TEXTBOOKS REQUIRED FOR OTHER CLASSES & LECTURE SCHEDULE

EUROSPRING 2007

The Medieval Age, A.D. 500-1500


MAIN LECTURE COURSE


Dr Allan Chapman, M.A., D.Phil., D.Univ., F.R.A.S.Ê University of Oxford.

Hollywood has created a popular image of the Middle Ages that largely consists of knights, ladies, downtrodden peasants, and well-fed monks.Ê But the truth goes much further.Ê Indeed, far from being a narrow, simple world, the medieval centuries were a time of rapid change and exotic cultural contacts.Ê And these contacts were not restricted to the peoples within Europe, but crossed the known world.Ê In places like Sicily and Spain, Christians, Muslims, and Jews exchanged goods, books, and ideas, and sometimes killed each other; while Marco Polo crossed Asia to live for twenty years in China.Ê And Viking adventurers explored Russia and the north Atlantic, and made landfall in North America.Ê This course will provide a survey of the 1,000-year period that extended from the end of the classical world to early modern times.Ê While the basic theme will be the cultural history of Europe, continuous attention will also be paid to contemporary developments in other world civilisations, such as those of Arabia, China, Africa, and the Americas, and the ways in which they influenced each other.Ê The course will take a social historical perspective, in which the lives and actions of individual men and women will be used to give a wide and integrated interpretation of the period.


Week 1.The Legacy of Antiquity

1.The end of the Roman world.
2.Flat, round, or square: some ancient ideas about the globe.
3.The spread of Christianity: Rome and Constantinople.
4.Old books for new minds: the intellectual foundation.
5.Faces from the grave: reconstructing medieval people.

Week 2. The Medieval World in Europe

1.Empires, cities, and mountains: the geography of medieval civilizations.
2.The Great Chain of Being.
3.Against the Legions of Darkness: the Gothic cathedral.
4. Violence as a pastime: the art of warfare in East and West.
5.Northern Europe exported: the Viking voyages to Russia and America.

Week 3. The Cultures of the Wider World

1.China: the Celestial Empire.
2. From Samarkand to Granada: the world of Islam.
3.Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes.
4.Africa, India, and their cultures.
5. The Aztec and Inca civilisations of America.

Week 4. Mind, Body, and Soul

1. Students and scholars in the Madrasah and the University.
2. Ghosts, spirits, and the realm of popular belief.
3. Food, drink, and entertainment.
4. Sex, love, and marriage.
5. Cure of soul and cure of body: the priest and the physician.

Week 5. The End of the Middle Ages

1.The Black Death in Europe and Asia.
2. Crusade, the causes of crusade, and the rise of militant Islam.
3.The fall of the Byzantine Empire.
4. John Wycliffe and the origins of Protestant Christianity.
5. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules.


Additional Lectures

There will be a lecture on the origins, history, and present-day workings of Oxford University, and on student life within it.Ê Before each field trip there will also be a full lecture; in addition, there will be a background talk on the Shakespeare play to be seen in Stratford-upon-Avon.


Suggested course books

Maurice Keen, The Penguin History of Medieval Europe (Penguin, paperback), ISBN 01401 363 04, £9.99.
Also, if possible, J. M. Roberts, History of the World (Penguin), ISBN 0141007230, £14.99.


CLASSES

The following classes are offered.Ê Each student must register for TWO classes for credit, though all classes are open for audit.Ê Not all of the listed books are essential for the course, but they are intended to give background.Ê Students should try, if possible, to buy or borrow at least one of them for each class taken.


Art and Architecture (Dr Rachel Owen, B.A., Ph.D.)

The course will begin with a brief look at the Early Middle Ages, and then concentrate on the art and architecture of the High Middle Ages: the Romanesque and Gothic periods.Ê We will also examine artistic developments at the onset of the Renaissance in Europe.Ê Architecture was the dominant art of the High Middle Ages, but the course will also discuss sculpture, painting, manuscript illumination, mosaic, and stained glass, in an attempt to illustrate the consistency of subject matter combined with a variety of styles that characterizes medieval art.Ê Unlike that of later eras, the art of the Middle Ages is not focussed on individual artists and personal styles, but instead on a series of monuments and works defined by historical forces and geographical areas.Ê The course will be centred on British art and architecture, but these British works will be evaluated in relation to the art produced in other European countries.
Recommended reading:Ê Andrew Martindale, Gothic Art (Thames and Hudson), ISBN 0500 200 580, £8.95.


Influential Women in the Middle Ages (Dr Santha Bhattacharji, M.A., Ph.D.)

Contrary to what many people believe, women in the Middle Ages were sometimes able to achieve extremely powerful positions in society, or, through their writings, to have a wide and lasting influence on those around them.Ê This course will look at some of these influential women, wherever possible through their own writings: scholars such as Hrotswith of Gandersheim, Hildegard of Bingen, and HŽlo•se; courtly secular writers such as Marie de France and Christine de Pisan; and religious visionaries such as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe.
Recommended reading:Ê Marie de France, The Laies of Marie de France (Penguin Classics, 1986), ISBN 0140447598, £7.95 (but several paperback editions in print); Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Classics, 1998); Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies (Penguin Classics, 1985); Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (Penguin Classics, 1985).


The Knights of King Arthur (Nigel Frith, M.A., M.Litt.)

In sixth-century Britain a heroic general probably called Artorius held out for the Celts and civilisation against the barbarian Anglo-Saxon invaders.Ê Arthurâs exploits became the stuff of legend and of countless High Medieval romances, where, in a world of jousts and heraldry, castles and courtly ladies, he was looked upon as an ideal king of an ideal company.Ê This course will study two classic texts which tell of Arthur himself, his rise and fall, and of the famous knights of his court.Ê While the classes will discuss a section of text each week, there will also be introductions to the origin and growth of these legends, the Celtic (Welsh) background, the French courtly influence, and the timeless appeal of the chivalry of the Round Table.
Recommended reading (please bring with you, if possible):Ê ChrŽtien de Troyes, The Arthurian Romances, for Yvain or the Knight with the Lion (any edn., e.g. Penguin Classics); Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte dâArthur, Books 1, 3-5, 18-21 (Caxtonâs numbering).


Music and Culture (Dr Katie Pardee, M.M., D.M.A.)

This course will cover the music and culture of about 500 years in England, from about the time of the Norman Conquest to the reign of Henry VII ö the mid-eleventh century to the beginning of the sixteenth.Ê Most histories of medieval music concentrate on the music of the Church, and rightly so, since the Church was the dominant force in everyday life.Ê However, we will look at other music as well, and try to establish a picture of life in England in general and Oxford in particular from the time of the beginnings of the University through some of its stormiest history.
Recommended reading:Ê Books focussing on the music of medieval Britain are difficult to come by, and you will find that even chapters on medieval music in general histories of music spend little time on English music.Ê Overall familiarity with medieval music is important however, so look at the relevant chapters in any readily-available history of music.Ê A search on the internet will also turn up short but relevant articles.Ê Some suggested books for background:Ê Stanley Sadie and Alison Latham, Cambridge Music Guide (C.U.P.), £22.92; Roger Kamien, Music: An Appreciation (McGraw Hill), £22.99?; Craig Wright, Listening to Music (West Publishing), $23.99?; Richard Hoppin, Medieval Music (Norton), £28.50.


Politics and Law in Medieval Europe (Dr Allan Chapman, M.A., D.Phil., D.Univ., F.R.A.S.)

It is in the medieval period that many elements of what we now call a free and publicly accountable society were born.Ê Building upon a legal foundation inherited from ancient Rome, medieval political thinkers were the first to advance serious arguments against the absolute power of monarchs.Ê At the base of medieval society was the concept of the Corporation, where the social whole was greater than the will of any one powerful individual.Ê While the practice was often very different from the theory, it emphasized the tradition of citizenship, and the concept of legally defensible rights against would-be tyrants.
Recommended reading:Ê David Miller (ed.), Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, ISBN 0-631-179443, £25.99 (see articles on Greek, Roman, medieval, Renaissance political thought, Church and state, John of Salisbury, etc.).Ê Or Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (Routledge), ISBN 0415078547, $33.95.


Romance East and West (Nigel Frith, M.A., M.Litt.)

In the medieval millennium (500-1500) the world seems to have been swept away by a breeze of love and romance.Ê In Europe this revealed itself in the strange, emotional, and passionate practice of courtly love, where the lady was the dominant partner and the knight had to obey her every whim.Ê But the lecturer has a theory, which he will introduce, that this cult of love originated in India, and then spread west through the Middle East.Ê The background of the medieval courts, castles, and tournaments will also be considered, along with that of the Indian fairy-tale heavens, glittering cities, and jungle retreats.Ê Meanwhile the class will study a section of text each week from two famous works of such traditions, one from France and one from India.
Recommended reading (please bring with you if possible):Ê ChrŽtien de Troyes, The Arthurian Romances, for Lancelot or the Knight of the Cart (any edn., e.g. Penguin); Kalidasa, The Recognition of Shakuntala, trans. W. J. Johnson (Oxford World Classics).


Science, Alchemy, and Invention (Dr Allan Chapman, M.A., D.Phil., D.Univ., F.R.A.S.)

The composition and the working of material things have always fascinated people, and it was in the Arabic world of around A.D. 900 that Al-Chimia, or the study of how substances change when heated or mixed, was born.Ê Optics, astronomy, alchemy, and medicine had drawn deeply on many cultural traditions, such as ancient Greek, Arabian, Indian, and Persian by the time that they appeared in western Europe in the twelfth century.Ê This course will look at how medieval peoples perceived and explained the physical world around them, to produce scientific instruments, the mechanical clock, and corrosive acids.Ê By 1450, western Europe in particular was becoming a Îtechnological societyâ, with machines being used for everything, from mechanical toys to weaponry and industrial devices.
Recommended reading:Ê A. C. Crombie, History of Science from Augustine to Galileo (Peregrine paperback), ISBN 0486288501, £14.55 ($16.95).


FIELD TRIPS

1. Avebury, Stonehenge, and Salisbury.
2. City of Bath and the Roman Baths, via Burford and the Cotswolds.
3. Portsmouth Dockyard Museum.
4. Warwick Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon to see a performance in the evening.

Each group of students will also be taken on a walking tour of Oxford, usually shortly after arrival, to help them find their way around the city, and to see its main buildings.


NOTE

Each of the main field trips will take place on a Saturday except that to Warwick Castle and Stratford. As the Royal Shakespeare Company do not announce their spring programme and precise performance dates until January 2007, we cannot fix the exact date for this field trip, or give details of the play, until we receive confirmation of our ticket application from the R.S.C.
As usual, there will be no lectures or field trips over the Easter weekend, 5th to 9th April inclusive. A full five-day break will be provided in which students can travel and explore for themselves. It would be appreciated, however, if it could be made very clear to the students in advance that their presence will be needed at lectures and classes up to mid-afternoon on Wednesday 4th April, and that they should not book Easter holiday tickets that require them to leave Wycliffe Hall before 3.00 p.m. on that day.