Albert the Great and Medieval Culture

ALBERT THE GREAT AND MEDIBVAL CULTURE 'TIHIS YEAR marks the seven hundredth anniversary f the death of St. Albert the Great. He died on Novemer 15, IQ80, at the age of "eighty and more." His life thus spans the first eighty years of the thirteenth century, aperiod of great vitality, development, and achievement. Throughout the world this year, and particularly in Germany, there are numerous celebrations going on to commemorate the life and works of this remarkable German Dominican, who was known as "the Great" even in his own lifetime. When we think of Alexander the Great, St. Gregory the Great, Charles the Great (Charlemagne), or even Catherine the Great of Russia, we all think immediately of the person in question and we have some idea, however vague, of why they are called "the Great ". Unfortunately this is not the case with St. Albert the Gre,at. Outside of Germany, he is known only as the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, if at all. In Germany legends of Albert abound, usually those that lack all substance or verisimilitude. The German philosopher Hegel could speak in his history of philosophy of Albertus Magnus as " the most celebrated German schoolman, of the noble race of Bollstadt." 1 And he could recount the legend of Albert's learning as a special gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a very dull and stupid youth who changed quickly from an ass into a philosopher. The Virgin ]\fary is supposed to have promised him that he would enlighten the Church, and, in spite of his science, would still die in the faith. Hegel commented that " five years before his death Albert forgot his philosophy as quickly as he learned it, and then actually died in the dulness (sic) and orthodoxy of his earlier years." 2 Hegel the philosopher could also say that Albert's 1 Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philo1;ophy, trans. by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), 3: 75. 2 Ibid. p. 76. 481 482 JAMES A. WEISHEIPL, O.P. learning was generally understood to consist largely of magic. For," he says, " although natural objects have nothing to do with scholasticism proper, which was really perfectly blind to nature, he occupied himself much therewith; and amongst other devices he manufactured a talking machine which alarmed his pupil Thomas of Aquino, who even aimed a blow at it, thinking he saw therein a work of the devil." 3 Without understanding either Albert or the culture of his time, Hegel could select outlandish interpretations and anecdotes concerning Albert to give us, as he says, a picture of the conditions of culture in these times. Hegel was not a medievalist and he could not be expected to be sympathetic to medieval Christian culture, and his selection of quaint examples can hardly be called an accurate picture of the condition of culture in the Middle Ages. .The " eighty and more" years of St. Albert's life are intertwined with three major movements that characterize the High Middle Ages: (1) urbanization of European society, especially in Germany and Eastern Europe; (2) reevangelization of Christian Europe, mainly through the mendicant orders founded by St. Dominic de Guzman in 1215 and St. Francis of Assisi in 1223; and (3) intensive growth and formulation of" scholastic" philosophy and theology in the university centers of Christendom , especially at the University of Paris and its spin-offs, such as Oxford, Cologne, Cambridge, Toulouse, and Montpellier. Although the urbanization of France, Italy, and parts of England had begun vigorously early in the twelfth century, Germany , apart from the Rhine Valley, was a backward country in 1200 even by medieval standards. "The thirteenth century," as John B. Freed has amply shown," was the high point in the urbanization of medieval Germany," 4 and the history of Germany in that century is in large part the history of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders beyond the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder, and even the Vistula. The same can be said of Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary. •Ibid. •John B. Freed, The Friars and German Society in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge , Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1977), p. ii4. ALBERT THE...