Ancient History

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This is the story of transformation from the Roman to the medieval European world c.AD150-800. The story will be told mainly through the words and artefacts of those who lived the transformation. We shall see how, within Roman and barbarian societies, authority is created, dissented from and destroyed; how identity is constructed and used. We shall see this through the shifting of frontiers, physical, cultural and metaphorical, including those between Roman and barbarian, barbarian and barbarian, pagan and Christian (orthodox and unorthodox), town and country, public and private, male and female, soldier and civilian, elites and masses, old and new, body and spirit, life and death. We shall test two propositions: that the Roman underworld and the barbarian outerworld turn the old world upside down in the formation of medieval culture; that this world underwent deep structural change in the third and in the seventh centuries AD.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS We recommend that you buy: Course Readings &emdash; essential reading for tutorials, including those primary sources which are their heart and soul Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (1971, rpt) &emdash; the book which inspired this course Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000 AD (2nd ed.,

1999) &emdash; if you need a chronological and institutional framework for our course.

Some more overall treatments: Lucien Musset, The Germanic Invasions (1965, Eng. ed. 1975) Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200-1000 (1996) Averil Cameron, Later Roman Empire (1993) and her The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 395-600 (1993) A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire (1966, 3 vols), which is abridged in his Decline of the Ancient World (1966) G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar (eds), Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (1999) TEACHING STAFF Dr Peter Brennan Dr Lynette Olson 735 MacCallum S486...