Mentalities in Medieval Studies

In the spirit of Marc bloch’s declaration that “the interrelations, confusions, and infections of human consciousness are, for history, reality itself,” scholars of mentalité (mentalities, Mentalität, mentalidad, mentalità) attempt to identify essential patterns in collective attitudes as manifested in the documents and artifacts of a given period (The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 151). Jacques le goff describes mentalities as “the unitary expression of the spirit of past societies,” which finds voice in the “mechanical discourse of the past” (“Mentalities: a history of ambiguities,” Constructing the past : essays in historical methodology, ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 1985, 169). Peter dinzelbacher defines mentalité as the “totality of modes and contents contained in the thoughts and feelings that inform a given social collective at a particular time” (Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte, 1993, xxi). These definitions highlight four presuppositions that most studies in mentalities share: (1) that social collectives take precedence over the fate of individuals as objects of analysis; (2) that values and attitudes of collectives receive a higher priority than chronologies or events; (3) that these values and attitudes remain accessible to the historian despite the frequently formulaic language of sources; (4) and that a totality of knowledge is attainable for a given time frame. In summary, scholars of mentalité seek nothing less than the incremental mapping of a social collective’s inner landscape.

A. The Annales Tradition

Because most scholars of mentalité employ concepts and methods derived from the work of annalistes such as Lucien febvre, bloch, Fernand braudel, le goff and Georges duby, some of whom specialized in early modern history, a brief exposition of key terms and methods is essential to our understanding of the presuppositions that inform research into inner landscapes of social collectives. La nouvelle histoire defined itself in opposition to traditional historiography as embodied in treitschke’s truism that “men make history” (Fernand braudel, On History, 1980, 10). Its goal was to transcend the narrow obsession of traditional historians with great men, individual events, and political developments. The quest for narrative veracity was abandoned in favor of a new goal of totality; the narrow range of documentary sources was expanded to include evidence gathered by geologists, archeologists, climatologists, economists, and sociologists, thereby privileging interdisciplinarity; the chronology of individual events as determined by causality was subsumed under braudel’s tripartite model of temporality; and the interdependence of historical sources and historiographical practice found acknowledgement in a more self-conscious, yet still positivist subjectivity.

When braudel declares unequivocally, “There is no unilateral history,” he states the precept informing the new-historical notion of totality (On History, 10). Not only do the Annales historians reject the possibility of an exact recreation of historical events―not to mention the value of such a practice―they also deny the ability of a single discipline or theory to do justice to “the complex, intermeshed reality” in which all individuals necessarily find themselves. Although individual studies or theories remain by definition oversimplifications of historical complexity, they “have set us progressively farther along the path of transcending the individual and the particular event” (On History, 10). bloch uses the stages of human life as an analogy: “Having grown old in embryo as mere narrative, for long encumbered with legend, and for still longer preoccupied with only the most obvious events, [the study of history] is still very young as a rational attempt at analysis” (Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 13). Achieving totality meant for the Annales historians not only the necessity of working between and across disciplines, but also the freedom to consult and analyze sources which previously had been the exclusive province of other disciplines. In his masterpiece, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, 1949 (The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, 1972-3), braudel drew upon research in climatology and geography, as well as in economic and social history. braudel believed that historians were uniquely qualified to collect, synthesize, and analyze all such data. “For me, history is the total of all possible histories – an assemblage of professions and points of view, from yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (On History, 34).

The mass of data required for total history finds interpretive structure in braudel’s tripartite model of temporality. In the eyes of braudel and his Annales students, “history is … the study of time in all of its manifestations” (On History, 69). At the basis of all historiography is the “history of man in his intimate relationship to the earth,” called the longue durée. It is a history “almost changeless, … slow to alter, often repeating itself and working itself out in cycles which are endlessly renewed” (On History, 12). Here climate, geography, landscape, mineral deposits, types of agriculture, flora and fauna all have their roles to play. Superimposed upon “almost changeless” time, is a temporal sphere of medium changes and cycles, dominated by the phenomenon of conjoncture, in which historical phenomena occur and recur in vast networks of lateral dependencies. This medium temporal sphere is made up of economic factors on the one hand―price curves, demographic progressions, movements of wages, variations in interest rates and productivity―and social factors on the other hand – political institutions, linguistic change, religious reforms, and civilizations. The cycles tend to run in decades or generations. Finally, there is the short time span of “historic events” as a journalist might experience them, the temporal sphere of catastrophes and “the mediocre accidents of daily life.” braudel does not deny the significance of such events, but rejects as superficial the focus of narrative history on chronology, causality, and origins. braudel’s temporal model transforms history from a linear series of events and decisions into an infinite nexus of interactions among cycles operating at different frequencies of time.

This universal vision of history requires a new kind of historian. Traditional historians are for braudel like landscape painters who attempt to reproduce every detail of the reality before them even as they suppress their own roles as observers. The result, braudel asserts, can only be superficiality with the illusion of objectivity. Instead new historians should, in bloch’s view, work like master lute-makers who reshape the raw material of nature into a beautiful instrument (The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 27). In the process, the reconstruction of the past achieves a productive reciprocity with the sensibilities of the present (braudel, On History, 1980, 37). In denying the possibility of objectivity and historical veracity, Annales historians reject the naïve positivism of nineteenth-century historiography. Nevertheless, knowledge of the past becomes possible through the judicious exercise of proper judgment; insight remains possible for historians who work in the awareness of their limitations; and historical inquiry transpires within a dialectic. Despite greater receptivity to theory in the fourth generation, la nouvelle histoire never wholly abandoned its positivist roots.

B. Theoretical Approaches to mentalité

Because leading annalistes have resisted engagement with theory, systematic attempts at developing theoretical constructs for the study of mentalities have tended to occur outside of France. Frantisek graus, Peter dinzelbacher, and Aaron gurevich all argue that scholars of mentalities assume a position analogous to that of a foreign visitor in a contemporary culture. As graus notes, “Everyone who spends an extended period of time in an unknown environment becomes aware that people act and react differently than what he has been used to” (Frantisek Graus, Mentalitäten im Mittelalter, 1987, 12). The alienation of the foreign visitor from what seems to be a “confusing and contradictory ménage of customs, rituals and reactions” deepens as his own reactions and responses continue to meet with bewilderment, criticism or hostility. The foreigner who wishes to assimilate must decipher a “code,” the unwritten rules, customs and norms that shape individual responses to social interaction. Cultural anthropologists can rely upon direct interaction and observation in their attempts to decipher this code; historians of mentalité have the more daunting task of working through artifacts and documents. They look beyond the surface of words and events to discover the thoughts, feelings, and prejudices of a given collective at a given time.

dinzelbacher (1948; Linz, Austria) an historian specializing in legal, social, and cultural history of the Middle Ages, remains one of the few medievalists to contribute substantially both to the theory and to the practice of the study of mentalities. Following his studies in Graz und Vienna, dinzelbacher received his doctorate in history from the University of Vienna in 1973. His Habilitation followed in Stuttgart in 1978, where he has held an Associate Professorship since 1998. He also holds the position of Honorarprofessor at the University of Vienna. In 1999-2000 he was a visiting fellow at the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. dinzelbacher is one of the principal editors of the interdisciplinary medieval journal Mediävistik.

In the anthology Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen, 1993 (2nd ed. 2008), dinzelbacher offers a brief and systematic introduction to mentalité. Modes of thought (Denkweisen) are the particular approaches that a given group at a given time devotes to processing information. This information can originate in the outside world of the group studied or in the inner world of the group’s psyche. dinzelbacher defines objects of thought (Denkinhalte) as the “generally accepted notions and ideological, political, religious, or aesthetic concepts that inform the individual areas of religion, culture, and art. They must have the ability to be verbalized and they must be the object of discursive reflection in the documents related to the group” (Mentalitätsgeschichte, xxiii). In addition to modes of thought, there are also modes of feeling (Empfindungsweisen), which consist of the sometimes subconscious application of values or value judgments to the routine perceptions of daily life. These also include aesthetic criteria that the group subconsciously applies to works of art, fashion, technical objects, or music. Objects of feeling (Empfindungsinhalte) comprise all possible social and psychological generators of feeling, including objects of prejudice or stereotyping. Theoreticians of mentalité define actions in the broadest possible sense, to include verbal and written communication, including gestures, many of which may be interpreted in contexts other than those intended by their authors. dinzelbacher lists key areas for analysis which I reproduce here without the accompanying examples: the relationship of body and soul; attitudes regarding youth and aging; expressions of fear and hope; notions of joy, sorrow, and happiness; interpretations of illness and healing; attitudes and rituals surrounding death; individuality, the family and society; social values; the meaning of work and festivals; structures of power; attitudes towards violence, war, and peace; ethics and systems of justice; aesthetic experience; religiosity; attitudes towards nature and the environment; cosmology; notions of time and space; forms of thought and analysis; and modes of communication. As dinzelbacher notes, each social collective’s attitudes towards each example must be exhaustively studied before a “global image of collective mentality” can emerge for a given period.

dinzelbacher’s Angst im Mittelalter: Teufels-, Todes- und Gotteserfahrung: Mentalitätsgeschichte und Ikonographie, 1996, surveys one of the primary human emotions in its cultural context. Important here is the addition of iconography, so that scholars benefit from dinzelbacher’s analysis of the depiction of fear in text and image. Here he draws on his earlier research in the literature of medieval visionaries and mystics. Like le goff, dinzelbacher recently tried his hand at a more comprehensive cultural history. The volume Europa im Hochmittelalter 1050-1250: eine Kultur- und Mentalitätsgeschichte, Kultur und Mentalität, 2003, contains an insightful and accessible survey of medieval attitudes designed for the educated lay reader. The volume opens with a sweeping survey of the social and economic background of the collectives under discussion, followed by a chapter on the transitions of feudal structures before turning to notions of individuality, the individual and society, and the individual and the natural world. (Kristina wengorz, review of Angst im Mittelalter http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2004-3-101).

František graus (1921; Brno (Brünn), Czech Republic - 1989; Basel, Switzerland), a Czech historian specializing in Bohemia and Western Europe in the later Middle Ages, attempted a more systematic definition of mentalité in the Konstanz Working Group on Medieval History’s anthology, Mentalitäten im Mittelalter, 1987. After receiving his school diploma in 1940, graus studied history and paleography at the Universities of Brünn and Prague. His university career was interrupted during the Nazi occupation by his arrest and internment in concentration camps. After the defeat of the Nazis, graus returned to his studies in Prague, earning his doctorate in 1948/9. He held an archival post at the Staatlichen Historischen Institut in Prague until 1950, where he was awarded his Habilitation. After two years as a lecturer on medieval history at the Karls-Universität, graus was called to a professorship at the newly founded Historical Institute of the Czechoslavakian Academy of Sciences. There he served as Editor in Chief of the journal Ceskoslovensky Casopis historicky. Following the events of the Prague Spring, in 1970 graus was forced to resign his post and to emigrate to West Germany. He accepted a position as Ordentlicher Professor at the University of Gießen. In 1972 he was called to a similar position in Basel, where he remained until his death in 1989 (Susanna burghartz ed., Spannungen und Widersprüche: Gedenkschrift für František Graus, 1992); “Frantisek Graus,” Der Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für Mittelalterliche Geschichte 1951-2001: die Mitglieder und ihr Werk: eine bio-bibliographische Dokumentation, vol. 2, ed. Jürgen petersohn, 2001, 149-157).

In his introduction graus rejects any method that relies solely upon direct description of social behavior or phenomena. Rather, the historian of mentalité works to decipher the opinions (Meinungen) and attitudes (Verhaltensweisen) brought forth by the range of expectations (Erwartungshorizont) within a given collective (Mentalitäten, 14-16). Mentalities remain one level of abstraction removed from opinions and attitudes. Opinions and attitudes may be described, but mentalities can only be tested by the analysis of opposites within the “bandwidth” of social and moral expectations. graus seeks to define mentalité negatively against most other traditions in the context of historiographical praxis. Thus mentalities are not directly accessible through ideologies, dogmas or doctrines, which are codified by definition. They cannot be limited to a social history of ideas, nor can they be articulated by the members of collectives themselves. They cannot be defined exclusively against cultural notions of “the Other.” Models of national character and class structure also fail ultimately because of regional and social variants (Mentalitäten, 17-19). graus also opposes as untenable past attempts to define a particular Zeitgeist, even as he rejects the exclusive application of the longue durée. Instead he prefers the comparative study of differing attitudes within smaller manifestations of a social collective. As he asserts, “What can be historically determined is always only a conglomerate of components with differing temporal dimensions, a ‘contemporaneousness of noncontemporary elements’” (Mentalitäten, 23). graus finally arrives at the following definition: “Mentality is the collective voice of long-term attitudes and opinions articulated by individuals within groups. They are never uniform, often contradictory, and form specific internalized patterns. Mentalities find expression both in specific receptivity to certain stimuli as well as in varieties of reactions. They cannot be articulated by insiders, but they can be tested and verified” (Mentalitäten, 17). Although the least vulnerable of all theories of mentality to deconstructive challenges, graus’s theory becomes problematical in its application. Indeed, several historians cited in this article do not meet graus’s criteria. Nonetheless, graus’s introduction is useful in combating the overgeneralization and unsystematic application of criteria that undercut the effectiveness of earlier mentality studies.