2016/2017

2016/2017

DM270

M-STO/01 (MEDIAEVAL HISTORY)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

HISTORY OF EUROPE

PERCORSO COMUNE

1°

(27/02/2017 - 01/06/2017)

6

36 lesson hours

Italian

ORAL TEST

MANGANARO STEFANO - 6 ECTS

General knowledge of medieval history

Understanding and critical awareness of medieval institutions and their distinguishing features, with special reference to the Roman-Germanic Empire

"The Roman-Germanic Empire from Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa (8th-12th centuries). Institutional Dynamics in Europe during the Early and High Middle Ages".

Early and high medieval institutions were not coherent structures of political organisation, nor were they as strictly formalised as the modern Western view of standardised legal institutions would demand. In this respect, the Roman-Germanic Empire provides a very instructive case study, since its empirical and unstable political order was shaped by the interaction of different key-factors (aristocratic consensus and sacred kingship; personal bonds and some state structures; fully legitimated political actors and informal powers growing from the bottom). The course aims to show the different political function performed by each of these key-factors from the Carolingian to the early Staufen period (8th-12th centuries).

- Lectures;
- reading sessions;
- oral presentations on topics selected by the students;
- written essays on topics selected by the students.

* Required readings for students attending the course:
1) Notes from the lectures;
2) Renato Bordone - Giuseppe Sergi, Dieci secoli di medioevo, Torino 2009, pp. 5-197;
3) G. Melville, Fu 'istituzionale' il Medioevo? Osservazioni storiche e riflessioni metodologiche, in Pensiero e sperimentazioni istituzionali nella Societas Christiana (1046-1250) (Atti della sedicesima settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 26-31 agosto 2004) a cura di G. Andenna, Milano 2007, pp. 37-68.

* Required readings for students not attending the course:
1) Renato Bordone - Giuseppe Sergi, Dieci secoli di medioevo, Torino 2009, pp. 5-197;
2) Stefan Weinfurter, Carlo Magno. Il barbaro santo, trad. it. Bologna 2015;
3) Hagen Keller, Gli Ottoni. Una dinastia imperiale fra Europa e Italia (secc. X e XI), trad. it. Roma 2012.

- Oral exam on the contents of the course;
- an oral presentation on a single topic selected by the student;
- a written essay on a single topic selected by the student.

Apart from the course, an interdisciplinary seminar will be held on the following topic: "Prophecy and Escathology: Waiting for the End of Time in the Middle Ages and in the European Culture". The seminar aims to analyse the text of the "Sibilla Tiburtina", one of the most important sources of the prophetic Western tradition, paying attention to the late antique core of this text and its several interpolations during the middle ages. In a broader sense, the seminar focuses on the issue of the end of time within the European culture and its religious, political and anthropological implications.