This article provides a panoramic analysis of the historical process of the emergence of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and their role as mediators of medieval knowledge, which later also exerted significant influence as they reshaped themselves for the consolidation of national states and modern Western scientific culture. In Brazil, unlike…

Many Western historians, cultural and literary critics have viewed travel and exploration as purely western. This total exclusion of Arabo-Islamic travel has been done to demonstrate the Western sense of modernity and cultural superiority over the constructed weak "other". However, Moroccans, Arabs and Muslims in general have been…

This study examines the emergence and evolution of madrasa as a specific organizational form of higher learning from a comparative-historical perspective. The article begins by discussing how the madrasa emerged and which factors contributed to its rise and spread among the Islamicate political regimes during the Middle Ages and afterwards. Then,…

Nancy Siraisi has been a prolific and leading scholar in the history of medicine and science of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This lecture of hers is the twenty-eighth of series of lectures named for Charles Homer Haskins, first chairman of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and himself a famed medievalist who brought…

The events that occurred during the Crusades, the encounter of Western and Eastern civilisations, led to certain modes of thinking and representations that are still evident today, overtly or subliminally. By revisiting some of the Western and Eastern chronicles of the first Crusade, we hope to capture the source of some of these images and to see…

A preliminary survey of formal concepts of "disability" from the Twelve Tables of Rome of the 5th century BCE to the Prerogativa Regis in English law of the late 13th century CE is presented. Firm conclusions are restricted by problems in translation and other limitations in available data. However, it appears that the concept of…

Discusses various scholarly views of education and learning in the early middle ages and identifies some problems confronting scholars investigating this period. Points out new perspectives relative to the role of education during this time. Asserts that future study of early medieval education will benefit from focusing on the minds of masters…

The purpose of this module for college students is to describe the economic, social, intellectual, and political changes which took place during the Enlightenment period and to show the interrelationship between these changes and concepts behind due process of law. This resource contains an introduction to the module; a list of objectives for the…

Rhetoric and law had mutually beneficial influences on each other during the Graeco-Roman era. The relationship deteriorated during the middle ages because of a universal decline in learning, culture, and social organization; the hostility of the church toward rhetoric as a pagan concept; and the feudal structure in which there was no system of…

Describes a project initiated by the Foreign Language Department of Birmingham-Southern College for their Interim term and discusses an interdisciplinary course focusing on Medieval Europe. The course included presentations on German and French language and literature, as well as lectures on the arts, philosophy, and family life of the period.…

Includes three papers from a panel on the teaching of medieval legal history held at 1985 American Society for Legal History: (1) "Medieval Legal History in the Core Curriculum" (J. Muldoon; D. Humphries); (2) "Teaching Early Medieval Law: A Comparative Approach" (J.A. Brundage); and (3) "Medieval Law and Society: An…

This book examines the history of western linguistics over a 2,000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moments of change in the Renaissance that lay the foundations of modern linguistics. The book explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. Twelve chapters…

At a New Jersey school, students spend one year studying each of three time periods: ancient Egypt in fourth grade; Greece in fifth grade; and Rome and the Middle Ages in sixth grade. The history curriculum becomes the focal point for other areas (art, music, drama, language arts, science, geography, and math). Teachers use primary sources and…

Part of an international series of amply illustrated, colorful, small size books designed for children ages 5 to 10, this volume describes why and how castles were built during the Middle Ages and what it was like to live in one. Poetry of the period, village life, tournaments, minstrels, games, and descriptions of the lives of children who lived…

Recommends that teachers present the years 1000 to 1750 as the "Traditional Europe" period, rather than as a combination of several periods. Identifies shared religious, intellectual, and artistic traditions; landed aristocracy; a peasant economic base; and an urban mercantile class as the era's distinctive characteristics. (DK)