| Hafta | Konu | Ön Hazırlık | Dökümanlar |
| 1 |
Introduction into Medieval Sources and their Interpretation
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This is an introductory session for students coming to the study of medieval history for the first time,
as well as at those with a background in other branches of medieval studies who are interested in
finding out a little about historians’ aims and perspectives. This session aims to look at some of the
images and preconceptions about medieval civilization that have become part of modern popular
culture. To ‘think medieval’, in other words, is to ponder what the words ‘Middle Ages’ and
‘medieval’ have come to mean beyond the academic context. What associations do these terms
trigger, and why?
A very important part of this session would be the examination of different sources medieval
historians have at their disposal (histories, chronicles, charters, images, songs and epics etc.) and how
can they interpret them.
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Reading:
J. H. Arnold, What is Medieval History?, London 2007, chapter 2
M. Bull, Thinking Medieval, New York 2005, chapters 2 & 3
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| 2 |
Introduction into the Roman world
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The Roman Empire of the first and second centuries CE comprised the largest, wealthiest, most
diverse, and most stable society of the ancient world. The aim of this section is to examine the
evolution of the Roman Empire from the third to the fourth centuries, focusing on the following axes:
The two factors that did the most to shape the Roman world and foster its remarkable vitality and
stability (the Mediterranean Sea and the Roman army), the strategic concerns that broke the balance
in the Mediterranean, the role of the Roman Army as a tool of “Romanization”, the challenges of the
third century and the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 1
R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000, McMillan 1991, chapters 1 and 2
Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, London 1971, chapter 1 (part I)
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| 3 |
The rise of Christianity
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Explaining the rise of Christianity is no easy matter. The broad outlines of its rise seem clear enough,
but the specific mechanisms by which the faith spread, the specific groups who were attracted to it
and the reasons for their attraction, the specific impact of the new faith on society, even the specific
content of the faith itself at any given moment remain elusive even after two thousand years of
investigation. But the importance of the problem can hardly be exaggerated: Christianity has
fundamentally influenced every aspect of Western civilization, from its religious beliefs to its artistic
development, from its conception of time and history to its sexual morality, from its understanding of
law and political authority to its music.
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 2
Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire, West Sussex 2015, chapter 7
Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, London 1971, chapter 2 (parts VII & VIII)
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| 4 |
“Barbarian” invasions and the Fall of the Roman Empire
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In the late fourth century, with the Roman crisis in full-blow, it became impossible to control
Germanic migration into Roman territory. According to a long-established view, one of the factors
that contributed to this full-scale Germanic invasion into Roman territory was the approach of the
Huns. Recognizing that they were powerless before these new invaders, the Germans sought refuge
with the Romans and “swept away” the western part of the Roman Empire. A re-interpretation of
historical evidence, along with new archaeological data, disputes this 350 year old view.
Some questions to consider: Who was considered a “barbarian” for the Romans? What do we know
about the early Germanic societies? What was the Roman policy and contacts with the trans-Rhine
and trans-Danubian populations? What was the “Domino Effect” theory? Did the Western Roman
Empire come to an end in 476?
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 1
R. H. C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe From Constantine to Saint Louis, London 1971,
chapter 2
R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000, Macmillan 1991, chapter 4
David Rollanson, Early Medieval Europe 300–1050, The birth of western society, Routledge 2012, chapter 2
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| 5 |
The new kingdoms in the West
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What makes a people and why do peoples form? What did it mean to be a Visigoth, an Ostrogoth, a Burgundian, or a Frank? What were the origins of the peoples in question? What sort of groupings of humanity were they? Did they represent genuine groups of people bound together by particular ties, or were their names just labels used by kings and members of the elite as a matter of convenience without any real basis in the relationships between the people assigned to them? These questions are amongst the most complex, shifting, and sometimes subjective that we have to address, and there are many avenues which you can pursue, only some of which can be touched on in this lecture.
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 5
David Rollanson, Early Medieval Europe 300–1050, The birth of western society, Routledge 2012, chapter 3
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| 6 |
The Carolingian era
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In the eighth century anew aristocratic family emerged in the Frankish lands and dramatically altered
the development of Western Europe. United under this family and linked together by the
Carolingians’ ardent promotion of Catholicism, the peoples of Europe began to think of themselves as
Europeans—members of a distinct civilization larger than their composite ethnicities, a civilization
that embraced and fused the classical, Christian, and Germanic traditions. This week will examine the
process of the rise of the Carolingians to the throne of Francia, their administrative, legislative and
church policies and their cultural achievements in what modern historians quote as “Carolingian
Renaissance.”
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 6
R.H.C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe From Constantine to Saint Louis, chapter 6
R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000, London 1991, chapter 15
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| 7 |
The Carolingian collapse and the Viking, Magyar and Arab invasions of the 10th
century
The Carolingian world collapsed spectacularly. A combination of internal weaknesses and external
pressures did the damage, and the sight was remarkable enough to make several writers at the time
wonder whether the world itself was coming to an end—and they got at least a few people to believe
them. The dramatic downfall serves as a caution against overrating the Carolingian accomplishment
in the first place, but it is clear nevertheless that the troubles that befell Europe in the tenth and early
eleventh centuries were extraordinary in their degree and kind.
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The focus of this week’s lecture is two-fold: (a) the problems of succession in Francia following the
death of Louis the Pious - Charlemagne’s son and heir - and the socio-political consequences of the
Carolingian “devolution” of power; and (b) the external pressure in Europe by invasion from the
north (Vikings), the east (Magyars) and the south (Arabs) - what were the causes, the strategies and
the ramifications of these raids for 10th century Europe?
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 7
R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000, London 1991, chapter 18
The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II, chapter 7
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| 8 |
Ecclesiastical Reform
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The main point of this week’s lecture is to explain the titanic struggle that took place in the 11th and
12th century between the “traditionalist” Imperial Church and the supporters of the reform papacy,
according to whom the golden age of the church was that ancient period in which the faithful had
built and endowed churches and showered their wealth on the clergy, a period which had been
succeeded by the current ‘iron age’ in which the laity destroyed God’s houses and stole the property
of His servants. This struggle for a new “model Church” will be distilled into an argument over the
standing and function of a Christian king within a Christian society and the investiture of
ecclesiastical officials by the German Emperors.
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R.H.C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe From Constantine to Saint Louis, part II (chapter 2)
Walter Ullman, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages, London 2003, chapters 6 & 7
The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV, chapter 9
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| 9 |
Economic expansion, 1000-1300
Along with fewer invaders, stronger kings and expanding literacy, the Central Middle Ages also saw better weather. Europe became less rainy and cold and the summer season grew longer with milder or more tolerable winters both for men, animals and plants. Historians and scientists are not sure about
the causes for this change, but recent research has been able to point-out small changes in the
environment that could have been responsible for growth in the economy between 1000-1300.
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During this period of the Central Middle Ages peasants dramatically increased their yield per acre of
land, they began to use local markets to sell their surplus and use the money to buy food or other
products not produced locally and towns and townspeople (urban societies) proliferated with the
expansion of trade and industry. This lecture will look at the causes behind the, so-called,
“agricultural revolution” of the Central Middle Ages and the subsequent commercial and urban
expansion in the Mediterranean and Europe.
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Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations, Their History and Their Culture, Norton 1993, vol. I,
pp. 276-95
Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, Oxford University Press 2003, chapter 8
Further Reading:
Robert I. Moore, The First European Revolution: 970-1215, Wiley 2000
Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350, Cambridge 1976
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| 10 |
European society: a strict hierarchy
Between the ninth and eleventh centuries, clerks described society in terms of the ancient Indo-
European model, which since the earliest historical times had classified people according to the
tripartite religious myth of war, priesthood, and fertility. This scheme divided people into three social
groups: “those who fight” (bellatores), “those who pray” (oratores), and “those who toil”
(laboratores).
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This week’s lecture will try to explain the divisions in a medieval society, the aforementioned
schematic - and why it will be revised in the 13th century, and attempt to provide some answers to
questions like: what is a medieval man? Why was a medieval society hierarchical? What was a
manorial system and how many different levels of society could be seen in it? What were the basic
principles of the lord-vassal relations in medieval France - what historians used to call “feudalism”?
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Martin Aurell, “Society,” in: Daniel Power (ed.), The Central Middle Ages, Oxford 2006
J. Le Goff, The Medieval World, London 1997, pp. 10-38
Maurice Keen, Medieval Europe, London 1968, chapter 3
Further Reading:
Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, London 1961 (2 vols.)
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| 11 |
European society: peasant and urban life
The activities of the people of the towns and their day-to-day activities will be the focus of this week’s discussion: the home and the domestic life of an urban family, where did they work and how did they make their money, their professional and domestic arrangements, cultures and values. This will be combined with the nature and structure of the peasant family and household between 1000 and 1500
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Important themes will be: the extent to which peasant family and household changed over time as well as the variety of that development and the causes of it. Main concern of this discussion is the extent to which such a fundamental element of peasant society as family was subject to a combination of influences. The discussion will further delve into the expansion and transformation of European economy after the 10th century to the Economic revolution of the post-1000 era.
Is the rise and fall of the peasant household simply a product of biology or the effect of other, additional and external factors, including, for example, the demands and opportunities of a commercial market which encourages peasant families to expand their enterprise and to buy-in additional household members as servants?
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Hans-Werner Goetz, Life in the Middle Ages, chapters 4 & 6.
OR
Jeffrey L. Singman, Daily Life in Medieval Europe, chapters 4 & 7.
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| 12 |
New European Monarchies I
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The eleventh century found Europe divided into two different worlds: the north developed as a rigidly hierarchical society in which status was determined by the extent to which one owned, controlled, or
laboured on land, whereas the Mediterranean south developed a more fluid world in which industry
and commerce predominated and social status both reflected and resulted from the role that one
played in the public life of the community. This week will focus on the emergence of Germany,
England and France after the political and social chaos of the ninth and tenth centuries and their
course towards unification and the shaping of strong and centralized monarchies. From Alfred the
Great and his successors in England to the emergence of the Capetians in France and the Saxon and
Salian dynasties in Germany, we will follow the steps towards political dominance of centralized
governments and effective royal administrative institutions and professional armies.
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Charles W. Hollister, Judith M. Bennett, Medieval Europe: a Short History, McGraw-Hill 2001,
chapter on the growth of the Kingdoms of England and France.
Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, chapter 9.
R.H.C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe From Constantine to Saint Louis, part II (chapter 5)
Further Reading:
G. Holmes, The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe, Oxford 2001, chapter 4
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| 13 |
New European Monarchies II
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The emergence of the conception of nation states as natural units in themselves has been taken to
mark one of the clearest divisions between medieval and modern history which, according to many
historians, has come as a result of the Renaissance. It can be clearly seen, however, in the thirteenth
century. This week forms the second part of the “New European Monarchies” section where we pick
up from the reign of Henry II of England and his centralized policies in legislation and administration
and we further examine the beginnings of the representative assemblies from the Magna Carta to the
“Model Parliament” convened by Edward I in 1295. As the outlines of modern England’s
representative assemblies were faintly visible in the thirteenth century, we glance at the royalist
policies of the French kings like Philip Augustus, Louis IX and Philip IV and their attempts to
develop effective royal administrations in an effort to enhance their sovereign authority.
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Charles W. Hollister, Judith M. Bennett, Medieval Europe: a Short History, McGraw-Hill 2001,
chapter on the growth of the Kingdoms of England and France.
Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, chapter 9.
R.H.C. Davis, A History of Medieval Europe From Constantine to Saint Louis, part II (chapter 8)
Maurice Keen, Medieval Europe, London 1968, chapter 8
Further Reading:
David Abulafia, Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (1988)
idem, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200–1500: The Struggle for Dominion (1997)
Benjamin Arnold, Princes and Territories in Medieval Germany (1991)
John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the
Middle Ages (1986)
Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950–1350
(1993)
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| 14 |
The 14th century - from Medieval to Modern Europe
Unlike the Patriarch of Constantinople, the popes of Rome acted independently of Imperial control and, thus, were able to play a historically unprecedented role in inhibiting the rise of royal absolutism.
The high noon of medieval papacy was the period of Innocent III and his involvement in European
politics, as the dream of papal monarchy came closer to realization. This week’s lecture will focus on
the complex current of papal politics in Germany and France in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century that shaped the face of Europe.
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Even more than most eras of human history, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were violent and
unsettled. General prosperity gave way to economic depression, economic instability and famine and
disease. Social behavior ran to extremes - to rebellion, hedonism, flagellation, cynicism and witch-
hunting. Yet in this period strong monarchies emerged in England, France and Spain. This week we
will also focus on the economic and social depression in Europe after 1300, the Black Death and the
emergence of strong, centralized and professional monarchies.
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Clifford R. Backman, The Worlds of Medieval Europe, chapter 17
Charles W. Hollister, Judith M. Bennett, Medieval Europe: a Short History, McGraw-Hill 2001,
chapter on Death, Disorder and the Renaissance
Maurice Keen, Medieval Europe, London 1968, chapters 14 & 16
Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations, Their History and Their Culture, Norton 1993, vol. I,
pp. 357-69.
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