HST 102: Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe

Course Topics

Welcome to HST 102! This course covers almost 5000 years of human history,

from the beginnings of written language in ancient Egypt in 3000 BCE to the

European encounter with the “new world” of the Americas in 1492 AD. Each of

the seven weeks of the course focuses on a specific culture and time period.

Every week the course begins with an Introduction to the period and civilization

we are exploring, each focusing on a particular building that epitomizes the

culture we’re studying: The Great Pyramid; the Parthenon, the Colosseum,

Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Hagia Sophia, the Cathedral of Chartres, and the

Doge’s Palace in Venice. We then examine each culture from six different

perspectives: 1) War and Politics, 2) Economics and Trade, 3) Religion, 4) Culture

and the Arts, 5) Daily Life, and 6) Legacy--where we still find traces of the culture

we’re studying in our world today. Each week we have videos and PowerPoint

lectures to focus on key events, people, and artefacts. There are also links to

primary texts from the period to allow you to engage directly with the cultures of

the past.

We will study history not as a triumphant procession leading to the present day,

but as a place where ideas and people have competed and struggled, collaborated

and compromised. When we look back on the past, we feel we know the

outcome of these struggles and conflicts. But to the people living through the

events we study, the outcomes were always uncertain and contingent. History is

at once a record of great achievements and horrible failures, of human progress

and human folly. By studying the events of the past, we are much better placed

to understand the events we are living through ourselves, the challenges we face,

and the problems we solve or fail to solve.

Our study is divided into the following seven units:

Week 1: Egypt and Mesopotamia: We begin by surveying the oldest civilizations

of the Mediterranean and Middle East: Egypt and Mesopotamia. These cultures

used new technologies and new forms of social organization to create structured,

hierarchical societies based on agriculture rather than nomadic hunting and

herding. They invented the wheel, written language, irrigation, and the lunar

calendar, as well as constructing huge cities and massive structures like the

pyramids and ziggurats.

Week 2: Ancient Greece: Ancient Greece is often idealized as the foundation of

European civilization. We will study the roots of democratic government, of

Western philosophy, and of classical poetry and drama, as well as Greek religion

and the Olympic games. We will also look at the conflicts between Greek states,

the competing social and political models offered by different Greek cities, and

the economic and intellectual connections between Greece and the wider world

of the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Week 3: Ancient Rome: This week we look at the rise of Rome from a small

Italian city state to the ruler of most of the European and Mediterranean world.

Rome established a common culture and legal system over an enormous and

ethnically diverse area, from the borders of Scotland to the Jordanian desert,

from the Atlas Mountains of Africa to the Rhine in Germany. We will study the

transition of Rome from a Republic to an Empire, explore Roman culture from

baths to blood sports, and look for evidence of daily Roman life in the ruins of

Pompeii.

Week 4: Israel and the Jewish People: This week, the midpoint of the course, we

pivot between the Classical world and the Medieval world by focusing on the

Jewish people, a group whose culture remained surprisingly consistent through

both periods. We trace the history of the Jewish people from its mythical

beginnings to the establishment of a Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon,

and its subjugation under the Babylonians and Romans. We explore the

consequences of the Jewish diaspora after 70 AD and examine the different

cultures created by minority Jewish communities throughout medieval Europe

and the Middle East. We discuss the Jewish Bible as a religious and philosophical

text and also as a source for early Jewish history, and we explore the enormous

consequences of the most radical contribution of the Jews to European history--

the idea that there is only one God.

Week 5: The Early Middle Ages: This week we examine the three new cultures

that arose following the collapse of the Roman empire in the West--the Eastern

Roman successor state of Byzantium, the world of Islam, and the various

kingdoms of Western Europe. We explore the rise of two great universal

religions, Christianity and Islam, and we look at the ways the fragmented post-

Roman world began to rebuild on the ruins of the past.

Week 6: The High Middle Ages: This week we study European culture in the years

1100-1300, the centuries historians often call the high middle ages. A new

vibrant and dynamic culture arises in North Western Europe--in France, England,

and Germany--places that had been peripheral in the days of the Romans. We

explore great medieval achievements in art and architecture, including Gothic

cathedrals. We look at innovative new institutions, like the University, and we

also study the clash of culture represented by the Crusades, when European

armies waged a holy war to recapture the holy city of Jerusalem from its Islamic

rulers.

Week 7: The Late Middle Ages: In the final week of the course, we look at the

calamities that shook the medieval world in the years 1300-1500: the Hundred

Years’ War between England and France, the Papal exile and schism, and the

Black Death--an epidemic of bubonic plague that killed approximately one third of

the population of Europe in the three years 1348-1350. These devastating events,

combined with changes in the economy and technology led to the transformation

of the medieval world into something new, perhaps the beginning of the modern

world we still inhabit. The printing press made knowledge far more accessible.

The compass enabled ships to cross the oceans safely. And gunpowder

transformed warfare, strengthening strong nation-states like Spain, France, and

England. We end the course contemplating the impact of all these disruptive

innovations.