EARLY MEDIEVAL HISTORY

The History of the Early Middle Ages is among those characterizing in the master's degree courses in ACEL and in History from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age. It is also among those chosen in other master's degree courses.
The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to the historical-social and anthropological dimension of the Early Middle Ages (with particular attention to the critique of the sources), which is presented as a period of great transformation that determines the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. To this end, after a general premise, the course deals specifically with a wide-ranging monographic theme.

Knowledge and understanding:
- knowledge of research practices with early medieval Latin sources (chronicles and documents)
- knowledge of the historiographical debate
Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
- ability to read and interpret early medieval sources
Communication and relational skills:
- know how to present and discuss a historiographic text orally in a seminar context
- knowing how to interact in a peer group
- know how to express the results of a research in a short written text

It is not necessary to take particular exams before this one. The students who have already taken the exam of Medieval History will have benefited.
See also below, "Further informations".

The title of the course is "Ruling in hardtimes. Italy in the Carolingian age / 1".

The course will study the transformations - in institutions, society, economy, political and religious ideology - that occurred in Italy under the Carolingian rule (774-887). The Carolingians exercised an effective hegemony over the entire peninsula, and not only within the Lombard kingdom conquered by Charlemagne, but also on the vast Benevento duchy and on the lands of Byzantine tradition such as Rome, Ravenna, the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, Venice and the southern Tyrrhenian cities.
This study will be developed within two years and will therefore be continued in the next academic year.

1. G. Albertoni, Italia Carolingia, Carocci, Roma 1997.
2. S. Gasparri - C. La Rocca, Tempi barbarici. L'Europa occidentale tra antichità e medioevo (300-900), Carocci, Roma 2012, pp. 231-313.
3. Other articles or chapters indicated during the lessons and the materials (essays and sources) uploaded onto Moodle.

Non-attending students instead of the n. 3 will read:
S. Gasparri, Itaia longobarda. Il regno, i Franchi, il papato, Laterza, Roma 2012.

Students who are not able to read Italian well can replace the n. 1 and 2 with
M Constambeys, M. Innes, S. MacLean, The Carolingian World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011

The students who don't attend the lessons will only take the oral exam. Attending students can also take a written pre-exam (on topics and sources discussed during the lessons). As an alternative to the written pre-exam, they will also be able to submit brief written and oral reports, which will be discussed during the lessons. Written pre-exam and reports are NOT mandatory but, if the students have chosen to do them, they will be a fundamental part of the exam.

Lectures, readings of sources, student short presentations of either a part of a source or a relevant article (see above, "Assessment methods") and collective discussions.

Italian

Students who have not already taken the exam of Medieval History (of the three-year degree) with prof. Gasparri will also have to read ALL the volume:

S. Gasparri - C. La Rocca, Tempi barbarici. L'Europa occidentale tra antichità e medioevo (300-900), Carocci, Roma 2012.

written and oral