GRMN 008-301
Superstition & Erudition: Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Francis Brevart profile
fbrevart@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
TR 10:30 am-12:00 pm

Cross-Cultural Analysis Course - Cl of 2010 and after. All readings and lectures in English. No knowledge of German is required.

Individuals in medieval times lived basically the same way we do today: they ate, drank, needed shelter, worked in a variety of ways to earn a living, and planned their lives around religious holidays. They talked about the weather and had sex, they had to deal with cold, hunger, illness, epidemics and natural catastrophes. Those fortunate few who could afford the luxury, went to local monastic schools and learned how to read and write. And fewer still managed to obtain some form of higher education in cathedral schools and nascent universities and became teachers themselves. Those eager to learn about other people and foreign customs traveled to distant places and brought back with them much knowledge and new ideas. The similarities, we will all agree, are striking. But what is of interest to us are the differences, the “alterity” (keyword) of the ways in which they carried out these actions and fulfilled their goals.
This course concentrates on two very broad aspects of daily life in the Middle Ages (12 th – 16 th centuries). The first part, Erudition, focuses on the world in and around the University. Taking Paris and Bologna as our paradigms, we will discuss the evolution of the medieval university from early cathedral schools, the organization, administration, financing, and maintenance of such an institution, the curriculum and degrees offered at the various faculties, and the specific qualifications needed to study or to teach at the university. We will familiarize ourselves with the modes of learning and lecturing, with the production of the instruments of knowledge, i.e. the making of a manuscript; we will explore the regimented daily life of the medieval student, his economic and social condition, his limited, but at times outrageous distractions, and the causes of frequent conflicts between town and gown. Finally, we will investigate the role of the medieval University in European history.
The second part, Superstition, revolves around astrology, medicine and pharmacy. Taking the German Volkskalender, the medieval predecessor of the modern Farmer’s Almanac, as our point of departure, we will gain insights into the ubiquitous role of astrology in the daily life of medieval individuals, for example in activities and decisions concerning farming; slaughtering of animals; personal hygiene; marrying; escaping from jail; conception of a male child; appropriate days to let blood; etc.
Medicine, frequently referred to as astromedicine because of its inextricable dependence on astrology, encompasses a multitude of characteristics. The course will explore the precarious state of medieval medicine and pharmacology, the specific diseases of women (e.g. suffocation of the womb) and their treatments, the use of so-called wonderdrugs by professional physicians and medical charlatans alike produced from exotic plants, precious stones, animal parts, blood or human excrements, and the medieval rationality behind these forms of therapy. Special topics are also planned on the astrological causes and magical treatments of the Black Death; embryology, the seven-chambered uterus and the causes of homosexuality / lesbianism; sex as therapy, etc.

updated 03-2009