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Chapter One. Physical Space
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Chapter One Physical Space This litel spot of erthe that with the se Embraced is (Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde 5.1815–16) Defining Medieval Space In the paradigm of the mise en abîme that I have suggested as being an apt figurative analogy for the concept of mystical space, physical space at first might be considered as an “outer” layer of experience in which bodies and material objects exist, social life is enacted, texts are produced and circulated, language is exchanged and inscribed , and religious practice takes place. However, because the mise en abîme is a figure of infinite regress and duplication in all its strata, physical space also can be conceived of as being intrinsic to mystical space and present within it, in a variety of representations. Most obviously , Richard Rolle, the Cloud author, and Julian of Norwich do not separate themselves physically from the space of their material lives when they are “with” God and/or when they are relating their experience of God in their texts for the edification of others. On the contrary, their texts indicate both that aspects of physical space have helped facilitate their approach to God and that images and metaphors of physical space offer an effective means of describing mystical experience. 21 For Henri Lefebvre, physical space is “the space of nature and the Cosmos” (1991/1974, 11) and of all created things. It relates to natural , cosmological, material, and bodily things as opposed to those that might be considered as belonging to the mental, moral, spiritual, or imaginary realm. Lefebvre’s deceptively simple definition of physical space, however, fails to alert us to the fact that space has been variously conceptualized throughout the ages. Obviously, the physical space of the Middle Ages, for example, was very different from the physical space of the twenty-first century. The medieval views of space, place, and cosmology basically rested on the theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Aristotle had proposed that space was a receptacle1 and that place was “the immobile body which is the term with respect to which one can recognize and determine the movement of bodies” (Duhem 1985, 142). In cosmological terms, the Ptolemaic universe reigned securely. At its very center was the Earth which, in turn, was surrounded by the seven progressively larger concentric spheres of the Moon, Mercury , Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond the planetary spheres were, firstly, the stellatum (the area of fixed stars), and then the primum mobile that was the boundary of the physical universe. Beyond this outermost sphere and “literally outside the universe, was the Empyrean Heaven of God ..... [which] was beyond space and time, both of which were said to end at the primum mobile” (Wertheim 1999, 35). However, in the Christianized account of space, the place of God was not only beyond, but also most deeply within, spatiality , as C. S. Lewis explains that “what is in one sense ‘outside the heaven’ is now, in another sense, ‘the very Heaven,’ caelum ipsum, and full of God” (1964, 97). This spatial paradox is reflected not only in the postulation of God’s immanence and transcendence but also in the understanding that all souls are enclosed within God while simultaneously God is enclosed within each individual soul. The par1 . Plato had first used the “receptacle” idea “to designate the pregiven space with which the Demiurge must begin” (Casey 1997, 32). 22 physical space [184.73.56.98] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:52 GMT) adox is also reflective of the two basic medieval understandings of space that were to dominate thinking and provoke differences in spatial conceptions until the present day. That is, that space is either a receptacle for things or an attribute of the things contained. The medieval mind accommodated both notions, though not without disputation at the philosophical level. Averroës, the commentator on Aristotle, elaborated and clarified Aristotle’s viewpoint by concluding that “[p]lace is immobile essentially; in fact, place is that towards which something moves or in which something rests” (Duhem, 142). Aristotle’s conclusion that “the rotation of heaven requires the existence of an immobile central body” (ibid.) was used by Averroës to dispute Ptolemy’s system of eccentricswherebyPtolemyproposedthatcelestialmovementsrequired several centers, or epicycles. Averroës concluded that “if celestial movements required several centres, there would have to be several heavy bodies external to the Earth” (ibid.) and he could not conceive of this. Nevertheless, as Duhem points out, “at the beginning...