The Discarded Image

Content Warning: This section includes descriptions of racist attitudes and biases put forth by the author.

Ancient Greece and ancient Rome both had a profound and lasting impact on the people and literature of the Medieval Era, for no other sources were held in such high esteem as classical ones. Plato and Aristotle were particularly strong influences, but many other classical writers and thinkers also left their mark on the Medieval Model of the universe. Medieval people’s understanding of the cosmos, for instance, came largely from Ptolemy’s geocentric universe. Other classical writers provided the inspiration for the heavenly spheres and for Earth’s cosmic insignificance. Although most people in medieval Europe were Christian, with Christianity being an official religion in many countries, medieval people did inherit some aspects of ancient Greek and Roman polytheistic religions. For example, the planets were named after Roman deities, and many medieval people believed in astrology. Additionally, classical figures appeared often in medieval texts.

Another significant kind of classical thought in the Medieval Model can be found in medieval people’s perceived cultural heritage. C. S. Lewis notes that many people in medieval Britain considered themselves to be literally, metaphorically, or (at the very least) intellectually descended from the Trojans. This belief can be traced back to the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, whose epic poem, the Aeneid, explicitly linked ancient Greece with ancient Rome. As eventual members of the Roman Empire, medieval Britons considered themselves to be part of this long (though entirely fictitious) line of descent. However, this conviction proved to be far from a harmless falsehood, for the belief that medieval people were in any sense the rightful heirs to the greatness of the Roman Empire was used to justify imperialism and later fueled notions of cultural and racial superiority. C. S. Lewis is well aware that medieval people were not descended from the Trojans, but he nevertheless continues this line of reasoning uncritically. In fact, he is particularly adamant in the book’s first chapter that medieval Europeans assimilated flawlessly into Roman culture, unlike the so-called “savage” colonized peoples of later centuries. 

Lewis notes only one major exception to his argument that classical ideas essentially built the Medieval Model: fairies. Fairy stories were prevalent in medieval literature, but they came directly from Britain and other European cultures without much intercession at all from either classical or Christian sources. Lewis finds the presence of fairies in literature to be frustrating because they are difficult to categorize according to the Model as he has described it; they destabilize the entire system, which is otherwise very carefully ordered. Eventually, fairies, like classical influences, were adapted, mediated, and in many cases Christianized in medieval literature. Thus, it is clear that medieval people were not simply repeating verbatim what they learned from Greek and Roman sources, but were instead using these influences to develop their own composite culture.