During the European Middle Ages,
there was a coexistence of monarchical, aristocratic and democratic principles
in all political elements. Democratic codetermination existed predominantly
in the cities, which usually had an aristocratic constitution. Tradesmen
and their associations (guilds) entered into fierce disputes with the
patricians, who were mostly businessmen, for control of the city. The unpropertied
classes, however, remained politically powerless.
Based on the principle that
freedom existed in the cities ("city air means freedom") and that
local administration had the well being of the community at heart, an awareness
was created among the middle classes which was different in both its self-image and
in its legal status to that of the dependent "subjects" system that had
gone before under the absolute monarchy.
[Hans-Helmuth Knütter, taken from: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung: Demokratie, Informationen zur
politischen Bildung Nr. 165, Neudruck 1992]
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Problems associated
with the term "Middle Ages"
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The principal of grammar, Christoph Cellarius (1634-1707)
published his compendium of old history twice: The first issue (1675) went
right back to the birth of Christ, the second issue (1685) went back to Constantine. Initially Cellarius
divided periods of world history according to the history of salvation as
developed by early Christian writers such as St Augustine or St Ambrose and
which became authoritative during the "Middle Ages". Indeed this
system led to the practice of indicating a date according to a specified number of years
"anno Domini - after Christ" as calculated by Dionysius Exiguus
around 525 and which still prevails today. In 1685, however, Cellarius divided history
according to the humanistic understanding of history into the periods of Ancient World, Middle Ages and the modern age and projected it - the first
universal historical generalization - onto the history of cities. He
described (1688) the period between Constantine and the conquering of
Constantinople as the "barbaric centuries", medium aevum. He
followed this (1693) with his presentation of the historia nova. With
this profane division of world history into different ages, Cellarius had a
profound impact on the writing of history. His three subdivisions had been
accepted with more success than justification. Indeed, this division of history
into three parts failed to deal with the three territorial and cultural zones that followed the
Ancient Greek Mediterranean world namely the Greek-Byzantine, the
Islamic-Arabian and the Latin-Frankish. Indeed, his subdivisions were only
applicable to the latter, the first had no "modern" age and the second had not experienced the "Ancient"
period. Therefore the middle subdivision can hardly make up the "Middle Age"
of these two periods. The term
Middle Ages, then, is anything other than clear-cut and vaguely describes the
most extensive and roughly calculated millennium since the end of the Roman
Empire for which many lines could be drawn.
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As far as they were concerned,
each of these successive cultures calculated the history of salvation in religious
eras during these historically profane determined Middle Ages with regard to its
end: Byzantine calculated the year of the world's creation and the rule of the
respective emperors, meaning the rule of God and His representatives; the West
calculated the duration of the new alliance as being the middle period between
the incarnation of man and the return of Christ; Islam calculated the year of creation
of the political and religious community of Muslims, which began with the
emigration (hedschra) of the prophets to Medina. Regardless of culture, the history
of salvation's interpretation determines historical existence and therefore
makes up the binding framework for both political action and thinking. Thus,
political practice and theory is "at the end of the day" related to
religion. Religion gives politics its most prestigious task according to the
history of salvation: The protection and spreading of the true faith. To this
end political unions are also religious unions, which, while they may tolerate
different faiths, cannot let them rule. And, conversely, politics followed the
monotheistic religions' missionary aims (comp. Matthew. 28,19; Koran 34,27)
through the idea of monarchical world domination as a reality or fiction.
However, the Byzantine, Islamic and Latin cultures did not draw the same
conclusion from these theological premises of politics.
[Dieter Mertens; taken from: Hans Fenske u.a., Geschichte
der politischen Ideen. Von Homer bis zur Gegenwart, Frankfurt/Main 1987]
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