Introductory Seminar in Pre-1700 European History

HIEU 4501 (2)

Introductory Seminar in Pre-1700 European History

"Landscapes of Belief: Paganism, Christianity and Islam in the Early Medieval World, c. 500-1050"

John Terry

Course Website: https://thiscourse.com/virginia/hieu4501/

This course examines the rise of Christianity in the early middle ages following the collapse of the Roman Empire; it will concentrate on interactions among Christians and non-Christian groups, c. 500-1050 (such as pagans, Vikings, Muslims and Jews) as a means of understanding how Christianity developed from a cult to a universalizing religion. In particular, we will be concerned with ways in which the faithful experienced their natural and artificial environments—such as ideas of the wilderness, urbanity versus rusticity, and ecological systems—and how these experiences informed conceptions of sacred space.

We will read a large amount (about 150-200 pages total per week, all in English translation) of primary sources and secondary selections and articles (not very many complete books) on aspects of early medieval paganism, Christianity and monastic culture from the political and religious fragmentation of the post-Roman world, Anglo-Saxon England, Carolingian Francia and Visigothic and, later, Muslim Iberia. These sources will include hagiography, legal codes, archaeology, iconography, biographies, chronicles and histories, among others. How did Christianity spread in the centuries following Rome’s collapse? How did it manifest itself in local societies? What were the natures of competing belief systems and how did they interact with one another? What were the foreign and domestic challenges facing monks, intellectuals, kings and missionaries of fledgling Christian kingdoms? How were these challenges mitigated, and how did they change over time? Finally, how do modern scholars use the often problematic sources at hand to answer such questions?

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the sources, methods and scholarship relevant to understanding the period; students will write a long research paper, between 25 and 30 pages (about 7,500 – 8,000 words), using primary sources and secondary analyses on a subject of their choice. In the meantime, students will be provided the opportunity to workshop their topics both with their colleagues and with me, producing a research proposal, bibliography and rough draft. Perhaps most importantly, this course requires a high and vigorous level of student participation. The paper itself will be due in the final week of classes, May 2013.

It is recommended, but not required, that students wishing to take this course have prior experience of studying the medieval period (e.g. HIEU 2001, HIEU 3141, HIEU 2061 or relevant courses from other departments).