Warriors, Monasteries and Catapults

This course is an introduction to how the intellectual heritage of late Antiquity – philosophy, science, technology and institutions of knowledge – was absorbed, used and developed by the three great civilizations around the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages, and how it was diffused; first from the Byzantine and Persian Empires to the Islamic world (c. 500-900), later from Byzantium and the Islamic world to western Europe (c. 900-1300). The emphasis will be upon the political, economic and social dynamics underlying the diffusion and development of this heritage, and how western Europe, originally the least developed and urbanized part of the former Roman Empire, was to catch up with and eventually surpass the two other civilizations.

Students should be familiar with the main lines of development in knowledge and technology c. 500-1300 and how political and cultural developments affected their diffusion and development.