Senorafeliz

History 3613/RelSt3715/MeSt3610
History of the Crusades
Spring 2012
3 credits
Tuesday, Thursday 11:15-12:30
Anderson 350

Professor: Kathryn Reyerson
office hours: Tuesday 1:45-3:45 and by appointment
office: 1120 Heller
phone: (612) 624–8569
email: reyer001@umn.edu
TA: Cameron Bradley
email: bradl231@umn.edu
office hours: Tuesday 1-2, Thursday 9:45-10:45
office: 1035 Heller Halloffice phone: (612) 624-2800 (ask for TA office)

Course description: This course will trace the crusading experience of western Europeans in the Middle Ages. The primary focus will be on the traditional eight crusades to the Near East, beginning in 1095 with the preaching of the First Crusade and ending with St. Louis’s last crusade in 1270. We will examine the origins of the idea ofcrusade and the evolution of this concept in the medieval period. Additional themes will include the interactions of East and West, Muslim and Christian, the political fallout of the crusades in western Europe, and the crusading phenomenon on European soil.
Taken as a whole, the Crusades make up one of the most fascinating episodes in the history of the Middle Ages (ca. 500-1500). Through anexploration of primary sources we will discuss problems of interpretation in the history of the crusades. What motivated medieval European men and women to set out on the conquest of a land thousands of miles away, about which they knew very little? How did the papacy, as head of the Catholic Church, come to promote violence against the Muslim residents of that land as not merely justifiable, but aspositively meritorious, as deserving of a great spiritual reward? How did the Muslim and also Jewish communities who were the primary targets of this violence respond to it, and how did the contact among Christians, Muslims, and Jews which the Crusades made possible transform relations among these groups, the three major monotheistic religions of the West?
While focusing on the Crusades asan aspect of medieval history, we will also consider some of the larger questions raised by the history of these expeditions. What is the relationship between violence and religion? Does it differ in the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions? What is the legacy of the crusades? Did they pave the way for the subsequent Western colonial ventures that eventually led to Western domination of muchof the non-Western world? Did they set the stage for modern conflicts in the Middle East? Did they provide a crucial antecedent to the violence directed against the Jewish communities of Europe in the middle of the last century?




Course Purpose:
• To provide you with background on the crusades and some of the major issues that they raise.

• To introduce you todocuments from the time of the Crusades – primary sources – that you will learn to analyze and interpret.

Moodle site will be activated in the first week of class.


Required Texts:

The following texts are available at the University Book Store:

1. Thomas F. Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades. Updated Student Ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006) (Hereafter:Madden).
2. The Crusades: A Reader, ed. S.J. Allen and Emilie Amt (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003) (Hereafter: Allen and Amt)
3. Joinville and Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963) (Hereafter: Joinville and Villehardouin)


Tentative Schedule of Lectures:

Week One

T (17 Jan) Introduction to the Course

TH (19 Jan) Background of the Crusades
1:Sacred Violence
Reading: “Augustine of Hippo on the Just War,” Allen and Amt, 7-9; and Madden, 1-13.
2: Pilgrimage, Peace of God, Byzantium
Reading: “The Pilgrimage of Etheria,” “Declaration of the Truce of God,” and “Matthew of Edessa on the Seljuk Conquests,” Allen and Amt, 3-6, 28-34.

Week Two
T (24 Jan) Origins of and Motivation for the First Crusade
Reading: Madden, 15-19.


TH (26...