Medieval Studies

MVST 1210. Literature and Society. (3 Credits)

This course explores different literary genres (such as saga and myth, romance, ballads and poetry, drama and devotional treatises) from different medieval cultural contexts (such as Icelandic society, feudal society, the clergy and urban society). The texts chosen for study, as well as the particular societal contexts, will vary from instructor to instructor.

Attribute: MVLI.

MVST 1250. Traditions of Storytelling. (4 Credits)

Comparative study of traditions of storytelling, placing questions of narrative form within global cultural and historical contexts. Selections from ancient forms of storytelling will be considered alongside modern examples from European and American literature. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, AMST.

MVST 3057. Medieval German Literature: Potions, Passions, Players, and Prayers. (4 Credits)

This course will introduce students to the rich literary and cultural heritage of Medieval Germany. The texts will all be read in English translation, but we will go over some passages in their original languages in class to catch some of the flavor of the Medieval German. Topics covered will include pre-Christian charms, the epic of the Nibelungs, love poetry, and urban carneval plays. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ALC, GERM, MVLI, MVST.

Prerequisite: GERM 2001.

MVST 3102. Medieval Women Writers. (4 Credits)

Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: MVLI, WGSS.

MVST 3210. King, Court, and Crusade: Writing Knightly Life in the High Middle Ages. (4 Credits)

This course will view the medieval world through a lens provided by the life and writings of one man, John of Joinville (d. 1317). John was a knight, a crusader, and a close friend of King Louis IX of France (canonized as Saint Louis). He wrote a Life of Saint Louis that is rich with information about his own life, as well as the saintly king's. We will use the Life to open an examination of key themes in the knightly experience in the high middle ages, including: power, faith, the crusades, noble culture, family and social relations. It will also consider the usefulness of biography/autobiography in understanding the past.

Attributes: AHC, HIMH, HIST.

MVST 3215. Medieval Fashion and Its Meanings. (3 Credits)

In medieval Europe, the importance of dress as a signifier of identity changed drastically over time. Relatively unimportant in the early Middle Ages, by the 14th century dress had become a primary means of expressing individual identity as well as class, gender, status, and other forms of group membership. In this course, we aim to demonstrate the ways in which dress and culture shape and are shaped by one another, illuminating the Middle Ages in a non-traditional way and encountering new tools for historical analysis. Our work will culminate in a research project: students will choose a particular type of medieval garment and trace its evolution, the factors which shaped it, and the effect of that garment or those garments on society.

Attributes: FASH, HIMH, MVAM.

MVST 3500. The Knights of the Round Table. (4 Credits)

In this course, we will look for the traces of King Arthur and his Knights in modern-day London and its environs. Reading the foundational texts of Arthurian literature right where it all happened, we will be able to go to the sites and see the artifacts that remain. We will be reading excerpts from the early annals and chronicles, which laid the foundation for Arthur’s fame in history, and we will follow the exploits of some of the most prominent members of the Round Table as they were depicted in medieval literature: Sir Gawain, the ladies’ man (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale), Sir Perceval, the Grail Knight (Chretiende Troyes, Perceval), Sir Tristrem, the knight who fell in love with his uncle’s wife, (Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristen and Isolde) and Merlin the sorcerer (in the modern rendition by Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave). We are planning excursions that will take us to Winchester to have a look at the tangible, wooden, “Round Table,” Stonehenge, the mythical stone circle associated with Merlin and his craft, and Canterbury, the destination of the most important pilgrimage on English soil. In London, we will visit Westminster Cathedral, the British Library, Museums holding Arthurian artifacts, and the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for some brass rubbing and afternoon tea. This immersion into medieval culture will allow us to read Arthurian literature in a way uniquely possible in London. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: MVLI.

MVST 3501. Between Conquest and Convivencia: The Spanish Kingdoms of the Middle Ages. (4 Credits)

Like many Mediterranean regions in the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal) had diverse kingdoms composed of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Historians have often framed Iberia’s medieval past as either a constant religious war (the Reconquista) or a precursor to modern notions of tolerance. As with most dichotomies, the truth lies somewhere in between. This course examines how the diverse polities and peoples of the Iberian Peninsula lived together from approximately 711 to 1492. It illustrates violent moments of conflict alongside irenic instances of cultural production through a variety of primary sources—chronicles, romances, pilgrim’s guides, architecture, notarial documents, military treatises—supplemented by scholarly research in history, literature, anthropology, and other disciplines. Through lectures, discussions, as well as oral and written projects, students will learn how ideas about holy war, kingship, philosophy, economics, and more led to the rise and eventual fall of Iberia’s diverse society. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ANTH, COLI, ENG1, ENHD, HIST, HIUL, IPE, JSHI, LALS, LAUH, MEST, MLL, MVLI, MVTH, PJRC, POCP, REST.

MVST 3535. Building the Ideal City: Ethics and Economics Foundations of Realizable Utopias. (4 Credits)

This course introduces students to the investigation of the role that economic concepts such as profit, work, utility, and exchange play in defining the ideal city as a realizable political project. Students will explore ethical and economic concepts and their interrelation in the debate on the best form of State and government that developed from antiquity to modern American utopian communities. This course includes texts from various sources - philosophical, theological, juridical, and literary. Through these readings, students will learn how theoretical and practical ideas on the best form of society developed in time and still influence modern political thought. The course also focuses on the impact of the socioeconomic doctrines of the Catholic Church in shaping the idea of a possible, realizable, ideal city. Among the texts and authors included are Plato, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Boccaccio, Thomas More, Leon Battista Alberti, Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon. Taught in English with coursework in Italian for credit in Italian. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ALC, AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASRP, INST, ISIN, ITAL, ITMO, MVPH, MVST.

MVST 3542. Medieval Latin Literature. (4 Credits)

This course offers a broad survey of medieval Latin literature from the Vulgate and St. Augustine to the Carmina Burana and Petrarch. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ALC, CLAS, COLI.

MVST 3700. Medicine, Magic, and Miracles: Sickness and Health in the Early Middle Ages. (4 Credits)

This course provides an introduction to the systems of learned medicine of western Europe from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages. Using a wide range of sources, including medical texts, hagiography, liturgy, and modern scientific studies, we will explore the distinctions between medical theory and practice, the relationship of secular and ecclesiastical authorities to the compilation of medical knowledge and the fundamental question of what constitutes medicine and what does not. In addition, we will consider the changing definition of illness and health through an investigation of medieval responses to the cataclysm of the Black Death. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AHC, HIMH, HIST.

MVST 3701. Royal Saints of Medieval Europe: Politics, Liturgy and Gender. (4 Credits)

This course investigates how kings and queens became saints during the European Middle Ages, alongside broader debates about medieval notions of sanctity, gender, and power. Using varied sources including hagiography, liturgy, chronicles, and material culture, we will explore the reasons why royal saints were remembered and the ways they were venerated in the celebrations of the Church. Through a series of case studies, we will also consider the uses of royal saints as propaganda by church and secular authorities to legitimize their rule, promote ongoing Christianizing efforts, and engender zeal for the Crusades.

MVST 3800. Cloisters, Castles, and Kings: Medieval Bavaria. (4 Credits)

This course will explore medieval secular and church history as it manifested itself in the literature and culture of Bavaria. Includes a study abroad component. Spring break visit to Regensburg and Munich. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ALC, COLI, GERM, MLL.

MVST 4003. War and Peace: Just War Theory. (4 Credits)

This is a Senior values seminar, usually offered in Philosophy. It is a course in applied ethics. It will involve the application of a normative ethical theory to the moral problems associated with war. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: MVPH.

MVST 4005. The Medieval Traveler. (4 Credits)

This course follows the routes of pilgrims, crusaders, merchants, nobles, and peasants as they charted a course for lands of promise and hoped-for prosperity. In The Medieval Traveler, we will read selections from the diaries, chronicles, and historical literature written by and about travelers in the Middle Ages. We will begin and end with travelers who sought miracles, marvels, and new trading routes on the cusp of the known world. We will focus in particular on the practicalities of medieval travel, as and well as the reasons for traveling: the sacred, the profane, and everything in between. This will be an interactive class; be prepared to discuss and debate issues of interest. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ENGL, ENRJ, GLBL, HIMH, HIST, HIUL, ICC, MVLI, OCST, REST.

MVST 4006. Dante's Cosmos: Science, Theology, and Literature. (4 Credits)

This course investigates Dante's cosmos in the Divine Comedy through medieval science, theology, and poetry. Disentangling the context of the Comedy from Dante's encyclopedic culture through reading in the disciplines of his time will lead students to a deeper comprehension of the multidimensionality of Dante's universe than is possible through any singular disciplinary. The course will broaden students perception of the medieval cosmos in contrast with contemporary notions of cosmology. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, COLI, ICC, ITAL, ITMA, MLL, MVTH.

MVST 4007. The Medieval Foundations of Modernity: Petrarch and the Origins of Modern Consciousness. (4 Credits)

This course retraces the foundations of modern consciousness in Petrarch's works through poetry and philosophy. Students will concentrate on Petrarch's library and philosophical works to explore the passage from a medieval to a humanist vision of the self and of the world. The interdisciplinary approach of the course will provide a deeper understanding of Petrarch's ideas on the educative role of the intellectual, the crisis of scholastic thought, and the emergence of a new perception of the self. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: COLI, ICC, ITAL, ITMA.

MVST 4008. Medieval Autobiographies. (4 Credits)

Although writing about oneself is often considered classical or modern, and autobiography was not classified as a genre until the eighteenth century, a handful of medieval clerics, monks, mystics, nobles and merchants wrote about their own lives. These autobiographical accounts, and the conventions and societies that shaped them are the topic of the course. By asking both the questions of genre, narrative voice, subjectivity and authorship usually posed by literary analysis, and the historical questions of what such sources about past authors, audiences and the societies that read and copied the lives, the goal is to understand autobiography and the sources themselves from an interdisciplinary perspective. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: HIST, ICC, MVLI.

MVST 4009. Medieval Jerusalem. (4 Credits)

What has made Jerusalem so beloved to - and the object of continual strife for – Jews, Christians, and Muslims? This course will explore the ancient and medieval history of Jerusalem, from its Jebusite inhabitants before the time of King David through Suleiman’s construction of the modern city walls in the 1540s. Students will learn to analyze a variety of literature, through which we will explore the themes of sacred space, conquest, destruction and lament, pilgrimage and religious polemic. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, JSPM, JWST, MEST, OCHS, OCST, REST.

MVST 4010. Medieval Franciscans and the Dream of a Just Economy. (4 Credits)

The medieval Franciscan Order struggled continually to define what poverty meant. This definition impacted them internally, as an order dedicated to renouncing property personally and collectively, but also had implications for the world around them in their capacity as preachers, confessors, and spiritual advisers. In struggling with these questions they became, as Giacomo Todeschini called them, “professionals of poverty,” experts in discerning the true value of things and arbiters of proper economic behavior; some have even gone so far as to claim that they invented capitalism avant la lettre. While this has been strenuously (and rightly) contested, Franciscans provide a useful lens through which to examine the relationship between religion, especially activist religion, and the economy; between economic theory and its sometimes messy practice. By drawing on texts from the medieval Franciscan Order (c. 1220–1517) on a variety of economic problems (especially: trust, contracts, and the just price; theories of interest, condemnations of usury, the ethics of lending, and the obligation to restitution; concerns about consumer society and the proper uses of wealth) supplemented by secondary readings in theology and economics, this course explores the nature of ethically and religiously motivated intervention in the realm of economic activity, and the responsibilities of consumers, producers, and other economic actors to act ethically, which echo down to the present day. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMCS, COLI, ICC, PJEC, PJST, REST, RSHR, RSTE, THEO.

MVST 4040. Exploring Medieval New York. (4 Credits)

All five boroughs of New York City bear traces of the medieval, despite having been built long after the period that corresponds with the European Middle Ages (c. 500 to c. 1500 CE) ended. This course aims to explore the medieval, broadly understood, in New York City, using the sources and methodologies of digital humanities, history, art history, and medievalism studies. In doing so, we will keep in mind several broad categories of what constitutes medieval: Medieval objects and artifacts in New York City. How did they get here? Where and when are they from? This embraces both medieval history and the collecting activities of tycoons and scholars as they decided what was medieval. How do the accumulations of cultural patrimony show the history of the city, and how are they experienced by different populations within the city today? Medieval-inspired objects and architecture. Why do “medieval” structures within the city look the way they look? From apartment buildings to houses of worship to colleges and universities to monuments, the medieval takes a particular form in New York City and has a number of not always obvious meanings. Medieval-inspired people and communities of practice. How do self-professed medieval practitioners (crafting, music, art, combat, etc.) define their relationship to the medieval? How have public literary or artistic figures interpreted the medieval in New York? New York during the Middle Ages. What did New York look like during the period that corresponds with the European Middle Ages? How did the Indigenous people who lived there experience and interact with the land that we stand on now? How can we, standing at such a distance, hope to glimpse what they might have seen? New York City through the lens of the medieval city. What can New York, arguably the archetypical modern megalopolis, tell us about medieval cities, and vice versa? How can we use comparison with a medieval city to shed light on urban life more broadly? Students will participate in the Medieval New York project sponsored by Fordham’s Center for Medieval Studies. This project aims to investigate these issues and to craft walking itineraries around the city, showcasing these sites and ideas through the use of audio guides and multimedia materials for a broad public audience. By the end of this project, in addition to talking through these issues, students will collaboratively craft an itinerary of Fordham’s Rose Hill campus and its surroundings, and lead a walk-through of the itinerary open to members of the community. The itinerary and related materials will be featured on the project’s site at medievalny.ace.fordham.edu.

Attributes: ACUP, AMST, ASHS, HIST, ICC, URST.

MVST 4100. Modern Sounds, Early Music. (4 Credits)

Medieval and Renaissance music's fragmentary survival has inspired scholars, performers, composers, and artists to realize what remains according to varying creative urges and ideological preoccupations. This course examines the cultures of early music as well as their living legacies. Studying musical traditions from 1000 to 1600, we build a technical vocabulary for discussing music and seek to understand how historical change affects aesthetics, music-making, and listening from 1000 to the present. We also study the reception of medieval music—how it has been rejected, restored, recreated, and reimagined—to consider how "the medieval" is historically produced. No prior musical experience is required. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: MVAM.

MVST 4654. Medieval London. (0 to 4 Credits)

This course draws on material and documentary sources to explore the townscape of medieval London-its wards, streets, and buildings- and the social life of its people, including their daily routines, work, and rituals. We will examine such documentary sources as chronicles, charters, and wills, along with material evidence from human skeletons, excavated houses and churches, coins pottery and clothing.

Attributes: HIMH, HIST, ICC.

MVST 4998. Study Tour: Medieval Spain. (4 Credits)

One of the great medieval pilgrimage routes, the Camino de Santiago crosses northern Spain from the passes of the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela. This study-tour will consider the legends of the Camino, some of its many surviving monuments, and the modern revival of the pilgrimage by walking for two weeks with the peregrinos/-as from Leon to Santiago de Compostela. This class will meet periodically at Fordham before the walk to discuss reading assignments and prepare. A journal is required at the end of the course. Fees and travel costs not included. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: HIMH, HIST, HIUL, ICC, LALS, LAUH.

MVST 4999. Independent Study. (1 to 9 Credits)