¶ … Alike Medieval Europe and Japan

There is an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. But does unfamiliarity breed similarity? In the Middle Ages, two civilizations at opposite ends of the globe evolved in a strangely similar manner. Western Europe had its feudal age. Japan had its feudal age. The Roman Catholic Church exerted a powerful influence from Sweden to Italy, Buddhist temples and monasteries from Hokkaido to Kyushu. In the West, civilization rebuilt itself after the fall of a great empire, while in the Far East a new nation emerged that modeled itself after the ancient civilization of its powerful neighbor. There are indeed many similarities between Medieval Western Europe and Medieval Japan, but there are also many differences. These two civilizations - almost entirely unknown to each other - evolved along similar yet different paths.

Following the Fall of Rome, and in the wake of devastating barbarian invasions, the map of Europe was redrawn. The Germanic tribes moved into Gaul, and the British Isles. Slavs swept into the Balkans. The Goths poured into Italy and Spain. Europe was soon divided into numerous, tiny, warring territories, territories that gradually coalesced into an order that would come to be described as the Feudal System. The feudal system was a kind of pyramid of interlocking relationships between lords and vassals in which vassals pledged to support their lords financially and militarily, while the lords promised to protect their vassals and uphold their rights. A somewhat similar situation existed in contemporary Japan. At the dawn of the European Middle Ages in the Fifth Century, Japan was a relatively backward country inhabited by numerous, politically-divided clans. Its people had not yet discovered writing, nor did they have any sort of sophisticated art or architecture. The Japanese worshipped...

At about the same time as the barbarian hordes began to sweep across Europe, a large influx of Koreans and Chinese brought the first advanced civilization to Japan. The first Japanese national capital was built at Nara in imitation of the Chinese capital, and the Japanese court adopted writing in Chinese characters along with Chinese styles in painting, sculpture, and bronze working. It was also at this time that Buddhism made its first appearance in Japan. Much like the Roman Catholic Church in the West, Buddhism was to have a profound effect on Japanese society.
During the last centuries of the First Millennium, the monasteries were virtually the only source of learning in Western Europe. Painstakingly copying them out by hand, monks produced beautiful illuminated manuscripts that preserved many of the works of Classical times, and also bits and pieces of contemporary history, culture, society, and traditional lore. Monasteries were a haven for travelers on the dangerous and robber-infested roads that wound through the dark European forests. In these early centuries as well, monasteries and churches were virtually the only large-scale building projects in the West, and even these Romanesque buildings with their crude sculptural adornments would seem small and earthbound in comparison to the grand gothic cathedrals and town halls of the later Middle Ages. However, in Japan at this time, things were somewhat different. Chinese influence and skills meant that, in some areas at least, beautiful temples such as Horyu-ji were constructed out of wood - wood being the usual building material in Japan, and the famous giant Buddhas, the Daibatsu, were cast out of bronze at Nara.

On the other side of the world, in Europe, art and architecture…