HIST 314 | War and Society in Premodern Europe

This course addresses war as a major force in European history from the early Middle Ages to c.1650. Taking a 'war and society' approach, the course focuses less on strategies, tactics, and generalship than on the ways in which war has shaped, and been shaped by, variables such as social and political hierarchies, gender roles, and religion. Students explore the relationship between war and social, cultural, political, and technological change, and attempt to reconstruct the experience of war for combatants and non-combatants. Specific topics to be considered include the role of warfare in shaping early medieval polities, the rise of a knightly class and culture of chivalry, and the advent of new, increasingly destructive methods of waging war as a result of the late medieval military revolution.