Kleinschmidt, Harald, 2005. Perception and Action in Medieval Europe. Woodbridge: Boydell. (ISBN: 1-843831465). Price: £45.00
Reviewed by Lucy Whiteley (University of Glasgow)
This detailed and intriguing study seeks to historicise aesthetics and ethics as theories of perception and action by charting their developing implications from pre-Christian to Christian society. Firmly embedded in a dazzling variety of source material - from Church records to Sienese art, from theological treatises to music manuscripts - it is an ambitious project that really engages with the reality of life and rationality of thought in the medieval world.
The fundamental premise of the work is that the two concepts of action and perception were, in the pre-Christian era, indissociable and linked to tight (kinship or other) groupings. Yet in Christian society, those particularistic groupings began to wane in favour of more fractured communities, while levels of literacy and communication, over which the Church exercised an important element of control, rose. As a result, the two notions became divided into two discrete concepts derived from universally imposed aesthetic and moral principles.
To understand this process of severance, Kleinschmidt turns first to extant visual art from the medieval period (ch. 1). As he himself points out, in the absence of any reflective contemporary writings on the norms of perception, one must turn to the art itself and reconstruct those norms 'in the same way as the grammar of a spoken language can be constructed from its use' (p. 14). For some readers this may resemble the very anachronism he so determinedly eschews - and yet it is convincing in its application. Beginning with the early Middle Ages, he concludes that perception of art could be assumed to have a didactic element; that it would lead to a specific course of action in its viewers - so long as they received sufficient support from outside sources (the groups to which the individual belonged). By the eleventh century, however, the spatial arrangements of pieces of art indicated a shift towards an emphasis on hierarchy, with kings and lords being placed on a higher visual plane within the works (p. 24). In other words, a much more individualistic sense of identity was emerging - a fact that Kleinschmidt does not specifically recognise (though this does not detract too much from his argument, given that the main gist flows in a slightly different direction).
Having discussed both visual and aural sources, Kleinschmidt proceeds to investigate the other three senses - smell, touch and taste (ch. 3). This is accomplished in a way that provides a corrective to previous work by thinkers such as Norbert Elias whose 'lack of awareness of changing standards of perception' meant that he used his own standards as the yardstick by which to judge the 'increase' in affective control that occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (pp. 57-59). Kleinschmidt avoids falling into the same trap by reformulating the question and asking how medieval people interacted with their social and physical environments and drawing assumptions from the responses in source material. This is, perhaps, the most engaging chapter as it really delves into the ambiguity and ambivalence surrounding the senses in the medieval period. For example, we read that Augustine wrote on the importance of producing sweet smells (implicitly associating them with morality in the same way that physical perfection was deemed to connote inner, spiritual sublimity), and yet he also condemned the habit of bathing, which was construed as an occasion of sensual pleasure that could not, therefore, be free from sin. In the same way, 'touch could be judged as either evil or benign' (76). The reason for this ambivalence, Kleinschmidt argues, is that up until the eleventh century, acting for the maintenance of community was more important than regulating the details of the perception of smell, taste and touch, leading to a state of considerable confusion that cannot be justly assumed to lack the sensitivity Elias awards the early modern period.
Following these explorations, Kleinschmidt proceeds to investigate the rationality of action. He takes as his starting point the Weberian conceptualisation of action whereby the success of action can be measured in the extent to which it achieves its goal; action is thus rational inasmuch as it is goal-oriented. However, he suggests that this theory does not have universal application, and that, especially in preliterate societies, there is a much greater reliance on process-oriented action. This is due, largely, to the very essence of orality whereby the process of communication is an integral part of its success. Again the link is made between the idea of group integration (of early medieval society) and the need for the consistency and continuity of the processes that maintained those groups.
Overall, the theories that underpin and inform this book are exciting and coherent, if a little too implicit in places: very often I found I had to make my own connections between points raised, and to draw the assumptions I was no doubt intended to make. The sheer density of material analysed arguably provides the principal achievement and attraction of the book, providing the start- and end-point of Kleinschmidt's investigations. Yet it can, at times, obscure the theory by its magnitude - which is to say nothing of the overwhelmingly extensive notes and references that occupy half of every page. These will provide an invaluable source for students of the medieval period, but might have been better in endnote format to encourage a more fluent reading.
However, quibbles aside, Perception and Action was an enormously enjoyable read, and one that left me not only asking questions about my own methodologies, but also thinking about the medieval period in a different light. A remarkable achievement indeed!