Aims

By the end of this course, the student should have :
- mastered the broad outlines of the intellectual history of the VIth to the XIVth centuries
- be able to place a written or figurative medieval work in its cultural context
- have read on his own

Main themes

This course complements and deepens notions acquired during 'candidature' in the courses Antiquity FLTR 1222 and Middle Ages FLTR 1310, placing the accent on the intellectual life of those periods.
The course deals with the history of thought in the large sense, far beyond the history of philosophy.
It deals with frames of reference of this intellectual life and introduces major works that marked the period: literary, philosophical and scientific works, etc.

Content and teaching methods

From the Vth to the XVth centuries, structures of thought and teaching were formed we are sometimes the unconscious heirs to. Yet on contact with medieval conceptions, today's man is far from home : the biblical frame of reference, the state of scientific knowledge, interpreting nature on various levels of significance are all factors imposing distance. This course proposes a synthetic view of some domains of intellectual activity (teaching, theology, didactic and scientific literature), while placing the accent on a few outstanding figures, and referring to iconographic sources. The medieval West is privileged; ancient thought is taken into consideration insofar as it influences the middle ages.
Part of the course (the last third of meetings) is reserved for monographic analysis of a theme.
During teh last years, the subjects treated in this part were:
Frederic II of Hohenstanfen and the intellectual life circa 1220-1250; medieval bestiaries;the encyclopedia of
Bartholomaens Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum (circa 1240); the Speculum maius of Vincent of Beauvais.

Other credits in programs