Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
understand and explain the key historical events, people, institutions, and ideas of sixth-century Francia as well as analyze and assess extant texts (e.g. Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus) and historians (e.g. Ian Wood, Chris Wickham) that explain Merovingian society
You will learn fundamentals about how to understand and interpret medieval forms of evidence; and learn the advantages and difficulties of working with them.
express and display the results of your historical thinking in oral and written form, as well as model proper academic comportment
develop better collaborative and leadership skills by working as a team
use digital tools (Slack, Google docs/sheets and other enterprise software) that ease collaborative work
More specifically, you will learn how Merovingian aristocratic society was a diverse, multi-cultural community, which sought to blend Roman with Frankish ideas, based on past traditions but also innovating under the leadership of kings, not emperors.
AND, you will also learn how the Church, dominated by Gallo-Romans, played an important role not on in religious life, but in determining what sort of actions were deemed possible by nobles and lay people alike.
AND, you will learn how to carry yourself like a Merovingian aristocrat – what sort of attitudes, ideas and postures they adopted and how this differs from power structures today.
I want you to learn how to read, how to write, how to research and most importantly how to think like a historian/ medievalist. With a focus on the medieval world, this course will generally answer the questions, "What are the Middle Ages?", "Where does it take place" and "How do I learn more about it"? We will start from where you are all. Some of you may have a passionate interest in the time period and have read a lot about it. Others might know about it from travelling, reading fiction, watching films or gaming (tabletop or digital) and have a strong passion for it. And even others of you might take this course without any background because it fits your schedule...
As your professor, I want to be clear about what you will learn (or what I want you to learn if all goes well) by the end of the year. I think a lot about what I want my students to learn so that they (i.e. you) can make progress in becoming a historian.
When you're applying to a new university program, or trying to get a scholarship, or looking for a job, people will want to know what skills you have and how you can demonstrate them. Being able to refer to concrete examples helps. When you can say, "I can work and organize in digital teams" and can also point to your work in this class with enterprise tools (such as Teams), you can show (not just hint at) your expertise...
Learning outcomes are usually practical things, such as (imagine this said in a grumpy professor voice), "Learning enterprise tools allow you to succeed in the world after graduation". But one of the most important things to do in this class is to get to know your fellow students!
Your classmates are potential essay editors, project brainstormers, emotional supports and –dare I say– possible friends. Try to reach out and befriend at least one other of your classmates, because the odds are, the effort you put into it will be paid back. Even if we're stuck doing this all online, it'll be worth it.
Everyone has their own reason to study history and if you're in this class, you likely already have a sense why it appeals to you. The AHA (American Historical Association) will tell you about the good job prospects that await you after graduation (it was written before the pandemic, mind you...). This practical advice supersedes the previous explanations from 1985 and 1998. Read these explanations and you'll see that even the reasons to study history, have a history.
I don't think many people study history because they worry, as George Santayana put it, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". When I've asked students over the years, "why did you take this or that course" they have tended to say they decided to take history (or medieval studies) because of a book, movie or video game that they played – maybe when they were kids, maybe what they were playing at the time. That "something" kindled an interest in the period and a desire to learn more.
That's why I study and teach the Middle Ages. Long long ago (the 1990s) in a land far, far away (i.e. Winnipeg), I fell in love with the period by reading novels about the Middle Ages - especially Arthuriana like T.H. White's Once and Future King or Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex. So I studied history because I fell in love with the subject and then, during university, became passionate about how exciting the world of the past showed people to be. The past was a wonderful refuge for me to explore its complexity and to see a world so different (but related) to our own. It suggested ways in which our world could be different (for better or worse). It revealed how people who say that the world "has always been this way" are usually lying. So I saw the study of history as liberating. And this, I deeply believe, is the value of History. It liberates us by showing us how we (as individuals or as a society) could be different and better.
So, once you're ready, go save the world with History.
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