HIST 201 - Violence in Pre-Modern Europe

FDR: HU Humanities Distribution
Credits: 3

Popular imagination envisions violence in pre-modern Europe as it appears in film and video games like Assassin’s Creed 2 – an age of vendetta, factional and gang violence, constant war, and abuse. Yet the same period witnessed great movements for peace and the creation of a new identity: The Chivalrous Knight. We look at the history of large-scale violence and in particular at warfare, popular revolt, government-sanctioned violence, enslavement, and inter-religious violence from the period 800-1600 CE to begin answering that question. When and why was violence justified or even considered a positive attribute of social life and when and why not?