Time and Location

MTWRF 11-12:15

Flint Hall 113

Description

To many, the words ‘Middle Ages’ and ‘medieval’ conjure up images of primary-colored, boisterous times of gallant knights, beautiful maidens, or wizards. Many historians of Europe since 1500 imagine the Middle Ages as a thousand years of intellectual backwardness and social injustice separating the classical world from the enlightened modern age, beginning either with the Italian Renaissance or the Protestant revolt. The Middle Ages were ruled, as the first American medieval historian Henry Charles Lea (1825-1909) once observed, by “superstition and force.” Today, media pundits find medieval origins for the bloody conflicts in Ireland and  the Balkans. A growing movement of reviving Celtic traditions offers a still more titillating version of “our” medieval roots. This course is designed as a chronological and topical introduction to the history of the “medieval millenium,”  between ca. 500 and 1500. Since this is a three semester hour survey, it is impossible to cover everything. Instead, the course will offer a slection of representative topics from a much larger possible list. We will examine the evolution of various forms of economic systems and  social structures, particularly the emergence of feudal society in Europe. Our focus will be on Western Europe, but we will also take quick glimpses at some neighboring areas, such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  History majors as well as students interested in an historical introduction to the medieval world are welcome. There are no pre-requisites.