History 201-206 seminars are open to history majors only during pre-registration. If the course does not reach its enrollment maximum, it will be open to all students beginning with drop/add on a first-come first-serve basis.
HIST 201 The World of Charlemagne
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
R | SEM | PRE-1800
The eighth and ninth centuries in the history of Europe may be approached in many ways (including, but emphatically not in this course, historical tourism). The course will focus on the earliest, and most extensively (if idiosyncratically) documented figure, Charles, son of Pippin, or Charles the Great (Charlemagne, Karl der Grosse, Carlo Magno). It is not a course in the "great man" theory of history, but rather one that uses a prominent single figure to get at a better understanding of a world in a particular time. We will use original sources in English translation and the best recent scholarship. We will also consider the long shadow of Charlemagne across time down to the present.
