HIST2006 中古世界通史
2022-2023年度 第二學期
時間星期四, 10:30 - 12:15
地點李兆基樓304室 (LSK 304)
語言英語
課程講師 墨瞻史 (james.morton@cuhk.edu.hk)
助教 邹宁宁 (zouningning@link.cuhk.edu.hk)
Introduction
‘Medieval’. In English, this word often conjures up negative images: violence, disease, superstition, ignorance, the ‘Dark Ages’ of European history. Coming after the glories of the ancient Roman Empire but before the advances of the modern world, people often assume that the Middle Ages (c. 500–1500) were a period of decline and isolation. But is this really true? This course will provide a broad survey of medieval world history, with a focus on Europe and its connections to Africa and Asia. You will learn how medieval Europeans inherited and built on the achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans, becoming part of a wide, cosmopolitan world that reached as far as India and China.
Each week, we will explore a particular period and theme through a lecture and class discussion. You will then have the chance to read academic literature by experts on each topic and explore related issues in conversation with other students in tutorial sessions. We will cover a wide range of topics from religion and culture to politics and economics. By the end of the course, you will have a firm understanding of the basics of the Western Middle Ages and understand how it fits into the broader history of medieval Eurasia.
Learning Goals
This course has three main goals:
- To teach you with the fundamentals of medieval world history: key dates, events, places, states, beliefs, innovations, etc.
- To familiarise you with the most important debates and methodological approaches in the history of medieval Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world.
To help you develop the fundamental skillset and sensibility of a historian: how to understand primary sources, how to think critically about historical narratives, and how to effectively communicate your analysis to others.
Course Schedule
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12 Jan |
1. Introduction: The Middle Ages K. Patrick Fazioli, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination (New York, 2017), ch. 2: ‘Mirror of the Medieval’. |
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19 Jan |
2. Romans and Barbarians Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, 395-700 AD (New York, 2001), ch. 2: ‘The Empire, the Barbarians, and the Late Roman Army.’ Ian Wood, The Transformation of the Roman West (Leeds, 2018), ch. 2: ‘Barbarism: The Invasion and Settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.’ |
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26 Jan |
Lunar New Year – No Lecture! |
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2 Feb |
3. From Rome to Byzantium Michael Maas, ‘Roman Questions, Byzantine Answers’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), 3–27. James Crow, ‘Constantinople in the Long Sixth Century’, in Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century: Current Research and Future Directions (Oxford, 2019), 167–180. |
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9 Feb |
4. Muhammad and the Rise of Islam Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, MA, 2010), ch. 5: ‘The Emergence of Islam’. Peter Brown, ‘“Mohammed and Charlemagne” by Henri Pirenne,’ Daedalus 103.1 (1974): 25–33. |
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16 Feb |
5. The Carolingian Renaissance Johannes Fried, The Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 2015), ch. 3: ‘Charlemagne and the First Renewal of the Roman Empire’. |
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23 Feb |
6. The Viking Age Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven, 2012), chs. 2–4. |
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2 Mar |
7. Feudalism and Chivalry Richard Abels, ‘The Historiography of a Construct: Feudalism and the Medieval Historian’, History Compass 7.3 (2009): 1008–1031. Peter Sposato and Samuel Claussen, ‘Chivalric Violence’, in A Companion to Chivalry (Woodbridge, 2019), 99–118. |
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9 Mar |
Reading Week – No Lecture! |
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16 Mar |
8. Church and State in the Investiture Contest Frank Furedi, Authority: A Sociological History (Cambridge, 2013), ch. 5: ‘Medieval Authority and the Investiture Contest’. Primary Source Analysis Due |
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23 Mar |
9. The Crusades Jonathan Phillips, The Crusades, 1095–1204 (London, 2014), ‘Introduction.’ Andrew A. Latham, ‘Theorizing the Crusades: Identity, Institutions, and Religious War in Medieval Christendom,’ International Studies Quarterly 55.1 (2011): 223–243. |
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30 Mar |
10. Trade and Exploration Robert Sabatino Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950–1350 (Cambridge, 1976), ch. 4: ‘The Uneven Diffusion of Commercialization’. |
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6 Apr |
11. Medieval Education and Intellectual Culture Alan B. Cobban, ‘Medieval Student Power,’ Past & Present 53 (1971): 28–66. |
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13 Apr |
12. The Fourteenth Century: Crisis and Transformation Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War: England and France at War c.1300–c.1450, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2001), ch. 6: ‘War, People, and Nation’. Christopher Dyer, Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850–1520 (New Haven, 2002), ch. 8: ‘The Black Death and its Aftermath, c.1348–c.1520.’ |
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20 Apr |
13. Epilogue: From the Medieval to the Modern No assigned readings. |
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5 May |
Final Essay Due |
Assessment Overview
Your performance in the course will be assessed on the cumulative basis of different types of assignment (described in more detail below) and your attendance. There will not be an exam or quiz component. The weighting of the assignments is as follows:
Final Essay 50%
Primary Source Analysis 20%
Reading Summaries (x6) 20%
Discussion Participation 10%
Your final letter grade will be determined by your overall course percentage. You will not be graded on a curve. Grades will be assigned according to the following set thresholds:
A 90% C+ 65%
A- 85% C 60%
B+ 80% C- 55%
B 75% D 50%
B- 70% F >50%
Course Readings
Each week you will be assigned approximately 30–40 pages of reading. This will consist of short pieces of academic literature – mainly journal articles and book chapters – that explore important aspects of the week’s theme. All required course readings will be posted on the Blackboard course website at the beginning of the semester. You will not need to purchase or acquire any course materials yourself.
For a general introduction to the subject, I can recommend the following (non-compulsory) books, all of which are available in the CUHK library or online:
Abulafia, David. et al., edd. The New Cambridge Medieval History, 8 vols. Cambridge, 1995–2005.
Crone, Patricia. Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World. London, 2015.
Madigan, Kevin. Medieval Christianity: A New History. New Haven, 2015.
Wickham, Chris. Medieval Europe. New Haven, 2016.
Winks, Robin W. and Teofilo F. Ruiz. Medieval Europe and the World: From Late Antiquity to Modernity, 400–1500. Oxford, 2005.
Reading Summaries
After each lecture, you will complete the readings assigned for that week and then write a short summary (approx. 250–500 words) that you will submit in hard copy at the end of the next week’s lecture. This is a reading comprehension exercise that will help to develop your skills in analysing and explaining texts in a short space. It will also help you remember the readings during tutorial discussions.
You should describe both the content of the readings (what they are about) and the authors’ central arguments. You can find sample reading summaries and a short how-to guide on Blackboard to give you a better idea of how to write them. I will only ask you to write summaries for six out of the twelve weeks of readings. This means that you can skip six reading summaries of your choice.
Primary Source Analysis
In addition to the assigned weekly readings, we will also spend part of each lecture reading a short primary source text together and discussing it in class. Each of these primary source texts is posted on the Blackboard course site under ‘Primary Source Texts’. Your first major piece of written work in the course will be to choose one of the assigned primary sources from Blackboard and write a critical analysis of 500–1,000 words, due in Week 8 (16th March).
Your primary source analysis will be a mini-essay that explains what the text is, who wrote it, when it was written and what the context was, and why you think it was produced. I would then like you to explain how you think it sheds light on relevant themes and topics covered in the course. You will have to do some research of your own to help you write the source analysis, though it does not have to be a fully-fledged research paper. You will be able to find everything you need to research the primary sources either online or in the CUHK library system.
Final Essay
I will ask you to write a final essay (1,500–2,000 words) at the end of the course, due on 5th May. I will provide you with a selection of five topics at the end of the lecture in Week 10 (30th March). You will choose one of the five topics to write about. This essay will require you to reflect on the major themes of the course and to use historical examples to make an argument that relates to a significant topic within historical scholarship on medieval Western history.
The essay should be written to academic standards with a central thesis, reference to primary sources and secondary literature, and appropriate citations in footnotes. You are free to follow any accepted academic citation style such as Chicago, Harvard, or MLA. If you are not sure about how to write citations, I recommend looking at the Chicago Manual of Style quick citation guide: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
New Approaches to World History Seminar
This term, the History department will be holding the third series of its ‘New Approaches to World History’ seminar. This will take place online on Zoom every Thursday from 8th September to 1st December for a lecture by a leading world historian. At the end of the lecture, members of the audience will have the chance to engage in a Q&A with the speaker. A complete schedule of events, with topics, dates, and times, will be released soon.
Since this seminar has a clear relevance to our course, I would like you to attend no fewer than three meetings of the New Approaches to World History Seminar. You should also ask at least one question during one of the Q&A sessions. Your attendance and participation in this seminar will form part of your overall participation grade for this course.
Attendance and Absences
You are expected to attend all lectures and tutorial sessions. For every class that you miss without my approval, 1% will be deducted from your final course grade. If you have a valid reason for being absent from a seminar or tutorial (such as a doctor’s appointment, a family emergency, or similar), please contact me as soon as possible to ask for permission.
Assignment Submission, Extensions, and Lateness Penalties
You will be expected to submit your primary source analysis and final essay by 11:59pm on the due dates by uploading them to the relevant section of the Blackboard course website along with a signed declaration of academic honesty from VeriGuide (which you can find at https://academic2.veriguide.org/portalcuhk/).
Scheduling conflicts and unforeseen circumstances can sometimes make it difficult to meet deadlines. If you are unable to submit your work on time, please contact me as soon as possible and I will be happy to grant you an extension if you have a legitimate reason to require one.
If you fail to submit work on time and I have not granted you an extension, you will incur a daily lateness penalty of 1 percentage point. For example, if you submit your final essay (worth 40%) 3 days after the deadline, you will lose 3 of the 40% available for that assignment; if you submit it 5 days late, you will lose 5 of the 40%, etc. I will not accept any further submissions after 7 days have passed unless I have granted special permission.
Active participation in class discussions is an important part of the course and your learning experience. Although the main opportunity for discussions will come during tutorial sessions, you will also have the chance to make comments and ask questions during lectures. Discussion participation in both tutorials and lectures will comprise 10% of your overall course grade.
To be clear, participating in discussions means that you will actually have to speak. Sitting in silence is not participation and will not count towards your participation score. But don’t worry! You don’t have to be an expert (or even knowledgeable) about a topic to join in the discussion. Any kind of contribution, even if it is just a simple comment or a question, will count as participation and will thus add to your course grade.
Open-Door Hours
I make myself available in my office (KHB 123) every week from 2 to 5pm on Friday so that anyone can speak to me about anything they want. If you would like to chat with me about any aspect of the course, your university studies, career development, favourite historical books and movies, or anything else, feel free to drop in and I will be happy to see you. In the event that we are forced to move back to online teaching, I will hold my open-door hours on Zoom.
請注意大學有關學術著作誠信的政策和規則，及適用於犯規事例的紀律指引和程序。詳情可瀏覽網址：http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/。
學生遞交作業時，必須連同已簽署的聲明一併提交，表示他們知道有關政策、規則、指引及程序。
- 如屬小組習作，則所有組員均須簽署聲明；所有組員（不論有否簽署聲明及不論有否直接或間接撰寫有問題的內容）均須負上集體責任及受到懲處。
- 如作業以電腦製作、內容以文字為主，並經由大學「維誠」系統 (VeriGuide) 提交者，學生將作業的電子檔案上載到系統後，便會獲得收據，收據上已列明有關聲明。
未有夾附簽署妥當的聲明的作業，老師將不予批閱。
學生只須提交作業的最終版本。
學生將作業或作業的一部份用於超過一個用途（例如：同時符合兩科的要求）而沒有作出聲明會被視為未有聲明重覆使用作業。學生重覆使用其著作的措辭或某一、二句句子很常見，並可以接受，惟重覆使用全部內容則構成問題。在任何情況下，須先獲得相關老師同意方可提交作業。
