HST 141 - The Bright Ages: Medieval Europe from c. 500 CE to c. 1450 CE

Course Units: 1.0

(Fall: Kuerteiner) In the popular imagination, the medieval history of Europe often appears as a narrative of decline (“Fall of Rome”) and darkness(Dark Ages) followed by gradual betterment (Renaissance) and progress (Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, Democracy). This class provides you with the critical and analytical tools to understand why this particular vision of medieval Europe came into being and how to develop a historical understanding of the past, present, and future. We begin our semester at the fringes of Europe, in fifth-century norther Africa, after the sack of Rome in 410 where we analyze Augustine’s sermons and his use of the olive press as a metaphor for the sack. Who were the first monks and saints in Late Antiquity and why would anyone convert to Christianity? In the seventh century, you may be astonished to learn that women had significant power as queens, positions they could and would have maintained throughout the medieval period. In the eleventh- to thirteenth centuries, Mediterranean traders moved goods across the seas at the same time as wars - most famously the Crusades - were fought inside and outside Europe. Francis of Assisi, however, took a vow of poverty and become the leader of a movement that offered a serious alternative to what we call capitalism today. Why did society go for one and not the other alternative? We will then study the lives of slaves, farmers, mystics, and a businesswoman. How did they shape medieval European history? Toward the end of the semester, we will take a “reflective break” with Norbert Elias to ask what European civilization is and what Elias understood by the Civilizing Process. He will provide us with the analytical tool historicize the very notion of civilization. We leave the medieval world with Christine de Pizan who built the City of Ladies (1405) and with the Portuguese who began to conquer the Indies and Americas by the mid fifteenth century. In this class, alongside acquiring research and writing skills that are valuable in almost all areas of intellectual endeavor, you will be introduced to the most important events and narratives of medieval European history. Because medieval history is both excitingly different from our present but also often similar, studying this history is also a unique challenging and excellent exercise in abstract and critical thought. CC: SOCS ISP: REL