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“Europe” and “Christendom” a Problem in Renaissance Terminology and Historical Semantics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
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The term Christendom (Christianitas) meaning a territorial area took many centuries to establish itself, but by the twelfth century it had become part of the regular vocabulary of the Latin-speaking and -writing world. During the long period of the emergence of Christendom the world Europe was not a competitor, for it was used only in a geographical sense in scientific works and in exegesis on those passages of the Bible which described the peopling of the world. There is, however, a marked change in the fourteenth century in this regard. Europe is a rare word in Dante: in Petrarch it is frequently found. It is true that there is one isolated example of the adjective in the eighth century, in a chronicle describing the united resistance to the Moors. Thereafter there is, I believe, no further example until the fourteenth century. Dante in fact, who has no inhibitions about using the words “Asian” and “African,” deliberately avoids “European.” The next generation sees Boccaccio use the word “Europaic”—an old invention, which was not to have any parallels either in Latin or in vernaculars. And it is not till we come to Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini that we find Europaeus emerging. The adjective is found more than once in his voluminous writings. In the following generation we find Erasmus using Europaeus and in the next generation again we find the word entering the vernacular languages of Europe. It is, of course, true that Christianitas (or more commonly respublica Christiana) continues to be used with great frequency during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, together with the vernacular equivalents of these expressions.
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- Copyright © 1957 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
Footnotes
*
The first part of this article was communicated to the Tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, Rome, September 1955. I use the term “historical semantics” in the sense it is given by Marc Bloch, Apologie pour l'histoire (Paris, Colin, 1949), p. 85. The whole of Bloch's discussion, pp. 79–97, is very valuable and to the point.
References
1. See Jean Rupp, L'idée de Chrétienté dans la pensée pontificale des Origines à Innocent III (Paris, 1939).
2. There is an exceptional period when Europe had rather more significance in Carolingian imperial speculation: W. Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (Lon don, Methuen, 1955), pp. 95, 105-6; cf. H. Gollwitzer, "Zur Wortgeschichte und Sinndeutung von Europa," Saeculum (Munich, 1951), 161-171.
3. H. F. Mueller, A Chronology of Vulgar Latin (Halle, 1929), p. 46; M. Bloch, Société féodale (Paris, Michel, 1940), I, 6, and note.
4. De Monarchia, III, xiv, 7: "non modo Asiani et Affricani omnes, sed etiam maior pars Europam colentium."
5. Commento alla Divina Commedia (ed. D. Guerri, "Scrittori d'Italia"), III, 180.
6. Opera Omnia (Basel, 1571), p. 387; Vat. Cod. Lat. 405, fol. 249; and cf. Werner Fritz meyer, Christenheit und Europa (Munich-Berlin, 1931), p. 28.
7. Consultatio de bello Turcis inferendo (ed. Leyden, 1643), p. 22; and cf. Opuscula (ed. Ferguson, the Hague, 1933), p. 34, and doubtless elsewhere.
8. Godefroy, Complément, s.v. "Européen": Bonivard, Advis et devis des lengues, 1563. N.E.D. s.v. "European" A and B (1603 onwards).
9. Munich-Berlin, 1931.
10. F. Chabod, "L'idéa di Europa," La Rassegna d'Italia, II, Nos. 4 and 5 (April, May 1947).
11. A. Saitta, Dalla Res Pubblica Cristiana agli Stati Uniti di Europa (Rome, 1948).
12. The collection of reproductions made by the late M. C. Andrews is now deposited with the Royal Geographical Society. I was able to consult it through the kindness of G. R. Crone.
13. Most commonly on the so-called "Isidore" maps.
14. De civ. Dei xvi. cap. 2.
15. K. Kretschener, Die italienischen Portolane des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1909); A. E. Nor denskiöld, Periplus (Stockholm, 1897).
16. H. Cochin, "La grande controverse de Rome et d'Avignon au XIVe siècle," Etudes Italiennes, III (1921), pp. 1-14, 83-94.
17. C. E. du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Parisiennes, IV, 396-412. On the authorship ofthis extraor dinary effusion see Mollat, Papes d'Avignon, 9th ed. (Paris, Lecoffre, 1949), p. 253. Du Boulay's text is very bad indeed.
18. Marine and Durand, Amplissima collectio, VII, 749. For the identity of the author see E. F. Jacob, Essays in the Conciliar Epoch, 2d ed. (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1953), p. 71.
19. For example H. Finke, Acta Concilii Constanciencis, III, 628-637.
20. Mansi, xxvii, cols. 1022-1031, 1058-1070, and von der Hardt, V, colls. 56-101, print the French and English protests, on which see Fillastre's "Journal," Finke, II, 82, 90, 99-100; M. Creighton, History of the Papacy (London, 1897), ii, 80-81; N. Valois, La France et le grand Schisme (Paris, Picard, 1896-1902), iv, 376; Louise R. Loomis, "Nationality at the Council of Constance," American Hist. Rev., xliv (1939), pp. 508-527, esp. pp. 522-26. The "Advisamenta" is in von der Hardt, v, 102-3. The whole debate was published (Nobilissima Disceptatio etc.) by Sir Robert Wingfield (Louvain, 1517), reprinted London, 1670.
21. Pio II, Lettera a Maometto II (ed. G. Toffanin, Naples, 1953), pp. 110-11, 113, 176.
22. Raynaldus-Baronius, x. 281 a.
23. Ibid., 362 a.
24. A. Joly, Benoît de Sainte-More et le Roman de Troie (Paris, 1870), I, 527 n.
25. Waldseemuller, Carta Itineraria Europae, 1511; S. Munster, Cosmographia Universalis, 1588.
26. See, inter alia, F. le Van Baumer's papers in American Hist. Rev., Vol. LI (1944), and Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. VI (1945).
27. Among the historians cf. the studies of Chabod and Saitta noted above, notes 10 and 11; G. Barraclough, below, note 31; E. H. Carr, " ‘Russia and Europe' as a theme of Russian History," Essays presented to Sir L. Hamier (Oxford, 1956).
28. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vi; Biographich Woordenboek der Nederlanden, v; His torisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz, iii.
29. See P. Geyl, Debates with Historians (Groningen, Wolters, 1955), pp. 179-97.
30. F. G. Hahn, "Zur Geschichte der Grenze zwischen Europa und Asien," Mitteilungen des Vereins für Erdkunde zu Leipzig (1881), pp. 83-104. The change was accomplished by the 1830's.
31. G. Barraclough, History in a Changing World (Oxford, Blackwell, 1955), pp. 1-53.
32. Op. cit., p. 87.
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