2024-2025 Academic Catalog

Nov 17, 2024

2024-2025 Academic Catalog

ARTH 225 - Pilgrimage and the Crusades

Beginning with Pope Urban II’s 1095 A.D. sermon and call for Catholic Christians to unite and “free” the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem from its current rulers, the Fatimid Muslims, and ending only with the fall of crusader Acre and Tripoli to the Mamluks in the late 1290s, this course will introduce students to the history, themes, participants, and works of art and architecture that were created in Europe and the Mediterranean during the period of the Crusades. The European Catholic desire to free and control the tomb of Christ (today enshrined in the famous Church of the Holy Sepulcher), powerfully motivated and successfully sustained pan-European cooperation for over two centuries, ultimately giving rise to the notion of the “West,” particularly in opposition to the Eastern adherents of Islam. Pilgrimage, the pious act of traveling to holy places, possessed a long history in all three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but in the eleventh century was co-opted by Catholic Popes and turned into the sharper-edged tool of empire and colonialism, namely crusading. In stark contrast to the long, slow “Dark Ages” this course gives students an opportunity to learn and to analyze an energetic, interconnected and dynamic medieval world filled with extraordinary characters, many of whom crossed the European continent and Mediterranean Sea multiple times. The centuries from 1000-1320 A.D. further witness cataclysmic population movements across western Europe and the Near East through pilgrimage, war deployment, and displacement.

Geographically, this course spans Britannia (modern England and Scotland) to Palestina (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine), and all territories and bodies of water in between. It will cover primary sources drawn from history, art, architecture, archaeology as well as secondary sources in translation to consider the themes of racism, religious ideology, identity, colonialism and power as they relate to the acts of pilgrimage and crusading in the medieval world.

Course Designation/Attribute: DI, HP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi-annually