A reader writes (with several updates below):
As a medievalist, I should point out that, when Jonathan Franzen writes, “If I had been born in 1159, when the world was steadier,” he has no idea what he is talking about.
Being born in 1159 would have put Franzen in the center of the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century. The cathedral schools had by then replaced the old-fashioned monastic schools, introducing a far more secular and rationalistic way of thinking than Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. Translations from Greek and Arabic texts were making scientific and philosophical texts accessible, which were in turn fostering the development of scholasticism and the rationalization of Christian theology. The University of Paris had just been founded, introducing an institutionalization of higher learning that we continue to live with today. With Gothic cathedrals replacing Romanesque cathedrals; polyphonic music replacing monophonic music; romances replacing epic literature; and guilds, fairs, and new trade routes transforming economic life, virtually every aspect of culture was different than it had been a generation, let alone two or three generations, earlier.
We are the first people to feel that “Any connection to the key values of the past has been lost”? What about all of the twelfth-century intellectuals who referred to themselves as “moderni,” in contrast to the “antiqui” who came before them? Franzen may be right to claim that, “As long as modernity lasts, all days will feel to someone like the last days of humanity,” but he would do well to recognize that the “moderni” of the twelfth century – who knew the Book of Revelations really well – would have shared this view.
I’m not sure whether Franzen is ignorant of medieval history or just using the Middle Ages as a heuristic device – an allegedly dull, monolithic, unchanging time period against which to contrast our allegedly fascinating, diverse, and dynamic era. But how would it change his argument if he recognized that culture has always been in a process of change and that it has gone through many periods of very rapid and disorienting change?
Update from a reader:
I’d like to point out to the condescending mediaevalist “has no idea what he’s talking about.” Franzen’s a Scandinavian name. Being born in today’s Sweden in 1159 means there’s a very decent chance Franzen wouldn’t even have been Christian, let alone affected by cathedral vs. monastic schooling or the rationalization of Christian theology. And of course, if he were born in the Slavic half of Europe, it would definitely have meant being part of what was effectively a “dull, monolithic, unchanging time period.” I know it’s hard for many to admit, but Europe does in fact mean more than England, France, Italy, and Germany.
Another keeps the academic debate going:
Having just finished my early Russian history class for the morning, I can assure your reader that 1159 was no more “dull, monolithic, and unchanging” for eastern Slavs than it was for other Europeans. The central town Kiev was losing economic and political power and in fact would be sacked – by a Russian prince – in ten years. New Russian powers were rising to the west in Volhynia and north in forested Vladimir. To the east Turkic, mostly pagan nomads were both raiding villages and marrying into the local elites, creating a highly mixed population of people who were both Slavic and Christian yet closely related to Turks. The monks who wrote the chronicles hated all of this.
And another:
It may be that the person writing in about medieval Scandinavia is just trying to make a point about the vibrant, diverse communities in medieval Europe and that a single narrative doesn’t fit every nationality. If so, I agree with the spirit of it. However, this correction seems to be misapplied to what Franzen is saying and also is just not very historically informed. Franzen’s own presentation of the medieval as something static and unchanging clearly assumes a single experience of medieval life. But the comment is also blissfully unaware of the actual history of the region in question. By 1159 Iceland, Denmark, and Norway had been pretty thoroughly Christianized for well over a century, and Sweden did the same during the 12th century. There were certainly pagans around in Scandinavia at the time, but the upper classes would all have been thoroughly Christian for political, if not religious reasons. Scandinavia of the twelfth century was also rocked by a large number of civil wars, and a significant number of monasteries and convents were founded in the period. It was a time of change, and just because the changes occurring were not the same as those in France and other places doesn’t mean that it fits Franzen’s narrative. Even if Franzen were imagining himself in medieval Scandinavia, which hardly seems a certain proposition, he would not find it the refuge of stability he imagines.
By the way, I love this discussion, and I would love to see medievalists with knowledge of other places write in. You’d be hard-pressed to find a time and place in medieval Europe that is as stable as modern people imagine it to be.
The Dish 