HIST 388: Topics in European History

HIST 388-B01: Early Middle Ages, 400-1000
(Summer 2016)

04:30 PM to 07:10 PM MW

Planetary Hall 120

Section Information for Summer 2016

This course examines the shape of European history in the centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire and traces both what that collapse meant for subsequent generations in Europe as well as how and in what form a post-Roman cultural identity took hold and grew. Through a careful working through of a series of primary textual sources as well as art historical and archaeological evidence, students in this course will learn what it meant to live at the dawn of the dawn of the Middle Ages by considering the differing fates of a series of early medieval kingdoms: Gothic Italy, Visigothic and Muslim Spain, the Frankish kingdoms, early Ireland, and the Byzantine Empire. Topics to be addressed include: the origins of post-Roman political culture and the developing theory of kingship and royal power, the Christianization of European society and the origins of the papacy, the western Mediterranean’s estrangement from and entanglement with its eastern counterpart, and the uses and misuses of this period as the origin point of modern European peoples and states.

Tags:

Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Study of historical topics or periods of special interest. Notes: Topics announced in advance. May be repeated for credit when topic is different. May be repeated within the term.
Specialized Designation: Topic Varies
Schedule Type: Lec/Sem #1, Lec/Sem #2, Lec/Sem #3, Lec/Sem #4, Lec/Sem #5, Lec/Sem #6, Lec/Sem #7, Lec/Sem #8, Lec/Sem #9, Lecture, Sem/Lec #10, Sem/Lec #11, Sem/Lec #12, Sem/Lec #13, Sem/Lec #14, Sem/Lec #15, Sem/Lec #16, Sem/Lec #17, Sem/Lec #18
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

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