Europe in the High Middle Ages

This module surveys European history from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, a period known as the “High Middle Ages”.  Rather than providing an exhaustive chronology of political events, the course examines key themes that helped to shape Western Europe in this period.  This will enable students to understand not just the major events that occurred in the period (including, for example, the contest between the Western Emperors and the Popes, or the Crusades), but also the mentalities and lives of the people who experienced them.  Topics such as belief, dissent and private life are considered alongside more traditional areas like the development of national governments and trade.  The module, while self-contained and coherent, will follow neatly on from ME1003, a module dealing with the transformation of Europe in the early Middle Ages.

Key themes of this period which will be focused on include:  the Expansion of Latin Christendom; Power and Government; Religious Life; and ‘Renaissances’.  These themes will be studied through close analysis of primary sources in translation, which will include texts provided in the module sourcebook.
Through comparative analysis students will consider issues such as national identity, lordship, ecclesiastical reform and commercialisation.  They will be able to explore regional differences within a strong comparative framework.  We will analyse the relationship and mutual influence of political, economic, religious and cultural developments.  We will also examine different historiographical approaches to an age of profound social and cultural change.

1. Enrolment
2. Population and the Land
3. Towns, Trade and Commerce
4. Church and Belief
5. Kingdoms and Communities
6. Lords and Peasants
7. The Investiture Contest
8. Papal Monarchy
9. The Papacy from Boniface VIII to the Great Schism
10. Recreating the Desert:  Old and New Monasticisms
11. The Mendicants
12. Heresy and Heretics
13. Empire and Kingship
14. Lordship and Chivalry
15. France: Monarchy and Sanctity
16. Germany:  Empire and Fragmentation
17. Spain:  Coexistence and Confrontation
18. Italy:  Communes and Signori
19. The Development of Crusading
20. Crusading and the Expansion of Latin Europe
21. Crusading and the West
22. Birth and Death
23. Sex and Marriage
24. Family and Households
25. Schools and Universities
26. Epic and Romance
27. War and Technology
28. Economic Crisis and the Great Famine
29. Urban and Rural Revolts
30. Europe in 1350

Students will be allocated to a tutor by the Class Co-ordinator after enrolling.  Tutors will then arrange for groups of six to eight students to come and meet with them at convenient times during the teaching day.  There will be a total of nine weekly tutorials, which will be devoted to discussion of key historical topics, through close analysis of selected primary source material, and through investigation of scholarly interpretations. 
Tutorials will be on a selection of the following topics:  Population Expansion and the land; Commercial Expansion; the Investiture Contest; Religious Orders; Heresy and dissent; the Ideology of Kingship; Nobility; Crusading and the expansion of Latin Europe; Intellectual life and the ‘Twelfth Century Renaissance’; Popes and kings – the ‘Outrage at Anagni’.

Barber, Malcolm, The Two Cities:  Medieval Europe 1050-1320 (London, 1992/2004)
Bartlett, Robert, The Making of Europe:  Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950-1350 (London, 1993)
Jordan, William C., Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, 2001)
Rosenwein, Barbara H., A Short History of the Middle Ages (Peterborough, Ontario, 2002)
Southern, Richard W., The Making of the Middle Ages (London and New Haven, 1953)