HIST 203
SYLLABUS
LECTURE OUTLINES
Week 9: Tuesday
EUROPE SURVIVES THE SIEGE: THE 9TH AND 10TH CENTURIES
Videos:
The Story of Beowulf, by Michael Wood (59:13 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C0sFXU0SLo
The Story of English: episode 2, The Mother Tongue (Robert MacNeil, Part 1, 9:18 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UG6vHXArlk&index=1&list=PLCF16776907155D79 (with remaining segments of this episode)
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (West Saxon dialect, 0:49 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW3cWDtJOR4
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (Mercian dialect, 0:28 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYQoEcygK3Y
The Lord’s Prayer in Old English (Northumbrian dialect, 0:26 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6p2xi4Gu0g&feature=related
Anglo-Saxon poem “Deor” accompanied by lyre (6:56 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ZvjTHpb1A&index=3&list=PL9N3V29cwwGUn14QcaBNvxy2YLb1kPTyL
ENGLAND: A period of unification
by late 8th C. 4 major kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Wessex
9th-11th C. Wessex dominant
793 Viking attacks begin; Lindisfarne sacked
865-870 Viking army invades and conquers Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia
871-899 Alfred the Great of Wessex.
Alfred’s achievements include:
law code
fyrd (local militia system)
burhs
fleet
Danelaw
palace school
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
translations of important books into Anglo-Saxon (Old English)
Asser’s Life of Alfred
(Click here to see the “Alfred Jewel” )
899-978 Alfred’s successors reconquer and rule all of England
978-1016 Æthelred II “Unræd” (“the Unready” or “the Redeless” = “the Ill-Advised”) renewed Viking attacks (including Battle of Maldon, 991) forced him to pay annual tribute (“Danegeld”) to the Vikings
1002 St. Brice’s Day massacre
1013-14 Æthelred expelled by Swegn of Denmark; flees to Normandy
1017-1035 Swegn’s son Cnut (or Canute), king of Denmark, Norway, and England; marries Emma of Normandy, widow of Æthelred II
FRANCE: A period of fragmentation
9th C. Viking raids
c. 890-955 Magyar raids
911 Rollo given Normandy
10th C. Disintegration of monarchy; rise of vassalage or “feudalism;” castle-building
987 Last Carolingian king (Louis V “the Sluggard”) dies; Hugh Capet, count of Paris, is elected king
late 10th C. “Peace of God” proclaimed
Terms:
Fief (or fee; Latin feudum)
Lord
Liege lord
Vassal
Homage
Fealty
Manor
Peasant
Serf (or villein)
Knight (click here for a photo of an early stirrup)
Motte-and-bailey castle
Castellan
Thursday:
Videos:
BBC documentary: The Viking Sagas (59 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taVsvYWp1UU&list=RDXOEAkRsOoFs&index=2
GERMANY: Fragmentation and unification
Early 900s | Germany (East Francia) dominated by 5 duchies: Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria, Franconia, and Lorraine. Last Carolingian king, Louis the Child, dies in 911, and Conrad I, Duke of Franconia is elected. At his death in 919 the crown passes to his brother, Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony (919-936), whose descendants rule Germany (and, from 962, N. Italy) until 1002. |
936-973 | Otto I (“the Great”) of Saxony (son of Henry the Fowler) has 3 main goals:
(click here for a map of the empire at Otto’s death) He also:
|
973-1002 | Otto II (973-983) and Otto III (983-1002): both die in their 20s |
ITALY: Rise of city-states
late 800s | Collapse of Carolingian control over N. Italy |
early 900s |
Counts and dukes control countryside, but bishops control cities (click here for a 9th-cent. fresco from the Oratory of San Benedetto, Malles Venosta, perhaps showing a benefactor of the church) |
951 | Beginning of German rule, under Otto I (see map), but Ottonians never establish administrative structure in Italy, relying instead on unstable loyalties of nobles and bishops and popes |
late 900s | Rise of Italian mercantile cities:
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