HIST 203
SYLLABUS
LECTURE OUTLINES

 

Week 4

EARLY WESTERN CHRISTENDOM, c. 500-700

Tuesday:

Music:

Vexilla regis (“Banner of the King,” hymn written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) for Queen Radegund, to celebrate the arrival of a relic of the True Cross sent by the emperor and empress for Radegund’s new convent at Poitiers; 3:41 min.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ3YO7Cw3fI

 

After Roman imperial power collapsed in the West in the later 5th century, a patchwork of kingdoms and lordships developed (e.g., the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, Merovingian Gaul, Visigothic Iberia, etc.).

Early medieval Western society was a blend of Roman, Celtic, and Germanic peoples and cultures, with Latin Christianity as its most unifying feature.

Christianity began as an urban-based religion, and it retained an urban focus (cathedrals, the headquarters of bishops and archbishops, were always in cities), even as urban life was crumbling in the West. (Map: The spread of Christianity to c. 600)

New evidence suggests that a worsening climate (in part caused by ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536) and pestilence also struck Europe at this time, and that there was a widespread pattern of abandonment of former Roman farms.

Cropmarks show Roman farms overlaid by medieval and later field systems on a completely different plan:

Remains of Roman farm buildings in Bicton, Devon
Bronze Age to Roman field systems north of Grassington, N. Yorkshire (1995)
Remains of Gallo-Roman villa in Challignac, SW France (2015)
Deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy, N. Yorkshire

Some important people and primary sources:

St. Radegund (d. 587), Merovingian queen who abandoned the court for monastic life (click here for 11th-cent. depiction of Radegund).
The Life of St. Radegund (Poitiers, Bibliothèque municipale, 11th cent.), by Venantius Fortunatus (d. 609), is a reverent biography, written by a close associate. (Click here for illustration from 11th-cent. MS of the Life in the Bibliothèque municipale de Poitiers; see also Radegund’s tomb in Poitiers and her wooden reading desk.)

Gregory, bishop of Tours (d. 594), History of the Franks

Some important terms:

Hermit

Monastery or convent

Monastic rule (e.g., the Rule of St. Benedict)

Regular clergy (Latin regula = rule)

Abbot (or abbess)

Monk (or nun)

Saint

Relic
Click here to see a Byzantine reliquary (relic-container) of the True Cross, and a foot reliquary of St. James from Namur, France

Pilgrim

Pope (=bishop of Rome)

Archbishop
Archdiocese or province or see

Bishop
Diocese or see

Cathedral (=church containing the cathedra or throne of a bishop or archbishop)

Priest
Parish

Secular clergy (not living under a Rule)