History 309 – Medieval Mind
Professor William A. Percy, III
Class Meeting Times:
Class Location:
Office Hours:
Office Location:
Office Phone:
Home Phone:
E-Mail:
Spring 2010
Monday, 7:00-9:45PM
Wheatley, W01-0019
Monday and Wednesday, 2:20-3:50 PM, and by appointment
McCormack, 4th Floor, Room 634
617-287-6879
617-262-2101 (7:00AM-3:00PM TuTh; emergency only)
williamapercy@comcast.net
Please call me rather than email.
Course Description
This course depicts the distortions, cruelties, and absurdities (some of which still exist today)
that characterized intolerant Catholics during the Western Middle Ages. It begins with the fables of
the Bible and goes on to the gloomy theologians, fathers, doctors and mystics, to the macho,
boastful, blood-thirsty epics about noble heroes, and then to the credulous historians who asserted
as gospel truth the most incredible miracles and spewed out hatred for others, i.e., those not part of
their group: pagans, infidels, non-believers, Jews, sodomites, witches, blasphemers, lepers,
lunatics, and often even women. Even the least obsessed and fanatic praised killing nonconformists and carrying on holy wars; the Crusades, which they depicted as reprisals for the
Muslim Jihad. At the end of the period Machiavelli, an admirer of the ancient Romans, escaped
from Christian manias to describe a modern world (like that of pagan Greece and Rome) of
rationality, capitalism, and patriotism instead of illusions of damnation, sanctity, and chivalry.
Method
We begin by choosing the appropriate articles from Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica,
two versions of which are also online and by comparing them to discern compelling or egregious
contradiction or lacuna. Each session a member of the class presents an oral report, having given
it in outline to me during office hours (or by e-mail sent well in advance and preferably by phone)
one or two weeks before. The other class members will challenge it verbally. Then I sum up with
instructions to the presenter about how to expand or improve the report, before it is typed into
about 17 typewritten pages (double-spaced complete with footnotes and bibliography, both in
uniform and acceptable styles). In addition, I highly recommend that each student to post an
addition or correction to an article on Wikipedia that relates to the student’s paper for extra credit.
Grading
The oral presentation will count for one-half of your grade, and the term paper will count for
one-half. Extra points are possible for outstanding contributions in class and for Wiki posts.
Students will find it advantageous to read Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (in 78 brief and
witty pages). A version of the book can be found online at www.bartleby.com/141/.
About Me
I am a Southerner, an Episcopal atheist, a capitalist, a gay activist, a refugee from the Ku
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Klux Klan, from the Southern Baptists, and from other fundamentalists whether Protestant,
Catholic, Jew or Muslim. Having a heart, I became a Socialist as an undergraduate. When I got my
fulltime teaching job and a level head, I became a Democrat in 1960 and voted for John F. Kennedy.
In 1967 I became a Republican because of the atrocities of the Vietnam War and its disastrous
economic effects of L.B.J. I quit being one because of the 2nd Iraq War but gave up on Republicans
because of Bush II’s insanity. Now I am an Independent. I am also the senior professor of the
history at UMB and senior pre-law advisor. I attended nine intuitions of higher learning and have
taught in nine. I have published 5 books, 10 articles, 100 notes (short articles), 100 book reviews.
On my extensive website, (www.WilliamAPercy.com) I have parts of my memoirs, and 2 screen plays
and other things by me and by other scholars that I admire, as well as text from some of my better
students. From me you will gain a different perspective. On this politically-correct campus, I am
diversity itself: a semi-expired white male of the old school.
Contact Policy
Although I have provided my e-mail address and home telephone number, please e-mail or
call me only if you have an urgent matter to discuss with me (MWF 7AM-3PM). Understand that if
you e-mail me, it may take me several days to see your e-mail as I am computer illiterate and must
rely on others to access my e-mail. Therefore, call me in case of an emergency. There is, however,
no need for you to e-mail or call me to let me know that you will miss or have missed a class. I fully
understand that events out of your control will arise from time to time and may cause the
occasional absence. So explanations are unnecessary. If you would like to find out what you
missed in class while you were absent or what you will miss, ask a classmate.
Texts
Disseminating scholarship on the printed page in the twenty-first century in analogous to
publishing it on manuscripts during the sixteenth century. The internet is now no longer like
incunabula (books printed before 1500)-rare commodities even then. It is in fact now rapidly
displacing print on paper. Look at what Wikipedia is doing to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Printed
dictionaries and bibliographies likewise are becoming obsolete because their online counterparts
are so easy to update. Expenses, delays, and storage problems are also forcing scholarly journals to
go online. Why not monographs (which sell too few copies to be cost-effective), syntheses, and
textbooks, as well? In light of the changing publishing landscape, the required texts can be found
online or can also be purchased.
TITLES (any edition is acceptable)
WEBSITES (Please put www in each website)
The Bible.
Jewish Scriptures
Christian Scriptures
The Koran.
Confessions of St. Augustine.
Summa Theologica. By St. Thomas Aquinas.
Imitation of Christ. By Thomas A Kempis.
etext.lib.Virginia.edu for the next two selectionChoose Library, then old location and
religious resources.
Etext.lib.Virginia.edu
Bartleby.com The Harvard Classics.
Ccel.org/Aquinas/summa.html
Bartleby.com The Harvard Classics.
Song of Roland.
Poem of the Cid.
Bartleby.com/49/2
Omacl.org type in The Cid, search Poem of the Cid,
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then choose Lay of the Cid
divine comedy.org./divine_comedy please select
Longfellow version (English)
Secret History. By Procopius.
Fordham.edu/halsall/basis/procop-ance.html
Life of Charlemagne. By Einhardt.
Fordham.edu/halsall/basis/Einhardt.html
Fourth Crusade. By Geoffrey of Villehardouin. Fordham.edu/halsall/basis/villehardouin
Life of St. Louis. By John of Joinville.
Etext.Virginia.edu/toc/modern/public.wedlord.html
Prince. By Niccolò Machiavelli.
lt.columbia.edu/publications/Machiavelli.html
The Inferno. By Dante Alighieri.
The
The
The
The
The
Supplemental Texts
All of the Cornell Series (CS) on Western Civilizations can be found on William A. Percy’s personal
website www.williamapercy.com
Orlinsky, Harry. Ancient Israel: (Cornell Series, = (CS) For the Jewish Scriptures. Incidentally
they are 3 times longer (what are know to Christians as the Old Testament), which itself are 3 times
longer then the Koran. That is why I am assigning all of the Koran but only selections of the Jewish
and Christian Scriptures.
Smith, Morton. The Ancient Greeks: (CS) For covering the reading of Christian Scriptures/New
Testament.
Starr, Chester. The Emergence of Rome as Ruler of the Western World for Jewish and
Christian scriptures.
Katz, Soloman. The Decline of Rome and the Rise of Mediaeval Europe (CS): St. Augustine and
Procopius.
Lord Bryce, James. The Holy Roman Empire: Parts of it for readings in the Koran, Procopius,
and The Life of Charlemagne.
Painter, Sidney. Mediaeval Society (CS): For Roland, The Cid, and The Life of Charlemagne.
Baldwin, Marshall. The Mediaeval Church (CS): For St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, The
Imitation of Christ.
Lerner, Robert. Age of Adversity (CS): For Imitation of Christ
Johnson and Percy. The Age of Recovery (CS): For The Prince.
Useful Links on the Internet:
The Encyclopedia of World History by William L. Langer and a newer version by Pete N. Stearns.
www.bartleby.com/67
The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed.: www.encyclopedia.jrank.org
The next to Latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is in the UMB library at Britannica online.
To use at home; a barcode will be needed from the college library ahead of time.
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Class #
1
Date
25 Jan
Lecture Topics
Introduction
Jewish Scriptures: The Old Testament
Moses’ Torah (The Law)
Genesis, Leviticus and Judges
2
1 Feb
Christian Scriptures
New Testament
3
8 Feb
Islam and the Arabs
Readings
Leviticus V-XXI
Presenters
Feb 1 ADD/DROP ENDS
Gospel of Mark
St.Paul; Paul’s Epithes to
the Romans
The Koran
Feb 15 President’s Day (Holiday)
St.Augustine,
The Christian Fathers or Patristics 170Confessions
600 AD
4
22 Feb
5
1 Mar
Scholasticism: The Doctors of the
Church 1000-1400
6
8 Mar
Christian Mysticism: The most read text
after the Bible
COURSE WITHDRAW DEADLINE
14-21 Mar SPRING BREAK!
Song of Roland
Primary and secondary epics: The
earliest important French text
22 Mar
7
St. Thomas
Aquinas,Summa
Theologica on sex,
women, just war and just
price
Thomas A. Kempis,
The Imitation of Christ
8
29 Mar
The Arab Conquest and the
Reconquista: the earliest important work
in Old Castillian
Poem of the Cid
9
5 Apr
Ghibellines & Guelphs: Empire vs.
Papacy
The greatest work in Italian
Dante The Inferno,
10
12 Apr
Justinian (527-565): The greatest
lawgiver by the greatest Byzantium
historian
Procopius: The Secret
History
11
26 Apr
12
3 May
13
10 May
17 May
(Finals Week)
Apr 19 Patriots Day (Holiday)
Charlemagne, “the father of Europe”
The greatest Western Emperor of the
Einhardt: The Life of
dark ages.
Charlemagne
The earliest Medieval biography by and
of a layman
Crusades (1095-1271): The Christian
response to Jihad
Earliest major prose work in old French
Louis IX’ martyr and greatest Medieval
French king
Parlement and Imperialism
The beginnings of political science
The Prince
Villehardouin: The Fourth
Crusades
Joinvelle: The Life of
St.Louis
Machiavelli: The Prince
Optional at time
scheduled for final exam.
Required to get an A in
the course.
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