Bonnie Effros

EUH 4930: Barbarian Histories in an Age of Miracles    syllabus (PDF)
Spring 2013
Prof. Bonnie Effros

In this course we will focus on the composition of history and saints’ lives in the early Middle Ages in Western Europe. More specifically, we will identify some of the objectives of the rare medieval authors who took on the task of studying and recording the events in their own time and the centuries preceding. Some of the main questions that will concern us in the course of the term include: Why was there a concern with describing the past, especially the Christian past, in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages? How did the attitudes of clerics who wrote history shape the identity of literate and illiterate Christian populations in late antiquity and the early middle ages? What is the significance of the distinctions between the written and the archaeological record for this period? How did the perceived audiences of such texts affect the way in which their authors composed them? How did the content and propaganda of such texts vary when written about women or for female audiences? Moreover, how are modern historians to use such records of the past which, by our standards, are far from "objective"? For instance, how should miracles and dreams, which form a part of the historical evidence used in these texts, be applied to our interpretation of early medieval society? Finally, we will use these texts to ask questions regarding life in the early Middle Ages, particularly with respect to issues that concerned clerical authors such as the meaning of Christian conversion.