Try to name a medieval art piece. Hard right? Well, not for me, ‘The worldview of medieval Tyler’. That’s right, not only does the medieval artwork have my name on it, but it has me featured in it.

What can we learn from the past and why does it matter to us today?  That is the question I aimed to answer while going forward in this project. It’s hard to believe our lives and worldview today is still effected by the peoples knowledge and life style from 1200 BC!  My art piece displays the medieval worldview and what it was like to live back then, learning and knowing this shows me how many things learned and invented in the medieval times are the bases of everything we know and use today.

So, how did I get here? This project was a long process full of many assignments that lead up to the final project of turing myself into medieval art that displayed the medieval worldview.

The Book of the Lion

We started off this project, with yet again another book. The Book of The Lion is a book set in the medieval times and is about a boy named Edmund’s experience in the crusades. This book was definitely not my favourite because I had a very hard time understanding how the medieval  people talk, but it did give me a good understanding of the medieval worldview.

The Feudal System

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Part of understanding the medieval worldview, is learning about the feudal system. The feudal system is how the medieval people organized the roles in their society. It came with the idea that the king is at the top and the peasants are at the bottom, which also implies that women are somewhere near the bottom as well. For this part of the project we had to read feudal system and then make notes in the format of a ‘window’. While making this I learned how hard it was to be successful in the medieval times, if you weren’t born somewhat high on the pyramid, you have basically no chance of moving up. Also, I learnt how bad women were treated, they were considered property, had no chance whatsoever of success, and they were thought to be in the same area of the feudal system as the farm animals.

Haudenosaunee 

To understand how sexist and unfair the feudal system is, we also learned about the Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee is an indigenous group that believes strongly in peace and unity. Also, the women were the decision makers for the Haudenosaunee and were the  most respected community members. The influence of the women in the Haudenosaunee nation has continued throughout the generations and is still at the heart of indigenous communities today. To read more about the Haudenosaunee, read the blog post I did about them here. Learning about them and their way of learning taught me how the Haudenosaunee and the lifestyle they created so long ago is still the bases of so many indigenous communities today. 

Chinggis Khan Musical

Another assignment we did within this project is making a tribute to a medieval leader. My group and I made a musical in tribute to Chinggis Khan. 

In making this video, we included the medieval worldview by talking about about how violent those times were, we displayed the significance of Chinggis by showing how he made a Mongolian empire and how he brought peace to many countries. Also, we showed how what he did matters to us today by including a person from the future who comes in and learns from the peace Chinggis brought. After finishing this, I learned how violent the medieval times really were.

Artwork Choice Chart

Getting closer to the final project, we had to create an artwork choice chart which helped us build up ideas of what to put on our final artwork. We had to connect eight different categories, geography, time, society, values, beliefs, economy, and knowledge, to the medieval worldview and then our world view, as well as finding medieval art pieces for all of them. Creating this helped me have a better understanding of how the medieval worldview translates into my worldview, also helping me complete the artwork faster.

The Artwork

After a long month of working in this project, I have finally completed my artwork. My art piece displays the medieval worldview and what it was like to live back then, learning and knowing this shows me how many things learned and invented in the medieval times are the bases of everything we know and use today. In the medieval times, people learned and collected knowledge from word of mouth and story telling, this is why I put a medieval man telling a story on my art. We still learn from these stories today, along with many more that we have collected over time, this helps us learn and build our worldview and knowledge. Almost everything I know and use today has been shaped by other peoples past experiences. Another one of the aspects in my artwork is an astrolabe, which is the medieval times first draft of a clock, but rather than showing a digital time, it displayed the timekeeping of day and night. We have taken this clock and transformed into the clock we have today. The clock is now a massage part of mine and almost everyone else’s life, the clock controls my entire of what I do, what time I have to be at school, sports, the time I wake up, the time I go to bed, etc. I put a cross necklace around my neck because the main religion in the medieval time was Christianity. Believing in god shaped the peoples worldview and how they lived life. Christianity in the medieval times was the beginning of the massive religion today. I am not Christian, but having a western worldview, it effects my life without me even realizing it. For example, a lot of my friends and people I know are Christian, therefore i know a lot about it. Also, I celebrate Christmas and Easter which are both holidays that were started and are a part of the Christian religion. Lastly, I added two men bossing around a women slave to show the unfair roles that the medieval times had in their society. People believed that men are higher than women and that men should have all of the power. This belief is still standing in a lot of peoples beliefs and lifestyle. This makes me mad because it shows how women have been on the bottom from day one and that it still isn’t fully better. 

F.A.I.L (first attempts in learning)

If I were to do this project again I would manage my time better. Often I would keep pushing aside the task of reading and then I would get to the night before it was done and have to read it all then. This lead to some late nights of working, which lead to tiredness, which lead to trouble focusing. Moving forwards, I can manage my time by keeping a calendar of when things have to be done so I can stay on top of my work.

Why Does The Past Matter to us Today?

The medieval days was the time of learning and experimenting, they were the ones who made our lives this much easier today, by forming base to everything we know and use now. They are the ones who paved a path that we walk on now, and are the ones who made it possible for us to keep learning and experimenting.