Quotes About Medieval

I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular novel.

The Islamic State is using medieval tactics.

Historians can set up all the conceptual walls they want, but they should not be surprised when medieval people pass through them freely, like ghosts. Nonetheless,

There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.

It is kind of dungeon-esque," I murmured to her. "Who uses stone this dark for a wine cellar? I'd expect something more Tuscan.

Shortly afterwards, at Cambridge, he noticed a medieval crumhorn hanging on the wall at a friend's digs and began to seek out – and teach himself to play – examples of every type of instrument that time had consigned to oblivion: crumhorns, sackbuts, sorduns, shawms, rebecs, tabors, viols, citole, organetto, racketts and chalumeaux, and all the senior and junior members of the recorder family.

On 1970's The Lady and the Unicorn he applied his filigree technique to a procession of courtly dance tunes from across medieval Europe, including an old English tune, 'Trotto', and an Italian one, 'Saltarello', given a folk-drone feel by Renbourn's use of an unusual tuning and double-tracked with a sitar.

He continued to dip into pavans, galliards and other sounds of the Middle Ages on records like The Hermit (1976), The Enchanted Garden (1980) and The Nine Maidens (1985).

mythology describes the hero's battle with his internal self as the encounter with the dragon, and modern man has no fewer dragon battles than did his medieval counterpart

Which column implies the medieval Aristotelian metaphysics (the essence theory) and which implies modern neurology and psychology (perception as the judgmental ACT of a perceiver)?

Would you regard it as a monstrous satirical exaggeration on my part or a mere statement of anthropological fact, if I assert that art criticism is the only place in the modern world, outside the Vatican, where medieval metaphysics (the Aristotelian absolute is) still flourishes?

Your ultimatum didn't sit well with me, so naturally, I voiced my opinion." "Which was?" "That you should go copulate with a pig. It sounded way cooler in medieval French.

All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she increases the store of human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is meaningful because he fights to defend his homeland, and the entrepreneur who finds meaning in building a new company are no less delusional than their medieval counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, going on a crusade or building a new cathedral.

So our medieval ancestors were happy because they found meaning to life in collective delusions about the afterlife? Yes. As long as nobody punctured their fantasies, why shouldn't they?

In medieval Europe, logic, grammar and rhetoric formed the educational core, while the teaching of mathematics seldom went beyond simple arithmetic and geometry. Nobody studied statistics. The undisputed monarch of all sciences was theology.

If a lost time traveller popped up in a medieval village and asked a passerby, 'What year is this?' the villager would be as bewildered by the question as by the stranger's ridiculous clothing.

Turning in his saddle, Theobald looked at the servants behind them. "We ride on through. If any man reaches for you, kill him." Then without so much as a by-your-leave, he leaned over and snatched Johanna's reins from her grasp, and spurred his horse into motion. As her palfrey complacently followed where he led, Johanna turned her gaze downward to glare at the saddletree and indulged herself in hatred—for him, for his master, but mostly for this

Dennis: Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

Renaissance painters saw everything from one perspective, photographically, "realistically," but medieval painters looked at a scene from several different perspectives at once. A medieval picture looked at with this in mind becomes very exciting indeed. It is as if the artist is everywhere at once: the castle is tiny as if seen from afar; the men on its battlements huge as if encountered face to face; this lake is seen from that distance and that tree from this.

It had a tapestry on the wall that showed a king spearing someone's idea of a lion.

Was everyone nuts in medieval times? Doubtful. But their imaginations were more active. Their inner lives were rich and weird.

Think about medieval times, Danny, like when this castle was built. People were constantly seeing ghosts, having visions—they thought Christ was sitting with them at the dinner table, they thought angels and devils were flying around. We don't see those things anymore. Why? Was all that stuff happening before and then it stopped? Unlikely. Was everyone nuts in medieval times? Doubtful. But their imaginations were more active. Their inner lives were rich and weird.

One Corpse Too Many