History 101

 

Bibliographic reference for paper (due Sept. 9)

 

You should choose one substantial primary text (i.e. a text written before 1650 CE) for your final paper from this list or from the optional books at the bookstore. You should write on at least 50 pages (in some cases, this will be a portion of a longer text).  You can propose something not on the list, but do not choose texts you have written on for another class.  Contact me if you wish to write on an archaeological report.

 

FORMAT   On Sept. 9, please turn in the complete bibliographic citation for your primary text.  It should be typed, single-spaced.   The ancient author's name should come first (or title if the text is anonymous), then title in italics, modern translator, title of modern book in italics, page numbers, city, publisher, date. The page numbers should refer to the ancient text only, not the translator’s introduction.  For the correct page numbers, you will need to have the book in hand (which is the point of the exercise).   For example,

 

Plutarch.  Cato the Elder. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. Makers of Rome: Nine Lives by Plutarch, 119-151. New York: Penguin, 1965.

 

Galbert of Bruges. The Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders. Translated by James Bruce Ross. New York: Harper and Row, 1967, pp 15-156. 

 

RECOMMENDED TEXTS (IN CUDAHY)

 

A. THE ANCIENT WORLD

 

Greeks

Aeneas Tactitus. How to survive under siege. Trans. David Whitehead. Oxford: 1990 (also Loeb) (a 4th-century BC military treatise, at a time when the Greeks were getting paranoid)

Arrian, Campaigns of Alexander (Penguin: 1971). (great if you like Alexander the Great)

Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Robin Waterfield. (Oxford World Classics: 1995) (The first historian, and a great read. He was writing ethnographies of neighboring peoples - esp. the Egyptians - as much as a history of the war between Greeks and Persians).

Hippocrates. Hippocratic Writings. Trans. Chadwick, J. and W. N. Mann. Penguin: 1978. (Greek medical writings; you could learn about ancient theories of a healthy diet; conception; etc.).

Apollodorus. Against Neaira (Dem. 59). Trans. C. Carey (1992) (plus other speeches by Apollodorus in Loeb for Demosthenes - Dem. 36, 45, 46, 49, 50, 52, 53) (great sources for law, life of women in 4th-century Athens)

Menander: wrote New Comedy during late 4th century BC. Dyskolos ("Old Cantankerous") survives mostly intact, along with large pieces of "Arbitration," "Rape of the Locks," "Girl from Samos," and "Shield." Good for attitudes towards slaves, prostitutes, mercenary soldiers, love affairs, and inheritance. Translated N. Miller (Penguin: 1987) and Loeb, ed. W. G. Arnott (partial).

Strabo. The geography of Strabo. (Loeb: 1917-1932) (a Greek under Roman rule who writes about provincial and neighboring peoples - Ethiopians, Egyptians, Spaniards, etc.)

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner. Penguin: 1954, or trans. Walter Blanco. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.

 

Romans

Apuleius. Golden Ass, translated by P. G. Walsh. (Oxford: 1994) (an amusing Roman novel about a man turned into a donkey. Good for Roman attitudes towards sex, slaves, food, etc.)

Julius Caesar, Conquest of Gaul, translated by S. A. Handford, revised by J. Gardner (Penguin: 1982).

Columella. On Agriculture. (Loeb: 1941-55) (Roman treatise on farming; good for history of slavery)

Galen. Selected Works. Trans. P.N. Singer. (Oxford World Classics: 1997) (most important ancient medical writer; his treatises show how illness was treated before modern medicine, how Romans thought babies were conceived, etc. )

Josephus, The Jewish War. Penguin. (history of wars between Jews and Romans, told by a Jew who had gone over to the Roman side)

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny, translated by Betty Radice (Penguin: 1963) (one of the most likable Romans. His letters deal both with political matters - like the persecution of the Christians and corrupt officials - and with private affairs - like his wife's difficulties getting pregnant, dinner parties, and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius)

Pliny the Elder. Natural History: A Selection. Trans. John F. Healy (Penguin: 1991). (a Roman encyclopedia; good if you're interested in history of science and technology, trade, biology).

Tacitus, Germania (earliest account of the Germans; interesting for comparing Germanic and Roman lifestyles)

Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science, trans. N. P. Milner (Liverpool University Press: 1993) (Roman treatise on how to improve the army)

Vitruvius. Ten books on architecture. Trans. Ingrid D. Rowland (Cambridge: 1999) (for those interested in Roman architecture, notions of space)

 

Late antique/Byzantine:

The Apocryphal New Testament: a collection of apocryphal Christian literature in an English translation (Oxford: 1993) (esp. interesting is the Acts of Andrew, in which a Roman governor spends a long period of time on a chamber pot with a bad case of indigestion)

Athanasius. Life of Anthony. Trans. Robert C. Gregg. New York: 1980. (Biography of the first monk, an Egyptian hermit of 4th century AD)

Palladius, The Lausiac History (Ancient Christian Writers no. 34) (fifth-century account of early monks and nuns in Egypt and Palestine; documents some very unusual behavior)

Besa, The Life of Shenoute (Kalamzoo: 1983) (biography of a crazy Egyptian monk with a violent streak)

Gregory I, Dialogues (Pope Gregory the Great writes miracles stories set in sixth-century AD Italy. Some interesting examples of popular religion - for example, devils hiding in cabbages)

Burgundian Code (law code for one of the Germanic tribes which invaded the Roman empire)

Procopius, Secret History (a court official with a grudge against the emperor Justinian writes about the imperial family's private life)

Salvian of Marseilles, On the government of God. Trans. Eva M. Sanford (New York: 1930). (an Christian explanation for why the Roman Empire deserved to fall)

Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, edited by Alice-Mary Talbot. This is an excellent online collection of lives of female saints, including women who dress up like men and reformed prostitutes: go to http://www.doaks.org/ATHWC.html 

 

Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians

 

Ancient Egyptian literature: an anthology (Austin: 2001).

Erman, A. The literature of the ancient Egyptians: poems, narratives, and manuals of instruction (1971).

Lichtheim, M. Ancient Egyptian literature: a book of readings. Berkeley: 1973- 80.

Oppenheim, A. Leo, ed. Letters from Mesopotamia: official business, and private letters on clay tablets from two millennia (Chicago: 1967).

Westenholz, Joan. ed. Legends of the kings of Akkade: the texts (Winona Lake: 1997).

 

 

B. MEDIEVAL ENCOUNTERS WITH NON-EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

 

Crusades (European, Moslem, Jewish and Byzantine  perspectives)

Anna Comnena, The Alexiad of the Princess Anna Comnena. (Byzantine princess and one of few female historians, writing about Crusades and other events from a Byzantine perspective)

The Deeds of the Franks and other pilgrims to Jerusalem. Trans. R. Hill. (London: 1962) (history of First Crusade from a crusader’s perspective. Some graphic descriptions of what the Europeans did to the Moslems)

Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127, trans. Frances Ryan. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969) (history of First Crusade from European side)

Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople

Usamah ibn Murshid (1095-1188), An Arab-Syrian gentleman and warrior in the period of the crusades; memoirs. Trans. Philip Hitti. (New York: 1929) (a Moslem warrior and courtier, who fought against the Crusaders with Saladin. Yet he also made friends with some of them)

The Jews and the Crusaders: the Hebrew chronicles of the First and Second Crusades. Translated and edited by Shlomo Eidelberg (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977) (Jewish perspective on Crusades. Jews were among the Crusaders' victims).

William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. Emily A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943) (William was born in the Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land, and wrote of later crusades with a deep knowledge of local conditions in Palestine)

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia (German perspective on crusades against pagan eastern Europeans)

 

Travelers and traders in Africa and Asia

Mandeville's travels, ed. M. C. Seymour (Oxford: 1968) (14th century English travel guide of the East, which tells story of the mysterious Prester John among other things)

Marco Polo, Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Ronald Latham (Penguin: 1958) (famous 13th-century European who journeyed through Asia) (on sale at the bookstore)

Travelers in disguise: narratives of Eastern travel by Poggio Braccioloini and Ludovico de Varthema. Trans. John Winter Jones. (Harvard: 1963) (journeys to Asia and Africa in 15th century AD)

Barbosa, Duarte, A description of the coasts of East Africa and Malabar, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. (London: 1866, 1970) (related Magellan's voyage around the world; good for sub-Saharan Africa before European imperialism)

Blake, J. ed., Europeans in West Africa, 1450-1560; documents to illustrate the nature and scope of Portuguese enterprise in West Africa (1967)

 

Missionaries

The Mongol mission; narratives and letters of the Franciscan missionaries in Mongolia and China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. New York: 1955 (esp. John of Monte Corvino's report from China).

Francis Xavier, Saint, The letters and instructions of Francis Xavier, trans. M. J. Costelloe. (St. Louis: 1992). (Jesuit missionary to India and Japan in 16th century CE; not an easy read)

 

The Americas

Christopher Columbus, The voyage of Christopher Columbus: Columbus' own journal of discovery, trans. John Cummins (New York: 1992)

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True history of the Conquest of New Spain (alt. Title: The discovery and conquest of Mexico, 1516-1521).

 

Non-western authors

west African epics (these epics are about medieval African leaders and were passed down orally):

    The Epic of Son-Jara: a west African tradition (Longman African Classics: 1986).

    Sundiata: an epic of old Mali, by Niane, D. (1986, c. 1965).

 

S. D. Goitein. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton: 1973. (fascinating letters from Jewish merchants in 11th - 12th centuries)

Ibn Batuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354. Translated and selected by H.A.R. Gibb. (New York: 1969) (Ibn Battuta was a medieval Arab merchant. He traveled around the world and has much to say about sub-Saharan Africa as well as other parts of the world)

A history of Yaballaha III, Nestorian patriarch, and of his vicar, Bar Sauma, Mongol ambassador to the Frankish courts at the end of the thirteenth century. Trans. From Syriac by J. Montgomery. (New York: 1927).

 

One hundred and ten miracles of Our Lady Mary, translated from Ethiopic manuscripts, trans. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (1933).  (Christian text from medieval Ethiopia)

 

C. MEDIEVAL EUROPE

Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks. Trans. Lewis Thorpe. (Penguin: 1974).

Bede, A History of the English Church and People. (Penguin: 1955) (history of Anglo-Saxon England, with emphasis on English conversion to Christianity)

The Heliand: the Saxon Gospel. Trans. G. Ronald Murphy. (Oxford: 1992) (a wonderful early medieval retelling of the Gospel. The author changed whatever he didn't like about the Gospel - making Mary and Joseph of noble birth, for example. Great way to understand early medieval social values).

Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, in Two Lives of Charlemagne, ed. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1969).

Notker the Stammerer, Charlemagne, in Two Lives of Charlemagne, ed. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1969) (a more gossipy life of Charlemagne, by an old stammering monk)

Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Regum heroumque historia (History of kings and heroes of the Danes). Ed and trans. Eric Christiansen (Oxford, England: B.A.R., 1980) (for Scandinavian history - Vikings, etc. - much of it mythical).

William of Malmesbury, The history of the kings of England. (more fiction than history, but fun to read)

Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales), The History and Topography of Ireland (if you're interested in Irish history)  

Medieval handbooks of penance. Trans. John T. McNeill and H. Gamer. (good way to find out what sort of sins medieval people were committing. You would need to choose several penitentials.)

Povest' vremennykh let (The Russian Primary Chronicle), trans. Samuel H. Cross (Cambridge, MA: 1953) (11th-century chronicle of early Russia)

Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. Betty Radice. (Penguin: 1974). (letters between medieval philosopher and rebel Abelard and his lover/wife Heloise.)

Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, Self and Society in medieval France: the memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent. Trans. John Benton. (Tortonto: 1984) (a rather unlikable French abbot who writes about his own life, the persecution of heretics, the beginnings of the communes, the nobility, and so on. Virtually the only autobiography surviving from the Middle Ages)

Hugh of Saint-Victor. The didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: a medieval guide to the arts. (New York: 1961) (medieval encyclopedia. If you want to learn about medieval crafts, science, and technology, this is place to go)

Galbert, de Bruges (d. 1134). The murder of Charles the Good. Trans. James B. Ross (12th-century nobles murder their count. This contemporary record is closest thing to journalism in the Middle Ages)

Andreas Capellanus. The Art of courtly love. Trans. John Jay Parry. (New York: 1990).

Heinrich Kraemer. Malleus maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). Translated by Montague Summers. (New York: 1928, 1970). (manual written by inquisitors for interrogating witches)

The trial of Joan of Arc, being the verbatim report of the proceedings from the Orleans manuscript. Translated with an introd. and notes by W. S. Scott. (Westport, Conn.: 1956).

Christine de Pizan (1363-1431), Book of the city of ladies (first feminist author - 14th-century France - trying to show why women are as important as men).

Margery Kempe, Margery. The book of Margery Kempe. (a business woman and Christian mystic from late 14th century)

 

Saints' lives: Saints' lives were the popular novels of the Middle Ages. They are full of miracle tales and anecdotes, often completely fabricated. They are important source for social history - how people lived, relations between men and women, travel, illness, and of course belief in the miraculous.

Soldiers of Christ: Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Thomas Noble and Thomas Head (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1995)

Life of Leoba, in Thomas F.X. Noble and Thomas Head, Soldiers of Christ: Saint and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). (Anglo-Saxon woman who becomes missionary to pagan Germans; other interesting lives too in same book)

C. H. Talbot (trans. and ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954).

The hermit of Finchale: the life of Saint Godric. Trans. Francis Rice. (Edinburgh: 1994). (merchant saint)

Odo of Cluny. Gerald of Aurillac. Trans. Gerard Sitwell. (known for such miracles as not mistreating his peasant women)

 

D. RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE

 

Two memoirs of Renaissance Florence: the diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati. Trans. Julia Martines. (Harper and Row: 1967) (urban life in Renaissance Italy)

Alberti, Leon Battista. The Family in Renaissance Florence. Trans. R. Neu Watkings. (Columbia: 1969) (Alberti's instructions on how to be a good family man)

Baldesar Castiglione, Baldassarre. The book of the courtier. (influential treatise on how to act like a gentleman; several diff. translations)

Copernicus, Nicolaus. Three Copernican treatises. Trans. Edward. Rosen (New York: 1971) (The scientist of the early 16th century who rediscovered that the earth revolved around the sun. Only for the brave.)

Lazarillo de Tormes (Spanish novel of 16th century; good for history of beggars and general social customs)

Marguerite de Navarre, Heptameron. Trans. George Saintsbury. (London: 1928) (amusing stories by 15th-century queen; informative about scandalous lives in medieval monks)

Hans von Grimmelshausen, The adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus, trans. George Schulz-Behrend. (Columbia: 1993) (a 17th-century novel set in war-torn Europe. Gruesome.)

Sir William Clarke, The Putney Debates, in The Clarke Papers. Ed. C. H. Firth (New York: 1965) (record of actual debate on political rights of ordinary people, during the English Civil War. Important for understanding later American political thought. The language is 17th-century English, rather like Shakespeare)

The diary of Bulstrode Whitelocke 1605-1675. Edited by Ruth Spalding. (Oxford: The British Academy, 1989).

The diary of Thomas Isham of Lamport (1658-81), kept by him in Latin from 1671 to 1673 at his father's command. Translated by Norman Marlow. (Farnborough: 1971).