History 201: Medieval Europe

Fall 2000 Lecture Topics and Schedule

(tentative)

Part One: The Central Middle Ages, 1000-1300

  • 1 Sept. The Dark Past in the Year 1000
  • 4 Sept. The Nature of Men (The Vikings Settle Down)
  • 6 Sept. The Nature of Kingship (The Holy Roman Empire)
  • 8 Sept. The Nature of Politics (Feudal France)
  • 11 Sept. The Nature of Government (England)
  • 13 Sept. The Thread of God: Monastic Revolutionaries
  • 15 Sept. TEST: Political and Geographical Basics
  • 18 Sept. The Reform Papacy Seizes the World
  • 20 Sept. Who Speaks for God?
  • 22 Sept. The First Crusades
  • 25 Sept. St Anselm and the Intellectual Revolution
  • 27 Sept. The Social Imagination: Human Hierarchies
  • 29 Sept. The Feet of Society
  • 2 Oct. Town Air Makes Free?
  • 4 Oct. Aristocratic Culture
  • 6 Oct. Towards the University: Education, Ambition, Civil Service
  • 9 Oct.  No Class (Yom Kippur or a reading day, as you choose)
  • 11 Oct. The Battle of Giants, I: Kingship, Communities and Papacy, c. 1200
  • 13 Oct. Fall Break
  • 16 Oct. The Battle of Giants, II.
  • 18 Oct. Wealth, Poverty, and the Spiritual Crisis
  • 20 Oct. TEST: The Central Middle Ages: Church and State


     

  • Part Two: The Later Middle Ages, 1300-1540
    • 23 Oct. Dante and His World
    • 25 Oct. Dante and His World
    • 27 Oct. Dante and His World
    • 30 Oct. The Papacy Overreaches
    • 1 Nov. Radical Theorists
    • 3 Nov. An Agrarian Crisis
    • 5 Nov. A Revolution: The Black Death
    • 8 Nov. Social Transformations After the Plague
    • 10 Nov. The Social Self in the Later Middle Ages
    • 13 Nov. The Weight of War: Rebellion and The Hundred Years War
    • 15 Nov. Heroism, Nationalism and Faith: Henry V and Joan of Arc
    • 17 Nov. The Twilight of Chivalry
    • 20-24 Nov. Thanksgiving Recess (No Classes)
    • 27 Nov. The Practice of Religion: Fraternities, Feasts, and Charity
    • 29 Nov. The Practice of Religion: Religious Activism
    • 1 Dec. The Papacy in Pieces
    • 4 Dec. Luther's Gripe
    • 6 Dec. The Crisis of Identity: Country and Sect in the Early Sixteenth Century
    • 8 Dec. TEST: Later Medieval Europe
    • 14 Dec. 9:00AM: RESEARCH PAPERS DUE