HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Lorenzo Valla, Medieval Latin, Middle Ages
Document Summary
In the 15th century, the italian renaissance humanist, lorenzo valla would use his humanistic skills to prove the donation to be a fake. But in the middle ages, it carried real force as a political and legal document: church and law. The relationship between the church and the law more broadly was also decisive in shaping the medieval latin world. In a time of shifting temporal politics, the church"s canon law offered a stable, reliable standard: church and education. The institutional church shaped the structures of education in medieval europe. By the 13th century, western europe was already full of universities: bologna, salamanca, paris, Many of the theological arguments explaining and defending the medieval synthesis emerged from university faculty members. Even luther would come up through that university system: church and economy. Given its political influence and its proximity to trade rich italian city states, the papacy was also an economic powerhouse.