- Investigate further any of the following:
a. The Cluniac reform movement
b. St. Francis of Assisi
c. One of the first four Crusades
d. Medieval science
e. The Goliard poets
f. A major Gothic cathedral (e.g., Chartres, Notre Dame of Paris, Amiens, Lincoln,
Canterbury, or Cologne)
- Compare modern universities with their medieval prototypes.
- Read the chapter titled "The Virgin and the Dynamo" in Henry Adams' The Education of
Henry Adams and decide whether or not it expresses accurately the medieval religious temper.
- To what extent was medieval Scholasticism a "rationalist" philosophy? Was it an example of
rationalism in the modern sense?
- Which, in your opinion, was a better summation of late medieval ideals and attitudes: Gothic
architecture or vernacular literature?
- Read the Song of Roland and explain how it illustrates the interests and ideals of high-medieval
civilization.
- The Scholastics "had extraordinary faith in the powers of human reason--probably more than
we do today." Do you agree or disagree? Substantiate your argument.
- Examine the High Middle Ages as an "age of faith." What made it so? What were its tangible
results?
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