"Feudalism
and Chivalry:
Secular
Culture in Medieval France, 1000-1300"
Fall 2007
MG 145 -- W 7:30 - 9:25
Paul R. HYAMS
"Feudalism
and Chivalry:
Secular
Culture in Medieval France, 1000-1300"
Fall 2007
MG 145 -- W 7:30 - 9:25
Paul R. HYAMS
Prof. Hyams MG 307 (5-2076, 257-3168) Mon 11:00 - 12:00 noon, Thurs 1:30 - 2:30 pm
An upper-level seminar on the main currents of noble lay culture in France, which led European fashions in love, warfare, entertainment and environment through most of the period. There will be heavy emphasis on contemporary sources (in English), including lively and complete readings from epic literature (the Song of Roland), lives and chronicles.
The authoritative text of this prospectus is the online version at <http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/prh3/408/index.html>. It may be updated and extended during the term. Please tell me of anything that needs attention?
REQUIRED READINGS:
J. Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, tr.
B. Radice.
Guibert of Nogent, Self and Society in the
Middle
Ages, ed J.F. Benton.
Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the
Good
of Flanders, tr. James Bruce Ross.
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances,
tr. D.D.R. Owen
The Song of Roland, tr. Harrison.
Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love,
ed. Ziolkowski
Burgess & Busby (eds), The Lais of Marie de
France
Goehring, The Virgin and the Grail
Robert de Boron, Merlin and the Grail
S. Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness
St. Bernard, Cistercians & Cluniacs:
the Apologia
to Abbot William, tr. M. Casey
E. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of
St. Denis
Grant, Abbot Suger
SOME BRIEF EXTRACTS (marked [X] below) will be made available by me for you to copy. Check the pouch outside my office (MG 307). These will likely include
William, Count of Orange, ed. G. Price
&
L.R. Muir [Chancun de Wilalme]
Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain
J.A. Yunck, Eneas: A Twelfth Century Romance
Suger, De Administratione & De
Consecratione
Bawdy Tales from the Courts of Medieval France,
ed. Paul Brians [extracts]
You should make your own personal copy and then return the original as soon as possible to my office for others to use.
COURSE FORMAT:
The first two weeks' classes will be mainly lectures. After that, we shall discuss a new text each class, some weeks more than one shorter text. One or two students will be assigned to lead each week's discussion, with help from me. I have chosen texts primarily to raise the kinds of different questions suggested by the course description. (Some of them just happen to number among the most attractive works of the whole Middle Ages!) They are only in very rough chronological order. The goal is to accumulate knowledge through the weeks so that by the end of the semester, discussion can juxtapose texts and cross-reference them in a critical and illuminating manner. We shall then be in a position to experience something of the pains and pleasures of professional research on complete, original source texts.
Thus the only required reading is in the original sources, which you will certainly wish to read more than once. Most of the texts have introductions; though ours are less misleading than many, please do not feel they are in any sense essential reading. The optional reading assignments are intended as aids towards writing the papers, and for any graduates. The emphasis throughout is on primary sources and how to use them.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. Weekly reports. These should be brief (about a page) questions or comments raised by your week's reading. They are intended more as study aids to assist the all-important participation in class discussion. I shall read them and comment, then check them, unless they are very patently Unsatisfactory.
2. Papers: One short paper (a) and one research (investigation) paper (b):
b. A research (term) paper (c. 25 pp.) on some aspect of French secular culture, to use two or more of the assigned texts. Due Friday Dec 7.
3. Full participation in class discussion, and attendance in Office Hours (before any crises). Mais çela va sans dire, as they say!
Week I. Aug 29 Introduction: France in the Later Eleventh Century.
Optional: "Agreement
Between the Count of Aquitaine & Hugh of Lusignan"
Letter of Fulbert of Chartres to Duke (!)
William V of Aquitaine (bef. 1021)
2 Reviews of
Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals
Maps of France:
France
c. 1035 (principalities etc.)
Physical Map Relief Map
Satellite
Map
And see Week XII.
Optional: If you think you know Roland
(eg from other classes), read instead The Song of William [X] for comparison!
Muir, cap. 2 [X]
Vance; Brault (on Reserve).
Try
these brief study
notes.
A full English text of the Historia
Calamitatum (Letter 1, Abelard's autobiography) is available free
from
a resource you certainly ought to be aware of, The
Medieval Sourcebook., which also carries a decent translation of Heloise's
Letter to Abelard, along with some valuable explanatory material.
Martin Irvine (Georgetown), moving spirit behind the
rival operation, The
Medieval Labyrinth, offers his Medieval Latin students (and you)
full
Latin Texts of the Historia
Calamitatum and also of Heloise's
1st Letter.
Optional: Mews (UR), on authenticity etc.
FALL BREAK Sat 6 - Wed 10 October
Optional: Moore in Studies presented to R.H.C. Davis [X]
Optional: Walsh (better transl. with facing
Latin
text);
Benton, "Clio & Venus: an Historical
View of Medieval
Love" [X]
If satire "employs wit in the form of irony,
innuendo, or outright derision to expose human wickedness and folly",
you might enjoy the images at http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2006/04/medieval-satire.html
Factual Epic: Jordan Fantosme's
Chronicle,
ed. with transl. R.C. Johnston (1981). [English
text of this epic on the 1173-4 revolt against Henry II of
England available from me [X]
Optional: Gervase of Canterbury (Holt)
O. Von Simson, The Gothic
Cathedral, caps.
3-4 [X]
Week XIII. Nov 28 An Ethic of Self-Discipline: Birth of the Western Superego?
STUDY PERIOD Sun 2 - Wed 5 Dec
EXAMINATIONS Wed 5- Friday 14 Dec
