Medieval History (20013)
Degree/study:Degree in Humanities
Year: 2nd
Term:1st
Number of ECTS credits: 4 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 100 hours
Teaching language or languages: spanish
Teaching Staff: Víctor Farías Zurita
1. Presentation of the subject
This subject is an introduction to the history of a civilisation that we use to call medieval. During one term, it will be tried to make a reading of the Middle Ages without the using prejudices and we will present the characteristic factors of what we will call medieval civilisation. We will try to make this introduction from both direct testimonials view and also some studies made by historians view.
This subject aims to teach that the Middle Ages are not only a past that remains in each of us from one or another point of view. The Middle Ages are also a past that can teach us how to face our present and our future: the Middle Ages teach us that things should had been different and that there is another way of doing things. Learning how the people lived in other worlds can teach us how to live in this world, a knowledge that can be considered central in a Humanities degree.
The Middle Ages are not considered, then, a dead subject that the students have to learn through mandatory reading manuals. In this sense, the teaching staff doesn't consider itself like mere transmitters of manuals, neither the students are considered a receptor of manuals. The starting point can't be some canonical contents, with answers to be memorized (at least, until the day of the exam). Despite what can be thought: the canonical contents don't exist. Despite what is usually thought: the students are beings with intelligence and with relevant and own worries.
We insist: the studies on Middle Ages are understood like a chance to make ours some past experiences, from what we have now as current worries. The history has to be used, but it has to be well used. What we purpose is a history that aims mainly to stimulate the reflexion about the present, about our daily life, about our own experiences. A history that finally always prefers the questions in comparison to answers.
2. Competences to be attained
2.1. General competences
• Develop the skill of thinking historically.
• Develop the analysis and synthesis skill.
• Develop the critic reasoning in front of the historical becoming.
• Develop the skills of the oral and written communication in the students' language.
• Develop the needed habits for teamwork.
• Develop the skill to recognize the social and cultural diversity of the human beings in history.
2.2. Specific skills
• Skill to manage and treat information that historical testimonials and also other historians' studies offer.
• Skill to face in a critical way the past and the present.
• Skill to argument the main social, economical and political processes from the Middle Ages.
• Skill to argument the specific aspects treated during the course.
3. Contents
Session 1. Presentation. What we will face.
Session 2. Introduction. The Middle Ages, a strange idea.
Session 3. And I have great happiness when I see in the countryside armed cavaliers and horses aligned. War and peace.
Session 4. Not nicer neither more appropriate place to be happy you will be able to find. The beautiful and the ugly people.
Session 5. The wedding is not an excuse that is enough not to love. The male lover and the female lover.
Session 6. Only the Roman Pontiff has the right to be called universal. What is called holy and what is profane.
Session 7. Every brother has to insist on following the humility and the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ. The poverty and the richness.
Session 8. That uncleanness and modesty of lust. The spirit and the flesh.
Session 9. How the blessed ones will have great happiness of the God and his saints company. Good and Evil.
Session 10. The bad Jewish. The pure and the impure people.
Session 11. The money in the world is a great shaker. The city and the countryside.
Session 12. With as many excesses it tires me, in this brothel where we work. The honest and the dishonest ones.
Session 13. It is superfluous to hurl words if you don't understand them. The faith and the reason.
Session 14. A tyrant is a man with a bad life and dreadful among all men. The king and the tyrant.
Session 15. Some people said that no time was good to screw. The health and the illness.
Session 16. The women only want to lead. The men and the women.
Session 17. You must live with happiness. What it is useful and what is pleasing.
Session 18. There, the men touch each other and they get ready as women do here. The times and the worlds.
Session 19. That vicious Mr. Carnal goes in a very strange way devastating my land, doing a lot of damage. The happiness and the weeping.
Session 20. The wisdom of this world is crassness in front of God. The stupid and the wise ones.
*The full version with the sections: 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.
4. Assessment
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5. Bibliography and teaching resources
5.1. Basic bibliography
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5.2. Complementary bibliography
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5.3. Teaching resources
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6. Metodology
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7. Planning of activities
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