemnation. Avoid all appearance of sedition. Keep cool. Do not get angry. Do not hate anybody.”

Erasmus sought diplomacy whenever possible. He was in the unenviable position of being a calm, clear-headed thinker when calm, lucid thinking rarely led to reform. Manchester states that, not only was the above quote not able to sway Luther, Luther, in all likelihood, found it almost incomprehensible.

“‘When the papists are so harsh and violent in defense of their superstitions,’ he asked, ‘are not Christ’s magistrates shamed to show themselves less ardent in defense of the sure truth?’”

John Calvin was the pinnacle of Christian intolerance as Christendom continued to splinter into factions. He reflects the anger of many of the followers that Luther produced. His torture, execution, and pitiless stance towards whatever he deemed sinful is a point of pride for him. A man who felt obligated to brutalize sinners was not going to be open to reform or debate, making interfaith tolerance a fantasy.

“This patristic dismissal of so elementary a fact was a sign of how deep the wisdom of the ancient world had been buried.”

The Catholic Church endorsed a 6th-century pamphlet insisting that the earth was flat, despite the fact that as early as Aristotle, the earth’s spherical nature had been almost inarguable. But given the insular, close-minded, and illiterate nature of medieval Europe, discoveries made elsewhere might as well have never occurred.

“Africa was shown as adjacent to India. The Indian Ocean and the Red Sea were small bodies of water. Egypt was placed in Asia; So was Ethiopia.”

Medieval cartography at the outset of Magellan’s explorations was extremely inaccurate. His circumnavigation of the globe would lead to a better understanding of the literal structure of the world.

“Profit, not curiosity, was to be the prime motive behind the age of exploration.”

Medieval Europeans saw Asia as a mysterious place full of savages, giants, and evil. It was not until merchants and traders saw the attempt to profit off of potential forays into Asia that they saw that Asians, despite their differing customs and religions, were not fantastical or primitive. Magellan’s and Columbus’s explorations were also funded by people committed to profit, not heroism or discovery for its own sake.

“This feat made a tremendous impression on both the Filipinos and the officers of the fleet, though the two saw it very differently. The natives became passionate converts, while the officers worried.”

Magellan cures a Filipino man of a fever with a simple mixture of milk and herbs. The natives see him as a man of great magical power, but his officers worry because they know that Magellan has begun to see himself as a religious healer. They worry that this success will send him further into religious fervor.

“Heroism is always deliberate, never mindless.”

Manchester makes the distinction between bravery and heroism, using Magellan as an example. Magellan’s explorations were well planned and pursued with a diligence born of romanticism and idealism.

“The fear of hell was probably a more effective check to savagery than the prospect of salvation.”

Because people in the medieval world could not typically ready and study, they could not study theology. Therefore, an appeal to their fear—a visceral reaction understood by all—was more effective than hinting at the theological possibilities of salvation, given that most people had no way to take that line of thinking any further.

“Historians, being intellectual themselves, take a profound interest in the reflections and conclusions of learned men in the past. But most men, in any age, are unimpressed by new ideas.”

Manchester makes it clear that his own insight into the medieval era comes only with the benefit of hindsight. He makes it clear that had he been a peasant or even an academic in the Dark Ages, he would either have thought that his own ideas about the squalor and intellectually poverty of the time—if were capable of having them—were unremarkable and irrelevant.

“Worldwide, there are now a billion Christians alive. Confidence in an afterlife, however, is another matter. The specter of skepticism haunts shrines and altars.”

Manchester sees, despite the large numbers of Christians in the modern world, that faith is on the decline. The skeptics and intellectual presented in the book began a revolution of doubt that continues to this day.