WEEK 1 (August 23-25): Introduction to the course. Problematic concepts: catastrophe, disaster, calamity. Theoretical approaches: “overshoot and collapse” theory (Jared Diamond) vs. “resilience” theory (Norman Yoffee)

See: Jared Diamond on why societies collapse, and Joseph A. Tainter on the collapse of complex societies

WEEK 2 (August 28-September 1): Personal disasters. Job in the Middle Ages

Read:

• Job 
• John Chrysostom, Commentary on Job, chapter 1
• Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Book II
• Martien Parmentier, “Job the rebel: from the rabbis to the Church Fathers,” in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, edited by Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), pp. 227-242
• Mordechai Cohen, “Maimonides vs. Rashi: philosophical and philological-ethical approaches to Job,” in Between Rashi and Maimonides. Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature, and Exegesis, edited by Ephraim Kanarfogel and Moshe Sokolow (New York: Michael Scharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva University Press, 2010), pp. 319-342
• Lawrence L. Besserman, The Legend of Job in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 41-65 (chapter 2)
• Samuel Terrien, The Iconography of Job Through the Centuries. Artists as Bible Interpreters (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), pp. 44-61 (chapter 6)

Written assignments: 

1. In a two-page essay (due in class, on August 28), compare and contrast John Chrysostom and Gregory the Great’s reading of Job
2. As an initial quiz grade, come to class with notes (they can be electronic) on all of the readings for this week

WEEK 3 (September 4-8): Collective disasters. Invasions and genocide in the Middle Ages.

• Monday, September 4: Labor Day – no classes

Read:

• Roger of Torre Maggiore, Carmen miserabile
• Andrew Holt and James Muldoon (eds.), Competing Voices from the Crusades (Oxford/Westport: Greenwood World, 2008), pp. 23-37
• Stephen Pow, “Mongol inroads into Hungary in the thirteenth century. Investigating some unexplored avenues,” in The Routledge Handbook of the Mongols and Central-Eastern Europe, edited by Aleksandr V. Maiorov and Roman Hautala (London/New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 98-118.
• John R. Sweeney, “‘Spurred on by the fear of death’: refugees and displaced populations during the Mongol invasion of Hungary,” in Nomadic Diplomacy, Destruction and Religion from the Pacific to the Adriatic. Papers Prepared for the Central and Inner Asian Seminar, University of Toronto, 1992-1993, edited by Michael Gervers and Wayne Schlepp (Toronto: Joint Center for Asia Pacific Studies, 1994), pp. 34-62
• Victor Spinei, The Great Migrations in the East and Southeast of Europe From the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Adolf Hakkert, 2006), pp. 619-684
• David Nirenberg, “The Rhineland massacres of Jews in the First Crusade: memories medieval and modern,” in Medieval Concepts of the Past. Ritual, Memory, Historiography, edited by Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick Geary (Washington/Cambridge: German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 279-310
• Robert Chazan, “‘Let not a remnant or a residue escape’: millenarian enthusiasm in the First Crusade,” Speculum 84 (2009), no. 2, 289-313
• Jeremy Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God. Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), pp. 31-70 (chapters 2 and 3).

Written assignment: in a one-page essay (due in class on September 6), reflect on two of the secondary literature items pertaining to one of the primary sources for this week (either Roger’s Carmen miserabile, or the sources concerning the killing of Jews during the First Crusade). How did the analysis in these items either support or undermine your interpretation of that source? How are those two items different from each other in their interpretation of that source?  Be specific and include at least one footnote (using the Chicago Manual of Style) in your response.

Discussion of general themes for the research papers

WEEK 4 (September 11-15):  Group disaster. Sacking a city in the Middle Ages

Read:

• John Kaminiates, The Capture of Thessaloniki
• Eustathios of Thessalonica, The Capture of Thessaloniki
• Joseph D. C. Frendo, “The Miracles of St. Demetrius and the capture of Thessaloniki. An examination of the purpose, significance and authenticity of John Kaminiates’ De Expugnatione Thessalonicae,” Byzantinoslavica 58 (1997), 205-224
• Florin Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050. The Early Middle Ages (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 166-208 (chapter 6)
• Alexander P. Kazhdan and Simon Franklin, Studies on Byzantine Literature of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 115-195 (chapter 4)
• Michael Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204. A Political History (London/New York: Longman, 1997), pp. 295-303

Writing assignment:

1. This week you will be writing a primary source analysis based on two accounts of the capture of the city of Thessaloniki at two historically different moments–904 and 1185–and by two very different attackers. The authors of both texts, John Kaminiates and Eustathios of Thessalonica, were men of the Church, and therefore with sufficient education to display a thorough grasp of the rudiments of rhetorical composition. Although both accounts were cast in the traditional genre of lamentations (for the destruction of a city), their authors had in mind specific audiences and therefore made a careful selection and arrangement of events to include in the narrative. In your 2-3 page essay, you will discuss how they persuaded their audiences by means of comparison and contrast. Look at the two works entitled Capture of Thessaloniki as pieces of rhetoric (and literature). Each of you will have one aspect to examine (see list below). How does the description of that particular aspect function as a piece of rhetoric? What is its role in the general economy of the text? How do the authors use the story to appeal to their audiences? Who may have been the members of those audiences (in other words, for whom were those texts written)? What details of the sack of the city are particularly effective in each case? In addition, I would like you to scan the texts for specific religious references (e.g., citations from the Bible) and their use in explaining the events narrated. Your secondary readings this week will give you some background on John Kaminiates and Eustathios of Thessalonica.

• Groups 1-2: Portrait of the besieged: names, faces, characters
• Groups 3-4: Portrait of the attacker: names, faces, characters
• Groups 5-6: Pointing fingers: who is to blame for the disaster?

1. Primary source analysis due in class on September 11
2. Initial project statement due on September 15

WEEK 5 (September 18-22): Disaster in the making? Climate change and mutant seasons.

Read: 

• Theophanes, Chronographia
• Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou, “The Little Ice Age and Byzantium within the Eastern Mediterranean, ca. 1200–1350: an essay on old debates and new scenarios,” in The Crisis of the 14th Century: Teleconnections between Environmental and Societal Change? edited by Martin Bauch and Gerrit Jasper Schenk (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 190-220
• Oleksyi V. Komar, “The climate factor in life of the North Black See region nomads at the end of fifth-seventh centuries A. D.,” Chronica. Annual of the Institute of History, University of Szeged 7-8 (2007-2008), 125-133
• Ronnie Ellenblum, The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean. Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950-1072 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 41-58 and 228-240 (chapters 3 and 10)
• (optional) see Brian Fagan on the Medieval Warm Period
  

Writing assignment: One of the great issues of modern politics is global warming (climate change). Some of the most heated arguments between political personalities and scholarly figures evolve around the question of whether the current climate changes are in any way comparable to those of the past, and if so, whether humans may be blamed for that. Did any climate changes take place during the “medieval millennium” (500-1500), and how were those changes perceived by people living at that time? Ronnie Ellenblum offers an overview of the evidence of climate change in the East Mediterranean region, but you will also be reading two articles pertaining to climate change in the steppe lands north of the Black and Caspian Seas. Finally, we will discuss the account of Theophanes the Confessor regarding a particularly remarkable bout of cold weather in Constantinople and the Black Sea region. In a two- to three-page essay (due in class on September 18) highlight what you believe to be the three most important characteristics of the climate changes taking place in all those regions between ca. 700 and ca. 1300.  You must select one trait from each of the three secondary literature items. In the second part of the essay consider Theophanes’ account as a literary text, along the lines of our previous discussion of the two accounts of the sacking of Thessaloniki. Does Theophanes’ account complement or contradict the conclusions of the secondary literature?  Explain. Do these texts approach the question of climate change in different and perhaps conflicting ways, or do they really agree in perspective and outlook?  Make sure you support your answer with examples from the texts.  Also consider the ways in which these texts illustrate some of the basic principles and dynamics of the “overshoot and collapse” and “resilience” theories. How do they reflect the notion of catastrophe or catastrophic event, which is central to both theories?

WEEK 6 (September 25-29): Unmitigated disasters. Drought, locusts, famine.

Read: 

• Johannes de Trokelowe, Annates (on the famine of 1315)
• Izz al-Din ibn al-Athir, The Perfect Work of History, pp. 261-262
• William Chester Jordan, The Great Famine. Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 7-39 (chapters 1 and 2)
• Sarah Kate Raphael, Climate and Political Climate. Environmental Disasters in the Medieval Levant. Brill’s Series in the History of the Environment, 3 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), pp. 73-94 and 167-177 (chapters 4 and 7)

Writing assignments:

1. Using all the readings for this week (including the primary sources), bring a list of 7-10 discussion questions that highlight the major themes of this week’s topic–short-term or sudden, “natural disasters” produced by factors completely outside human control. Bring the list to class as a hard copy.
2. Developing a topic that is effective and appropriate for an undergraduate research paper requires significant thought and work. This week you will describe and justify your topic in class by means of a brief presentation to your peers. So come to class with notes that address three major issues.

a.    What is the broad theme or issue you will be addressing?
b.    How you are going to examine that theme?  What is the specific gateway to your topic?  It needs to be discrete, concrete and worthy of study.
c.    What are the primary sources that you will use to examine that specific focus of your paper? Also briefly mention the types of secondary sources you will use.

WEEK 7 (October 2-6): Disaster by collapse and overfill. Landslides and floods.

Read:

• Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks IV 31
• The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, pp. 319-320
• Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles VII 3
• Allison Williams Lewin, “Salimbene de Adam and the Franciscan Chronicle,” in Chronicling History. Chroniclers and Historians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, edited by Sharon Dale, Allison Williams Lewin, and Duane J. Osheim (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), pp. 87-112
• Brian Patrick McGuire, “Friends and tales in the cloister: oral sources in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum,” Analecta Cisterciensia 36 (1980), 167-247
• Jussi Hanska, “Late medieval catastrophe sermons: vanishing tradition or common custom?” Medieval Sermon Studies 45 (2001), 58-74
• Paolo Squatriti, “The floods of 589 and climate change at the beginning of the Middle Ages: an Italian microhistory,” Speculum 85 (2010), no. 4, 799-826

Writing assignments:

1. Analyzing secondary material. Read Paolo Squatriti’s essay, “The floods of 589…”. Your writing assignment consists of no more than two paragraphs (due in class on October 2). In one paragraph, summarize his arguments and answer the following questions: what is the main point?  what are his major claims? In the other paragraph, analyze his use of evidence through his footnotes. What are the sources he uses?  How many can you identify?  How does he deploy them to support his claims?  Does he ever make a claim that he does not seem able to substantiate?
2. Identify a book for your book review. Come to class (on October 4) with a secondary source (a book) related to your topic that you plan to review.  It must be a scholarly text and have notes and/or a bibliography.  Bring a physical copy to class.
3. Quiz on the primary source accounts of landslides and floods for this week. You will be allowed to use written notes (not electronic) for this exercise.
4. Discussion Groups 1-3 only: when analyzing the primary sources for this week, what can we learn from them about geology and/or physics? List five observations (due in class on October 4).  Feel free to work with a partner for this exercise.
5. Discussion Groups 4-6 only: complete a revised project statement (1-2 paragraphs) with a bibliography of at least 4 secondary sources and 2 primary sources. This assignment will be due at the end of the day on Monday, October 9.

WEEK 8 (October 9-13): Disasters from above and from underneath. Meteorite impact and cataclysmic mountains

Read:

• The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, pp. 602-603
• Roberto Santilli, Jens Ormo, Angelo P. Rossi, and Goro Komatsu, “A catastrophe remembered: a meteorite impact of the fifth century AD in the Abruzzo, central Italy,” Antiquity 77 (2003), no. 77, 313-320
• Adnan A. Husain, “Writing identity as remembered history: person, place, and time in Friar Salimbene autobiographical prose map,” Viator 36 (2005), 265-292

Written assignments:

1. Take notes on all the readings and bring a hard or electronic to class (due on October 9)
2. In no more than two paragraphs (due in class on October 9), answer the following questions. What is Adnan Husain’s argument concerning Friar Salimbene? In what way is he changing your own interpretation of Salimbene de Adam’s text about King Pero III of Aragon? What is the unique perspective that he brings onto Fra Salimbene, and how do his ideas contrast with the work of other scholars mentioned in the article?
3. Discussion Groups 1-3 only: complete a revised project statement (1-2 paragraphs) with a bibliography of at least 4 secondary sources and 2 primary sources. This assignment will be due on Wednesday, October 11, at 12:00
4. Discussion Groups 4-6 only: What is the significance of King Pero III’s story?  Highlight one or two aspects associated with this story (due in class on  October 13). Why was the meteorite impact of the 5th century remembered in Abruzzo?  Highlight at least one passage that is relevant to our ongoing discussion of catastrophic events in medieval history (due in class on October 13).

WEEK 9 (October 16-20): Natural hazards. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.

Read: 

• Procopius, Wars VIII 25.16-23
• Agathias, Histories 2.15-17
• Michael Attaleiates, History, chapter 15
• Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue of Miracles X 40
• Anna Akasoy, “Islamic attitudes to disasters in the Middle Ages: a comparison of earthquakes and plagues,” Medieval History Journal 10 (2007), 387-410
• Christian Rohr, “Man and natural disaster in the Late Middle Ages: the earthquake in Carinthia and northern Italy on 25 January 1348 and its perception,” Environment and History 9 (2003), no. 2, 127-149
• Sarah Kate Raphael, Climate and Political Climate. Environmental Disasters in the Medieval Levant. Brill’s Series in the History of the Environment, 3 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), pp. 127-163 (chapter 6)
• Clive Oppenheimer, Eruptions That Shook the World (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 253-268 (chapter 11)
• Michael McCormick, Paul Edward Dutton, and Paul A. Mayewski, “Volcanoes and the climate forcing of Carolingian Europe, A.D. 750-950,” Speculum 82 (2007), no. 4, 865-895
• Hendrik Dey and Beverly Goodman-Tchernov, “Tsunamis and the port of Caesarea Maritima over the longue duree: a geoarchaeological perspective,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 23 (2010), no. 1, 265-284

Writing assignments:

1. Using resources at your disposal (scientific literature in the library or on the internet) localize the possible epicenters of the earthquakes mentioned in the accounts of Agathias, Michael Attaleiates, and Caesarius of Heisterbach, and identify the main fault lines and areas of seismic activity in those respective regions. Put them all on a map of the Mediterranean region. Now try to explain what happened based on the information provided by the sources. This is a group assignment (due in class on October 16) and will be evaluated as such.
2. In a substantial paragraph (due in class on October 16), compare the explanations provided by Agathias and Michael Attaleiates. What are the most important similarities? In what respects are they different? Be specific and use examples from those accounts.
3. Why did historians in the past mention earthquakes? Their explanations of those phenomena are very different from ours. What can we learn about how the explanatory structures operated, how evidence was understood, presented and evaluated, how such events were integrated into history?  Highlight 5-10 observations (due in class on October 18) along such lines of thinking.  You can simply list these points but again refer to the text in support of your observations.
4. What were the beliefs of medieval people about the natural and supernatural world?  What does Procopius’ account of a tsunami and Caesarius of Heisterbach’s account of an earthquake tell us about their contemporaries’ views on these matters. Again highlight 5-10 observations (due in class on October 18) that are supported by references to the text.
5. What do these documents tell us about the educated audience, such as that that Procopius, Agathias, Michael Attaleiates, and Caesarius of Heisterbach had in mind? What did they expect from an account of an earthquake or a tsunami? How is that different from the expectations of a modern audience? Once more highlight 5-10 observations (due in class on October 20) and include references to the texts
6. Book reviews are due on Friday, October 20

WEEK 10 (October 23-27): Disaster by pestilence. Pandemics

Read:

• Procopius, Wars II 22-23
• Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, introduction
• Jo N. Hays, “Historians and epidemics. Simple questions, complex answers,” in Plague and the End of Antiquity. The Pandemic of 541-750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 33-56
• Peregrine Horden, “Mediterranean plague in the age of Justinian,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, edited by Michael Maas (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 134-160
• Anthony Kaldellis, “The literature of plague and the anxieties of piety in sixth-century Byzantium,” in Piety and Plague: from Byzantium to Baroque, edited by F. Mormando and T. Worcester (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2007), pp. 1-22
• Shona Kelly Wray, “Boccaccio and the doctors: medicine and compassion in the face of the plague,” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004), no. 3, 301-322
• James Hatty, “Coping with disaster: Florence after the Black Death,” in Disasters. Image and Context, edited by Peter Hinton (Sydney: Sydney Association for Studies and Culture, 1992), pp. 153-165
• Timothy Newfield, “Early medieval epizootics and landscapes of disease: the origins and triggers of European livestock pestilences, 400-1000 CE,” in Landscapes and Societies in Medieval Europe East of the Elbe. Interactions Between Environmental Settings and Cultural Transformations, edited by Sunhild Kleingartner, Timothy P. Newfield, Sebastien Rossignol, and Donat Wehner (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2013), pp. 73-113
• Philip Slavin, “The great bovine pestilence and its economic and environmental consequences in England and Wales, 1318-50,” Economic History Review 65 (2012), no. 4, 1239-1266

1. Writing assignments: This week you will read two accounts of the plague, one from the mid-sixth, the other from the mid-fourteenth century. Neither is a simple report from the field, and both are carefully crafted literary texts. For this week’s exercise you will have to adopt the “voice” of a specific individual who is investigating those accounts.  Your response should be 1-2 pages in length (due in class on October 23).  For extra credit you can do both.  Be creative in the instance and tone that you adopt in your report.
   • Groups 1-3: Imagine you are one of Boccaccio’s friends in Renaissance Florence. The city has just been struck by a terrible epidemics, which nobody understands. But because of the study of ancient authors, including Procopius, reports of similar catastrophes in the past are available to guide action. Using Procopius’ account, draw up a document addressed to the leadership of the Florentine Commune that explains how the sixth-century description of the plague is exactly matching that of the fourteenth-century epidemics. On the basis of Procopius’ account, propose a number of measures to meet the challenge. What conditions in sixth-century Constantinople could apply to fourteenth-century Florence?
   • Groups 4-6: Imagine you are a historian at the University of Florida in the late 20th century, specializing in the history of the plague. To this point your research has focused on the Black Death.  You have examined most accounts and a wide variety of written sources pertaining to both southern (Italy) and northern Europe (England and Scandinavia) in 1348-1349. You have become convinced that the fourteenth-century plague was in fact a disease different from that described by Procopius in the mid-sixth century. You plan to write a book on this discovery and have started to look for a publisher. One day, you decide to write to the acquisition editor of Oxford University Press to see if that publisher would be interested in your manuscript (which you have not yet written). In an e-mail message, you are about to describe briefly your book and to explain your main arguments. In your message, you also want to give a few, but concrete examples of how the existing evidence (such as Procopius’ and Boccaccio’s accounts) supports your thesis.
2. Project outline and annotated bibliography (at least 5 items) due on Friday, October 27

WEEK 11 (October 30-November 3): Writing workshop I

The purpose of the writing workshops is to give you an opportunity to receive constructive feedback on your writing from your peers. This is one of the most efficient ways to check whether or not your writing says what you intended it to say, and whether its meaning is clear.  You will also have the opportunity to comment on your peers’ project by looking in detail as such things as vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraphs, and arguments. The writing sample for this week  is a draft of a section (or the introduction) of your research paper.  Your draft should be at least 3 pages long including footnotes. You should have at least two footnotes, properly cited according to the Chicago Manual of Style. The draft should present an argument and some supporting evidence you have been able to find in your research up to this point. Post the writing sample to class members on the Canvas course page (discussion tab) by 6.00 pm on Sunday, October 29. On March 30, November 1, and November 3, come with at least one extra copy of your writing sample. You will read the sample in class and explain briefly the context, if necessary, after which all your peers will have the opportunity to comment on the draft. You will have the opportunity to respond, and a discussion may ensue on the writing sample and the broader project.

See more recommendations about how to write a good paper.

When evaluating your peers’ drafts, use the following guidelines:

Argument

• What is the central question or set of questions the author is trying to answer?
• What is the issue about which there is disagreement?
• What is the author’s position?
• What is (are) the opposing position(s)?
• How are they presented?
• Is the introduction effective?

Evidence

• What kind of evidence does the author use to back up his/her claim?
• Does the author cite sources correctly?

Expression

• What are the paragraphs like in general?
• Does each paragraph have one main point?
• Are there clear transitions between paragraphs?
• Are the ideas well organized?
• How might the author re-organize a paragraph or section to make his or her point clearer?
• What are the sentences like in general?
• What kinds of words are used?  What are the key terms?
• Which words or phrases seem awkward, ambiguous, or grammatically incorrect?
• Which sentences seem redundant?
• Where does the reader get confused?

WEEK 12 (November 6-10): Writing workshop II

Follow the instructions for the previous week (due date is November 6)

• November 10: Veterans’ Day – no classes

WEEK 13 November 13-17):  Conference presentations I:

Print out the oral presentation rubric and fill in the corresponding score.

WEEK 14 (November 20-24): Conference presentations II.

1. Print out the oral presentation rubric and fill in the corresponding score.
2. Rough draft of research paper (at least 10 pages) due on Friday, November 24

WEEK 15 (November 27-December 1): Conference presentations III.

Print out the oral presentation rubric and fill in the corresponding score.

WEEK 16 (December 4-8): Conference presentations IV.

Print out the oral presentation rubric and fill in the corresponding score.

December 13, by 12:00 pm: Research paper (together with the writing sample and marked-up rough draft) due in hard copy in my office.