School of Chartres

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The School of Chartres was one of the most important intellectual centres north of the Alps for around 200 years from about the year 1000. Rudolf Steiner characterised the School of Chartres thus:

The Gothic Cathedral of Chartres in its present form.

„There was in the eleventh, but especially in the twelfth century, reaching over into the thirteenth century, an actually wonderful school, in which there were teachers who knew perfectly well how in the preceding centuries the pupils had been led to experience the spiritual. It was the school of Chartres, where above all a ray of the still living wisdom of Peter of Compostella, who worked in Spain, who cultivated a living mysterious Christianity in Spain, which still spoke of Christ's helper, nature, which still spoke of the fact that only when this nature has introduced man to the elements, to the world of the planets, to the world of the stars, only then will man become mature enough to get to know the seven helpers, as living goddesses: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Music. The pupils got to know them as divine-spiritual figures, alive. In this school of Chartres, for example, Bernhardus Sylvestris taught, who, as if in powerful descriptions, brought into being before his pupils that which was ancient wisdom. John of Chartres, who was also called John of Salisbury, developed views in which he came to terms with Aristotelianism. And with an inspiring force, what was taught in the school of Chartres was transplanted to the Cluniacensian Order. And there was one in particular, in the twelfth century, who actually surpassed all others: Alain of Lille or Alanus ab Insulis.“ (Lit.:GA 237, p. 94ff)

Pre-Christian Mysteries in Chartres

Chartres is distinguished by the intersection of important etheric currents of power, as is true to some degree for every place of worship, but here to a very special degree. In fact, even for the Druids, the later Chartres, situated in the middle of what was then Gaul, was a central place of worship, where the "virgo paritura" - the virgin who gives birth - was worshipped. In a grotto at the top of the hill of Chartres there is said to have been a statue of the Virgin with the child on her lap. Rudolf Steiner said of the Irish-Celtic places of worship that the Mystery of Golgotha was experienced there in spiritual vision. Here in Chartres, in particular, the birth of Christ was experienced and so the ground was already prepared for the reception of Christianity. In a certain sense, the people here were already Christians before Christianity came to them externally - and when it came externally, it was able to connect seamlessly with the tradition cultivated here. Thus the Druidic mystery schools passed directly into the Roman Christian schools, prepared by Julius Caesar's Gallic campaign, which brought the Roman element here.

The Christian churches in Chartres

Charles the Bald consecrated a church in Chartres in 876 and donated as a holy relic the tunic said to have been worn by the Virgin Mary when the Archangel Gabriel announced Jesus' birth. Chartres became the centre of Marian devotion in Europe and attracted large crowds of pilgrims here.

Around 1000, the great Fulbert worked in Chartres. When the Carolingian church was destroyed by fire in 1020, he began building a new Romanesque church in the same year. In 1134, another fire destroyed the narthex and a tower. In the night of 10-11 June 1194, the Romanesque church was almost completely destroyed by a city fire. Construction of the present Gothic cathedral began shortly after 1194 and was completed with the official consecration on 24 October 1260.

Beginning of the "golden age" under Fulbert of Chartres

The golden age of the cathedral school of Chartres began with the "academy" established by Fulbert of Chartres (* around 950; † 1028) in the Platonic sense. His pupils regarded him as the "venerable Socrates".

Fulbert also distinguished himself above all by his deeply fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin. He explained her name as "maris stella", star of the sea: just as the polar star guides sailors safely through the stormy sea, so the spiritual star of Mary guides man on his path of development. In his famous Marian sermon, he also tells the legend of Theophilus, who has devoted himself to the devil and can only be saved by turning to the Virgin Mary in fervent repentance - the "eternal feminine" draws us in. The Faust motif is experienced here in a similar way to Goethe. So it is about the transformation of the astral body into the again virginal pure spirit self. Only in the virginally pure soul can the spiritual light be born.

The Seven Liberal Arts

→ Main article: Seven Liberal Arts

The transformation of the soul can begin when the formative powers necessary for it have become free. Therefore, school age begins at about 7 years of age, because the basic formation of the physical body is now complete and etheric formative powers are released to now have a formative effect in the soul. All education that leads the human soul to wisdom is ultimately based on the etheric forces taking hold of the soul in a formative way. This requires an ordered sevenfoldness of etheric forces, which were unfolded in the School of Chartres through the cultivation of the "Seven Liberal Arts".

This was based on the seven main etheric spheres of formative forces, which correspond to the planetary spheres and which first form the body naturally and then, once they have become free, condense inspirationally in the soul to form imaginations. To do this, one had to look at the whole cosmos in terms of the geocentric Ptolemaic system, which is based on an insight into this spiritual reality. This still corresponds entirely to the views of the age of the intellectual soul.

In order for the knowledge of the I to be grasped consciously, the consciousness soul and with it the intellectual self-thinking must first develop. This does not work with the natural etheric forces, but with those completely new heart etheric forces created by the activity of the I, which arise through the etherisation of the blood in the heart and radiate up into the head. For this, however, the Ptolemaic system first had to give way to the Copernican system, which quite abstractly places the sun in the centre. The spiritual inspirations are extinguished and initially give way to a mere external calculation. But it is precisely through this that freedom in thought is conquered. And only like an abstract mileage marker does the sun now stand in the centre as a still misunderstood reference to the sunlike heart-Michael-Christian forces. Only with this free thinking can the Michael impulse connect. The later teachers of Chartres, namely Bernardus Sylvestris and Alanus ab Insulis, already had a clear premonition of this. Rudolf Steiner pointed this out very clearly. Only through the unification of intellectual self-thinking with the inspired thought-perception of the spiritual outer world, i.e. the Aristotelian and the Platonic element, can the independent spirit self be unfolded. To contribute to this is the essential task of anthroposophy.

Cultivating tradition

"Back to the ancients" was virtually the watchword of the School of Chartres. Here, a living tradition still prevailed that was ultimately rooted in the mystery schools of antiquity. It was not a renaissance of antiquity, not a rebirth, but a final echo. By imitating and reliving, it was important to cultivate this living memory and also to draw individual new inspirations from it. Thus John of Salisbury tells us:

„Bernard of Chartres said that we are dwarfs who have sat on the shoulders of giants, so that we may see more than they and more distant things, not by the sharpness of our own faces or the towering size of our bodies, but because we are lifted up and led up by the greatness of the giants ...“

A metaphor used much later by Isaac Newton.

Adelard of Bath, the important translator of Arabic scientific texts, describes in his treatise "de eodem et diverso" ("Of the same and the other" - a reference to the spiritual archetype and the sensual image) how he sought out the silence outside Tours for meditation, where only the scent of the flowers and the murmur of the Loire reached him. Then two spiritual figures appeared to him: Philokosmia with her entourage, namely wealth, power, dignity, fame and lust, and Philosophy surrounded by the seven liberal arts. Philokosmia wants to seduce him to sensual pleasure, but Philosophy shows him that the soul originates from the world of light and that the seven free arts are able to raise the soul, which is entangled in the body, to the spiritual heights in which it lived before birth.

Alanus ab Insulis - climax and conclusion of the School of Chartres

The life of Alanus ab Insulis is shrouded in mystery. It is assumed today that he was born around 1128 in Lille (Insulae = "island") in Flanders and died around 1203. No external documents prove his direct relationship to the School of Chartres, and yet his work is so much in its spirit that one can justifiably claim that the School of reached its climax with him - and, as Alanus himself felt very clearly, it also found its conclusion with him. It was clear to him that people's whole world view would have to change and be based entirely on the abstract intellect before one could return to direct spiritual knowledge. Rudolf Steiner speaks about this in his Arnhem Lectures on the karma of the Anthroposophical Society:

„Alanus ab Insulis said to a close circle of his initiated disciples: "Today we look at the world in such a way that we still recognise the centre of the earth, that we judge everything from the earth. If we were to fertilise the following centuries with this earthly view alone, which enables us to form our images, our imaginations, then humanity would not be able to progress. We must enter into an alliance with the Aristotelians, who are bringing into humanity the intellect, which is then to be spiritualised and in the 20th century is to shine forth among men in a new spiritual way. If we now look at the earth as the centre of the cosmos, if we describe the planets as revolving around the earth, if we describe the whole starry sky, as it presents itself at first to the physical eye, as if it were revolving around the earth, someone will come and say: Let us place the sun spatially in the centre of the world system! But then, when this one comes who places the sun spatially in the centre of the universe, then the world-view will become desolate. People will then only calculate the orbits of the planets, will only indicate the places of the heavenly bodies. People will only speak of the heavenly bodies as of gases or physical bodies that burn and shine; they will only know something of the starry heavens in a quite mathematical-mechanical way. But what will spread out there as a dull world-view has one thing - a paltry thing, but it has one thing: We look at the world from the earth; he who is to come will look at the world from the sun. He will be like one who only gives the "direction", the direction of a magnificently significant path, furnished with the most wonderful events and the most wonderful beings. But he only gives the abstract direction; with this was indicated the Copernican world-view, in its barrenness, in its abstractness, but as a direction, for all that must first go away which we represent with our imaginations, so said Alanus ab Insulis; that must go away, and to a certain extent the world-view must become quite abstract, almost only like a mile marker on a path with wonderful monuments. For there will be one in the spiritual world who will take this mile-pointer, which will have nothing but direction for the renewal of the world, so that he can then, together with intellectualism, establish the new spirituality, one who will need nothing but this mile-pointer. But that will be, as Alanus ab Insulis said, Saint Michael! The field must be cleared for him; he must sow the path with new seeds. For this there must be nothing but line, mathematical line.“ (Lit.:GA 240, p. 155ff)

The End of the School of Chartres - Spiritual Darkness on Earth around 1250

Cathedral of Chartres, general view from south

Rudolf Steiner has often mentioned that around 1250 life on earth was plunged into spiritual darkness, where even high initiates were denied direct insight into the spiritual world. But precisely this time was highly significant for the transition from the Platonic to the Aristotelian spiritual current:

„What Alanus ab Insulis introduced into the Cistercian Order onwards was then passed on to the Dominicans, who cultivated the intellect in particular, following Aristotle. But there was an intermediate period: in the 12th century the School of Chartres flourished, and in the 13th century the Dominican Order began its powerful work for scholasticism in the sense of Aristotelianism. Those who, as the great teachers of the School of Chartres, went up through the gate of death into the spiritual world, were there for a while together with the Dominicans who descended through birth and who then, after their descent, founded Aristotelianism here. Therefore we must look to an intermediate time when, as in a great celestial council, the last great teachers of Chartres, having passed through the gate of death, were together with those who were to cultivate Aristotelianism as Dominicans before these latter had descended. It was then that the great "heavenly contract" was concluded in the spiritual world. Those who had come up into the spiritual world under the leadership of Alanus ab Insulis said to the descending Aristotelians: "Our time is not now on earth; we must first work here from the spiritual world. We cannot descend to earth in any incarnations in the near future. Your task now is to nurture the intellect in the rising consciousness soul age.

Then they came down, the great scholastics, and carried out what they had agreed with the last great Platonists of the School of Chartres. Many important things happened there. One of the earlier descendants, for example, received a message from another who had remained longer than he in the spiritual world with Alanus ab Insulis, that is, with the spiritual individuality who had formerly been Alanus ab Insulis. The one who came down later brought this message, that is, he worked together with the older one, and thus began on earth the preparation for the intellectualistic age which had its beginning in the Dominican Order. The one who had stayed a little longer with Alanus ab Insulis in the spiritual world first put on the Cistercian habit and only later changed it for the Dominican habit. Thus those who had once been under the influence of what had come out of Aristotle were now working on earth, and the Platonists who had been in the school of Chartres were, as it were, "watching" above, but in connection with the Aristotelians working on earth. The spiritual world went hand in hand with the physical world. It was like a handshake between the Aristotelians and the Platonists throughout the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. And then many of those who had descended to introduce Aristotelianism in Europe were already up there with the others.

But the further development took place in such a way that both those who were the leaders in the School of Chartres and those who held the leading positions in the Dominican Order placed themselves at the head of those who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, prepared the later anthroposophical current in that powerful supersensible cultus which unfolded in the images alluded to. Those who had worked more or less as Aristotelians had to descend again, for under the influence of intellectualism the time had not yet come to deepen spirituality. But there was an unbreakable agreement that continues to work. And according to this agreement, something must emerge from the anthroposophical movement which must find its completion before the end of this century. For a destiny hangs over the Anthroposophical Society: the destiny that many of those who are now in the Anthroposophical Society must come down to earth again by the end of the twentieth century, but then united with those who were either themselves leaders in the School of Chartres or who were disciples of Chartres. So that before the expiration of the 20th century, if civilisation is not to come into complete decadence, the Platonists of Chartres and the later Aristotelians must work together on earth.“ (Lit.:GA 240, p. 155ff)

From here came the essential impulses for the Michael School founded in the spiritual world in the 15th century and the celestial cultus established by Michael in the spiritual world at the end of the 18th century and into the first half of the 19th century, through which the Michael Age that began in 1879 was to be prepared. The powerful cosmic imaginations in which this celestial cultus of Michael lived later became the actual content of anthroposophy and are also reflected in muted form in Goethe's fairy tale.

„The last great ones of the School of Chartres had just arrived in the spiritual world. Those individualities who ushered in the heyday of scholasticism were still in the spiritual world. And one of the most important exchanges of ideas behind the scenes of human development took place at the beginning of the thirteenth century between those who were still carrying up the old Platonism from the School of Chartres into the supersensible world, and those who were preparing to carry down Aristotelianism as the great transition for the bringing about of a new spirituality which is to flood into the development of humanity in the future. It was precisely these individualities who came from the School of Chartres who agreed to tell those who were preparing to descend into the sensual-physical world and to cultivate Aristotelianism in scholasticism as the right element of the age: For us, first of all, earthly activity is not possible; we remain up here. And so the spirits of Chartres remained in the supersensible world, without yet entering into significant earthly incarnations. But they played a mighty part in shaping that grandiose imagination which was formed in the first half of the nineteenth century.“ (Lit.:GA 237, p. 98f)

The School of Orléans

By 1200, the School of Chartres had passed its peak and Paris was increasingly emerging as the centre of scholasticism. In Paris, the intellectual dialectical method of thought matured, while some of the spirit cultivated in Chartres was still preserved in the School of Orléans, as Rudolf Steiner also pointed out. This contrast between Paris and Orléans is also taken up by Henry d'Andeli in 1230 in his important poem "La bataille des VII arts". The battle rages between Paris and Orléans, between dialectica (logica) and grammatica, between logic and the elementary power of the word. In the end, the Logica wins and the Dialectica has to retreat to the area between Orléans and Blois. This is how things will remain for 30 years, writes d'Andeli, nothingness and hollowness will reign, but then new people will come who will again turn to grammar, to the word.

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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