Medieval Questions

[Rival]

Thanks guys, these are all great.

Please keep commenting as it's giving me lots of food for thought.

If I can I will get back to you.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I'm planning my third year dissertation on a topic about Medieval Christianity. I can choose any topic I'd like.

I'd like you guys to help in coming up with some good questions to consider throughout.

Do you have any inquiries about anything to do with Christianity in the Medieval West? Anything at all; it can be as broad as you like, or as narrow.

• What were Christian Europe's relations with the Abbasid Caliphate in terms of knowledge exchange and academia?

• How, if at all, did the relations between the two contribute to the development of academia and scholarship in Christian Europe as well as the later emergence of science as an institution?

 

[Regiomontanus]

I'm planning my third year dissertation on a topic about Medieval Christianity. I can choose any topic I'd like.

I'd like you guys to help in coming up with some good questions to consider throughout.

Do you have any inquiries about anything to do with Christianity in the Medieval West? Anything at all; it can be as broad as you like, or as narrow.

@Augustus @Saint Frankenstein @Regiomontanus @Sand Dancer @Debater Slayer @anna.

Here are some topics I find interesting.

* The role of monasticism in shaping medieval Christian spirituality
* Religious art and architecture - its significance and symbolism in medieval Christian societies
* Heresy and orthodoxy - exploring theological controversies and their resolutions in medieval Christianity
* The transmission and preservation of Christian/bibical texts in medieval Christian communities
* The impact of Eastern Orthodox monasticism on the development of Western monastic traditions
* The influence of Eastern Orthodox liturgical practices and spirituality on medieval Western Christianity
* Comparative analysis of theological writings between Eastern Orthodox theologians and Western Christian theologians in the medieval period

Good luck!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Something I find interesting - that I only have a very cursory knowledge of through study of philosophy and Pagan religions - is the tremendous debt Western intellectualism owes to Christianity just in general, but especially in the Medieval period that is stereotypically thought of as "dark" on that front. Given the general failure of modern intellectuals to understand this debt owed, it would be very interesting to trace the contributions of Medieval Christianity to philosophy, literacy, education, and early science. It's probably been done, but the story isn't getting told enough.

Also too, how it contributed to the preservation of pre-Christian storytelling. For Druidry in particular, a lot of the Irish and Welsh tales never would've been preserved without Medieval Christian scribes and while the compilation of these manuscripts was not exactly impartial and unadulterated, we'd have nothing if not for their efforts to write down tales from what was a fundamentally oral culture.

At a simple/approachable level, you could try Dominion : The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland
Not the Spiderman Tom Holland.
Ahem.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

• What were Christian Europe's relations with the Abbasid Caliphate in terms of knowledge exchange and academia?

• How, if at all, did the relations between the two contribute to the development of academia and scholarship in Christian Europe as well as the later emergence of science as an institution?

This interplay is an interesting area to look at.