>one of the more pertinent (and trickier) issues in medieval history, it has
>always seemed to me, is that of the "rise of intolerance" in twelfth-century
>europe. leaving aside the question of what "tolerance" means, for the
>moment: was there a "rise"? and what role did intellectuals play in any such
>rise? identifiable groups experiencing (hypothetical) increasing persecution
>include jews, heretics, and homosexuals. in some ways, it's sort of the
>counterpart to goldhagen's question in "hitler's willing executioners."
The Twelfth Century was roughly the start of Catholic internal policing in the form of the Inquisition. One could infer from this, the rise of "personal piety", and the instigation of the Mendicant Orders aimed at the townsmen practicing personal piety that there was lots of "official" intolerance re. any independence from the Catholic Church. The intellectuals of the time, monks, mendicants, and other churchmen, probably did what the vast majority of intellectuals do in any time: suck up to authority (see especially Thomas Aquinas and the Christianization of Aristotelean thought).
Todd