关键词: 体育文化, 中世纪, 基督教, 灵魂与身体

Abstract: From the perspective of history and philosophy, the evolution of soul and body value of medieval Christianity and its influence on physical education are discussed. Medieval Christianity belongs to Christianity and Christian theology influenced and shaped the medieval people's lifestyle. The soul and body value of medieval Christianity has a profound influence on medieval sports, which is mainly indicated in the following aspects: (1) In the early and Middle Ages, the Augustin doctrine adhered to the oppositional idea of spirit and body that "body is the soul of prison", which led to the silence of competitive sports and the exclusion of sports from education; (2) In the late Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas reinterpreted of the relation of soul and body on behalf of the scholastic philosophy, put forwarding the view that Man is a complete existence of soul and body of the combination of spirit and body. Ideological emancipation aroused people’s attention to their body and its health. In churches` and schools, extracurricular sports activities were carried out while in the urban and rural society, various forms of sports activities arose and they became the predecessor of modern sports.

Key words: sports culture, the Middle Ages, Christianity, Soul and body.