Hi everyone,
In week 5 it's going to be another bumper discussion! Lectures will be introducing us to the rise of two important components of late medieval urban life: communes and universities. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the foundation of some of the most famous universities in Europe, for example, these two, which in some ways still look as though one might bump into a medieval student around any given corner...
And in tutorials we will be discussing universities and education in more detail. In particular, we'll use the story of the two people pictured below
as a juicy entrée into issues related to education at the time. Think about Abelard's
Historia Calamitatum in light of the questions in the reading guide. What does his story tell us about intellectual and philosophical life and thought in twelfth-century France (apart from some pretty gory things about castration...)? If the extract whets your appetite, or you just want to know
Heloise's side of the story (!), look for their letters which are published in various editions and
available in the library; or look for the works of Monash's own
Professor Constant Mews, who is a world expert on their correspondence.
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| Abelard & Heloise |
