Crusades and Holy Wars

Catalog description

Premodern Religious Violence: This course will explore religious violence in different contexts in the European and Mediterranean worlds from the late 11th century to the 16th century. The class will examine four experiences: the crusades between Christian armies of Europe and Muslim states in the Holy Lands, the inquisition against the Cathars in 13th and 14th century France, popular violence during the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, and the Christian-Muslim Mediterranean frontier of the sixteenth century. The class will focus on what qualifies for religious violence, the sorts of conditions that produced it, and how the violence was resolved. No prerequisite. (Offered every other even spring semester.)