Middle Ages for EducatorsShawn Hill, Instructional Technologist
Fordham University
Tools and Repositories
Gallica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, digitized manuscripts
Sources Used for this Demo
To cite this page:
Hill, Shawn. “Reading Together: Using Perusall to Gloss the Online Text,” Middle Ages for Educators, July 14, 2020. Accessed [date].
Leah Pope Parker, University of Southern Mississippi
Resource
Discussion Questions
Further Reading
Kitson, Peter R. “Old English Dialects and the Stages of the Transition to Middle English.” Folia Linguistica Historica: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, vol. 11, no. 1–2, 1992, pp. 27–87.
Siebert, Eve. “A Possible Source for the Addition to The Grave.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, vol. 19, no. 4, Sept. 2006, pp. 8–16.
Thompson, Victoria. Dying and Death in Late Anglo-Saxon England. The Boydell Press, 2004.
Treharne, Elaine M. Living through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020–1220. Oxford University Press, 2012.
To Cite this Page
Parker, Leah Pope, “Linguistic, Literary, and Manuscript History with The Digital Grave,” Middle Ages for Educators, July 22, 2020. Accessed [date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/videos/linguistic,-literary,-and-manuscript-history-with-the-digital-grave,-by-leah-pope-parker
For feedback, please tweet to @ParkerChronicle
Meg Hyland
MSc, University of Edinburgh
Discussion Questions
Links
Further Reading
Sheridan, Sara. Where Are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland. Historic Environment Scotland (2019).
Clados, Christine. Reconstructing the Pre-Columbian World. University of Wisconsin Madison (2004).
Sources for images
Godlewski, Włodzimierz, “Bishops and Kings. The official program of the Pachoras (Faras) Cathedrals”, Between the Cataracts. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference for Nubian Studies Warsaw University 27 August-2 September 2006. Part 1. Main Papers (2008), pp. 263-282.
To Cite This Page
Hyland, Meg. “Women of 1000 AD,” Middle Ages for Educators, July 18, 2020. Accessed[date]. /http://middleagesforeducators.com/course-materials/women-of-1000-ad-by-meg-hyland/
NYU Abu Dhabi
Sources Referenced in this Video
Dataset of places mentioned in Christine de Pizan
Selected storymaps for medievalists
The Road to Agincourt (Chatzis, Edinburgh) (military history)
Sul camino del Rinascimento (EIPACA di Manosque) (art production)
London’s lost river: the Tyburn (MOLA) (geo-archeology)
The Garden of Earthly Delights – Hieronymus Bosch (art history)
Game of Thrones : Arya’s Journey (cultural studies)
On mapping Christine de Pizan
Some Starting Points for Medieval Spatial Datasets
Digital Atlas for Roman and Medieval Civilization https://darmc.harvard.edu/data-availability
Morreale, L. (2019). Exploring Place in the French of Italy, 1st Edition (Version Omeka Classic, CartoDB). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2562276
Wrisley, D. J. (2015). The Literary Geographies of Christine de Pizan (geo-data) [Data set]. Approaches to Teaching Christine de Pizan. Modern Language Association. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.35350
A General Rubric for Academic Web-Based Writing:
Wrisley, D.J. (2020, July). Rubric for Academic Web-based Writing (Version 1.0). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3932709
On (Medieval) Culture and Mapping
On Storymapping and Pedagogy
ESRI. Story Maps and the Digital Humanities https://collections.storymaps.esri.com/humanities/
Wrisley, D.J. (2018). Mapping in the Digital Liberal Arts: Models, methods, futures, AMICAL webinar.
To cite this page
Wrisley, David Joseph. “Christine de Pizan Through Storymaps.” Middle Ages for Educators, July 15, 2020. Accessed [date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/course-materials/christine-de-pizan-through-storymaps-by-david-joseph-wrisley/
Indiana University, Bloomington
Sources Referenced in this Video
Annotated Bibliography
Poster Assignment
To cite this page
Shopkow, Leah. “Thinking about Pedagogy as Medievalists.” Middle Ages for Educators, July 14, 2020. Accessed [date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/online-teaching/thinking-about-pedagogy-as-medievalists,-by-leah-shopkow/
Professor and Chair of History, Manhattan College
Tools and Repositories
The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Sources Used for this Demo
Domesday Book at the Internet History Sourcebook:
Further Reading:
Domesday book online: http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/contents.html
Domesday Book at the National Archives
To cite this page:
Edwards, Jennifer. “Domesday Book Data Analysis using Excel and PASE, by Jennifer Edwards” Middle Ages for Educators, July 12, 2020. Accessed [date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/uncategorized/domesday-book-data-analysis-using-excel-and-pase-by-jennifer-edwards/
Hannah Barker, Arizona State University
Primary Sources
Petition from the Residents of Caffa, 1347
Mussis, Gabriele de’. “The Arrival of the Plague.” In The Black Death, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 14-26. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Further Reading: Primary Sources
Bartsocas, Christos. “Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions of the ‘Black Death’.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 21 (1966): 394-400.
Heyligen, Louis. “The Plague in Avignon.” In The Black Death, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 41-45. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Dols, Michael. “Ibn al-Wardi’s Risalah al-naba’ ‘an al-waba. A Translation of a Major Source for the History of the Black Death in the Middle East.” In Near Eastern Numismatics. Iconography, Epigraphy, and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed. Dickran Kouymijian and George Miles, 443-455. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1974.
Muisis, Gilles. “The Plague Seen from Tournai.” In The Black Death, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 45-47. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
“The Report of the Paris Medical Faculty, October 1348.” In The Black Death, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 158-163. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Villani, Giovanni. “Chronicle.” In John Aberth, The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents, 19-20. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Discussion Questions
Further Reading – Seconday Sources
Barker, Hannah. “Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain Embargoes and the Early Transmission of the Black Death in the Black Sea, 1346-1347.” Speculum (forthcoming 2021). Preprint on BodoArXiv, May 2, 2020.
Dols, Michael. The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.
Green, Monica, ed. Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death. In The Medieval Globe 1, no. 1 (2014). Accessed May 7, 2020.
Schamiloglu, Uli. “The Impact of the Black Death on the Golden Horde: Politics, Economy, Society, Civilization.” Golden Horde Review 5, no. 2 (2017): 325-343.
Spyrou, Maria, Marcel Keller, Rezeda Tukhbatova, et al. “Phylogeography of the Second Plague Pandemic Revealed through Analysis of Historical Yersinia pestis Genomes.” Nature Communications 10/4470 (2019), 1-13.
Varlik, Nükhet. Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
To Cite This Page
Barker, Hannah, “Early Transmission of the Black Death,” Middle Ages for Educators, May 7, 2020. Accessed[date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/uncategorized/early-transmission-of-the-black-death,-by-hannah-barker/
Merle Eisenberg, SESYNC, Co-Founder The Middle Ages for Educators
Teaching medieval diseases and pandemics, especially the plague, has become, not surprisingly, more central to courses on medieval history over the last few months. Luckily, the medieval studies community includes many generous and talented colleagues eager to share their expertise and resources. Below you will find some open-access material the Middle Ages for Educators has collected including background material, primary sources, and short lessons on reactions to plague. We also offer more background reading on plague and pandemics in our resources page.
Background on the Plague
You can find some great background about the biology and history of the plague on the Infectious Historians podcast episode entitled “Plagues in Human History,” which can also be found on most major podcasting networks. If your students want to know more about the two major outbreaks, the Justinianic Plague and the Black Death, there are additional episodes on each of them as well. This podcast is co-hosted by Merle Eisenberg and the website has links to additional readings, some of which are open-access.
Primary Sources
Jessica Goldberg at UCLA has provided us with her own translation and commentary of the famous 1348 Ordinances of Pistoia. The Ordinances were issued upon the arrival of the plague early in the Spring of 1348 (March or April) and are the city’s response about a month later. Her wonderful translation also includes artwork that really give a unique idea of what was happening in Pistoia when the plague struck.
Merle Eisenberg also uploaded a video, sources, and questions for teaching the Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750 CE). He has provided a mini lesson for teaching students about what its impact may (or may not) have been.
Reactions to Plague
Dan Smail’s video and lesson plan about the effect of the Black Death on a single woman and her family in Marseille is definitely a great way to discuss the individual impact of this disease. It is one thing to think about the mortality rate of a pandemic or its impact on governments, but Smail offers a micro-history that demonstrates how the diseases devastated families, through various other viewpoints such as legal history, gender, and disability studies. He tells a powerful story of the past that has striking resonances for the present.
Abigail Agresta has also written a wonderful, short blog post on the Infectious Historians website that offers a way into how medieval people responded to the outbreak of the Black Death. Like many of us today, there were only so many options that people living in the medieval period had and she offers a source on them plus a short discussion. Her blog post could be a useful interactive exercise to do with your students as another way to teach the outbreak of the Black Death.
To Cite this Page
Eisenberg, Merle, “A Medieval Plague Lesson Plan,” Middle Ages for Educators, May 4, 2020. Accessed[date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/uncategorized/a-medieval-plague-lesson-plan/
Kathy Krause, University of Missouri Kansas City
Editions and Translations
Online:
Scholarly edition and translation into modern French (most recent of several available):
Nathalie Koble, Mireille Séguy ed & trans., Lais bretons (XIIe-XIIIe siècles): Marie de France et ses contemporains (Paris: Éditions Honoré Champion, 2018).
There are two excellent English translations (not freely available on-line, but with many inexpensive used copies available via on-line booksellers):
Digitized manuscripts of the Lais:
The only manuscript with the prologue and all twelve of the (known) lais:
There are four other manuscripts with one or more lais (two with Marie’s collection of fables, known as the Ysopet (i.e. Aesop)):
Discussion Questions for specific lais:
Lanval
1. One way to understand the construction of the lai is to examine the situation of the protagonist, Lanval. What is Lanval’s problem at the beginning of the lai ? in the middle ? at the end?
2. What does the lai tell us about Lanval (e.g. descriptions by the narrator or by other characters)? How does the text show Lanval behaving? Does he behave like his description? (Be able to point to elements in the text to defend your answer.)
3. Analyze the scene where Lanval meets the fée (fairy). Where does it occur? How is the fée described? How does Lanval react? Etc.
4. How is the queen described/presented? (What is she doing at the beginning of the episode? How does she react when she sees him? How does she interact with Lanval?)
5. What are the “stages” of Lanval’s trial? What exactly is he accused of doing? Do you know any (famous) similar stories?
Laüstic
A. Background:
1. How were marriages decided in the Middle Ages (for the wealthy)? Who chose the husband/wife? with what criteria ? What kinds of results might you expect (for either spouse) under such a system?
B. You and the characters
1. How do you react to each of the characters? Is your reaction positive, negative, ambivalent?
2. For each character, make a list of the qualities and actions that explain your reaction.
3. For each character, explain how the narrator characterizes them (what expressions are used in the text). For whom does the narrator have sympathy? In other words, who does the narrator portray positively? negatively? Try to distinguish between a reaction based on your moral system, your ideas about what is right or correct, and how the story actually presents each of the characters.
C. Medieval literature often uses symbols to suggest feelings and ideas (modern literature does too, of course). What symbolic value does each of the objects take on in the lai?
To Cite this Page
Krause, Kathy. “The Lais of Marie de France,” Middle Ages for Educators, April 10, 2020. Accessed[date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/uncategorized/the-lais-of-marie-de-france-by-kathy-krause/
Ross Karlan, Georgetown University and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
Primary Source Links:
Discussion Questions:
1. How do Zurara and Caminha represent the “other” in the colonial space? Are there similarities or differences between how they describe Brazil/Brazilians and Guinea/Guineans?
2. In Luis de Camões’ Lusiads, what is the role of genre? How does genre shape Camões’ authorship or audience reception? Are there moments where Camões addresses this directly?
Further reading:
Blackmore, Josiah. Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa. University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Russell, Peter Edward. Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life. Yale Univ. Press, 2001.
Russell-Wood, A. J. R. The Portuguese Empire, 1415-1808: A World on the Move. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Williams, Jerry M. “Pero Vaz de Caminha: The Voice of the Luso-Brazilian Chronicle.” Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 1991, pp. 59–72.
To Cite this Page
Karlan, Ross. “Teaching Portugal’s Age of Expansion and Exploration,” Middle Ages for Educators, April 9, 2020. Accessed[date]. http://middleagesforeducators.com/videos/teaching-portugals-age-of-expansion-and-exploration-by-ross-karlan/
