Course Syllabus
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Making Europe: Medieval Culture and the Framing of European Identity
History 274 |
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But move backwards into the Middle Ages and you are in a world almost equally foreign. A windowless hut, a wood fire which smokes in your face because there is no chimney, mouldy bread, "Poor John," lice, scurvy, a yearly child-birth and a yearly child-death, and the priest terrifying you with tales of hell.--George Orwell, North and South (1937)
We seem to be embarked upon a journey into darkness. Part of the final examination for this course will be to comment on Orwell's remarks as a modern's vision of the European Middle Ages.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
"Making of Europe: The Middle Ages" will consider European society, politics, and culture from their foundations in late antiquity to their reshaping in the fourteenth century. This course will depend heavily upon contemporary literary and historical documents as source materials, supporting these primary texts, and encouraging students in their independent work to engage with recent historical criticism. Discussion sessions will assume some rudimentary understanding of the shape of the western past and of Christian thought. Students unfamiliar with the Christian tradition are advised to find copies of the New Testament and to read at least the gospel of Matthew before they undertake the assignments described below.
This year’s version of HY 274 will center on the medieval period as the framing of European culture--how various Mediterranean, Celtic, and Germanic peoples came collectively to define their civilization as Latin Christendom, and where they understood its internal and external frontiers to lie. Common readings and discussions will emphasize the ways in which documentary, literary, and material relics exhibit a European self-understanding, placing special emphasis on the ways in which medieval people invested their lives with meaning and beauty. We will ask what medievals loved, what they admired, and what they feared.
Most of the medieval works we will consider together were, for all their difference from ourselves and contemporaries, part of the mainstream of medieval culture. In order to explore the Middle Ages' fuller range of identities, students will therefore be encouraged to focus their research interests on Europe's margins--among people such as Vikings, Saracens, Jews, heretics, and critics of the established order.
READINGS
The following works or collections, required for the entire class, are available in the College Bookstore. Several of these texts are in print in variety of translations. Students are nonetheless urged to use those selected for class, so that discussion may easily refer to selected passages.
Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN-10: 0691114811
Colin McEvedy and David Woodroffe, New Penguin Atlas of Medieval Europe, 2nd ed.(New York: Penguin, 1992). ISBN-10: 0140512497
Beowulf, trans. Seamus Heaney (New York: Norton, 2001). ISBN-10: 0393320979
Einhard and Notker, Two Lives of Charlemagne, trans. David Ganz (New York: Penguin, 2008).
Song of Roland, trans. Glyn Burgess (New York: Penguin, 1990). ISBN-10: 0140445323
Marie de France, Lais of Marie de France, trans. Glyn Burgess and Keith Busby (New York: Penguin, 1999). ISBN-10: 0140447598
Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins (New York: HarperOne, 2009). ISBN-10: 0060576523
Robert Bartlett, The Hanged Man: A Story of Memory, Miracle, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). ISBN-10: 0691126046
The following further readings are available on this course's CANVAS site through the CC webpage:
Passion of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, trans. H. R. Musurillo, in Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 70-77.
Benedict of Nursia, Rule of St. Benedict: RB 1980, trans. Timothy Fry (Collegeville MN: Litugical Press, 1982), 17-96.
Maureen Miller (ed. and trans.), Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture Conflict: A Brief History with Documents (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005), 1-27, 182-201, 231-237.
Life of Godfrey of Cappenberg, trans. Carol Neel (pre-publication version).
S. J. Allen and Emilie Amt (eds.), The Crusades: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 37-80.
John Shinners (ed.), Medieval Popular Religion 1000-1500: A Reader, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 157-228.
The following films will be subjects of critical discussion:
Peter Glenville (dir.), Becket (1964).
Liliana Cavani (dir.), Francesco (1989).
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Vigorous and well-prepared discussion contribution is fundamental to students' successful performance in this course. Students will be responsible for careful reading and thoughtful consideration of all assigned texts. In addition, each will be required to submit
- one four-page paper comparing two primary-source readings
- one ten-page research essay (topic to be decided in consultation with the instructor)
- one two-hour essay exam
One third of the final grade will depend on class participation, one third on the research essay, and a final third on the short paper and and exam considered together. All students will be expected to finish assigned readings before class meetings on the day for which they are listed. Readings for which no page numbers are listed are to be read in their entirety. No written assignments will be accepted late without prior excuse. Papers will observe Chicago Manual of Style reference form. All written work will acknowledge the Colorado College Honor Code.
SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Discussion titles are indicated below in bold face, written assignments and special scheduling or locations in upper case. The class will meet in Palmer 227 at 9:30 am, unless otherwise noted, except for the first day of the block, when class will meet at 9 am for an introduction to the material and discussion of the syllabus, then again at 1 pm for discussion of a first short reading.
Week 1 (9/21)
Mon. "Middle" Ages, Middle "Ages"?
INTRODUCTION 9am
SECOND CLASS MEETING 1pm: Passion of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity (e-file)
Tues. Heroes, Monsters, and Barbarians
Beowulf (entire text); Geary 1-40
Weds. The Monastic Ideal
Benedict (entire text); Geary 41-119
INDIVIDUAL AFTERNOON MEETINGS ON ESSAY TOPICS
Thurs. Before France and Germany
Einhard (entire text); Geary 120-174
Fri. RESEARCH DAY
Week 2 (9/28)
Mon. The Kingdoms and the Church
Song of Roland (entire text)
Tues. Authority and Sanctity
Miller 1-27, documents 3, 10, 15, 19, 20, 21, 39 (e-file)
FILM 1pm: Becket
Weds. The Love of Learning
Miller documents 31, 32, 35 (e-file)
EVENING OPPORTUNITY 7pm: Paul Friedland talk in Gaylord Hall (on capital punishment)
Thurs. Women, Men, and God EVENING WILLIAMS TALK
Life of Godfrey
EVENING OPPORTUNITY 7pm: George Williams talk in Gaylord Hall (on capital punishment)
Fri. Europeans and Outsiders NOON SIHC DIALOGUE
Allen (two e-files)
NOON OPPORTUNITY: Social Issues and Historical Contexts Dialogue in Gaylord Hall
Week 3 (10/5)
Mon. The Love of Love
Marie de France (entire text)
Tues. Living with the Saints
Shinners (e-file)
Weds. RESEARCH DAY
EVENING SESSION 7pm: Lawrence Cunningham talk in Gaylord Hall (on Thomas Merton)
Thurs. Reading an Ideal Life
Bonaventure (entire text) with guest Lawrence Cunningham
Fri. ESSAY EXAM DUE NOON
FILM 1pm: Francesco
Week 4 (10/12)
Mon. The Fourteenth Century
Bartlett (entire text)
Tues.
NOON PIZZA AND PAPER WORKSHOPS
Weds.
10-PAGE PAPER DUE NOON
ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
Click here a rich online source, the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Course Summary:
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