Intensive study of medieval French romance, centering around one author, or text, or group of texts. The first half of term will be dedicated to close reading. In the second half of term, students will present papers on specific aspects which may take into account also additional texts. This course is entirely dedicated to Chrétien de Troyes, aiming in particular at analyzing his concepts of love, marriage, chivalry and courtesy, and his contribution to the development and further evolution of the genre of romance.

This course combines an overview over vernacular (French or Occitan) religious literature in medieval France with the detailed study of a few selected cases. Topics discussed will include: the typology of religious literature, the role of the Church in the birth of vernacular literature, its complex relationship with the emerging profane genres, historical practices of piety, bilingualism, types of translation and rewriting, the role of women. Selected paraliturgical and hagiographic texts from different genres and periods will be studied in class or be presented by the participants. The second half of the term will be dedicated to the in-depth study of a Latin-French Book of Hours.

This course explores the social function and meaning of violence in medieval society, and the development of rituals and institutions to control violence. Among the topics treated are the feud in Germanic and Icelandic society, aristocratic violence, the peace and truce of God, chivalry, the development of criminal justice systems, violence against minorities, and violence and gender. Students will read secondary literature in anthropology, social history, and legal history, and will examine selected primary texts (in translation).

Canonical jurisprudence was a crucial discipline in the definition of high medieval Christendom and in the formation of the Western legal tradition. The course will introduce students to the principal texts (e.g., Gratian's Decretum and Gregory IX's Decretals) and the chief commentaries upon them. The selection of texts to be examined will be determined in part in accordance with the students' research interests.

The course explores key aspects of Jewish-Christian interaction, ca. 400-1600, such as religious polemics, royal and papal Jewish policies, the Jews' economic role, social relations, intellectual exchange, and the development of anti-Judaism.

This course treats major themes in the history of the 'multicultural' (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish) Mediterranean world during the Middle Ages. Among the themes treated are: conquest and colonisation; relations between the adherents of ruling faiths and religious minorities; ideologies and practices of 'holy war'; slavery; gender, honour, and shame; interfaith commerce; and cultural exchange.

History is rarely, if ever, 'innocent': all historians select their themes, sources, and methods in accordance with conscious or unconscious agendas which, more often than not, are dictated by contemporary preoccupations. It is therefore incumbent on the historian to reflect on the methodologies she uses, and to render explicit the underlying assumptions that inform his or her research. This course has three objectives: 1) to help historians at CMS think reflexively about historical methodology by reading and discussing some key texts on the practice of history in general; 2) to introduce students to key texts and theories that have been influential in historical practice in the past several decades, including those from cognate disciplines; and 3) to see how various methodologies work in practice by examining medievalist scholarship influenced by some of the theoretical approaches discussed in the course. In addition to classic attempts to define history, the course will cover the following topics: the Annales school; Marxist history; economic history; nations, tradition, 'ethnicity'; sociology and historical sociology; gender and queer studies; anthropology and history; art and history; environmental history.

Based on selected Latin and vernacular texts, students discover the status and function attributed to the emerging vernacular literature during the first centuries of its production. An introduction in lecture form is followed by a sequence of close readings of selected texts, which develops into a seminar exploring specific types of witnesses (hagiography, treatises, prologues, lyric), specific functions (teaching, entertainment), specific figures (the poet, the jongleur) and other aspects of vernacular literature, up to the fundamental changes in its perception that occur in the 14th century. An important part of the readings concerns France and Italy, but participants may propose examples taken from other regions and languages of the Latin West (e.g. Iberian languages, Old English, Middle English, Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Old Norse).

This course will draw on the rich historiography of medieval and early Renaissance Florence (ca. 1250-1500) to study the dynamics of a medieval Italian commune. Among the topics that will be addressed are population, family and gender, the function of class, faction and economic relations in Florentine history, and the role of culture and ideology in making and remaking the republican political order.

This course explores the history of monasticism from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages through its so-called normative sources, especially rules and customaries. The main goal of the course is in-depth reading of primary sources, however, attention will also be given to the recent secondary literature on these texts, challenging the traditional history of monasticism. While the focus is on monasticism, it is also a social history course as it allows the study of medieval daily life even in periods for which we have no similar sources for other groups of society. Students will be able to choose one theme to study through all the sources read in class (in translation and Latin) — such as food, organization of space, punishment, or sexuality — or to investigate lesser known (and usually not yet translated) rules and customaries.

What did medieval people do for a living, and where did they do it? What did they eat and wear, in what sort of homes did they live? What sort of family lives did they have? How were their communities organized, and what was the place of those who didn’t fit within those communities: the criminals and rebels, the poor, the old, the sick, and the dead? The purpose of this course is to survey the ways in which historians have tried to address these kinds of questions, in brief, to understand: how did ordinary medieval people live?

This course/seminar examines the emergence of continental Europe as a unified political entity under the Carolingian rulers of the eighth and ninth centuries. Our aim is to understand the challenges faced by the Carolingians as they sought to unify under the aegis of empire the culturally diverse and often politically recalcitrant regions of Europe they attempted to control. The course/seminar also seeks to evaluate the cultural achievements of the Carolingian "renaissance" in the context of the history of education and literary culture in Western Europe. The emphasis of the course/seminar is upon the close reading of different primary sources of the period with a view to understanding the interpretative problems involved in using different types of evidence. An overall goal of the course is to assess the effect of Carolingian political and social institutions on the historical development of Europe

This course examines hagiographic sources to determine how various Italian localities (mainly cities) portrayed their pagan past, their conversion to Christianity and the sanctity of their patron saints. It considers hagiography as a literary genre, its origins, conventions, and development over time, but is also concerned to find the historical context for a number of saints' lives of obscure authorship and date: students will contribute to the formation of a new body of evidence from Italy's Dark Ages. The lives will be read in English, with attention to issues of Latin translation throughout, along with artistic representation of the saint(s), urban history and topography, archaeological sites, architecture of churches and cult sites, rituals, and ceremonies.

The passage from Roman to Frankish Gaul, culminating in the rise of the kingdom of the Merovingians. The course provides a context for considering the continuities and discontinuities that consititute the transition from ancient to medieval civilization in western Europe during the period from, roughly, the fourth to eighth centures. The latter part of the course concentrate on reconstructing the kingdom of the Merovingians of the sixth and seventh centuries, traditionally seen as laying the foundations of both France and Germany. Students will be expected to participate in class discussion, to produce a research report for the instructor, and to convey its approach to their colleagues in the pedagogical and critical setting of the classroom.

This course explores the complex Mediterranean world of the first half of the thirteenth century by tracing the colourful life and career of King Frederick II (1194-1250), known in his time as a 'wonder of the world' for his cosmopolitan court in Sicily, his knowledge of languages (including Arabic), his engagement with science and philosophers from around the world, his many titles (king of Sicily, Italy, Burgundy, Jerusalem, and Roman Emperor) and his ex-communication (three times) by the most powerful popes of medieval Europe who labelled him an Antichrist. The course examines key sources for Frederick's reign, particularly Frederick's own laws and contemporary chroniclers, and surveys major developments for context to Frederick's reign, such as the Norman inheritance in Sicily, relations with the Islamicate world, the rise of mendicant orders, Pope Innocent III and the international papacy, early universities, and scholastic education.

Profound changes in the structures and beliefs of medieval society, particularly medieval France, took place in the 10th to 12th centuries. The majority of our sources to apprehend these changes are monastic, which is inseparable from the fact that these same centuries represent the Golden Age of Western monasticism. Cluny emerges as one of the most important monasteries, if not the most important, in the period. Therefore, it offers a marvellous avenue to understand the society of its time. The first half of the seminar is devoted to an in-depth study of the famous Burgundian abbey. It left behind the largest corpus of sources (especially customaries, lives of saints and charters). Reading these sources and the studies concerning them will give the opportunity to investigate Cluny’s daily life, ideal of reform, and relationships with the exterior world. The second half of the seminar enlarges on this last topic: interactions between the monks and the laity, between traditional and new monasticism, as well as between the monks and the secular Church is explored.

Questions surrounding gender and sexuality loom large in the cultural conversation of twenty-first-century western society. Notable examples include, but are by no means limited to, the relationship between biological sex and gender identity, the rights of LGBTQIA2 individuals, and the issue of consent in the #MeToo era. But since gender and sexuality are essential both to individual identity and to interpersonal, familial, and societal relationships, strikingly similar questions crop up in texts from throughout the medieval world. This course introduces students to medieval texts dealing with topics such as masculinity and femininity, gender fluidity, homosexuality, and sexual assault. The reading list draws from a wide range of medieval corpora, including the Old Norse-Icelandic, English, French, and Arabic. With reference to key works of theoretical and literary-critical scholarship, students are encouraged to consider how these texts reflect the attitudes and customs of their originating societies, well as how they relate to ideologies in the pre- and post-medieval context. Texts are read in translation where appropriate, though students will be encouraged to engage with the lexis of gender and sexuality in various medieval contexts.

This course is a graduate-level survey of medieval philosophy designed to acquaint newcomers with the field. To that end, we look at several issues that cover several different periods of medieval philosophy, with some attention given to the institutional and social role played by philosophy at different times. Some of the issues may include: epistemology (scepticism and the limits of what can be known); philosophy of mind (faculty psychology, the nature of the mind, relation of the soul to the body); metaphysics (identity, individuation, the problem of universals); natural philosophy (the eternity of the world, causation, determinism, the existence of a first cause); ethics (virtue and vice, free will). The exact topics are chosen depending on what students are interested in.

This course aims to provide students with an introduction to a burgeoning field of historical inquiry in medieval studies: the everyday life of common people in the middle ages. The focus will be on 'history from below,' and topics covered will include how people made a living; family life, kinship, love, sex, marriage, and childhood; ordinary women’s lives in the middle ages; popular religion; material culture, leisure, and play; schooling, apprenticeship and education; neighbours and community; and outsiders. By the end of the course, students should have a good understanding of the principal kinds of primary sources used to approach these topics and the problems and potential each kind of source offers, as well as the main debates in the field at the moment.

Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-1274) is one of the most prominent figures in medieval philosophy. In fact, he is so prominent that many modern readers take his views, mistakenly, as the expression of what medieval philosophers in general say about a given topic. In this class we look at three key areas of Aquinas's teaching. We start with his views on human nature and psychology as they are developed in his main work, the Summa theologiae. Next we focus on his philosophy of action, including his account of virtues and vices and moral goodness, before we end with an exploration of some issues in Aquinas's teaching on metaphysics.

In this course we focus on the metaphysics of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, d. 1037), perhaps the most original and influential metaphysician in classical Islamic philosophy. Our focus is on the Metaphysics of his main work, the Healing or Cure, although some consideration is also given to Avicenna’s predecessors Al-Kindī (d. 870) and Al-Fārābī (d. 950), and to Avicenna's critical reception by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198). Topics to be covered include the conception of metaphysics as the study of being; the distinction between essence and existence; necessity and possibility; causality; universals and particulars; the existence and attributes of God.

This course is devoted to a close reading of Avicenna's most comprehensive work on philosophical psychology, The Book on the Soul from his summa of philosophy, The Healing (Al-Shifā'). This text had a lasting impact on philosophy and theology both in the Islamic world and the West. Avicenna covers a wide range of topics, including the relation of the soul and the intellect to the body; personal identity, consciousness, and self-awareness; the nature of intellectual cognition; the nature of sense perception and imagination; animal cognition; and the relations between intellectual and sense cognition. Main texts: our readings are drawn from the complete draft English translation by D. Black and M. Marmura, Avicenna, Healing: Psychology. The text is also available in the original Arabic, in medieval Latin translation, and in French.

William of Ockham (ca. 1287-1347) is one of the most prominent figures in medieval philosophy. He is famous as a logician and for his reductionist approach in metaphysics that earned him the label "nominalist." But there are many other areas of philosophy to which Ockham has made interesting contributions too: epistemology, the philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and ethics. This seminar is an introduction to and overview of Ockham's philosophy; since that will involve some discussion of other high medieval philosophers, the course can serve as an introduction to medieval philosophy.

Historically many philosophers have believed that human beings owe their ability to act freely to a special human faculty called the will. In this seminar we look into the origins of this view by examining medieval accounts of free will and human action. For the discovery of the faculty of the will is often considered as one of the main contributions medieval philosophy made to the history of philosophy. The main topics explored in this class are: 1) What conception of freedom do medieval authors hold? Does freedom, for instance, involve a power to otherwise? 2) What is the basis of the free exercise of our will? Do we have free will and free choice in virtue of the will itself or in virtue of our capacities for thought and deliberation?

This course is an introduction to the major figures and themes in classical Islamic philosophy (falsafa) from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a focus on the works of Al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd), as well as other less well-known figures from the classical period. We consider a range of philosophical problems in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, as well as topics in natural philosophy, ethics and political philosophy. Some consideration will also be given to the views of the Mu'tazilite and Ash'arite schools of theology (kalām), the rival intellectual traditions to philosophy within the medieval Islamic world. The specific topic will change from year to year depending on the instructor and course emphasis.

The course treats of the Platonic and Peripatetic traditions of philosophical commentary from the 1st c. BCE to the 6th c. CE, and emphasizes points of continuity between Greco-Roman, Medieval, and Byzantine thought as represented by commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Calcidius, Macrobius, Proclus, Ammonius, Boethius, and Simplicius.

This introductory course is designed to supply participants with essential tools for further research in medieval liturgy, regardless of their field of expertise. The first four weeks cover basic aspects of private and public Western Latin worship in the Middle Ages. This is followed by an in-depth study of extant liturgical books, especially those from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. The latter will include hands-on work with liturgical books housed in University of Toronto library collections.

This course focuses on one or more key texts from Spain in the high and late Middle Ages offering incomparable insights into its social, intellectual, and cultural history. These primary sources will be approached from a multidisciplinary perspective (literary, legal, historical, artistic, and religious). Their origin, purpose, formation, meaning, content, promulgation, and influence will be considered.

This course focuses on the most common crimes and punishments in the Middle Ages. We review crimes like theft, infidelity, rape, insults, treason, prostitution, murder, and punishment as death penalty, amputations, forced matrimonies, economic sanctions, and torture. A goal of the course is to understand how punishments not only depended on the crime itself but on the criminal's position in the social hierarchy. The course draws on a wide variety of source material including records of individual court cases, legal codes, literary texts, and images. It will be a survey of the middle ages.

The course presents a historical overview of fundamental aspects of Spanish society in the Middle Ages and provides a look at social issues through the analysis of representative literary texts of this period. The course begins by reading articles that provide the historical background on how medieval society viewed and dealt with death, love, faith, crime, marriage, prostitution, treason, and honour. Secondly, the course develops into the analysis of the main corpus of literary works written in medieval Spain between the beginning of the 13th and the end of the 15th century as documents for the study of the Middle Ages. We will read literature in translation, such as The poem of Mio Cid (c. 1200), The Miracles of our Lady (c. 1250), The Book of Good Love (c. 1330), Tales of Count Lucanor (c. 1335), Stanzas about the Death of his Father (c. 1476), and La Celestina (1499).