!!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change
HIS 300 – Prof. LISA BITEL (Fall 2012: W 2.00-4.50)
bitel@usc.edu
Medievalism:
How the Modern World Looks at the Distant Past
What is MEDIEVALISM?
According to the OED, it is
“the system of belief and
practice characteristic of the
Middle Ages, or devotion to
elements of that period, which
has been expressed in areas
such as architecture, literature,
music, art, philosophy,
scholarship, and various
vehicles of popular culture.”
This course will teach you how to
study and interpret history like a
professional historian. It will also
teach you about the ways that
professional and amateur
historians—as well as novelists,
poets, movie directors, animators,
software designers, graphic
novelists, website creators, and
youtubers--have imagined,
interpreted, misinterpreted,
What is MEDIEVAL?
Medieval is an adjective
meaning “pertaining to
the Middle Ages,” which
most people understand
to include Europe (&
possibly adjacent
territories formerly part
of the Roman Empire)
between about 400 and
1400 C.E.
misused, and otherwise mangled
the history of Medieval Europe.
We will start with 19th-century scholars, writers, and artists who first identified the Middle Ages as
a historical period with a distinctive mentality and culture--the name came from medium aevum, which
is Latin for “middle period,” by which scholars meant the centuries between the fall of the Roman
Empire and the European Renaissance.
We will follow the tracks of historians and other cultural producers as they formulated questions,
searched for evidence, grappled with mysterious images, dug up buildings and artifacts, and pored
over difficult texts in multiple languages and obscure handwriting. We will consider how they edited
and revised historical documents, amassed data, tried out other disciplinary methods, and crafted
arguments or depictions. We will watch them rebuild medieval structures both literally—in
reconstructions and re-enactments--and virtually in writing, art, film, and cyberspace. We will join
!!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change
their battles and collaborations aimed at making sense, in multiple media, of the long thousand years
of medieval history.
We will also try to figure out what academic medievalists have got right and wrong about life in the
past, and consider and how their own cultural contexts have influenced their ideas about the
European Middle Ages. We will think up questions about the past that historians have not yet
answered and imagine books or movies that they have yet to create—and decide why they haven’t or
can’t. And we may build a trebuchet.
Assignments:
All readings, viewings, and blog postings must be completed in time for each week’s discussion.
Weekly class blog postings – 45% of final grade
Class attendance and participation (includes field trips) – 25% of final grade
Description (1 p.) and bibliography (1 p.) for final project – 5% of final grade
Final project* – 25% of final grade
FINAL PROJECTS can be in almost any creative form except a traditional scholarly essay.
You may work independently or in groups. You could, for example:
 Write a script, story, or epic poem
 Create a work of visual or musical art
 Design a website or animation
 Produce a short video, play, or concert
 Re-enact a scene from Medieval History
 Make a medieval object or structure
All final projects must be approved by appointment with professor no later than four weeks prior to
due date. Projects will be graded on conceptualization, evidence of scholarly research and creative
effort, and presentation.
Books available for purchase at USC Bookstore:
!!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change
Alexander, Michael: Medievalism
Konigsberg, E. L.: Proud Taste of Miniver and Scarlet
Pernoud, Régine: Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths
Walpole, Horace: Castle of Otranto
Willis, Connie: Doomsday Book
Saul, Nigel: Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England
Other readings & viewings will be available online.
Films are available for rental on Netflix or ITunes; some will be put on reserve in Leavey Library.
Meetings, readings, and viewings
1. Aug. 27/ Introduction: What is medieval/medievalist/medievalism?
2. Sept. 5/ The re/discovery of the Medieval & origins of Medievalism
TOPICS: antiquarianism, industrialization, imperialism, Anglo-Saxon nationalism,
anti-modernity
OIH, chap. 1
Medievalism, Introduction and chap. 1
Umberto Eco, “Return to the Middle Ages,” from Travels in Hyperreality (1973),
61-85.
3. Sept. 12/ The Gothic Revival
TOPICS: historical fiction, fantasy, religion, bards
Medievalism, chaps. 2-3
Walpole, Castle of Otranto
Films: Ivanhoe, Trinity Blade, Batman
3. Sept. 19/ Medieval or Modern?
TOPICS: Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, cathedrals, gargoyles, architectural
restoration, preservation
Medievalism, chaps. 4-5
Henry Adams, Mont-St-Michel and Chartres, chaps. 5-6.
Michael Camille, Gargoyles of Nôtre Dame, Preface; Chap. 1, part 1, “The
1843 Project and Its Transformation”; Chap. 8, “Monsters of Sex,
Gargoyles of Gender”
Film: Pillars of the Earth
!!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change
A gentle lady & authoress pays us a visit.
4. Oct. 3/ Defenders of Britain
TOPICS: warriors and knights: King Arthur, Queen Victoria, the Great War)
OIH, chap. 2
Medievalism, chap. 6
Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot, chap. 12, “The Return of Arthur”
Films: Camelot, The Sword in the Stone, Henry V, Game of Thrones
5. Oct. 10/ Outlaw Heroes
TOPICS: Robin Hood, nationalisms, ethnicity, class, poverty
OIH, chap. 3
“Robin Hood and the Friar” and “Robin Hood and the Friar”, Introduction &
text
“Robin Hood and the Monk”, Introduction & text
John Keats, "Robin Hood" (1820)
W. J. Linton, "An Hour of Robin Hood" (1865)
Films: Braveheart, High Plains Drifter, Robin Hood (3), Dr Who
6. Oct. 17/ Queens and Ladies
TOPICS: women’s & gender history, queenship, Eileen Power, Eleanor of Aquitaine,
courtly love, dress, pageantry
Konigsberg, Proud Taste of Miniver and Scarlet
Natalie Z. Davis, “History’s Two Bodies,” AHA Presidential Address, 1987
Girouad, Return to Camelot, chap. 13, “Modern Courtly Love”
Films: Knight’s Tale, A Lion in Winter
8. Oct. 24/ Ordinary People
TOPICS: daily life, material environment, diet, medicine, labor, festivals,
re-enactment
[review Medievalism, chap. 4-5]
Pernoud, Terrible Middle Ages, start – chap. 3
Moore, I Believe in Yesterday, Prologue and chap. 2
Online: archaeological sites
Films: Jabberwocky
9. Oct. 31/ Violence
TOPICS: Crusades, wars, outcasts, lepers, Jews, Muslims, witches
Pernoud, Terrible Middle Ages, chap.4 – end
Crusades sources, selections
Trial Records of Joan of Arc, 1431
Films: Passion of Joan of Arc, Kingdom of Heaven
!!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change!! !!draft!! liable to change
10. Nov. 7/ we build a trebuchet.
You sign a liability form.
Start reading Willis, Doomsday Book.
11. Nov. 14/ Dance of Death
TOPICS: demography, climate, famine, Black Death,
decadence, decline
[Finish] Willis, Doomsday Book
online:
Films: The Navigator, Seventh Seal
12. Nov. 28/ Gaming Wars
TOPICS: board games, D&D, video & computer games, pedagogy, museums,
tourist sites, kids’ Middle Ages
Medievalism, chaps. 12-13
online:
a valiant & renowned knight instructs us.
13. Dec. 5/ What’s so funny about the Middle Ages?
TOPICS: satire, jokes, cartoons, blogs
1066 and All That
fabliaux, selections
Films: The Court Jester, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
We have a feast.