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Urbanitas-Rusticitas: Linguistic Aspects of a Medieval Dichotomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Michael Richter
Michael Richter*
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
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Extract

Christian teaching places man’s origin in paradise, a rural setting, and the end of mankind in the celestial city of Jerusalem. Thus both town and country have potentially positive connotations to the believer. Yet just as the angel could fall to become satan, so town and country could acquire evil reputations, depending on the behaviour of human beings in these settings (after all, the fall of man took place in paradise).

Christian writings draw in many respects on human experience, including the setting of man in society. At times in history town and country were experienced as different settings of life. Certainly there existed a notion of a superiority of urban over rural existence in classical Greek times; in contrast, Roman civilisation was more geared towards rural life. Both Hellenic and Roman thought contributed a great deal to the shaping of early Christianity. I am concerned here primarily with medieval attitudes towards town and country, but it is a fact that these were, partly at least, based on earlier tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 16: The Church in Town and Countryside , 1979 , pp. 149 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979

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References

1 CC 46 (1969) pp 121-78. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (where civitas equals ‘society’) requires separate analysis, see Etienne, Gilson, ‘Église et Cité de Dieu chez St Augustin’, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen-Age, 20 (Paris 1954) pp 5–23 Google Scholar with further references.

2 PL 77 (1896) cols 13-149.

3 MGH Epp 6 (1925) p 167 lines 34-5; p 168 Unes 27-9. The medieval attitudes towards Latin and the vernacular languages respectively deserve a full investigation.

4 Gesta Friderici Imperatoris bk 2 cap 13, MGH SRG 46 (1912) p 116.

5 PL 207 (1904) col 314.

6 Historia Rerum Anglicarum, ed Howlett, R. RS 82.1 (1884) pp 132 Google Scholar seq.

7 PL 210 (1855) cols 200-1.

8 Ibid col 123.

9 PL 82 (1830) col 348.

10 ibid col 536.

11 See Carlo, Battisti, ‘La terminologia urbana nel Latino dell’ alto medioevo con particolare riguarda all’Italia’, La Città nell’Alto Medioevo, SS Spoleto 6 (1959) pp 647-77Google Scholar.

12 Here the concept of nature will have to be further analysed. Compare Bernard of Clairvaux, Opera 4 (Rome 1969) p 172 Google ScholarPubMed: In hoc igitur ove duo reperies, naturam dulcem, naturarti bonam, et bonam valde, tanquam butyrum et peccati corruptionem, ut caseum; again p 173: Virgo flos campi est, et non horti.

13 Compare the statement by Salvian that malos esse servos ac detestabiles satis certum est, quoted in Le Goff, J., ‘Les paysans et le monde rural dans la littérature du haut moyen-âge (V-VI siècles),’ Agricoltura e mondo rurale in Occidente nell’Alto Medioevo, SS Spoleto 13 (1966) pp 723-41Google Scholar.

14 A revealing statement from the late thirteenth-century treatise ‘De commendatione cleri’ runs: Qui facultatem deridet artium aut rusticus est quia litteras non novit aut uterum detestatur in quo formatus est, Vat MS Pal Lat 1252 fol 104v.

15 Compare ‘De Disciplina Christiana’ 6, 6, CC 46 (1969) p 213 : Totum enim quidquid homines possident in terra, omnia quorum domini sunt, pecunia vocatur. Servus sit, vas, ager, arbor, pecus; quidquid horum est, pecunia dicitur. Et unde sit primum vocata pecunia. Ideo pecunia, quia antiqui totum quod habebant, in pecoribus habebant. A pecore pecunia vocatur. Legimus antiquos patres divites fuisse pastores. On the rural background of the Latin language see Marouzeau, J., Lexique de la terminologie linguistique (2 ed Paris 1943)Google Scholar.

16 PL 82 col 314.

17 So Orosius, , Historia, prologue 1, 9 Google Scholar, quoted by Christine, Mohrmann, ‘Encore une fois: paganus’, Vigiline Christianae 6 (1952) pp 109-21Google Scholar; compare also Michel, Roblin, ‘Paganisme et rusticité’, Annales 8 (1953) pp 173-83Google Scholar; [Ilona], Opelt, [Griechische und lateinische Bezeichnungen der Nichtchristen. Ein terminologischer Versuch’], Vigiliae Christianae 19 (1965) pp 1–22 Google Scholar. An alternative to paganus is the most common new testament term gentilis, which is used in the non-urbanised early medieval Irish society.

18 The new testament term closest to Augustine’s civitas to designate the non-Christian is ol Ιξω compare Opelt p 11.

19 Compare most recently Topografia urbana e vita cittadina nell’ Alto Medioevo in Occidente, SS Spoleto 21 (1974); Vor- und Frühformen der europäischen Stadt im Mittelalter, ed Walter, Schlesinger and Heiko, Stever, 2 vols (2 ed Göttingen 1975)Google Scholar; Susan, Reynolds, An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (Oxford 1977)Google Scholar.