Chapter 37

On the Middle Ages

I n his characterization of the medieval spirit, Friedrich Schlegel sees

the negative moment of this epoch in the reigning unconditional
orientation toward the absolute, which makes itself felt in art as man-
nered imagination, in the philosophy and theology of scholasticism as
a no less mannered rationalism.' This characterization is further de-
veloped through the contrast with the Asiatic orientation of spirit. 'The
Asiatic spirit is likewise distinguished, in philosophy and religion, by
an unrestrained immersion in the absolute. Nevertheless, an abyss
separates it from the medieval spirit. The greatest of its forms are any-
thing but mannered. Its innermost difference from the spirit of the
Middle Ages resides in the fact that the absolute, out of which it un-
folds the language of its forms, is present to it as the most powerful
content. The spirit of the Orient has at its disposal the real contents of
the absolute, something already indicated in the unity of religion, phi-
losophy, and art, and, above all, in the unity of religion and life. It is
often said that in the Middle Ages life was governed by-religion. But,
in the first place, the governing power was the ecclesia, and, in the
second, between the governing principle and the principle of the gov-
erned there is always a divide. What is above all characteristic of the
spirit of the Middle Ages is precisely the fact that, as its tendency to-
 On the Middle Ages 239

ward the absolute becomes more radical, this tendency becomes more
formal. The gigantic mythological legacy of antiquity is not yet lost,
but the measure of its real foundation is lacking, and there remain
only impressions of its power: Solomon's ring, the philosophers' stone,
the Sibylline Books.' Alive in the Middle Ages is the formal idea of
mythology-e-that 'which confers power, the magical. But this power
can no longer be legitimate: 'the Church has abolished the feudal
lords-the gods-who conferred it. Here, then, is an origin of the for-
malistic spirit of tne epoch. aims to achieve indirectly over a
nature purged of gods; it practices magic without a mythological
foundation. There emerges amagical schematism. We compare
the magical practices ofantiquity with those of.the Middle Ages in
area of chemistry: the ancient magic utilizes the substances, 'If nature
for potions and unctions that have a specific relation to the mythologi-
cal realm of nature. The alchemist seeks-through magical means, to
be sure-but what? Gold. The situation of art is analogous. Art origi-
nates, with ornament, in the mythic. The Asiatic ornament is saturated
with mythology, whereas the Gothic ornament has become rational-
magical; it works-but on men, not on ·goas. The sublime must-appear
as the high and the highest; the Gothic presents the methanicafquin-
tessence of the sublime-the high, the slender, the potentially 'infinite
sublime.Progress is automatic. The same profoundexte..rnality, empty
of gods full ofyearning. is found agaiI?- in the style 6,r tq,e
German Early Renaissance and The mannered quality of
this fantastic art derives from its formalism. Where formalism would
secure .ss to . . the absolute, the latter in a certain sense becomes
smaller in scale, and just as the development of the Gothic style was
possible only within the oppressively constricted spaces of medieval
towns, so-also could it arise only'on the basis of a view of the world
which, hi conformity with its absolute scale of magnitude, is certainly
more circumscribed than that of antiquitg'as it is more circumscribed
than that of today. At the height of the Middle Ages, the ancient view
of the world was in large measure finally forgotten, and, in the dimin-
ished world [dieser,verkleinerten Welt] that remained, there was born
the scholastic rationalism and the self-consuming yearning of the
Gothic.
 240 EARLY WRITINGS

Notes

"Uber das Mittelalter" (GS2, 132-133) was written ca. summer 1916and pub-
lished posthumously.

1. Friedrich vprt Schlegel (1772-1829) was a leading early German

Romanticism. He was the author of the fragmentary novel Lucinde (1799);
editor of the periodical Athenaeum (1798-18PO), in which he published his
philosoppical and critical aphorisms and his die Pqesie" <pi-
1
alogue on Poetry): and in his.later years he lectured widely on ancient, medi-
eval, and modern history. In a letter of July 2, 1916, to Ger-
shorn Scholem, tnat he' is reading Friedrich Schlegel's
1828 lectures on the philosophy of history (GB1, 324). The manuscript of
Benjamin's short essay on the Middle Ages exists only in the form of a copy
made by Scholem, who dates it "summer 1916.»
2. Solomon's ring, in medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Christian legend, was
a magical signet ring engraved with the name" of God and said to have been
possessed by King Solomon.zo whom it gave the power to command demons
and speak with animals. The philosophers' stone, in medieval alchemy, was a
substance that was believed to have the power of transmuting base metals
into gold; also called tpe, elixir life. The Sibylline Books were
nally collection qf Greek oracles which r'ere uttered by prophet-
esses as sibyls, and which kept a temple of an,cient Rome to be
consulted at times of crisi:; the Middle Ages had access to a iext by this name
was actually a pastiche ofpagan mythology produced anprlymously
Jewish, Christian, and Gnosticauthors from the second to the fifth century
.,
A.D. .
3. Early Renaissance art in Germany, exemplified by painters of the Co-
logne School like Wilhelm von Herle "(who died in 1378) and Stephan Loch-
ner (ca... 1400-1451), was dominated by.a version of the International Gothic,
a lyrical "soft style» involving the deployment ofgraceful,.. slender figures in a
stagelike architectural setting. The paintings of the Florentine master Sandro
Botticelli (1445-1512), such as the.famous Primavera (sa. -1482) aAP"Birth of
Venus (ca. 1485), are likewise distinguished by low relief and gracefullyposed
figures.