HIST 2002

A study of the period beginning with the crusades, and ending with the emergence of the early modern European states. After a preliminary introduction to the nature of medieval society at the end of the twelfth century attention is turned to a variety of themes: political, social, cultural, economic and religious. Topics examined include church-state relations, heresy, peasant life and peasant rebellions, chivalry, political thought, varieties of medieval law, literature, and the concept of decline, or the “autumn” of the Middle Ages. Students make use of original sources in translation.