Western European civilization in the Middle Ages briefly. ancient civilizations

General characteristics of the Western European Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

Classical Middle Ages

Late Middle Ages

Term "middle Ages" was first used by Italian humanists in the 15th century. to refer to the period between classical antiquity and their time. In Russian historiography, the lower boundary of the Middle Ages is also traditionally considered to be the 5th century. AD - the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the upper one - in the 17th century, when a bourgeois revolution took place in England.

The period of the Middle Ages is extremely important for Western European civilization: the processes and events of that time still often determine the nature of the political, economic, and cultural development of the countries of Western Europe. So, it was during this period that the religious community of Europe was formed and a new trend in Christianity emerged, which was most conducive to the formation of bourgeois relations, Protestantism, an urban culture is taking shape, which largely determined the modern mass Western European culture; the first parliaments arise and the principle of separation of powers is put into practice; the foundations of modern science and the education system are being laid; the ground is being prepared for the industrial revolution and the transition to an industrial society.

Three stages can be distinguished in the development of Western European medieval society:

Early Middle Ages (V-X centuries) - the process of folding the main structures characteristic of the Middle Ages is underway;

Classical Middle Ages (XI-XV centuries) - the time of maximum development of medieval feudal institutions;

Late Middle Ages (XV-XVII centuries) - a new capitalist society begins to form. This division is largely arbitrary, although generally accepted; depending on the stage, the main characteristics of Western European society change. Before considering the features of each stage, we highlight the most important features inherent in the entire period of the Middle Ages.

5.1. General characteristics of Western European
Middle Ages (V-XVII centuries)

The medieval society of Western Europe was agrarian. The basis of the economy is agriculture, and the vast majority of the population was employed in this area. Labor in agriculture, as well as in other sectors of production, was manual, which predetermined its low efficiency and slow overall rates of technical and economic evolution.

The vast majority of the population of Western Europe throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages lived outside the city. If cities were very important for ancient Europe - they were independent centers of life, the nature of which was predominantly municipal, and a person’s belonging to a city determined his civil rights, then in Medieval Europe, especially in the first seven centuries, the role of cities was insignificant, although over time time, the influence of cities is increasing.

The Western European Middle Ages is a period of dominance of natural economy and weak development of commodity-money relations. The insignificant level of specialization of the regions associated with this type of economy determined the development of mainly long-distance (foreign) rather than near (internal) trade. Long-distance trade was focused mainly on the upper strata of society. Industry during this period existed in the form of handicrafts and manufactory.

The era of the Middle Ages is characterized by an exceptionally strong role of the church and a high degree of ideologization of society.

If in the ancient world each nation had its own religion, which reflected its national characteristics, history, temperament, way of thinking, then in medieval Europe there is one religion for all peoples - Christianity, which became the basis for the unification of Europeans into one family, the formation of a single European civilization.

The process of pan-European integration was contradictory: along with rapprochement in the field of culture and religion, there is a desire for national isolation in terms of the development of statehood. The Middle Ages is the time of the formation of national states that exist in the form of monarchies, both absolute and class-representative. The peculiarities of political power were its fragmentation, as well as its connection with conditional ownership of land. If in ancient Europe the right to own land was determined for a free person by his nationality - the fact of his birth in a given policy and the civil rights arising from this, then in medieval Europe the right to land depended on the person's belonging to a certain estate. Medieval society - class. There were three main estates: the nobility, the clergy and the people (peasants, artisans, merchants were united under this concept). Estates had different rights and obligations, played different socio-political and economic roles.

Vassal system. The most important characteristic of medieval Western European society was its hierarchical structure, vassalage system. At the head of the feudal hierarchy was king - supreme overlord and often only a nominal head of state. This conditionality of the absolute power of the highest person in the states of Western Europe is also an essential feature of Western European society, in contrast to the truly absolute monarchies of the East. Even in Spain (where the power of royal power was quite palpable), when introducing a king to the position of a grandee, in accordance with the established ritual, they uttered the following words: “We, who are no worse than you, make you, who are no better than us, a king in order to you respected and defended our rights. And if not, then no.” Thus, the king in medieval Europe is only a “first among equals”, and not an omnipotent despot. It is characteristic that the king, occupying the first step of the hierarchical ladder in his state, could well be a vassal of another king or the pope.

On the second rung of the feudal ladder were the direct vassals of the king. These were big feudal lords dukes, counts; archbishops, bishops, abbots. By immunity letter, received from the king, they had various types of immunity (from lat. - immunity). The most common types of immunity were tax, judicial and administrative, i.e. the owners of immunity certificates themselves collected taxes from their peasants and townspeople, ruled the court, and made administrative decisions. Feudal lords of this level could themselves mint their own coin, which often had circulation not only within the boundaries of the given estate, but also outside it. The subordination of such feudal lords to the king was often merely formal.

On the third step of the feudal ladder stood the vassals of dukes, counts, bishops - barons. They enjoyed virtual immunity on their estates. Even lower were the vassals of the barons - knights. Some of them could also have their own vassals, even smaller knights, while others had only peasants who, however, stood outside the feudal ladder, were subordinate.

The system of vassalage was based on the practice of land grants. The person who received the land became vassal, who gave it, senior. The land was given under certain conditions, the most important of which was service for the seigneur, usually 40 days a year according to feudal custom. The most important duties of a vassal in relation to his lord were participation in the lord's army, protection of his possessions, honor, dignity, participation in his council. If necessary, the vassals redeemed the lord from captivity.

When receiving land, the vassal took an oath of allegiance to his master. If the vassal did not fulfill his obligations, the lord could take away his land, but it was not so easy to do this, since the feudal vassal was inclined to defend his recent property with weapons in his hands. In general, despite the seemingly clear order that the well-known formula described: “my vassal’s vassal is not my vassal,” the vassalage system was rather complicated, and a vassal could simultaneously have several seniors.

Morals, customs. Another fundamental characteristic of Western European medieval society, and perhaps the most important, was a certain mentality of people, the nature of the social worldview, and the everyday way of life rigidly connected with it. The most essential features of medieval culture were the constant and sharp contrasts between wealth and poverty, noble birth and homelessness - everything was put on display. The society was visual in its everyday life, it was convenient to navigate in it: for example, even by clothes it was easy to determine the belonging of any person to a class, rank and professional circle. A feature of that society was a great many restrictions and conventions, but the one who could "read" them knew their code, received important additional information about the reality surrounding him. So, each color in clothes had its own purpose: blue was interpreted as the color of fidelity, green - as the color of new love, yellow - as the color of hostility. Combinations of colors, like the styles of hats, bonnets, dresses, conveyed the inner mood of a person, his attitude to the world, seemed exceptionally informative then to the Western European. So, symbolism is an important characteristic of the culture of Western European medieval society.

The emotional life of society was also contrasting, since, as contemporaries themselves testified, the soul of a medieval inhabitant of Western Europe was unbridled and passionate. The parishioners in the church could cry for hours to pray, then they got tired of it, and they started dancing here, in the temple, saying to the saint, in front of whose image they had just kneeled: “now you pray for us, and we will dance.”

This society was often cruel to many. Executions were commonplace, and in relation to the criminals there was no middle ground - they were either executed or forgiven altogether. The idea that criminals can be re-educated was not allowed. Executions have always been organized as a special moralizing spectacle for the public, and terrible and painful punishments were invented for terrible atrocities. For many ordinary people, executions served as entertainment, and medieval authors noted that the people, as a rule, tried to delay the finale, enjoying the spectacle of torture; the usual thing on such occasions was "the animal, stupid merriment of the crowd".

Other frequent character traits of a medieval inhabitant of Western Europe were irascibility, greed, quarrelsomeness, vindictiveness. These qualities were combined with a constant readiness for tears: sobs were considered noble and beautiful, and elevating everyone - both children and adults, and men and women.

The Middle Ages is the time of preachers who preached, moving from place to place, exciting people with their eloquence, greatly influencing public moods. So, brother Richard, who went down in history, who lived in France at the beginning of the 15th century, enjoyed tremendous popularity and love. Once he preached in Paris at the cemetery of innocent babies for 10 days from 5 am to 11 pm. Huge crowds of people listened to him, the impact of his speeches was powerful and fast: many immediately threw themselves to the ground and repented of their sins, many made vows to start a new life. When Richard announced that he was finishing the last sermon and had to move on, many people left their homes and families to follow him.

Preachers, of course, contributed to the creation of a unified European society.

An important characteristic of society was the general state of collective morals, social mood: this was expressed in society's fatigue, fear of life, and a sense of fear of fate. Indicative was the lack of firm will and desire in society to change the world for the better. Fear of life will give way to hope, courage and optimism only in the 17th-18th centuries. – and it is no coincidence that from that time on a new period in human history will begin, an essential feature of which will be the desire of Western Europeans to positively transform the world. The praise of life and an active attitude towards it did not appear suddenly and not from scratch: the possibility of these changes would gradually mature within the framework of feudal society throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages. From stage to stage Western European society will become more energetic and enterprising; slowly but steadily the entire system of public institutions, economic, political, social, cultural, and psychological, will change. Let us trace the features of this process by periods.

5.2. Early Middle Ages (V - X centuries)

The formation of feudal relations. In the period of the early Middle Ages, the beginning of the formation of medieval society, the territory on which education takes place is significantly expanding Western European civilization: if the basis of ancient civilization was Ancient Greece and Rome, then medieval civilization covers almost all of Europe.

The most important process in the early Middle Ages in the socio-economic sphere was the formation of feudal relations, the core of which was the formation of feudal land ownership. This happened in two ways. The first way is through the peasant community. The allotment of land owned by a peasant family was inherited from father to son (and from the 6th century to daughter) and was their property. So gradually formed allod - freely alienable land property of communal peasants. Allod accelerated the stratification of property among free peasants: the lands began to be concentrated in the hands of the communal elite, which already acts as part of the feudal class. Thus, this was the way of forming the patrimonial-allodial form of feudal ownership of land, which was especially characteristic of the Germanic tribes.

The second way in which feudal land ownership and, consequently, the entire feudal system was formed, was the practice of land grants by the king or other large feudal landowners to their entourage. First a piece of land (benefits) was given to a vassal only on condition of service and for the duration of his service, and the lord retained the supreme rights to benefices. Gradually, the rights of vassals to the lands granted to them expanded, as the sons of many vassals continued to serve their father's lord. In addition, purely psychological reasons were also important: the nature of the relationship that developed between the seigneur and the vassal. As contemporaries testify, vassals, as a rule, were faithful and devoted to their master.

Loyalty was valued dearly, and benefices increasingly became the almost complete property of vassals, passing from father to son. The land that was inherited was called linen, or fief, feudal owner feudal lord, and the whole system of these socio-economic relations - feudalism.

Benefitsia becomes a feud by the IXXI centuries. This path of the formation of feudal relations is clearly seen in the example of the Frankish state, which took shape already in the 6th century.

Classes of early feudal society. In the Middle Ages, two main classes of feudal society were also formed: feudal lords, spiritual and secular - land owners and peasants - land holders. Among the peasants there were two groups, differing in their economic and social status. Personally free peasants could, at will, leave the owner, abandon their land holdings: rent them out or sell them to another peasant. Having freedom of movement, they often moved to cities or to new places. They paid fixed taxes in kind and in cash and performed certain work in the household of their master. Another group- personally dependent peasants. Their duties were wider, moreover (and this is the most important difference) they were not fixed, so that personally dependent peasants were subjected to arbitrary taxation. They also carried a number of specific taxes: posthumous - upon entering into an inheritance, marriage - redemption of the right of the first night, etc. These peasants did not enjoy freedom of movement. By the end of the first period of the Middle Ages, all peasants (both personally dependent and personally free) have a master, feudal law did not recognize simply free, independent people, trying to build social relations according to the principle: "There is no man without a master."

The state of the economy. During the formation of medieval society, the pace of development was slow. Although three-field instead of two-field was already fully established in agriculture, the yield was low: on average, it was 3. They kept mostly small livestock - goats, sheep, pigs, and there were few horses and cows. The level of specialization of agriculture was low. Each estate had almost all the branches of the economy that were vital from the point of view of Western Europeans: field crops, cattle breeding, and various crafts. The economy was natural, and agricultural products were not specially produced for the market; the craft also existed in the form of work to order. The domestic market was thus very limited.

Ethnic processes and feudal fragmentation.AT This period is the resettlement of Germanic tribes across the territory of Western Europe: the cultural, economic, religious, and later political community of Western Europe will be based largely on the ethnic community of Western European peoples. So, as a result of the successful conquests of the leader of the Franks Charlemagne in 800 a vast empire was created - the Frankish state. However, large territorial formations were not stable then, and shortly after the death of Charles, his empire fell apart.

By the X-XI centuries. feudal fragmentation is established in Western Europe. Kings retained real power only within their own domains. Formally, the king's vassals were obliged to perform military service, pay him a monetary contribution upon entering into an inheritance, and also obey the decisions of the king as the supreme arbiter in interfeudal disputes. In fact, the fulfillment of all these obligations in the IX-X centuries. almost entirely dependent on the will of powerful feudal lords. The strengthening of their power led to feudal strife.

Christianity. Despite the fact that in Europe the process of creating nation-states begins, their borders constantly changed; the states either merged into larger state associations, or were split into smaller ones. This political mobility also contributed to the formation of a pan-European civilization.

The most important factor in the creation of a united Europe was Christianity, which gradually spread in all European countries, becoming the state religion.

Christianity determined the cultural life of early medieval Europe, influencing the system, nature and quality of education and upbringing. The quality of education affected the level of economic development. During this period, the level of economic development was the highest in Italy. Here, earlier than in other countries, medieval cities - Venice, Genoa, Florence, Milan - develop as centers of crafts and trade, and not strongholds of the nobility. Here, foreign trade relations are growing faster, domestic trade is developing, and regular fairs are appearing. The volume of credit transactions is increasing. Crafts reach a significant level, in particular, weaving and jewelry, as well as construction. As before, as in the period of antiquity, the citizens of the Italian cities were politically active, and this also contributed to their rapid economic and cultural progress. In other countries of Western Europe, the influence of ancient civilization also affected, but to a lesser extent than in Italy.

The childhood of Europe proceeded in the catastrophic, stormy atmosphere of the Great Migration of Nations, the clash of two completely opposite and seemingly incompatible worlds - the world of the barbarian Germanic tribes and the civilization of Rome.

Barbarism against civilization

The first acquaintance with the Germans occurred in the 1st century. BC e. Then some Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine and tried to settle in the Roman province of Gaul. But their onslaught was repulsed, and the most decisive blow was delivered by the famous commander Julius Caesar, who threw the Germans back across the Rhine. By the end of the 1st century n. e. along this river the border separating the Roman possessions from the lands of the free Germanic tribes ran. Further, to the Danube, there were border fortifications, which were called the Roman Wall.

The Germanic tribes that lived side by side with the Romans certainly absorbed Roman culture and were much more "civilized" compared to those tribes that were removed from the frontier.

Their peaceful coexistence was already violated in the II-III centuries. n. e., when the East Germanic tribes - the Goths - came into motion. Having settled in the Black Sea region, they made raids on the empire from there. In the IV century. The Great Migration of Peoples began - mass movements of Germanic and non-Germanic tribes. Under the onslaught of the Huns - nomads of Turkic or Mongolian origin, who went from east to west, Visigoths settled on the territory of the empire, in modern Bulgaria, as allies of the Romans. But already at the beginning of the 5th c. they invaded Italy, took Rome in 410, and then crossed into Gaul. There, in the area of ​​​​the modern city of Toulouse, in 418 the first barbarian kingdom was created on the territory of the Roman Empire.

At the beginning of the 5th century other Germanic tribes (Vandals, Alans and Sueves) also poured into Gaul, taking advantage of the fact that Rome was busy fighting the Visigoths. Vandals were especially dangerous. Wild and aggressive, they did not make agreements with the empire, preferring to raid and plunder new and new territories. In the 20s. 5th century the Vandals ravaged the rich seaside cities of the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and then landed in North Africa.

In addition to the Germans in the same V century. the Huns began to invade the territory of the empire, led by the famous leader Atilla, nicknamed by his contemporaries "the scourge of God."

The tribe of the Burgundians, who formerly lived on the Middle Rhine, after the victory of the Romans over the Huns, was partially resettled to Lake Geneva. There, in 457, a new Burgundian kingdom appeared, which soon expanded north and down the Rhone, towards Provence.

In this turbulent catastrophic situation, a significant event passed almost unnoticed - in 476 the last Roman emperor was deposed by barbarian mercenaries and the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist. However, this date is largely arbitrary: the Roman emperors actually lost their power much earlier.

Meanwhile, Germanic tribes continued to invade the territory of the former Western Roman Empire. Barbarian kingdoms formed one after another.

In 439 the Vandals established a kingdom in North Africa. In 486, the Franks, who had previously lived in the lower reaches of the Rhine, invaded Northern Gaul. In the VI century. The Frankish kingdom occupied lands in southern Gaul and Burgundy. From the middle of the 5th c. Germanic tribes began to actively explore Britain, fighting with the local Celtic population. As a result, by the end of the VI century. There were seven barbarian kingdoms in Britain.

The formation of barbarian kingdoms did not create an environment of stability. The new states waged constant wars among themselves, their borders were unstable, and life, as a rule, was short-lived.

So, in 488, the Ostrogoths invaded Italy, who soon overthrew the Visigoth king Odoacer and formed the vast Ostrogothic kingdom, which included Italy, Sicily, part of Pannonia and Illyria, and later Provence. But in 555 Byzantium conquered it, and then this territory was captured by another Germanic tribe - the Lombards.

This rather chaotic picture was supplemented by continuous movements across Europe of numerous Germanic, Turkic, Iranian and Slavic tribes that had not yet created their own statehood.

The waves of barbarian invasions gradually calmed down, but the situation in Western Europe remained tense for a long time. Western Europe was terrified by the raids of the warlike Normans - the Germanic peoples who inhabited the Scandinavian countries. At the end of the 7th - beginning of the 8th centuries. the young Islamic civilization launched an attack on the European world and asserted its dominance over North Africa and most of Spain.

What role did the barbarians play in the formation of a new civilization? It would seem that this question is easy to answer. The barbarians destroyed the civilization of Rome, and with it the level of civilization that had been built up over many centuries. It is no coincidence that the first centuries after the fall of the empire are called "dark".

The population suffered from the cruelty of the conquerors and hunger; the cities were empty, priceless works of art were being destroyed, trade was halting. The number of neglected, uncultivated lands grew. This is how the appearance of Western Europe at the beginning of its existence loomed: vast expanses of forests and fields with rare, isolated islands of villages.

But, despite these terrible pictures, the name "dark ages" does not explain to us everything that happened in that era when the foundation of a new civilization was laid. The degree of barbarization was not the same; much depended on which Germanic tribes invaded the territory of the Roman Empire. For example, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks lived on its borders for quite a long time and, of course, entered into contacts with the local population, assimilating some elements of civilization.

In the Ostrogothic kingdom, the Roman system of education continued to operate, and barbarians joined the ranks of students. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric patronized the arts and sciences, Roman philosophers, writers and historians worked at his court.

The Ostrogothic revival (as historians call this flowering of culture) was unique for the 5th-6th centuries. and not too long-term phenomenon.

Otherwise, the fruits of civilization included those barbarians who had no experience of communicating with the Romans. The Lombards, who conquered Italy, were not ready to assimilate ancient achievements, and therefore the consequences of the invasion of this tribe turned out to be much more destructive. But it was important that the barbarians captured the civilized space: in Italy itself and the Roman provinces, aqueducts and baths were built, ancient cities, decorated with temples and statues, towered. This space could not disappear immediately, like the old social relations and laws, like the people nourished by the culture of Rome.

But for the formation of the future Western European civilization, not only the cultural heritage of Rome, which the barbarians adopted to one degree or another, was important. In the era of her childhood, a major shift took place - the transition to feudalism. And this complex process developed with the most active participation of the barbarians. Some elements of feudalism appeared, however, in the Roman Empire on the eve of its death (the labor of the columns), but finally new socio-economic relations were established in most of Europe through the interaction of late Roman society with the barbarian. This way of development of feudalism is called synthetic.

How did the synthesis take place? On the territory of the former Roman Empire, large estates of the Roman nobility were partly destroyed, and partly still preserved. But, as you remember, their owners mainly used the labor of the columns, and the slaves were planted on the ground and given the opportunity to run their own household. Both the columns and the slaves planted on the land were in fact tenants. Germanic communities settled next to such estates. By the V-VI centuries. the German community had already begun to stratify: its members had plots of land that could be sold, bought, donated or bequeathed, that is, they could be used as private property. Only forests, wastelands and pastures remained in the collective ownership of the community. Thanks to the stratification of the community and the ability to buy and sell land among the Germans, large land ownership grew.

Thus, two classes of feudal society were born: the feudal lords - the owners of the land, and the peasants, who received land from the feudal lords under certain conditions, that is, dependent peasants. The feudal lord and the dependent peasant were bound by something like a mutual agreement: the feudal lord could not use his land without the labor of the peasant, and he did not have his own land, and besides, in that troubled era he was in dire need of military protection.

But the feudalization of society took place at a different pace even in those regions of Western Europe where the synthesis of the Roman and barbarian worlds took place. The development of feudalism was fastest where the Roman and barbarian principles were balanced (in North-Eastern Gaul), slower where the barbarians failed to destroy the Roman slave-owning villas (Italy), and where the Roman principles were too weak (Britain, Germany between the Rhine and Elbe) or were absent altogether (Scandinavia). Accordingly, in North-Eastern Gaul, feudalism was established already in the 8th-9th centuries, in Italy - by the 10th century, in Britain - by the 11th century, in Germany - only by the 12th century.

Western European civilization, as we know it now, is a complex complex consisting of various and very numerous states, completely independent and at the same time connected with each other by economic, political and cultural ties. But this special form of union did not take shape immediately.

At first, Western Europe consisted of a number of disunited and rather unstable barbarian kingdoms. In their territories, in addition to the barbarians themselves, lived the local Roman population, which differed sharply from the conquerors in terms of culture. The Germanic tribes were not united: they differed from each other in language and customs, even those who accepted Christianity continued to believe in their old gods.

Nevertheless, the idea of ​​the political unity of Europe appeared quite early - at the turn of the 8th-9th centuries. Her homeland was the Frankish kingdom, which in that turbulent era turned out to be the most vital and strong state.

Having reached its peak under King Charlemagne (768-814), who actively pursued an aggressive policy, it turned into a huge empire that united various tribes. Its borders stretched from Central Italy in the south to Jutland in the north, from Barcelona in the southwest to the Bohemian Mountains and the Vienna Woods in the east.

Charlemagne and his associates saw in their new state the revival of the Roman Empire. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charles and proclaimed him Emperor of the Romans. But the empire was a fragile formation and fell apart shortly after the death of its creator. According to the Verdun Treaty of 843, it was divided among the descendants of Charlemagne into three large parts: the West Frankish, East Frankish kingdoms and the empire, which included Italy and the lands along the Rhine (the empire of Lothair, one of the grandsons of Charles). The partition marked the beginning of the history of three modern European states - France, Germany and Italy.

Another attempt to establish the continuity of Western Europe from the Roman state was made by the German king Otto I (936-973). Having made several military campaigns in Italy, in 962 he achieved the coronation in Rome. Thus, a new "Roman Empire" was created, which included Germany, as well as Northern and Central Italy. Later it became known as the Holy Roman Empire. This allowed the German emperors to interfere in the internal affairs of European countries, to influence the papacy, to consider themselves masters of Italy.

The Holy Roman Empire was, in fact, a rather loose formation. It could not prevent the main trend in the political development of Europe - the emergence of independent nation-states. It was a long and painful process, accompanied by wars and redistribution of borders, a process that did not end even at the end of the Middle Ages.

Nevertheless, the empires of Charlemagne and Otto I fulfilled their unifying role, which manifested itself both in international relations within Europe and in asserting the idea of ​​a connection between the young Western European civilization and its great predecessor, Rome.

The idea of ​​the unity of Western European civilization was gradually formed under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which claimed the role of the supreme arbiter in the political life of Europe. In addition, the church put into the consciousness of its flock the idea of ​​the existence of a special Christian world, separated from other countries by the exclusivity of religion.

But the main source of unity in the historical development of multi-tribal Europe was common civilizational foundations: heritage of antiquity and the barbarian Germanic world. Contacts (political, economic, cultural) between European countries were also of great importance: they linked them into a system of one civilization.

Different regions of Europe were not the same. These or those changes arose in them out of sync, each country had its own specifics. But this asynchrony was helped to straighten out by the European context - ties and even the neighborhood itself with those countries in which new trends were emerging faster. Various European countries contributed to the life of the whole civilization. Some historians believe that this is one of the reasons for its dynamism and longevity.

State and Church in the Middle Ages.

After Christianity was recognized as the state religion in 313, the church ceased to be only a spiritual community uniting fellow believers. In that era, when the Roman Empire was on the verge of destruction, the process of turning the church into a political force, "a state within a state" began.

The church received land holdings as a gift from emperors and the Roman nobility; its internal organization took shape. At the ecumenical councils - the highest "congresses" of the clergy - the dogma of the Christian dogma was developed, and this, naturally, strengthened the ideological unity of the church.

Starting from the VI century. monasteries began to appear in Western Europe. The first was founded by Saint Benedict (c. 480 - c. 547) in Monte Cassino. He also developed the monastic charter, which served as a model for subsequent brotherhoods. The Western Church did not encourage the complete asceticism of Eastern monasteries, but also required monks to observe vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Monasteries, these semblances of the Kingdom of God on earth, were for several centuries the only centers of education. The monastic schools trained the clergy; special importance was attached to the rewriting of manuscripts, and as a result, thanks to the efforts of the monks, both theological works and many works of ancient literature have survived to this day.

Ideal of theocracy
For the church, one of the most important was the question of attitude to worldly power. Its further fate depended on his decision, the role that she was to play in the life of Western European civilization. The answer was given shortly before the death of Rome, when contemporaries began to lose faith in the inviolability and strength of the state. In 413, after Rome had been taken by the Visigoths, Aurelius Augustine (354-430), one of the most eminent church fathers, began writing his famous work On the City of God.

The history of mankind for Augustine is a constant struggle between the community of the righteous, who make up the City of God, and the sinners - selfish, forgetful of God in their blindness, who form the City of Earth. In earthly life, where both "city" exist together and the righteous are mixed with sinners, only the church is to some extent close to the incarnation of the City of God. Therefore, it was to her that Augustine assigned the role of the supreme arbiter, not only in matters of faith, but also in government. Although earthly power, according to his theory, also comes from God, it is much lower than the church, because it is too selfish and insatiable in its desire for dominance and enrichment. Therefore, the secular authorities must unquestioningly obey the spiritual leadership of the church. This type of government is called theocracy. Augustine's ideas gained recognition in the Western world, while the Eastern Church chose a different path in its relationship with the state.

As disagreements grew in the dogma and rituals of the Western and Eastern churches, Rome became the center of Western Christianity. The "Eternal City", despite all the catastrophes experienced, has retained the glory of the capital of the once mighty empire. In addition, Rome was considered the city of the Apostle Peter, the keeper of the keys to paradise. Already at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th century. the bishops of Rome arrogated to themselves the right to be called popes, i.e., the heads of the church, and were perceived as the successors of the Apostle Peter, the first bishop of Rome. The lands that were in the hands of the pope became the patrimony of St. Peter, and the pope himself became their secular ruler.

The economic power of the church increased: until the XV century. the clergy owned a third of all cultivated land in most countries of Western Europe. Under Charlemagne, church tithe was legalized - a tax that was imposed on the entire European population.

The advent of the papacy rallied the church; now it has finally taken shape as a hierarchical, rigidly centralized organization headed by its "sovereign" - the pope.

Secular power, when it was necessary, used the authority of the church to assert its prestige. It is no coincidence that Charlemagne, seeking to revive the Roman Empire, was crowned in Rome. This made a strong impression on contemporaries and, as it were, symbolized the union of church and state. However, this was an unstable union: the church, seeing its support in the state, nevertheless claimed political leadership. On the other hand, the secular power, whose strength was gradually growing, sought to subjugate the papacy. Therefore, the relationship between church and state in Western Europe included confrontation and inevitable conflict situations.

After the death of Charlemagne, the papacy became more dependent on secular rulers. Beginning with Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperors began to appoint bishops and popes themselves by choice. Bishops and abbots of monasteries received possessions from the nobility and sometimes even carried out military service.

But the church did not accept this situation. Already in the X century. began its struggle for "purification", for liberation from the influence of state power. The church achieved the greatest success in the 11th-13th centuries. The wealth of the popes could be envied by other European kings. The church had its own court, an extensive bureaucratic system. Popes actively intervened in the affairs of European states, and sometimes in the personal life of monarchs. In all church matters, their authority was considered indisputable. In 1096-1270. the church organized crusades - religious wars in the name of the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, promising for this the forgiveness of sins and fabulous riches.

Wars were waged against Arab Spain under the slogan of protecting the Christian world from "infidels". Western Slavs, Hungarians and the inhabitants of the Baltic region converted to Catholicism with fire and sword.

Winning political victories, the church lost its spiritual authority: the representatives of the clergy often resembled clever intriguers, and not true servants of God. The condemnation of many believers was caused by the sale of indulgences - absolution of sins: it turned out that a place in paradise could be bought for money.

But the political power of the Church was not too long. Already at the end of the XIII and XIV centuries. the growing statehood rebuffed the church. Her anniversary, which was celebrated with unprecedented splendor in Rome in 1300, became a kind of culmination of the greatness of the papacy, after which its decline began.

In the XIV century. the weakening of the papacy ended in a great schism - a split within the Catholic Church: due to internal disagreements, first two and then three popes appeared, all of them proving their rights to power and declaring each other antichrists.

The Western Church, which was guided by the theocratic ideal and made politics one of the most important aspects of its activity, was more "worldly" in comparison with the Orthodox Church. At the same time, it created a serious counterbalance to the state and forced it to compromise. Thanks to the church, an atmosphere of dialogue in political life began to be created in the early Middle Ages. And this was the most important condition for the emergence of a special, European type of state power - a power forced to reckon with society and make compromises with it.

Western European Society in the Middle Ages

Medieval European society was hierarchical. At its head was the king - the supreme overlord of all the feudal lords. At the next level, there were large secular and spiritual feudal lords - princes, counts, archbishops and bishops, who were considered vassals of the king. When they received land (often entire regions), they took an oath of allegiance. Secular feudal lords received land under the condition of performing military service and fulfilling certain obligations. Such possessions were called fiefs.

Large feudal lords could in turn have vassals, giving their lands to smaller feudal lords - barons or knights - on the same terms. The knights no longer had their vassals, they were directly subordinate to the peasants, to whom they gave land to hold.

The feudal peasants were the main producers in the Middle Ages and the most numerous class of medieval society. On the allotments received from the feudal lords, they ran their own household, had their own tools and livestock. However, they were not the owners of the land on which they worked, even in cases where they had the right to inherit it.

"Payback" for the land was rent, which existed in three forms: in the form of corvée, natural or cash dues.

Did this mean that the medieval peasant, unlike, say, a slave, was personally free? The situation evolved differently in different eras. In the early Middle Ages, the land dependence of the peasants was gradually supplemented by increasingly harsh forms of personal dependence, infringement of political and civil rights. The feudal lord could himself exercise judgment over the peasants, limited their freedom of inheritance with the help of a levy, which was called dead hand right, charged a high marriage fee if the bride or groom belonged to another seigneur.

From the XII-XIII centuries. forms of personal dependence began to soften, corvee in almost all countries of Western Europe gave way to dues - first in kind, and then in cash. But even in this period, the peasants were not completely personally free and legally full people.

Another layer of medieval society, also opposed to the feudal lords, but much less numerous compared to the peasantry, were the townspeople. Many medieval cities were located on the lands of feudal lords and were forced to submit to them, that is, they were a kind of vassals.

Thus, relations between different classes and strata of medieval European society were complex and fraught with social conflicts. The hierarchical structure of society made it difficult to move from one of its "stages" to another, although in principle it was possible.

However, in this "disjointed" society, there were strong ties within each social stratum or class. Medieval man always felt himself part of a whole, part of a collective. There were a great many communities that united people on various grounds. Communities (also called corporations) were rural communities, monasteries, craft workshops, military squads, monastic and spiritual knightly orders, whose members were monk warriors. In the Middle Ages, there were even corporations of beggars and thieves. A large community, uniting many others, smaller ones, was the city.

Corporations, as a rule, had their own treasury, real estate, charters, often even special clothes and badges. The life of corporations was based on the principles of solidarity, mutual support and democracy. All problems were solved at general meetings, the sick and the poor were helped, and they had joint meals.

The largest communities (townspeople, secular feudal lords, spiritual feudal lords), who opposed state power and sought certain rights - legally fixed and confirmed by the central government - formed an estate. In Western Europe, three estates were formed: the clergy, the nobility and the urban estate. Their position was not the same: the townspeople could not equalize their rights with the nobility. As for the peasantry, it generally failed to become an estate, that is, to achieve recognition of its rights at the national level.

Church and masses

The most important task of the church was to educate the masses in the spirit of Christianity. It was a long and difficult process. Missionaries were sent to all corners of Europe. The new religion gradually took possession of the barbarian world.

But in itself, the conversion to Christianity did not yet mean that yesterday's pagans would accept new ideas about the world and God, learn new moral norms - in a word, become Christians in deed, and not formally. Moreover, baptism often took place by force and the attitude towards pagans did not at all correspond to Christian humanism.

It was necessary to change the consciousness of people, and the parish priests played a big role in this. In the parish, the lower level of the church organization, the priest explained to his parishioners the meaning of the teachings of Christ, inspired the concepts of sin and virtue. The sacrament of confession was of great civilizing significance: it forced a person to evaluate his own actions and thoughts, accustomed him to self-discipline and self-restraint.

At the same time, the church, as a rule, made compromises with the mass consciousness, trying to attract people to itself and realizing that complex theological problems are far from accessible to everyone. For the "simple" was created a special literature, in which the dogma of Christianity was simplified and even modified, adapting to popular beliefs. The people endowed the saints with miraculous powers and turned to them with requests for well-being. The parish priests, after serving in the church, went into the field and there conjured nature so that it would give a rich harvest, like pagan priests. But Christian ideals, even if simplified, were absorbed into consciousness.

Medieval man perceived the world differently than we do. The visible world, which surrounds him in everyday life, and the invisible world, in which God and the devil, angels and demons reside, were equally real for him. It was believed that this invisible upper world can sometimes be revealed to a person during life - in dreams or visions.

The fate that awaits a person after death was the most important and, probably, the most painful question. The fear of death was combined with the fear of God's judgment, at which one would have to personally answer for one's sins, before being punished in hell. The Church taught that history is finite and must end with the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment, at which everyone is rewarded "according to his deeds." The Holy Scripture does not indicate the exact date of the Last Judgment, and one could only guess when this event would occur. Several times during the Middle Ages, the horror of the imminent Last Judgment and retribution seized large masses of people. This was accompanied by mass hysteria, crowds of people scourging themselves walked along the roads, "prophets" and "prophets" appeared who predicted the approach of a worldwide catastrophe.

"Opponents" of the Church

However, the spiritual life of Western Europe, relying on a certain system of ideas and church dogmas, of course, was not exhausted by it. The spiritual culture created in the Middle Ages is striking in its multilayeredness and diversity.

The dogmas of the church were disputed by heretics - the Cathars (translated from the Greek the word "Cathars" means "pure", by the Waldensians, who considered the earthly world to be the creation not of God, but of the devil, the abode of evil and many others. Denying the value of the earthly world, heretics rejected the establishment of society, the state and churches, called for spiritual perfection and complete overcoming of carnal desires.In the XII-XIII centuries heresies reached such a scale, embracing both the lower classes and the upper classes of society, that the church established inquisitorial courts - holy tribunals subordinate to the Pope.

Other ideals, different from those preached by both the church and heretics, developed in the Middle Ages thanks to popular culture and secular literature.

The guardians of folk culture (not only in Western Europe, but also in Byzantium and in Russia) were wandering actors - jugglers (buffoons). Even in the first centuries of its existence, the Church condemned mass spectacles for their sinfulness, for "indecent" gaiety for a Christian, but was unable to eradicate them completely.

The people for a long time kept in their memory the ancient pagan holidays, which often coincided with Christian holidays: at Christmas and on Shrove Tuesday (before Lent), mummers walked through the streets of villages and cities, dances, competitions and games were held in the squares. The "feasts of fools", parodying the church service, were very popular. Then the lower clergy, right in the church, wearing monstrous masks, sang reckless songs, feasted and played dice. Everything that was most sacred to medieval people was ridiculed. How did representatives of the higher clergy react to this? It cannot be said that the church encouraged such phenomena, but in general the attitude towards the traditions of folk culture was much more tolerant than, say, heretical teachings. The Church saw in these explosions of unbridled, "worldly" fun an inevitable and even necessary release of energy.

Oral folk culture penetrated written culture, and in almost undistorted form. The Church, which fought against paganism, nevertheless, preserved samples of the ancient mythological epic. Irish monks wrote down the ancient Celtic sagas (epic stories about gods and heroes); in 1000 the Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf" was written down; in the XII-XIII centuries. - Icelandic epic "Elder Edda".

The epic continued to develop in Western Europe, acquiring new, feudal-knightly features. The French "Song of Roland" and the Spanish "Song of my Sid" sang quite secular ideals: courage, fidelity to duty and patriotism of warriors.

In written literature, secular themes appeared quite early, already in the 12th century. Some historians call this era the Medieval Renaissance. In the south of France, in Provence, at that time, the exquisite poetry of the troubadours flourished, glorifying the love of the Beautiful Lady, the joys of carnal life and the beauty of the earthly world. From there, secular lyrics spread to other European countries.

At the same time, a chivalric romance was born. The Romance of Tristan and Isolde, one of the most famous works of this genre, describes a love "stronger than death" that overcomes all obstacles, even the traditional notions of sin.

The secular principle as a whole, of course, did not destroy the Christian worldview in that era; but in the value system of the Western European Middle Ages, earthly ideals were steadily gaining their place.

Recommended literature:
• Khachaturyan V. M. The history of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the twentieth century. 10 - 11 cells. M.: Bustard, 2000.

A distinctive feature and the most important achievement of the Western European medieval civilization is that in its formation and development it absorbed and melted into a qualitatively new historical phenomenon the three civilizational beginnings of the ancient heritage, the civilization of the barbarian world and Christianity. The theologian Thomas Aquinas, connecting the teachings of Aristotle with Christian dogma, was as natural for this time as the Nibelungenlied, built on ancient Germanic legends, next to the Song of Rolland, which tells about the campaign of Charlemagne in Spain. Both Songs became an integral part of the culture of the Middle Ages. Christianity in this alloy acted as the basis of the worldview, which permeated all aspects of human life, affirmed the primacy of the spiritual principle. In the face of Christianity, ideology in its religious form for the first time became the dominant factor in the development of civilization.

The Western European Middle Ages laid the foundations of that Western Europe that played such a significant role in the era of Pre-Industrial Civilization, turned the whole of Western Europe into an area of ​​civilizational development, included the peoples of Barbaricum in the orbit of world civilizations. It is estimated that about 1/3 of the land currently in agricultural circulation was mastered by medieval peasants. A significant part of the cities that later became the capitals of states, the most important industrial and cultural centers, were founded in the Middle Ages (Bremen, Hamburg, Magdeburg, Cambridge, Oxford, etc.) or turned into cities from settlements (Venice, Genoa, Marseille, Toulouse, Paris, Strasbourg, Cologne, Vienna, Budapest, etc.). The largest Western European medieval city was Paris, in which by the XV century. 250-280 thousand inhabitants lived. Medieval Europe demonstrates new examples of intercivilizational interaction, when, in addition to wars, seizures, robberies, there is an exchange of cultural and spiritual values. The crusader knights, returning from the Crusades, brought with them not only treasures taken from Muslims, they brought knowledge about the achievements of Arabic medicine, mathematics, natural science, they returned to Europe that part of the ancient heritage that was lost in the West, but survived in East.

The Middle Ages became the time when nations, nation-states, national languages ​​and national culture began to form in the complex interweaving of economic, political and ethnic processes in Europe. In fact, the political map of modern Western Europe began to take shape even then, as did the names of many modern European states. Western European medieval civilization laid the foundations for the later statehood of parliamentarism, class representation. Magna Carta was the first European document to deal with human rights.

The medieval civilization of the West made a great contribution to the universal culture, the national culture of many European states was born, which was reflected in literature, art, and architecture. The Middle Ages also produced a social differentiation of culture, which was divided into church culture, the culture of the feudal nobility (knight culture), urban culture, peasant culture, etc. And at the same time, the Western European Middle Ages is an experience of creating a single spiritual and ideological field for a number of independent states, which was Christianity.

The development of civilization was not an easy way. During its formation, a complete decline in cultural life is observed. However, already in the VIII century. a cultural upsurge began in the Frankish state under Charlemagne, the so-called Carolingian revival, the center of which was Aachen. The era of the Developed Middle Ages was the time of the development of secular, urban culture, the revival of sciences and art. An important milestone in intellectual life is the emergence of scholasticism (from the Greek schola - school), a method of knowledge based on logic. The scholastics saw the way to comprehend God not in mystical revelation, but in logic, reasoning. The mind has become an instrument of comprehension of the truth. The expansion of the sphere of intellectual life was largely facilitated by the widespread use of writing and the invention of printing. In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz (Germany) published the first complete printed book of the Bible.

In addition to monasteries and church schools, medieval universities became carriers of knowledge and culture, where, in addition to theology, they studied jurisprudence, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric and music. The oldest of them were the University of Bologna (Italy), founded at the end of the 11th century, and the Sorbonne in Paris (12th century), but by the end of the 15th century. There were already 60 universities in Europe. There is a three-level system of education bachelor, master, doctor. The title of doctor (doctor of law) was first awarded at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna in the 12th century.

In addition to numerous theological treatises and works of religious content (Lives of the Saints, etc.), the Western European Middle Ages left us wonderful examples of secular art. The annals of world culture included the heroic epic of those times, the Song of Rolland, the Song of the Nibelungs, the Song of Side, the lyrical legend of Tristan and Isolde, recorded in the 12th century. Chrétien de Troyes, the legends of King Arthur, the Romance of the Rose, etc. In them, the authors not only praised the courage and virtues of the heroes, their devotion to duty, but turned to the world of human feelings. Magnificent examples of love lyrics were given by the poetry of vagantes and troubadours, who sang love for the Beautiful Lady. But their own works are sometimes full of caustic mockery of human greed, stupidity, arrogance, the denial of such Christian virtues as humility, obedience, asceticism. And, perhaps, the work of the great French poet of the 15th century became the link between them and the poets of the Renaissance. Francois Villon, whose Great Testament and Small Testament entered the treasury of world literature.

A peculiar reflection of the development of spiritual principles in man found in architecture. The Romanesque style, which took the Roman basilica as a basis, asserted simplicity and clarity of lines, grandeur and harmony. Cathedrals in Santiago de Compostella (Spain), Poitiers and Arles (France), Worms and Mainz (Germany) and other cities, a number of knightly castles and monasteries were built in this style. The Gothic style that replaced it, as if uniting architecture, sculpture and painting, conveyed a state of spirituality, aspirations upward (Notre Dame Cathedral in France, Milan Cathedral in Italy, Westminster Abbey in England, Vincennes Castle in Paris, City Hall in Brussels, etc.).

Cities made a special contribution to the development of Western European medieval civilization. They formed a special spiritual atmosphere, a new rhythm of life, valued education, enterprise and activity. The townspeople were carriers of ethical ideas and norms that differed both from ascetic religious morality and from knightly culture. With the emergence of universities, the center of intellectual life is transferred to the cities. Urban culture had a pronounced secular character. Urban literature and folklore reflected the common sense of the city dweller, his personal life activity. It is no coincidence that a significant place here was occupied by satirical stories, poems and fables, where the townspeople ridiculed not only the knights and the clergy, but also the ignorance of the peasants and their own shortcomings. One of the pinnacles of medieval urban culture, the Roman about the Fox, which was very popular in those days, where in the images of animals (the Fox is a city dweller, the Wolf is a knight, the Bear is a feudal lord, the Donkey is a priest) is a very caustic satire on human vices. At the same time, both love lyrics and a realistic prose short story developed on urban soil. The medieval city became the birthplace of the theater, the spirit of which was absorbed by city holidays, carnivals, and urban folklore. And those funny farces and realistic scenes that were played out in the city squares were far from the prototype of the theater of religious mysteries.

Western world, Western countries or western civilization(Western world, Western civilization) - a set of cultural, political and economic features that unite the countries of North America and Europe and distinguish them from other countries of the world.

Basic information[ | ]

Modern political sense[ | ]

Among the so-called Western countries currently include the countries of Western Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel, Japan, South Korea, etc.

Historically, only the countries of Western Europe belonged to the countries of the West at first, but after their colonial conquests in North America and Australia, the USA, Canada and Australia began to be classified as the countries of the West, after 1945 Japan and South Korea occupied by the American military began to be added to the countries of the West.

The Western world as it defines it:

Western civilization[ | ]

Western civilization is a special type of civilization (culture) that has historically emerged in Western Europe and has undergone a process of social modernization in recent centuries [ ] .

Western civilization, the heir to Greco-Roman, is not just one of many in a series of two dozen ancient civilizations. It is the only one where the science of nature was born and flourished, after a painful thousand-year break.

There is nothing more characteristic of our Western civilization than the fact that it is inextricably linked with science. It is the only civilization that has given rise to the science of nature, and in which this science plays a decisive role.

- K.Popper, In search of a better world, TJ Press, 1996, p. 209

Western civilization and Russia[ | ]

There are other assessments of globalization. Supporters of cliodynamics believe that in recent years there has been a tendency to equalize the level of economic development between the "West" and the "third world". This, in their opinion, is a consequence of globalization, as well as the result of an increase in the level of education of the population of third world countries. Demographic and sociocultural processes are closely related to this, as a result of which, by the 1990s, most Third World countries achieved a sharp increase in literacy, which, on the one hand, stimulated economic growth, and on the other hand, contributed to a reduction in the birth rate and a very significant slowdown in population growth rate. As a result of all these developments, in recent years, most of the large Third World countries have experienced GDP per capita growth rates that are significantly higher than most of the First World countries. As a result, according to supporters of cliodynamics, there is a fairly rapid reduction in the gap in living standards between the first and third worlds.

Particular attention is drawn to the fact that the reversal of the two-century trend of the growth of the gap in living standards to the trend of narrowing this gap with amazing accuracy, almost to a year (we are talking about 1973), coincided with the reversal of a number of other centuries-old trends into diametrically opposite ones. We are talking about the transition of trends towards an increase in the relative growth rates of population and GDP (as well as GDP per capita) to trends of a decrease in these rates, the transition from a trend towards a decrease in the efficiency of energy use to a trend towards an increase in this efficiency. It has been suggested that we are dealing here with different aspects of a single process of development of the World System, from a regime with an aggravation and the beginning of movement towards a trajectory of sustainable development.

see also [ | ]

Notes [ | ]

1. Ilyenkov E. V."Marx and the Western World"
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20110720000107im_/http://s02.middlebury.edu/FS056A/Herb_war/images/clash3.jpg
3. Efremov Yu. N. Once again about the limits of knowledge // Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research In defense of science. - 2016. - No. 17.

Western (Western European) civilization- socio-cultural integrity (community), based on the anthropocentric principle of the universe. The "core" is a person who transforms the immanent world. It arose as an accidental renewal in another place and social time of random processes associated with the endless movement of thought with the great movement of capital.
The foundation of Western European civilization is based on the borderline experience of mankind - antiquity and Christianity. As a result of a long intercultural dialogue, the foundation of Western European civilization crystallized, which is clearly illustrated by the example of the ideas of Aristotle and other great thinkers that caused the transformation of human existence. The humanism of the ancient Greek philosophers, far from the Christian idea of ​​the equality of people, placed reason above morality. This contradiction was overcome by Western Europeans by borrowing from Confucius the golden rule of morality “Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself”. The political freedom of the ancient Greek cities crystallized in Western Europe as a struggle for personal freedom and perceived necessity, as a heavy moral burden, the duty of man to nature.
The "melting pot" of Western European civilization formed on the ancient border of the Roman Empire along the Rhine and Danube. This border served as a barrier between the Romans and the barbarians, and later became the border of old Christian Europe and the “Christian periphery”. In the era of the Reformation, the separation of Christians - Catholics and Protestants - stabilized along the Rhine-Danube line. But when contact functions began to dominate on this border, the “Rhine Corridor” was formed on the socio-cultural, confessional and economic borders - the “spinal column” of European capitalism, which united the bipolar world of the economy of the North and South of Europe. By analogy with the great historical rivers that served as the communication framework of ancient civilizations, the Rhine became a trading river and the structural axis of the Romano-Germanic world.
The "melting pot" of Western European civilization is shifting from the Rhine-Danube to the East. At the end of the 20th century, there is a counter drift of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe towards the West. However, the thousand-year confessional schism taking place in EURAMAR makes it impossible for socio-cultural rapprochement without consolidation in the spiritual space, a long civilizational dialogue between the “culture of the mind” (inhuman cold reasoning) and the “culture of the heart”, filled with Slavic universal human content. Hasty integration may destroy the very foundations of Western European values ​​in the Orthodox world. This is the sovereignty of the mind, the infinite value of the individual and the doctrine of freedom. The path to prosperity does not go through the blind adoption of Euro-American standards of life, but through enlightenment and rebirth in the spirit.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that more or less successful integration with the West is carried out in countries where Catholics and Protestants dominate, that is, there are no confessional boundaries in the souls of people. Confessional borders divide the Slavs into Catholics, Orthodox and marginals by faith and blood (Greek Catholics, Bosnians, Pomaks). Catholic Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes) are relatively successfully integrating into Western Europe. Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bulgarians belong to another ethno-confessional world. Among the southern Slavs, confrontations stand out between Catholics and Orthodox, between Orthodox and Muslims. The United States, as a Western Christian leader, is on the side of Catholics and Muslims, while Russia, which has lost its geopolitical role in the Balkans, remains an East Slavic outpost.
There are sharp contrasting historical differences between Western and Eastern Europe in the types of statehood and property, forms of management and development of capitalism. Central-Eastern Europe is distinguished by the dynamism of state borders. If, for example, the borders between Spain and Portugal, Spain and France have not changed for over 400 years, then in CEE only at the end of the 20th century more than ten independent nation-states were formed. On both sides of the civilizational frontier there are two poles - the states of Germany and Russia. Both Christian peoples, complementing each other with a combination of depth and breadth of soul, experienced deep shocks of ill-conceived modernization, the consequences of which were fascism and communism.

It would be naive to give a formalized image of Western European civilization. Europe is a multifaceted microcosm, a multidimensional communication space, which took shape as a result of the borderline experience of mankind. Hence the multiplicity of space-time boundaries, the contact, barrier and filtering functions of which paved the way for creation through conflict. Sociocultural frontier acts as a strategic resource for the development of civilization and it must be considered in two ways - through the “boundary state” of rational and sensual perception in geographical and spiritual spaces with different communication nature (including passionarity). In geographic space, it manifests itself in material contacts - the conquest of lands; settlement, economic development and changes in the natural environment, while the spiritual world of man is characterized by contact in time. As a result of the stratification of spatio-temporal processes of different scales, a modern image of Europe was formed.

The foundation of Western European civilization is based on the borderline experience of mankind - antiquity and Christianity. The ancient Greeks first discovered the human soul and spirit. This is the greatest discovery of all times and peoples that has ever been made and can be made. The European world was born from the ideas of the mind - the man who generates ideas gradually becomes a new man. Here is how Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, describes this event. The philosophy of the ancient Greeks is not their exclusive property, but it was they who found a universal vital interest in an essentially new form of a purely “theoretical” attitude. They are engaged in theory and only theory. This process of continuous new formation includes interpersonal communication, a circle of reproduction and reproducing understanding of ideas. The world of ideas forms a new person, living in a finite world, but focused on the horizon of the future - an endless change of generations. In overcoming the finiteness of nature, the essence of the greatest discovery, which manifested itself primarily in the form of idealizations - quantities, measures, numbers, figures, straight lines, poles, planes, etc.
In the ancient world, there is an intensive development of the border experience between the main historical and philosophical regions in Europe, India and China. At the same time, the scientific mental or “theoretical” non-practical tradition or attitude of surprise that arose in Ancient Greece differs from the practical-mythological attitude of Indian and Chinese philosophy. Among the ancient Greeks, interest in philosophy is in no way connected with the soil of folk traditions. The conflict between conservative traditionalists and philosophers necessarily turns into the sphere of political struggle. How easy it is to get rid of people devoted to ideas, to outlaw them! But nevertheless, ideas are stronger than any forces rooted in the practice of real life.
As a result of a long intercultural dialogue, the foundation of Western European civilization crystallized, which is clearly illustrated by the example of the ideas of Aristotle and other great thinkers that caused the transformation of human existence. The humanism of the ancient Greek philosophers, far from the Christian idea of ​​the equality of people, placed reason above morality. This contradiction was overcome by Western Europeans by borrowing from Confucius the golden rule of morality “Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself”. The political freedom of the ancient Greek cities crystallized in Western Europe as a struggle for personal freedom and perceived necessity, as a heavy moral burden, the duty of man to nature.
***
The Christian religion, born in Asia by the frontier experience of mankind, has become the guiding star of the European world. The New Testament, in contrast to the Old Testament concept, proclaimed the salvation of all the peoples of the planet. Christianity has turned external transcendence into the task of transforming and mastering a specific immanent world. Not the sword of a warrior, but the Christian Church, having come into contact with the barbarians, turned the European borders of the former Roman Empire into centers of spiritual rebirth. The Crusades to the East expanded the mental horizon of the Western Europeans, communication with other peoples contributed to religious tolerance.
At the beginning of the second millennium after the birth of Christ, there was a gap between the western and eastern branches of orthodox Christianity. In 1054, Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople from the church. The western supranational church became the successor of the ancient Roman heritage, and the eastern church, subordinate, as a rule, to the state, became the successor of the ancient Greek traditions. The confessional borders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches alienated two ancient Greek traditions from each other. The leading philosopher in Western Europe was the father of logic, Aristotle, and in Byzantium, Plato, who discovered the world of ideas.

In geographic space, the formation of Western European civilization took place on the geopolitical, ethnic and geo-economic boundaries of the Roman Empire and the barbarians. On these borders, where numerous conflicts and wars took place, intensive trade relations and information exchange were noted, and complimentary relations between the Western Propeans were developed. In a spiritual space with a contact in time characteristic of man, the Renaissance was born. There was an acquisition in the spirit of the lost ancient world through passionate nostalgia.
The centuries-old ascent to a united Europe dates back to the coronation of Charlemagne, when in 800 the Western Romano-Germanic world was for the first time united not only by Christianity, but also by the imperial power of the Holy Roman Empire. On the borders of the Frankish state, border areas were established - margraviates (Spanish, Tuscany, East, Brandenburg and others), which later stand out by the level of development of the economy and culture. The margraviates became the basis for the formation of border states (the Kingdom of Lorraine in the 2nd half of the 9th century, the Burgundian state of the 14th-15th centuries). When the Frankish state broke up into France, Germany and Italy, a structural axis of the Romano-Germanic world was formed on the former Roman borders along the Rhine, connecting the economic worlds of the South and North - the countries of the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Baltic.
Intensive trade ties contributed to economic growth along the South-North trans-European route. In the XIII century. the Champagne fairs were especially prominent here. Financial capital centers and stock exchanges sprang up in Bruges, Geneva, Lyon and other cities. The history of the German Hansa, the Rhine and Swabian unions of free cities are connected with the great Central European trade route. The capital of united Europe, Strasbourg, is now located here, and the former margraviates became the basis for the formation of the border states of Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. Famous centers of European culture Florence, Barcelona, ​​Vienna and Berlin were formed on the historical borders of the Frankish state.
Trade with the East without the mediation of Byzantium led to the power and rich culture of Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Florence and other European cities. In the Renaissance, from a simple commodity-money economy, the ascent of the socio-political role of the medieval city begins, where the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe ideal, independent and free-thinking person was born. In cities with free and independent craftsmen and workshops, mainly in the Mediterranean, in Catholic Florence, capitalist relations are taking shape.
Since the era of the Great geographical discoveries, the real “European miracle” began. After 1500, for one century, the Atlantic countries of Western Europe, thanks to the transition to an intensive method of mass capitalist production and the expansion of the external market, outstripped the countries of the East.
Now several images of Europe have been stratified in the multidimensional communication space. Greater Europe can be viewed in a broad sense from London to Vladivostok and from New York to San Francisco. Greater Europe is divided into "First" - Western European civilization or "European family", "common European home"; “Second” - Eastern European countries and “Third” - Russia or Eurasia. Slavic Westernizers have always been supporters of the "First", Slavophiles - "Second" with the center in Constantinople and Eurasians - "Third" Europe or "Third Rome".
In turn, in the First Europe, the Atlantic or Anglo-American and the continental European or Romano-Germanic West are distinguished. The Atlantic model originates from the American Revolution, which advocated the liberation of civil society from the tutelage of the state. The French Revolution, the forerunner of the Bolshevik Revolution, was distinguished by the opposite direction, as the process of the revolutionary state's conquest of an "inert" civil society. It is the Atlantic model that is now the basis for the formation of a United Europe. After the Second World War, the American idea triumphed in Western Europe and became the basis of a sociocultural strategy. The idea of ​​"Atlantic" federalism is not to unite nation-states, but civil societies. Here priority is given to regionalism organized on a supranational basis. Nowadays in Western Europe tendencies towards integration according to the Europe of Regions formula are intensifying. At the same time, its extreme supporters are in favor of a United Europe without nations - France and Great Britain. The Atlantic model again demonstrated the role of the frontier experience in the development of civilization. Only now are ideas from the New World taking root in Western Europe.
The continental European West and Eastern Europe went through two myths of “great collective destiny” in the 20th century – the German national idea of ​​fascism and the idea of ​​communism transformed on Russian soil. In geopolitics, this is reflected in the concepts of living space and world revolution.
Let us consider the features of the boundary communicativeness of the multidimensional European space. Greater Europe spread symmetrically mainly in the natural zone of temperate latitudes, similar to the ethnic development. On its western and eastern borders are the Anglo-American and Russian Eurasian superethnoi, which became the basis of the bipolar world of the second half of the 20th century.
At the borders of the Old and New Worlds, West and East, Europe and America, Europe and Asia, there is a continuous cultural dialogue, a search for models of complementary development. The Anglo-American world has created an eccentric North Atlantic model on both sides of the ocean. The USA is a state at the turn of Western European civilization. Having passed through the endless prairies, the Euro-Americans reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean, where they founded a powerful outpost of Western European civilization. Now California in terms of economic development is comparable to the most highly developed countries in the world. Thus, a bipolar system was created in the New World on both sides of the North American prairies and on the shores of two oceans, which contributed to the economic development of the country's territory and served as a springboard for entering the Asia-Pacific region.
In the east of Europe, the Orthodox-Christian world, led by Russia, conquered the vast expanses of the Siberian taiga, creating outposts on the super-ethnic borders on the western and eastern “shores” of the Eurasian steppe-ocean - Odessa, Vladivostok, Harbin and others. Russian America was founded, but due to the remoteness and lack of a powerful economic outpost in the Russian Far East, the North Pacific system did not take shape. The events of the 20th century halted the formation of a complementary, open to the outside world, Russian economy on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and the frontiers of Chinese civilization. Russian-speaking Harbin was lost mainly by the “hands” of Soviet Russia. After the Second World War, with a short period characterized as “Russian and Chinese brothers for a century,” real fraternization still did not work out. And it's not just about the likes or dislikes of political leaders. What Russia could offer at the beginning of the century - the material and practical achievements of European civilization, at the end of the century was carried out by Western European civilization in a better package. Ironically, the Soviet version of the Western European specter of communism in China did not become a dogma, since after thousands of years of wandering this idea of ​​the ancient Chinese sages returned to their homeland.
At the end of the 20th century, a model of complementary development began to take shape at the borders of the Asia-Pacific region and the Western European, predominantly Anglo-American world, its material and practical achievements. The UK and China demonstrated this through Hong Kong, and the US through Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and South Vietnam. True, the Soviet Union made a last and, as it turned out, unsuccessful attempt in China, North Korea and North Vietnam. But the train of progress has gone. The East turned "face" to the West.
The Russian outpost in the Far East, turned mainly into a naval fortress behind the Iron Curtain, was isolated from the outside world and could not become a springboard for the development of Siberia. This was one of the reasons for the loss of most of the space of the Eurasian steppe-ocean. Now the Russian Far East has turned out to be even more economically remote from the European territory of the country. Only a real shift to the East will lead to the revival of Eurasian communications between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic and Eastern civilizations. The creation of a bipolar geo-economic model is a strategic task for the formation of a Russian multidimensional communication space that promotes a dialogue between the West and the East.
The North Atlantic, which historically separates the Old and New Worlds, has now become another communication backbone of Western European civilization. However, Christian Europe itself is split into two worlds - Western Christian and Eastern Christian or Orthodox. After the discovery of America, it was possible to expand the Western European socio-cultural space. But it turned out to be much more difficult to overcome the invisible line between Western and Eastern Europe, passing through the souls of people.