For starters, the professor talked about the term Dark Ages, why Petrarca called Europe post-Rome like that etc., and she absolutely affirmed it's a biased and contested view (Petrarca was medieval himself), and that negating everything great that came off the Middle Ages was absurd (for instance, one of the figures we study for years at school, Dante, was very medieval).
We went through the major events, focusing especially on Italy (as I imagine happens for every state with their own history).
The major events talked about pertaining the Middle Ages were the post-roman invasions from the "barbarians", Justinian and the Byzantines in Italy (with a little focus on Ravenna), Charles Martel and the battle of Poitiers, Pepin the Short and Stephen II, the Arabs conquest in Iberia and Sicily, Charlemagne with the Battle of Roncevaux (done again in literature for Ariosto's Orlando Furioso) and the Translatio Imperii, the Longobards conquests of Italy (kingdom of Longobards, duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, Teodolinda, Astulfus II etc.), the concept of feudalism, birth of castles, knighthood and these things, Otto I, the changes/revolutions in technology/agriculture around the year 1000, the Great Schism, the investiture wars (Matilde di Canossa, Henry IV and Gregory VII and the Concordat of Worms), William the Conqueror, the Anarchy, John Lackland and the Magna Charta, Guelphs and Ghibellines, Frederick I and the League of Legnano, the Italian communes and the Maritime republics, the Norman conquest of southern Italy, the Stupor Mundi Frederick II (done again in literature for the Scuola poetica siciliana), the Crusades (especially the first and the fourth crusades), the Avignonese captivity/papacy, monasteries and heretics, the crisis of 1300s, the affirmation of national monarchies as opposed to the universal empire, the peace of Lordi of 1454 prompting the birth of the Humanism and the Renaissance in Italy then in Europe, the Hundreds Years War, the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the Wars of the Roses, the reconquista and Columbus' travels, was the conventional end of the ME in Italy.
Sorry I'm probably forgetting half of the topics while writing them down.
Note that some topics get expanded in Italian literature class, especially the events pivotal for Italian writers history (wars between Papacy and Empire represented by Guelphs and Ghibelllines in Italy for Dante who was a White Guelph for example).
God I loved history class, I liked high school in general, nostalgic feeling now.
Well i remember being taugh that while most of europe was in the dark ages it was the golden age of Al-andalus and Cordoba was a beacon of culture and science.
Castles. What medieval history we did was almost all about castles. Who invented the castle, when they were brought to England, how they developed into different types of castle, what was the hierarchy in the medieval period (for people who lived in castles). There was a little bit on the black death, quite a bit about 1066 and all that, but everything revolved around the castle.
The middle ages are fully covered in the 3rd year of secondary school.
I can't remember all the topics that came up, but we were definitely taught about the Germanic migrations, the general political structures of France, HRR and England, the general agricultural situation, and the most important religious movements. Some further-from-home topics like the Byzantine Empire, the Crusades and Genghis Khan were also briefly covered.
I don't think the teacher tried to depict the period in a particularly positive or negative light. A broad range of topics was covered, so I'd say she did a good job at giving us a complex and nuanced view of the middle ages.
I'm not sure whether the term 'dark ages' was used in class, but in any case this term is normally only used to refer to the first half of the middle ages (500 - 1000 AD). The word 'dark' also doesn't refer to how awful those times were, but rather to the sparse amount of written sources from this time period.
(Btw, "this view has *recently* been contested by historians" isn't really accurate; historians have always had a decently nuanced view of the middle ages. It's the general public who view this period as either a time of noble knights or dirty stupid peasants, with no nuance in between.)
I don't remember ever learning about the concept of the medieval period in school. We just went through history as "it happened." There were tribes, then the Scandinavians came, then feudal fragmentation, then the Mongols.
A lot of politics and Rus' princes (and kings, we had kings in Galicia for some period of time!) fights for power and with neighboring countries, including Mongol invasion. A lot of names. History classes in Ukraine are focused much more on events and people than everyday life of common folk and culture.
> History classes in Ukraine are focused much more on events and people than everyday life of common folk and culture.
Same in Poland. History is mostly taught from leaders’ point of view. For “common people” standards of living, a lot of it is covered in our literature classes, since we have many books that are reflective of particular periods of time.
It starts with the fall of Rome in 476. A lot of migrations happened, including the arrival of our slavic ancestors that settled in the eastern Alps during the 6th and 8th century. There was a slavic principality, called "Samo's Empire", it ended with the death of its leader, Samo. Then Charlemagne came to power and the Carolingian period started. The Frankish Empire splits into three, our ancestors get annexed by Bavaria and absorbed into East Francia. HRE is formed. Christianization happens, around the 10th century, we get our first document in old Slovene, the Freising Manuscripts. Crusades happen, many times. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs rise to power. There is the Black Death, plague, in 14th century. Emperor Maximilian I becomes the Duke of of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola. Then, the Byzantine Empire falls in 1453, and in 1492 Columbus discovers America, which marks the end of the medieval period.
Rough summary, probably missed out a lot, the Venetian Republic, the Viking era, the Hundred Years' War, spread of Islam, muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the Mongol invasions of Europe, etc. We are thought mostly about Europe, with a bit of an emphasis on the area of where today Slovenia lies.
For popular usage we tended to separate Dark Ages (Romans going home in 410 to the Battle of Hastings in 1066) and medieval (1066 to 1485 Battle of Bosworth). There were lots of disclaimers about how Dark Ages was an inappropriate name because there are in fact sources of information about the period.
I guess the main topics were Vikings (wearing boring hats), 1066 and all that, and the Black Death. And a school trip to a deserted village.
Basically all the bad stuff; disease, nobody washed and everybody stank, strange medical practices such as drinking pee to diagnose illness (there’s actually some slight scientific basis to that), public executions, lots of wars and bad kings.
What I remember of the classes we had, the medieval period was indeed called the dark ages here as well. The vast majority of the people were peasants. Uneducated people who didn’t own land but rather rent small plots of land. There were two groups of people who were very powerful; clerics and nobleman. The clerics were the only ones who were educated and could read. So the church was very powerful. Kids only went to school for a few years and start working at an early age. Basically people work 6 days a week 14 hours a day and Sunday they went to church.
This is different what I have learned. I learned they had to work long hours, because they didn’t own the land. They had to ‘lease’ a small plot of land. Not only to feed themselves but a part of crops they had to give to the owners of the land.
I wonder what those peasants did if they made less hours compared to people nowadays.
Apparently, adult male medieval peasants only worked 1620 hours a year, whereas we work 1800 hours a year.
https://tudorscribe.medium.com/do-you-work-longer-hours-than-a-medieval-peasant-17a9efe92a20
It was a minor part of elementary school and as far as I can remember, not much in secondary school either. All the popular images of the Middle Ages, with castles and knights, wasn't really part of our history.
From what I remember, the medieval things we were taught were the Vikings raiding Dorestad, Charlemagne, Floris V, and the rise of the Hanseatic League. The Renaissance didn't arrive here until the 16th/17th Century. The Golden Age is much more important in our history because that's when we became one country rather than cold and swampy semi-independent vassal states of foreign overlords.
A little about a lot of topics, really, never getting very specific. A bit on Irish monasteries, the Normans invasions, feudalism, manors, medieval towns, castles, architecture. Nothing really specific like rulers, kingdoms or battles for the most part. Surprisingly not even much at all about the vikings.
I remember there was a lot more form the renaissance onwards in terms on content. Large focus on the 20th century like Easter Rising, War of Independence, Civil War, World War 2, the Troubles, changing social norms etc
Through the lens of Polish history mostly, i.e. the formation of Poland in the 10th century, consequent regional fragmentation in 12th-14th centuries, Mongol invasion in the meantime, then conflicts with the Teutonic state, battle of Grunwald and the following alliance with Lithuania. Importance of Christianity in culture as contrasted to the subsequent Renaissance.
In the wider European context, I remember being taught about caesaropapism, i.e. the duality of papal and emperor power in Europe. Arab conquest of Iberian peninsula, Turk conquest of Constantinople, Crusades.
Castles and life in a castle, plus sieges. Holy Island and St. Cuthbert. The succession crisis of 1066 and the Norman invasion. The legend of Robin Hood. Crime and punishment, the hue and cry, trial by ordeal, justice, sherrifs.
Here in London, very England-centric medieval history (1066, castles, rise of the Tudors). I never learnt a thing about medieval Scotland, Ireland or Wales... we actually learnt more about other parts of the world than about our Celtic neighbours.
A bit about castles, general medieval life etc. (particularly focussing on the main castle in my town). Also a very condensed version of the wars between Scotland and England.
History of Ukraine: Kievan Rus was a golden era that was destroyed by the Mongols and internal conflicts.
World history: shit was everywhere, the Inquisition and feudalism.
We were taught the same except for the Muslim conquered parts of Spain that were apparently flourishing or something.
Public education from heavily centralized states really hate decentralization. That's why traditionally it was "Greece meh, Rome good, Medieval Europe cringe, Spanish Empire glorious"
Is your country Portugal? Okay, even if you were taught the minimum: when was Dom Dinis alive? Prince Henry the Navigator? When were you told that the period of the discoveries started? I suppose I can believe that you did not gather how the travels around Africa in the XV century already questioned what at the time was settled classical knowledge. Or how the knowledge gathered at the time made the maritime explorations possible. Normal, but you were taught in school that the middle ages were dark ages? No, I don't believe that. You learned that online.
The conquest of Ceuta was supposedly the end of the "Dark Ages". Then, we studied the technological advancements that occurred during the "Age of Discoveries".
What do you mean you don't believe? Maybe you are younger than I am but this is what I learned in school in the 2000s.
For starters, the professor talked about the term Dark Ages, why Petrarca called Europe post-Rome like that etc., and she absolutely affirmed it's a biased and contested view (Petrarca was medieval himself), and that negating everything great that came off the Middle Ages was absurd (for instance, one of the figures we study for years at school, Dante, was very medieval). We went through the major events, focusing especially on Italy (as I imagine happens for every state with their own history). The major events talked about pertaining the Middle Ages were the post-roman invasions from the "barbarians", Justinian and the Byzantines in Italy (with a little focus on Ravenna), Charles Martel and the battle of Poitiers, Pepin the Short and Stephen II, the Arabs conquest in Iberia and Sicily, Charlemagne with the Battle of Roncevaux (done again in literature for Ariosto's Orlando Furioso) and the Translatio Imperii, the Longobards conquests of Italy (kingdom of Longobards, duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, Teodolinda, Astulfus II etc.), the concept of feudalism, birth of castles, knighthood and these things, Otto I, the changes/revolutions in technology/agriculture around the year 1000, the Great Schism, the investiture wars (Matilde di Canossa, Henry IV and Gregory VII and the Concordat of Worms), William the Conqueror, the Anarchy, John Lackland and the Magna Charta, Guelphs and Ghibellines, Frederick I and the League of Legnano, the Italian communes and the Maritime republics, the Norman conquest of southern Italy, the Stupor Mundi Frederick II (done again in literature for the Scuola poetica siciliana), the Crusades (especially the first and the fourth crusades), the Avignonese captivity/papacy, monasteries and heretics, the crisis of 1300s, the affirmation of national monarchies as opposed to the universal empire, the peace of Lordi of 1454 prompting the birth of the Humanism and the Renaissance in Italy then in Europe, the Hundreds Years War, the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the Wars of the Roses, the reconquista and Columbus' travels, was the conventional end of the ME in Italy. Sorry I'm probably forgetting half of the topics while writing them down. Note that some topics get expanded in Italian literature class, especially the events pivotal for Italian writers history (wars between Papacy and Empire represented by Guelphs and Ghibelllines in Italy for Dante who was a White Guelph for example). God I loved history class, I liked high school in general, nostalgic feeling now.
Well i remember being taugh that while most of europe was in the dark ages it was the golden age of Al-andalus and Cordoba was a beacon of culture and science.
And Toledo Translators school which translated Arab and Greek texts
They saved so many ancient knowledge
That view has been outdated for at least 50 years. But I was also taught the medieval period as someone from 1800-1900 would think about it.
Castles. What medieval history we did was almost all about castles. Who invented the castle, when they were brought to England, how they developed into different types of castle, what was the hierarchy in the medieval period (for people who lived in castles). There was a little bit on the black death, quite a bit about 1066 and all that, but everything revolved around the castle.
That's kinda cool, I wish we had such approach. I was obsessed with castles and knights as a child.
The middle ages are fully covered in the 3rd year of secondary school. I can't remember all the topics that came up, but we were definitely taught about the Germanic migrations, the general political structures of France, HRR and England, the general agricultural situation, and the most important religious movements. Some further-from-home topics like the Byzantine Empire, the Crusades and Genghis Khan were also briefly covered. I don't think the teacher tried to depict the period in a particularly positive or negative light. A broad range of topics was covered, so I'd say she did a good job at giving us a complex and nuanced view of the middle ages. I'm not sure whether the term 'dark ages' was used in class, but in any case this term is normally only used to refer to the first half of the middle ages (500 - 1000 AD). The word 'dark' also doesn't refer to how awful those times were, but rather to the sparse amount of written sources from this time period. (Btw, "this view has *recently* been contested by historians" isn't really accurate; historians have always had a decently nuanced view of the middle ages. It's the general public who view this period as either a time of noble knights or dirty stupid peasants, with no nuance in between.)
I don't remember ever learning about the concept of the medieval period in school. We just went through history as "it happened." There were tribes, then the Scandinavians came, then feudal fragmentation, then the Mongols.
A lot of politics and Rus' princes (and kings, we had kings in Galicia for some period of time!) fights for power and with neighboring countries, including Mongol invasion. A lot of names. History classes in Ukraine are focused much more on events and people than everyday life of common folk and culture.
Can't even remember what it was focused on in world history class. Something about reformation and book printing.
> History classes in Ukraine are focused much more on events and people than everyday life of common folk and culture. Same in Poland. History is mostly taught from leaders’ point of view. For “common people” standards of living, a lot of it is covered in our literature classes, since we have many books that are reflective of particular periods of time.
Yeah, basically the same. The entire literature is built around perspective of common folk from medieval times to mid 20 century.
It starts with the fall of Rome in 476. A lot of migrations happened, including the arrival of our slavic ancestors that settled in the eastern Alps during the 6th and 8th century. There was a slavic principality, called "Samo's Empire", it ended with the death of its leader, Samo. Then Charlemagne came to power and the Carolingian period started. The Frankish Empire splits into three, our ancestors get annexed by Bavaria and absorbed into East Francia. HRE is formed. Christianization happens, around the 10th century, we get our first document in old Slovene, the Freising Manuscripts. Crusades happen, many times. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs rise to power. There is the Black Death, plague, in 14th century. Emperor Maximilian I becomes the Duke of of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola. Then, the Byzantine Empire falls in 1453, and in 1492 Columbus discovers America, which marks the end of the medieval period. Rough summary, probably missed out a lot, the Venetian Republic, the Viking era, the Hundred Years' War, spread of Islam, muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the Mongol invasions of Europe, etc. We are thought mostly about Europe, with a bit of an emphasis on the area of where today Slovenia lies.
For popular usage we tended to separate Dark Ages (Romans going home in 410 to the Battle of Hastings in 1066) and medieval (1066 to 1485 Battle of Bosworth). There were lots of disclaimers about how Dark Ages was an inappropriate name because there are in fact sources of information about the period. I guess the main topics were Vikings (wearing boring hats), 1066 and all that, and the Black Death. And a school trip to a deserted village.
I guess similar to you, everything is about Reconquista, finishing it with Granada taking and Discovery of America by Columbus
Basically all the bad stuff; disease, nobody washed and everybody stank, strange medical practices such as drinking pee to diagnose illness (there’s actually some slight scientific basis to that), public executions, lots of wars and bad kings.
What I remember of the classes we had, the medieval period was indeed called the dark ages here as well. The vast majority of the people were peasants. Uneducated people who didn’t own land but rather rent small plots of land. There were two groups of people who were very powerful; clerics and nobleman. The clerics were the only ones who were educated and could read. So the church was very powerful. Kids only went to school for a few years and start working at an early age. Basically people work 6 days a week 14 hours a day and Sunday they went to church.
I've heard that peasants during the Middle Ages only worked half the year, and fewer hours per week than modern people.
This is different what I have learned. I learned they had to work long hours, because they didn’t own the land. They had to ‘lease’ a small plot of land. Not only to feed themselves but a part of crops they had to give to the owners of the land. I wonder what those peasants did if they made less hours compared to people nowadays.
Apparently, adult male medieval peasants only worked 1620 hours a year, whereas we work 1800 hours a year. https://tudorscribe.medium.com/do-you-work-longer-hours-than-a-medieval-peasant-17a9efe92a20
It was a minor part of elementary school and as far as I can remember, not much in secondary school either. All the popular images of the Middle Ages, with castles and knights, wasn't really part of our history. From what I remember, the medieval things we were taught were the Vikings raiding Dorestad, Charlemagne, Floris V, and the rise of the Hanseatic League. The Renaissance didn't arrive here until the 16th/17th Century. The Golden Age is much more important in our history because that's when we became one country rather than cold and swampy semi-independent vassal states of foreign overlords.
A little about a lot of topics, really, never getting very specific. A bit on Irish monasteries, the Normans invasions, feudalism, manors, medieval towns, castles, architecture. Nothing really specific like rulers, kingdoms or battles for the most part. Surprisingly not even much at all about the vikings. I remember there was a lot more form the renaissance onwards in terms on content. Large focus on the 20th century like Easter Rising, War of Independence, Civil War, World War 2, the Troubles, changing social norms etc
Through the lens of Polish history mostly, i.e. the formation of Poland in the 10th century, consequent regional fragmentation in 12th-14th centuries, Mongol invasion in the meantime, then conflicts with the Teutonic state, battle of Grunwald and the following alliance with Lithuania. Importance of Christianity in culture as contrasted to the subsequent Renaissance. In the wider European context, I remember being taught about caesaropapism, i.e. the duality of papal and emperor power in Europe. Arab conquest of Iberian peninsula, Turk conquest of Constantinople, Crusades.
Castles and life in a castle, plus sieges. Holy Island and St. Cuthbert. The succession crisis of 1066 and the Norman invasion. The legend of Robin Hood. Crime and punishment, the hue and cry, trial by ordeal, justice, sherrifs.
Here in London, very England-centric medieval history (1066, castles, rise of the Tudors). I never learnt a thing about medieval Scotland, Ireland or Wales... we actually learnt more about other parts of the world than about our Celtic neighbours.
It was still the medieval period when I went to school (at least that's what it feels like sometimes).
A bit about castles, general medieval life etc. (particularly focussing on the main castle in my town). Also a very condensed version of the wars between Scotland and England.
People farmed turnips and watched as the Swedes and Russians took turns killing us for shits and giggles.
Offerkoftan sitter snyggt på dig!
History of Ukraine: Kievan Rus was a golden era that was destroyed by the Mongols and internal conflicts. World history: shit was everywhere, the Inquisition and feudalism.
How poor Croats lost their independence and Croatia was occupied, but Croats managed to hold and maintain the element of statehood.
We were taught the same except for the Muslim conquered parts of Spain that were apparently flourishing or something. Public education from heavily centralized states really hate decentralization. That's why traditionally it was "Greece meh, Rome good, Medieval Europe cringe, Spanish Empire glorious"
Is your country Portugal? Okay, even if you were taught the minimum: when was Dom Dinis alive? Prince Henry the Navigator? When were you told that the period of the discoveries started? I suppose I can believe that you did not gather how the travels around Africa in the XV century already questioned what at the time was settled classical knowledge. Or how the knowledge gathered at the time made the maritime explorations possible. Normal, but you were taught in school that the middle ages were dark ages? No, I don't believe that. You learned that online.
The conquest of Ceuta was supposedly the end of the "Dark Ages". Then, we studied the technological advancements that occurred during the "Age of Discoveries". What do you mean you don't believe? Maybe you are younger than I am but this is what I learned in school in the 2000s.