Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A focused interdisciplinary study of the Carolingian civilization achieved in early medieval Europe under Charlemagne and his family. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

“The times are changing and so are we.” 
-supposed epigram of Emperor Lothar I

And change the times did. Between 750 and 817 the Carolingians achieved in Europe what had seemed scarcely possible in the seventh century: political stability and cultural renaissance. Between 817 and 887 the heirs of Charlemagne lost their empire as they vied against each other for territorial dominance, as counts established local power bases, and as the Vikings and Magyars destabilized the frontiers. Both the rise and fall of the Carolingian house had a vast impact on the intellectual, cultural, and social history of the Middle Ages. In this course we shall investigate Carolingian civilization from bottom to top, beginning with the royal annals (the Globe and Mail of its day), Einhard’s portrait of Charlemagne, and Nithard’s disturbing account of the civil war that split the royal house. We shall look at daily life in the ninth century, the poetry of court scholars, their letters, Countess Dhuoda and her manual, and the splendid art of the age. In the last weeks of the course we shall read portions of Eriugena’s Periphyseon, the greatest synthesis of medieval thought since Augustine’s City of God, the account of the legends of Charlemagne as seen through the eyes of a nostalgic late Carolingian monk, and the vision of Charles the Fat, the last Carolingian emperor.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: