The Analysis of Medieval CultureAbstract: From the fifth century to the middle of the seventh century, it is called the Middle Ages in European history. It is an age when the European feudal system was born, developing and ruined. It contains many contents, like the literature, theology, philosophy and arts. Every kind of culture has its own feature. So the age is estimated by very different views. For the medieval culture, what attitude should we take?Key words: the Middle Ages Culture attitudeIntroduction: Because the culture in the Middle Ages has both retroactive side and progressive side, people have partial views for the culture in this age. The materialists in British in the 17th century and the materialists in France in the 18th developed a kind of wrong view point. They thought that the age made human history be interrupted and the age was a product of gubernatorial pressure and the people’s innocence. Idealist Hegel thought that the arts in the Middle Ages were drowsy night, but the arts in the Renaissance were new dawn. However, Friedrich Engels thought that the feudality was greater progress than the slavery, so we should not absolutely deny the culture of the Middle Ages. He sharply criticized the ignorance and cloudiness in the middle ages and also criticized the views of the materialists in the 18th. . He expressed certainty for the progressive and revolutionary sides of the culture in the Middle Ages. So we should try to use overall viewpoints to treat the medieval culture.I will analyze the Medieval Culture from the aspects of literature, theology, philosophy and arts. From the aspects we will learn more about the good and bad sides of the medieval culture. I hope all the people will pay more attention to the splendid sides of the medieval culture.Literature in the Middle Ages:Medieval literature in European is an important cultural phenomenon. Its former stage was ancient Greece and ancient Rome which owned glorious cultural advertisement and its later stag was Renaissance which developed great humanism. It stood between the two high summits, so it only left commonness and dark. Especially the humanism appearing in Renaissance made the Middle Ages have to put on dark veil. It was the viewpoints that people look upon the Middle Ages so long time. But everything has to develop despite twists and turns. The medieval culture which was born at troublous time have important connotation of time. For a long time, there were always some defects in researching the literature in the European Middle Ages. People think the literature was a rupture of culture spirit and believe that a nation’s invasion destroys all the old civilization. People only see the break of invasion and “Black Ages”to the classical culture and literature, but don’t see that the “Black Ages”is a recreated age in culture and the positive effect. Some historians and litterateurs always spend much time in emphasizing the relation of humanism inRenaissance and the culture of old Greece and Rome, but they think the literature of the Middle Ages is dispensable. The view is false because it denies the historicity of literature and its development. It also denies the dialectic materialism. It is an idealist world outlook and it ignores the connection of development.Had the aggressive people of invasion just brought about the negative influence? Of course it’s just the one hand. It also produced something good. It is no doubt that the great culture invasion is a bad thing. But we can see it in a different light: The old cultural system was broken, which offers a chance for the new one to combine with the old cultural system. Meanwhile it also can stimulate the new one full of vitality and more available to the new basic of economy and the development of society. So, this kind of cultural invasion not only broke the old cultural system, but also produce positive effects. It has the unique social values and historical values. It deserves our further study and research.In the 18th century, the historicism sprang up. The original historicism comes to the historical stage as the pure rational criticism of the Enlightenment, but it makes it possible to revalue the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages is striking and attractive. Over the passing years, the scholars and experts have been concentrating on criticize the literature of the Middle Ages. It is significant and important for us to gain a comprehensive understanding of Europe and America and even the world literature. Theology in the Middle Ages:In the Middle Ages, theology occupied a dominant position. At that time, people studied theology for proving the correctness of theology. So it inevitably existed absolute obey and blind religion. From the common man to the king, all people were catholic and believed in Jesus. So the pope became real leader. The people’s lives were held by church. Theology was used to control the people’s thought. So many people think that the medieval theology just a product of innocence. It led people go to wrong way.In fact it has much active influence for modern culture. For example, it reserved much cultural heritage for Christianity. If there is no missionary to copy out the church’s documents, now we have no so many documents as reference material to study Christianity that we can’t distinguish Christianity and other legend. Many churchmen go to many places to preach. It promoted the communication of the world and changed the world. For proving theology’s accuracy, the people raised arguments. It made people think more about theology. The pioneers made great contribution to modern researching of theology. If there was no the arguments about theology, maybe we will not believe theological belief.Religious culture is a complicate cultural structure as a king of cultural system and a cultural stage of human history. It appeared, existed and developed. It means that it has its own reason. It contains many contrary factors, like democracy and autarchy, science and superstition, progress and lag, civilization and blindness. But relatively the factors of autarchy, superstition, lag, blindness are distinct in the medieval former stage and the factors of democracy, science, civilization, progress are distinct in the medieval later stage. However, the former factors forced the later factors appearing. The later factors were essential cultural genes for Renaissancebeginning. So we can’t negate medieval theology absolutely, but value its important history value.Philosophy in the Middle Ages:When many people talking of medieval philosophy, people will think it was as dark as the political, economical and cultural background in the stage. Idealist Hegel said that let’s put on boots and span the time in his book “lectures on the History of Philosophy”. So it is not difficult to see that people denied the philosophy of that time absolutely. They thought that philosophy was just the slave or the maid of theology. At that time, there was no true philosophy. Theology occupied central position. It just was an instrument to research theology and it existed for proving the correction of theology. There was only scholasticism at that date for the purpose of discussing Bible. Actually we can see the innocence, blindness, despotism and bias in scholasticism.But scholasticism used reason to demonstrate religion. The rational theologhy of Tomas Aquinas and other medieval theologians, scholastic philosophers planted seeds for modern rationalism. It strengthened people’s ratiocination. The relationship between reason and religion was the most basal question of scholasticism. If there was no reason or belief, we can’t the philosophy as scholasticism. We should use new eyesight to evaluate medieval philosophy and correct traditional understanding for religion. It will be useful to solve the problems of reason excess, belief losing and values missing. So we should know about the bad sides about the medieval philosophy, at the same time taking more attention to its good sides .it may bring us much inspiration for our modern lives.The arts in the Middle Ages:In the culture of the Middle Ages, Christianity which took the most important position decided the social style and social ideology of that time. The arts inevitably hold strong color of religion. It acts as a role of the spokesman of god and church. So someone call the European medieval arts as church arts. But the medieval arts are also colorful. It is the combining of several kinds of culture and it settle basis for the development of European culture. Christianity originated from Middle East. When it was established in Europe as a kind of cultural modality, it brought much eastern cultural character here. At the same time, the Rome couldn’t abandon its deep-rooted traditional culture of old Greece and Rome when it received the Christian culture. The inosculating and change of the two cultures went through a long time, especial in architecture, carving and painting. After Christianity was established at the coast of Mediterranean Sea, it continually developed westwards and absorbed local elements. At last, it formed “aggressive art”and produced some new modes. Until 10th, it formed relatively unified artistic style of Christianity. So we can’t simply treat the medieval arts as the religious arts, but as the Christian arts consisting of eastern culture, Grecian and Roman traditional culture and aggressive culture.The Middle Ages has got further and further, but the history left us much colorful heritage. The religious holy aura has faded away from the medieval sky and the arts have stepped down the unattainable altar. It has become a feast that the mass can taste. Let alone the value of the arts of that period, no matter it was great or insignificant, whether it was glorious or clumsy, for the trend of arts is not only about arts itself. It was connected with many relations. We just need to appreciate it carefully and sense the deep and influential property of arts, or maybe we can experience some spirit and inspiration of arts.Conclusion: The culture of Middle Ages is an indispensable and important part of the European culture and literature. From the realization of human beings, it is a great improvement and development of the realization of human beings. From the spiritual development of Western cultures, it is a great historical progress to express human beings themselves range from opposite to nature to opposite to God. From the meaning of social development, it is the time in which the upper construction of feudalism replaced the culture of slave society. The culture of M iddle Ages is superficially dark, but the very “darkness” indicates the coming of the dawn. It is the culture of Middle Ages of Europe that laid the new foundation of the later European culture, and then the modern invitation came into being. In brief, we cannot deny the whole culture of Middle Ages; we should observe it according to the real situation. It is no use debate about the culture of Middle Ages theoretically; we should combine it with practical use to guide the contemporary cultural development.Reference documents：[1]薛永武《试论中世纪文化及其本质特征》[M]北京：学苑出版社，2003年[2]刘建军《欧洲中世纪文化与文学评述》[J]北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2000年[3]王佐良European Culture: An Introduction[J]北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1992年。
