TTC High Middle Ages

Course Lecture Titles


1. Why the Middle Ages?
2. Demography and the Commercial Revolution
3. Those Who Fought—The Nobles
4. The Chivalric Code
5. Feudalism
6. Those Who Worked—The Peasants
7. Those Who Worked—The Townspeople
8. Women in Medieval Society
9. Those Who Prayed—The Monks
10. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Movement
11. Heretics and Heresy
12. The Medieval Inquisitions
13. Jews and Christians
14. The Origins of Scholasticism
15. Aquinas and the Problem of Aristotle
16. The First Universities
17. The People's Crusade
18. The Conquest of Jerusalem
19. The Norman Conquest
20. Philip II of France
21. Magna Carta
22. Empire versus Papacy
23. Emperor Frederick II
24. Looking Back, Looking Forward


As the last millennium dawned, Europe didn't amount to much.

Illiteracy, starvation, and disease were the norm.

In fact, Europe in the year 1000 was one of the world's more stagnant regions—an economically undeveloped, intellectually derivative, and geopolitically passive backwater.

Three short centuries later, all this had changed dramatically. A newly invigorated cluster of European societies revived city life, spawned new spiritual and intellectual movements and educational institutions, and began, for reasons both sacred and profane, to expand at the expense of neighbors who traditionally had expanded at Europe's expense.