[MUSIC] Hi, this is Professor Roger Louis Martinez-Davila. And welcome back to the course. So, in this third week, we'll be cotinuing our discussions about Medieval Europe. And specifically taking a look at what was happening in the Iberian Peninsula. As well as considering some facts and some findings about cities during the middle ages, scholasticism and the discovery of universities and lastly medieval warfare. So I have a couple notes with me and I wanted just to highlight a couple things for you along this week as you do your readings. And as you'll see, the course really, in the terms of the historical content, is really about reading, so that's what we do a lot of. I've tried to be very select in what I've presented you, to kind of give you a flavor of what's occurring in Europe, alongside of the main script development. So, for instance, we know in the Iberian Peninsula, roughly from 711 to 1492, we have Islamic and Christian Kingdoms living alongside of each other. Specifically, in 711, Muslim forces and Berber forces invaded and [INAUDIBLE] about 20 years took over about 2/3 of the Ibernian Peninsula. And what we can do is take a look at this period of what was known as the Thirty Year Conquest or when Spanish Kingdoms were trying to retake land from Islamic kingdoms. And this lasted all the way up until 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella reclaimed Granada for Spain. So, one of the things we should consider about the [FOREIGN], or the re-conquest, is that it's not as clear cut as we often like to think. That often these are not necessarily religions in conflict, by any means, but rather these are civilizations in conflict, and often, they're Christian versus Christian civilizations. So, one point we might think about is, one made by Americo Castro. And he is a historian of the middle ages, looks at relationships between different communities and specifically this idea of [FOREIGN] or coexistence, and what it meant for these different communities to kind of interact with each other, Jews, Christians and Muslims. But one of the interesting points he makes about the Reconquista is that we often think that it was just one against the other, Christians versus Muslims. And he says, which I think is really important, he says, historians miss the importantance of the so-called reconquist, reconquest, and fail to see it as simultaneously as a hand-tie reconquista. It is hardly proper to characterize as civil quarrels among Christians. These were wars between independent states, each interested in prospering at the expense of its neighbors. Thus, Sancho the Great of Navarre attacked Viramundo III of Leon and left large portions of Galicia utterly desolated. So that gives you a sense that they were really competitive with each other and at time they were this strange bedfellow alliances between Christian Kingdoms and Islamic Kingdoms. We'll also kind of take a look at briefly, the Islamic Kingdoms and the formation of the first. So that the original was located in Damascus, Syria, but later on reconstituted itself, as a new one, actually in Spain. In the 929, Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III. Formed a Caliph, which is really just a political and religious institution consolidated into one. And governed a lot of Southern Spain from the city of Cordoba. It's very interesting, because in this period, we see this tension of coexistence, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. So, we'll take a look at that. Another peace we'll look at is the rise of urban centers during the tenth century. And this is important because its in the context that we appreciate, that Roman civilization had collapsed in the middle of Europe and whats left are just bits and pieces. Urbanism largely had disappeared, but in the tenth century we start to it coming back and it's quite interesting because what is the city look like during the middle ages and it doesn't look very Roman. For one, now cities are enclosed by walls. So medieval cities look like what we can experience a lot of medieval Europe today when we visit. Similarly, we find that the church and cathedrals are the centers of the administration, that they govern cities. They bring it back together. Another element is, we see the rise of weekly markets and merchants and this starts to bring back together this kind of like civic life that had not existed before. And we'll actually take a look at a city privilege that was given to a city in of all places, England. John I, King of England who granted to citizens of Cambridge in 1201. So again it will give you a sense of what's the relationship between the king and his commoners. We'll also look at medieval warfare. And this is particularly interesting, because one of the great developments or fantastic in terms of its impact, was the development of the Mounted Warrior Cavalry and specifically, the Knight. And what we can look at, which is really intriguing, is this issue of all things, we often think of our technology today as our iPhone or computer or even this mook and this interaction we're having right now. Well, the latest and greatest in medievil technology during the eighth century and the ninth century as its coming along is the development of the stirrup. The stirrup, my gosh, that doesn't seem like much, but the ability for a warrior to hold himself steady on a horse, and then to accumulate arms on them as well as extra kind of defensive textures. Whether those are chain mill or play armor, really changes the dynamics of the battle field. We have leaders like Charles Martell of France, who basically brings shock troops, mounted shock troops into battle, and really revolutionized medieval warfare from that point forward. It really won't transform again until we reach the era of gunpowder in the late 1400s to early 1500s and the development of cannon and things like this. But here again, we'll see this really intriguing interaction between Islam and Christianity. And the question kind of is, who developed the stirrup? Was it Islamic cavalry that were coming into Iberia and their interaction with Charles Martel? Or was it Charles Martel developing some kind of novel technology in relationship to Muslims? So that's another piece we'll get to explore. Lastly we'll take a look at the development of scholasticism. And really what we can think about this is the revival of the ancient philosophies of the Greeks, and this return to learning, and an appreciation for what it means to be a civilization that appreciates intellectual sciences. So we'll take a look at the development of the University of Paris and Balogna and some others, and kind of start to get to appreciate how do we know how the universities operate, how do we know what they studied? Do we know they actually studied Aristotle, or that we know that they're studying logic, and it's down to the gritty details, we'll look at a charter preparer that even talks about, how long is a university career? So if you're going to become a lecturer, which is what we think of professor today and a doctor, it requires six years of teaching. So in many ways this is actually replicated 800 years later that we still rely on this kind of old idea that it's really at minimum six years you need to be a doctor or even what are the requirements of doctors in terms of how they live their lives. That they should be responsible individuals, that they should be free of infamy and then the responsibilities of students. So, that's what this week is about, I hope you enjoy it and again appreciate,it's a good introduction to all this issues during the Middle Ages to get a flavor of them. Okay, thank you very much
