This introductory lecture course is the first of three that cover the history of Europe from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period . This course is a history of European politics, culture, and institutions from roughly 1000 through 1500. Within a chronological framework, the focus will be on the development and expansion of nations and government, the growth of papal-dominated Christianity by conquest and crusade, the rise of the knight and chivalry, the revival of urban life, the crisis of the 14th century, the effects of the Black Death, the development of mysticism and heresy as forms of personal and social expression, and the beginnings of the Renaissance and the Reformation.