Warum heißt die Gotik eigentlich Gotik? | Wiegand von Marburg

Today it should be about the topic of gothic. No, not the gothic. Although, where the term comes from, it is somehow mysterious. But that would be a completely different topic. Hello and welcome to a new Vigant video. I want to predict that I was not quite idle again since the last video. I went out of my way, so to speak. Below in the description you will find a link to the podcast, which we recorded last week with Keines Weibes Knecht. If you want to listen to it, I found it very short-lived. We talked about God and the world and of course also about the Middle Ages. If you do not know Keines Weibes Knecht, you will certainly like to listen to it. And if you do not know Keines Weibes Knecht yet, I highly recommend it. If you will, it is now such a medieval talk show. There is a lot to discover and it is also very diverse. So I strongly recommend it. Anyway, before I start, maybe the note again, that you can also reach me via Instagram and Facebook and of course by e-mail. That means, of course, you can still write in the comments below. I am particularly happy about that and would like to answer them all as much as possible. So now to today's topic, the Gothic. I do not know if you feel the same way, but it occurred to me a bit strangely why the Gothic is called Gothic. So what is the Gothic? Essentially, it is an architectural and artistic style that is connected to the Romanesque and which is derived from the Renaissance. And you can roughly classify it. It starts around the 12th century and ends in the late 15th or 16th century. That is not so easy to determine, because it depends a lot on the region. Not everywhere does the Renaissance begin at the same time and not everywhere does the Gothic end at the same time. But what interests me much more is this word. Why the Gothic? Does that have anything to do with the Goths? And if so, why the Goths? That's a people from the people's migration, isn't it? So if you still remember a little bit of school education, what we heard in the story on the subject of people's migration. Yes, there was a people that somehow moved from the Northeast Sea through Poland to the Black Sea and then they split up and then there are West and East Goths and the East Goths move to Spain and the West Goths are first in Byzantium and then they conquer Northern Italy. But all this happens, as I said, in the 5th or 6th century. 7th maybe. So let's take a closer look at when the Goths are actually located and also determined in time. Yes, great, and this art style begins in the High Middle Ages, 500-600 years later, when no one speaks of the Goths anymore. Why is it called Gothic then? I found that funny anyway. If you look at Wikipedia, for example, and look for the origin of this term, you won't find a real explanation there either. It was a swear word and a Giorgio Vasari, an art theorist from the 16th century, used it as a swear word because of the underestimation of Gothic architecture. And you ask yourself, why Gothic architecture? My goodness, such and such and such buildings, that's something I stand in awe of, where I think every time, my goodness, they did that almost a thousand years ago. If you've been to the Cathedral of Canterbury or maybe the Cologne Cathedral or even in a smaller church, like, for example, in my beloved Elisabeth Church in Marburg, you can't find a swear word for it, I think. That's why I didn't understand it at all at first. The whole thing basically starts much earlier and is a story of conflicts between Germans and Italians, who at that time, of course, did not yet mean that or did not necessarily understand themselves as Germans and Italians. So we basically start in the year 800, when Charles the Great becomes emperor and thus orients himself on the Roman Empire. That means, together with the pope, basically, he ties himself to the Roman Empire, wants to revive the Roman Empire, which is partly successful, because the empire is suddenly almost half Europe again, at least Western Europe, and it is also called that. Later it will be called the Roman Empire of the German Nation, but that will take a while. In any case, it is the case that the German emperors, together with the pope and sometimes also against the pope, want to claim Italian territories and, above all, claims of dominion, and thus, for example, want to withdraw taxes or loans from Italy. And that this does not remain without conflicts should be clear, because, of course, the north Italian and the Italian cities, which are now getting stronger, richer, more powerful, do not necessarily have an insight why they should now pay taxes to any ruler north of the Alps. But what do they get out of it? Is he chosen by them? Most of the time not. The Germans choose a king up there, he becomes the emperor with the help of our pope, and we stand there and should now pay him money. Why actually? We are self-sufficient, we have our own administration. So a city like Milan, Florence, Venice, of course, Ravenna, Bologna, which are getting richer and more powerful by the merchant, by trade, they do not see at all why they should now bow to the German ruler. This is also different from time to time. So, of course, there are also rulers who can actually enforce this claim to power in Italy quite well. In particular, Friedrich II succeeds, who was born in Sicily and also speaks Italian. Friedrich holds, for example, as here in Rimini, also in Italienhof. But he still has enough trouble with the Italian cities and later even gets into conflict with the popes. But Friedrich II is in many ways an exception among the rulers of the High Middle Ages. So both in terms of his education and linguistic talent, as well as the way in which he understands himself, how he understands rule at all. Others, in any case, get into a lot of conflict, especially Emperor Barbarossa. And the Italian cities then also fight accordingly, so they sometimes try to resist, sometimes successfully and sometimes less successfully. But what comes out in the end is basically always an opposition against the claims to power in the north. Yes, we just don't see that. Somehow you have to understand that, I think. In the background, for example, you can look at artists like Dante Alighieri, who was born in Florence in 1265 and died in Ravenna in 1321 and who is considered one of the founders of the Renaissance in literature. And what do they do? They discover the antiquity again, they look at ancient texts, they look at what happened before the Middle Ages and what they think and what basically belongs to their origin story, to their cultural tradition. And here it is actually worth looking at Ravenna in particular, because not only Dante is buried in Ravenna, but also Theodorich the Great. And Theodorich was a Gothic prince who later became king in Italy and founded the claim to power of a, if you will, Nordic king over Italy. That is, here we simply know as Italians a Gothic ruler. With these Goths, the Roman Empire and the Roman culture and the Roman tradition seems to have actually perished. So they come from the north, apparently destroy this cultural flower and now plant their own traditions, pluck up their own traditions. I have a picture here from Remini. Imagine you are Dante, standing in Remini in front of this Augustus arch and see how stupefyingly this wonderful monument is overhauled by a medieval wall. These strange brick buildings from the Middle Ages that look so fragile and brittle against buildings such as the Pantheon in Rome, which is intended for eternity. And if you look at that, then you can understand it a little bit. It is quite obvious that a term Gothic arises for barbaric, i.e. culturally not particularly high-standing. The Goths, after their demise in 552, go up to the tribes of the Langobards and Franks and with the Franks we have arrived again at Charles the Great and thus, as already mentioned, with the German emperors in Italy. A reign that begins with the Goths. They are militarily successful, they defeated the Romans, they conquered the Roman Empire, at least the Western Roman Empire, and if you want to end it. But what they bring to culture seems to be less valuable. And that is now linked with the already existing aversion against the Germans who come from the north and who fight with the Italian cities. So that's basically the same barbaric horde that wants to dominate us. And we don't want that. And back then it was already wrong and now it's wrong again. And of course you can link that quite well. And in the background you can perhaps understand that accordingly. You want to revive your own cultural heritage, rediscover it and also consider it. And that is partly even seen in the north. So the renaissance will come at some point also in northern Europe, if it takes a while. But there, too, you discover the antiquity and think to yourself, we have lost a lot here and have to find it again. In the 17th and especially in the outgoing 18th century, especially here in Germany, the Greeks and the Romans were particularly admired, which eventually led to classicism. But in the 19th century, also due to the emerging patriotism at the time, the Gothic was rediscovered, which in principle also led to the artistic goal of the late Gothic. And well, that rehabilitated the Gothic a bit, I would say. And nowadays, I think, you can say with all due respect that all these artistic styles had their value and their place in history. And that you had something like equality there. And in general, the conflicts between Germany and Italy are basically history. Of course, as you know, this is not a scientific analysis, this is just from observation. And because I think that I can clarify a little where the concept comes from. But if you have a different opinion, or if you agree, of course, then I ask you, as always, to write it in the comments below. And maybe you even have a better idea. I would be very interested. Next time, it will be a little more about swords. And then I will explain to you why, for example, such a spot here, or such small spots, already bother me in principle. Why I neither want to rust swords nor armor, why I also do not believe that this is a particularly authentic patina. And in general, I will maybe explain a little what I better not do with swords, even if it's just show fighting. So then, thank you for watching and I hope you will be there again next time. Bye! Well, the conflicts between Germany and Italy are actually history. Who plays the best football in the world? Italy! What? Well, if I really ... Red spoon.