Doric & Etruscan temple types 650 BC: * see Endnote <A>

Etruscan architecture dates from 700-200 BC; they built temples & tombs as well as civic buildings like  houses, city walls, bridges & roads, using stone, wood & other materials.    Early Etruscan worship was in open air enclosures, marked off but not built over; sacrifices were held outside not inside.  After 630 BC, they were heavily influenced by Greek architecture & under this stimulus began building monumental temples (around 600 BC).  In these temples only the base platform used stone, the upper parts of wood & mud-brick, the portico columns sometimes used stone (as at Veii). 

 

burning the dead:

from 3000 BC until 1100 BC the Greeks practiced inhumation (burial).  In the 12th century cremation appeared, a new practice influenced by Anatolia.  Both forms sued until the Christen era.  Homer's account of Patroclus' burial (the earliest description of cremation) describes cremation with subsequent burial in a tumulus.  However during Mycenaean times burial was preferred & Homer is reflecting the common use of cremation when the Iliad was written (centuries later).  It emained common though not universal, in Greece & Rome.  Cicero states in Rome inhumation was considered archaic, honoured citizens were typically cremated, especially upper classes & members of imperial families, often associated with military honours.

 

Calchas:

son of Thestor, an Argive seer, with gift (from Apollo) for interpreting the flight of birds; also good at interpreting entrails of the enemy in battle.  Before the Trojan War he prophesied to gain favourable winds Agamemnon needed to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigeneia, to appease Artemis.  Also stated Troy will fall in the 10th year of war.  In the Iliad, tells the Greeks that Chryseis must be returned to her father to stop Apollo from sending plague; this triggered the quarrel of Achilles & Agamemnon, the theme of the Iliad.  Beside these he plays various pivotal roles in the final fall of Troy.

 

Tiresias:

blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance & for being transformed into a woman for 7 years; son of the shepherd Everes & the nymph Chariclo.  He participated fully in 7 generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself.

 

Orpheus:

legendary musician, poet & prophet in Greek religion & myth; founder & prophet of the "Orphic" mysteries; also credited with the composition of the Orphic Hymns (2 of which have survived); shrines containing relics of Orpheus were regarded as oracles; able to charm all living things & and even stones with his music; attempted to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld; he died at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. 

 

Numa:

(aka Numa Pompilius) 753–673 BC; legendary 2nd king of Rome (715–673 BC) after Romulus; Sabine origin, many of Rome's most important religious & political institutions attributed to him; celebrated for his wisdom & piety.  Endorsed by Jupiter, enjoyed direct relations with several Gods, famously the nymph Egeria, who taught him to be a wise legislator.  Authored several "sacred books" of divine teachings from Egeria & the Muses.  Half covered the priesthoods he had established & their rituals.  He purportedly constrained 2 minor gods Picus & Faunus, into delivering some prophecies.  Held a battle of wits with Jupiter by which he sought to gain a protection against lightning & thunder.  He used a brass shield (the sacred Ancile, a gift from Jupiter) to protect Rome against plague.

the sacred precinct:

a space enclosed by the walls or other boundaries of a particular place or building, or by an arbitrary and imaginary line drawn around it.  If related to a religious practice, it can refer to the ground (sometimes consecrated) immediately surrounding a religious house or place of worship.  Temples typically have a main building and a larger precinct.  “Precinct” is derived from Rome, where a templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur.

 

Etruscan templum:

sacred space defined by an augur, for ritual purposes, a place "cut off" as sacred; temporary or permanent, depending on the purpose.  Auspices & senate meetings were unlawful unless held in a templum; if the senate house (Curia) was unavailable, an augur could apply the appropriate religious formulae to provide a lawful alternative.  To create a templum, the augur aligned his zone of observation (a square, portable surround) with the cardinal points of heaven & earth. The altar and entrance were sited on the east-west axis: the sacrificer faced east. Thus the precinct was "defined and freed".  In most cases, signs to the augur's left (north) showed divine approval, signs to his right (south), disapproval.  Stone temple buildings followed this ground-plan & were sacred in perpetuity.

 

augurs:

see Chapter IV, History(2),page 132

 

propitious:

presenting favourable conditions; favourable: indicative of favour; auspicious; favourably inclined; disposed to bestow favours or forgive:

 

Euclidean feeling:

Spengler means the expression of the Apollonian Soul’s feeling for form that is wholly corporal & immediate.

 

Cluniac reforms:

(aka Benedictine Reform) a series of changes in medieval monasticism of the Western Church to restore traditional monastic life, encourage art & care for the poor.  It began with the Benedictine order at Cluny Abbey (founded in 910 by William I, Duke of Aquitaine) & carried out by Saint Odo ( 878- 942).  They spread throughout France, into England and through much of Italy and Spain.  At monasteries established by feudal lords (their retirement homes) the severe Benedictine Rule was modified.  Matins were schedules so they did not interrupt sleep, the vegetarian diet was to include meat; warm rich clothing was allowed & the monks were allowed to disregard fasting. The reforms aimed to end these practices & allow the better enforcement of the Rule of Saint Benedict.

 

Eucharistic controversy: * see Endnote<B>

Berengar argued for a symbolic interpretation whereas Lanfranc argued for a literal interpretation of the Eucharist.  Neither denied the true presence but rather differed in the definition of true presence.

 

Berengar of Tours:

(999-1088) French 11th century Christian theologian & Archdeacon of Angers, a scholar whose leadership of the cathedral school at Chartres set an example of intellectual inquiry through the revived tools of dialectic, imitated at cathedral schools of Laon and Paris.  He disputed with the Church leadership the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Eucharist.  His significance for medieval theology lies in the fact that he asserted the rights of dialectic in theology.  Further, when both he and his critics used the secular disciplines of logic and grammar to express a matter of Christian doctrine, the way was open to the scholasticism of the twelfth century.

 

Lanfranc:

(1005- 1089) celebrated Italian jurist who renounced his career to become a Benedictine monk at Bec in Normandy; served as prior of Bec Abbey & abbot of St Stephen in Normandy, finally following the Norman Conquest (1066) archbishop of Canterbury in England.  His De corpore et sanguine Domini (1060-63) was regarded as conclusive & became for a text-book in the schools.  It is the first use of the Aristotelian distinction between substance & accident to explain Eucharistic change.

 

Speyer cathedral:

begun 1030 under Konrad II, with the east end & high vault (1090–1103), the imposing triple-aisled vaulted basilica of red sandstone was a design extremely influential in the subsequent development of Romanesque architecture in the 11th & 12th centuries.  Largest & finest of Romanesque churches.  Considered a turning point in European architecture. The burial site for Salian, Staufer & Habsburg emperors & kings, a symbol of imperial power.

 

Christian hymnology of the south:

the study of Christian hymns, their history, classification & composition; and Spengler specifies this to the older Roman Empire (the south), Gaul, Italy, Spain

 

Eddas of the north: * <C>

Norse term referring to 2 Medieval Icelandic literary works, the Prose Edda and an older collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda (no original title); both were written down in Iceland in the 13th century (in Icelandic); they contain material from earlier traditional sources as far back as the Viking Age; the main sources of medieval skaldic tradition in Iceland and Norse mythology.

and see Chapter II, Numbers, page 88

 

prosody:

the study of poetic meters and versification; a particular or distinctive system of metrics and versification:

 

rhythmic syntax:

the study of the rules or patterns for the formation of rhythm in poetry or the rules themselves

 

Dies Irae:

Latin for "Day of Wrath", hymn attributed to Thomas of Celano (1200-65), a Franciscans; but possibly older; some sources ascribe it to St. Gregory the Great (died 604).  It is in Medieval Latin poetic style characterized by its accentual stress & rhymed lines, with trochaic metre.  Describes the Last Judgment, the trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered & the damned cast into eternal flames.  The hymn is best known from its use as a sequence in the Requiem (Mass for the Dead or Funeral Mass).

 

Voluspa:

aka elder Edda; first & best known poem of the Poetic Edda, telling the story of the creation of the world & its coming end, it is related to the audience by a female shaman & seer who is addressing Odin; probably of the 10th-century AD and by a pagan Icelander with knowledge of Christianity.