Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

This is a history of Byzantium, Rome's direct heir, that familiarizes students with the social, political, economic, and cultural history of Byzantium from the rise of the Caliphate in the seventh century to the Carolingians, the Crusades, the emergence of the Italian maritime republics and the ascent of the Seljuk Turks. Students with credit for HIST 308, HS 308, HIST 317, HS 317, HS 349 or HIST 349 may not take this course for further credit. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

On the eve of the final assault on Constantinople––the capital of the medieval Roman Empire known nowadays as Byzantium––on May 29, 1453, the last emperor of the Romans, Konstantinos XI, refused to surrender the city to the sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire and exclaimed: “it is not for me to decide or for anyone else of its citizens; for all of us have reached the mutual decision to die of our own free will.” With this statement Konstantinos XI managed to express the essence of Roman social and political being: the emperor exists to lead the community of free-willed Roman citizens who have a say in the running of the state. This course familiarizes students with the social, political, economic, and cultural history of Byzantium from the 7 th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In covering about eight centuries of history, students inevitably explore a series of transformations that medieval Roman society underwent: from the religious and political crisis of the 7th century, the strengthening of the empire in the 10th century, as well as the cultural and military renaissance of the 1100s, all the way to the final years in the 1450s. By focusing on the constant changes that were taking place in Byzantium as much as in the rest of the Mediterranean and Europe, this course distances itself from the ossified views of the Byzantine Empire as static, antiquarian, and theocratic. Instead, students are offered a fresh primary-source-based approach to the Byzantine state which now appears as a vibrant, creative, and original space whose main actors are apt politicians, innovative thinkers, brave women, and self-aware individuals. In order to best uncover the Byzantine Romans’ views of themselves and the world in which they lived, students are exposed to a series of primary sources ranging from texts, including histories, speeches, letters, inscriptions, and novels, to monumental architecture found around the empire, such as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the Byzantine baths in Thessaloniki, and the imperial palace in Nymphaion.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: