Lecturing with Chapter 14

Last week of classes. Yay!

On Tuesday, I traced the political history of late medieval Europe. Here’s the outline:

From Feudal Kingdoms to Nation States

1. What’s the difference? I talked about centralization, coherence, and abstract loyalties.

2. How was it accomplished? I talked about bureaucratic growth, new economic powers, new ideological functions (nationalism), new religious powers, and powers from combating what I called “enemies within.”

On Thursday, I looked at “medieval” in relation to “modern.” Here’s the outline:

1492 and all that . . .

1. Europe and the “New World”. I traced yet again medieval baggage about “others” that shaped how Europeans encountered Americans; I talked about impetuses, technological and economic; and I traced what contact meant for both Europe and the Americas.

2. Back in Europe: Inquisitions and “Enemies Within”. Spanish Inquisitions, with a bit of gory detail. Medieval precedents acknowledged and modernity stressed.

3. Back in Europe: Witch-Hunting. More gore, with medieval precedents acknowledged and modernity stressed.

4. The “Medieval Other” (one last time). I reviewed once again how all the characteristics we associate with modernity have their opposite in fantasies about the Middle Ages. Moral: any past = different, but not “other.”

Done!

Quiz Questions for Chapter 14

After 1347-50, the proportion of literate people
(a) increased.
(b) fell.
(c) was unchanged for the next 150 years.

Hans Behem
(a) preached radical ideas.
(b) invented the telescope.
(c) sailed around the coast of Africa.

Francesco Petrarch died in
(a) 1274.
(b) 1374.
(c) 1474.

The gothic architecture of the Later Middle Ages stressed
(a) height and decoration.
(b) simplicity.
(c) creating open spaces for paintings and processions.

Which of the following was NOT a late medieval trend in political thought?
(a) the clericalist position (different jurisdictions for church and state) gained more support than before.
(b) a practical interest in nitty-gritty matters of governance developed.
(c) the divine right of kings became the predominant justification for royal power.

Which of the following statements about William of Ockham is NOT true?
(a) he favored papal supremacy.
(b) he severed the bonds between revelation and reason.
(c) he was a radical empiricist.

Marsilio Ficino translated the works of
(a) Galen.
(b) Aristotle.
(c) Plato.

Donatello’s David expresses
(a) the concept of redemptive suffering.
(b) the influence of Greco-Roman traditions.
(c) late medieval misogyny.

Lecturing with Chapter 13

Only one lecture this week, and I decided to reward the few students who tend to show up on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving with a one-off lecture on sex and sexuality. In the event, most of my students came. The lecture ranged over many matters, none of them particularly pertinent to chapter 13. For what it is worth, here's the outline:

MEDIEVAL SEX AND SEXUALITIES
1. Preliminaries
2. "Good" Sex
3. "Bad" Sex
4. Prostitution
5. Chastity

Quiz Questions for Chapter 13

“Sovereignty” means
(a) divine right of kings.
(b) unchallenged authority over a state.
(c) maintaining the gold standard.

In consolidating power, late medieval kings faced two main challenges. Which was NOT a major challenge?
(a) papacy.
(b) aristocracy.
(c) peasantry.

Which of the following statements about the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) is correct?
(a) It pitted France against the Holy Roman Empire.
(b) It led to the independence of Scotland.
(c) It provoked the intervention of Joan of Arc.

Louis XI (r. 1461-1483)
(a) was mad.
(b) subdued the aristocrats of France.
(c) claimed the English throne by right of his wife, Mary Tudor.

Who dominated Russia c. 1500?
(a) Mongols.
(b) Muscovite princes.
(c) Swedes.

The story of William Tell is a symptom of the growing importance of
(a) paternalism.
(b) nationalism.
(c) capitalism.

The Hapsburg dynasty first took root in
(a) Italy.
(b) Spain.
(c) the Holy Roman Empire.

Lecturing with Chapter 12

This was the week for fourteenth-century disasters. I managed it as follows:

1. Europe Before the Great Plague
--Great Famine—population pressure, bad weather, cattle murrain, royal exactions, etc.
--quick survey of pre-1348 challenges for papacy, monarchies, intellectuals, and towns

2. During the Plague
--What was it? I told the usual story; then elaborated on Sam Cohn’s critics; then used the most recent DNA reports (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/health/01plague.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=yersinia&st=cse) to concede the bubonic fight; I then discussed Mike Baillie’s recent arguments, based on ice cores and dendrochronology, about comets and cosmic impacts.
--What did it do? All the usual gory stuff. I put Boccaccio’s description to good use.
--How did people react? I discussed hyper-religiosity (esp. flagellants) and attacks on Jews, lepers et al.

3. After the Plague. This was basically a (possibly misguided) romp through the later middle ages. I covered these topics:
--recurrences of plague
--low population
--mentality—fashion, excess, death, and the like
--improved opportunities for peasants and wage-earners
--manorial reaction
--mercantile reaction and then expansion
--woes in the Church

Good stuff, but everyone is exhausted. One of my student students nodded off today. Sigh.

Lecturing with Chapter 11

This week's lectures had remarkably little to do with the content of Chapter 11. On Tuesday, I relaxed while my excellent Teaching Assistant gave a great lecture on the crusades (what they were; what happened; with what consequences). On Thursday, my lecture attempted to artfully mingle three discrete tasks: (a) preparing the students for our transition to "late medieval" and the intersections with modernity raised thereby, (b) "renaissance," humanism and the "othering" of an intervening dark age, and (c) background on Christine de Pizan, whose Treasure of the City of Ladies is this week's assignment for discussion groups.

Quiz Questions for Chapter 11

Which match is NOT correct?
(a) Hildegarde of Bingen: mysticism.
(b) Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica.
(c) Averroes: founder of Oxford University.

With its vaulted ribs, pointed arches, and flying buttresses, Gothic cathedrals were able to
(a) support flat roofs.
(b) let in more light.
(c) eliminate supporting columns in the nave.

Compared to lyrics, epics, and romances, fabliaux were enjoyed by audiences that were
(a) more monastic.
(b) more humble in social rank.
(c) more female.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote The Divine Comedy. He also wrote lyrics inspired by
(a) his Cathar faith.
(b) the Chanson de Roland.
(c) his unconsummated love for Beatrice.

Which statement about Roman law principles is most accurate?
(a) They were never applied in Church courts.
(b) They were especially influential in English law.
(c) They became more important in the medieval West after 1100.

The debate over universals concerned whether
(a) the pope could be a universal monarch over all the kings of Europe.
(b) Roman and Byzantine Christians could be united in a universal Church.
(c) Platonic archetypes (or ideals) were real.

Robert Grossteste and Roger Bacon were important
(a) lawyers.
(b) theologians.
(c) scientists.

Peter Abelard died in 1142. Thomas Aquinas died in
(a) 1074.
(b) 1174.
(c) 1274.

Lecturing with Chapter 10

On Thursday, I conceded to student demand and lectured on beer. Not much of general use, there. But my Tuesday lecture might be useful to think with. It was on Race & Gender in Medieval Europe.

1. Medieval Conceptions of Race. I mostly followed Robert Bartlett here.

2. “Imagined Others” Outside Europe. I talked briefly about ideas, inherited from Pliny et al., about monstrous races on the edges of the world.

3. Imagined Africans. I talked about how “black” was figured negatively in European culture. We then looked at positive (St Maurice, Black Madonnas), exotic (e.g., Balthasar), and negative (execution of John the Baptist, crucifixion) images of Africans in medieval art.

4. Medieval Science & Religion on Gender Differences. For science, I talked the authorities used to justify gender differences; the gendering of humoral theory; ideas about conception; ideas about femaleness as an necessary error in gestation; and, of course, the one-sex theory. For religion, I talked about the authorities deployed; Eve and BVM; misogyny and misogamy.

5. Gender Rules on the Ground. I talked briefly about the real experiences of women, as mostly excluded from formal political life, mostly expected to be dependent socially, and as to economy, mostly confined to low status occupations. I also reminded them of what we've seen earlier vis-a-vis women in (a) monastic life and (b) education & intellectual life.

Quiz Questions for Chapter 10

After c. 1250, the Holy Roman Empire

(a) controlled all of Italy, except the Papal States.

(b) fell under the control of the Rus.

(c) was a weak confederation.

8. Edward I of England ruled from 1272 to 1307. He is associated with

(a) the loss of the Angevin Empire.

(b) the development of the English common law.

(c) the evolution of parliament.

Louis IX of France ruled from 1226 to 1270. He is associated with

(a) the establishment of the Salian dynasty.

(b) royal sanctity.

(c) the convening of the Estates General.

Blanche of Castile (1182-1252)

(a) was a saint and mystic.

(b) saved the Capetian monarchy.

(c) inspired the Third Crusade in 1204.

Lecturing with Chapter 9

Only one lecture this week (we are still in recovery from the disruption of Obama’s visit to campus), and I devoted it to the rise of persecutions from the 11^th century on. Here’s what I did:

WHAT HAPPENED?

Between 1000 and 1300, certain groups of people began to be

singled out as dangerous and perverse. These were: heretics, Jews,

prostitutes, lepers, and male homosexuals. Before 1000, these groups were

readily accommodated within medieval communities, but after 1050, they began

to experience persecution. First, they were marked out as different,

especially by requirements that they wear special dress, badges, or hats.

Second, they were either segregated from the main community (Jews into

ghettoes; lepers into special leper-houses; prostitutes into brothels or

special neighborhoods) or expelled by either exile (an experience especially

of Jews and lepers) or death (the fate of some heretics and male

homosexuals).

TWO EXAMPLES OF PERSECUTED GROUPS:

1. Heretics. I discussed: what a heretic was; the Waldensians and Cathars as examples; the Church’s response in terms of preaching, inquisition, and crusade.

2. Jews. I reviewed how Jews had long lived in Christian communities before the 11^th century; how their circumstances changed dramatically with First Crusade; how relations were further exacerbated by new Christian pieties (as rehearsed in an earlier lecture); how they were also hurt by new Christian theological ideas that deemed Jews to be abusing the Old Testament; how everyday tensions (moneylending; the special but dangerous protection of kings) did not help; and how the results were attacks and expulsions.

THE IMAGINED “OTHER”:

I talked here about how each of these groups—lepers, heretics, prostitutes, Jews, male homosexuals—was different from the others. Nevertheless, ideas about these groups overlapped in some terrifying ways. All of them were seen as (a) sexually deviant, (b) sources of pollution, and (c) evil agents of the devil. Moreover, ideas about one group seeped into other groups. I read to them the twelfth-century description of heretics (p. 234 of MESH) that illustrated this tendency: heretics were seen, in the passage, not only as guilty of religious error but also as (a) meeting in a synagogue (like Jews), (b) consorting with the devil (like heretics), and (c) engaging in a sexual orgy that included same-sex relations (like male homosexuals).

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

These persecutions cannot be explained by the new arrival of these groups in Europe, for Jews, lepers, male homosexuals, prostitutes, and heretics had long been part of medieval society. In other words, diversity itself did not cause these attacks. Historians are still not sure how to explain the growing intolerance of Europeans, but here are some hypotheses:

--frustrated millenarianism? There were many millenarian movements in the

Middle Ages, especially around the year 1000 but also afterwards. It has

been suggested that the purification, anxiety, and frustration of these

movements led to a rise in intolerance.

--centralization of state & church? The High Middle Ages saw not only the

centralization of the power of feudal monarchs but also the growth of the

papal monarchy. For both kings and popes, minorities were (a) a threat to

their power and (b) an occasion (through control or elimination of

minorities) for the extension of their power.

--creating community? As communities grew larger and more complex in the

Central Middle Ages, perhaps cohesion could only be maintained through the

creation of "common enemies" against whom unity seemed necessary.

That’s it. A fun and important lecture. They discuss the Prioress' Tale tomorrow.

Quiz Questions for Chapter 9

John and Giovanni; William and Guglielmo; Thomas and Tommaso. These are examples of

(a) the greater value placed on boys, compared to girls.

(b) the Europeanization of Europe.

(c) the influence of the Hohenstaufen dynasty.

The term “Reconquest” is usually used with reference to

(a) Christian advance against Muslim lands in Iberia.

(b) Christian crusades to their “Holy Land.”

(c) the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

In the eleventh century, Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula fell under the control of

(a) Saracens.

(b) Romans.

(c) Normans.

German expansion was mostly to the

(a) north.

(b) east.

(c) west.

The First Crusade was preached by Pope Urban II in 1095. It

(a) ended in a swamp near Constantinople.

(b) captured Jerusalem.

(c) was led by Richard the Lion-Hearted.

The “military orders” were designed to accommodate

(a) monkly knights.

(b) ordinary people who wanted to participate in the crusades.

(c) papal legates.

In the history of Jewish-Christian relations in the Middles Ages, the twelfth century marks the beginning of

(a) forcing Jews to lend money to Christian businesses.

(b) admitting Jewish men to Christian universities.

(c) violent persecutions of Jews by Christians.

Lecturing with Chapter 8

On Tuesday, I lectured on a topic directly related to chapter 8: “New Christian Pieties and Anti-Jewish Fantasies.” Here’s what I did.

1. Veneration of the BVM. I reviewed the slow development of her veneration—Mary as a counterweight to Eve, as a symbol of the incarnation, as an intercessor. I talked about discussions of her virginity, her immaculate conception, her assumption. And I described how her veneration took off after 1100, partly from grassroots enthusiasms, partly from courtly love borrowings, and partly thanks to St Bernard. I also briefly discussed Black Madonnas. (And, with all due deference to the DaVinci Code, I threw in a bit of info about Mary Magdalene.)

2. Eucharistic Devotion and Corpus Christi. All the basics: transubstantiation; the visions of Juliana of Liège; Urban IV’s institution of the feast in 1264.

3. Redemptive Suffering. I talked about the Gero Cross as symptomatic of a new emphasis on the crucifixion; I talked about contemplation of the wounds of Christ; I emphasized that all this was about redemptive suffering, not sadism; I discussed stigmata and St Francis; and I talked a bit (using St Catherine of Siena as my example) about how individual holy people also sought, through their own suffering, to redeem the sins of others.

4. Anti-Jewish Fantasies. I then talked about how a by-product of these new pieties was the development of new fantasies about Jews:

BVM . . . and her role in the much repeated “Jewish boy” story.

CORPUS CHRISTI . . . and charges of host desecration.

REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING . . . and blood libel tales that Jews ritually crucified Christian boys.

It worked pretty well—and much better than last Thursday’s dull, dull lecture. Then on Thursday, I laid the groundwork for our discussions of the letters of Abelard & Heloise.

First, I discussed the intellectual contributions of A. and H., as well as their life histories. I used a map in the hope it would help them “see” the story.

Second, I discussed how institutions of learning changed and developed over the Middle Ages—from the foundations of Boethius and Cassiodorus; to the proliferation of monastic schools under Charlemagne; to cathedral and municipal schools c. 1050+; to universities c. 1200+. I did my best to help them locate Abelard & Heloise in the proper chronological place.

Third, I discussed intellectual developments, basically, the influx of new texts c. 1150-1250 and the development of scholasticism from Abelard to Aquinas. I gave the class an example of an article, using “Whether there can be sin in sexual desire?” (Second Part, Question 74, Article 3) Not sure if they were swayed or not!

Obama comes to USC tomorrow. Much chaos and secrecy . . . and we are still supposed to hold our classes. Not me. I’m not asking my students to forego the chance to see their president and I'm not missing the chance either!

Quiz Questions for Chapter 8

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) is associated with

(a) the Cluniac reform.

(b) the mendicant reform.

(c) the Cistercian reform.

The most troubling heretics of the Central Middle Ages were the

(a) Cathars.

(b) Gugliemites.

(c) Poor Men of London.

Which match is NOT correct?

(a) Poor Clares: nursing.

(b) Franciscans: poverty.

(c) Dominicans: preaching.

Moses Maimonides sought to reconcile Judaism and

(a) Christianity.

(b) the writings of Aristotle.

(c) Islam.

The carved oak figure known today as the Gero Cross is an example of a shift toward a greater emphasis on

(a) Christ’s redemptive suffering.

(b) the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

(c) God’s harsh judgment.