Portland State University
HST 354U - Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000
Winter 2024

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES :
ANALYTICAL ESSAY #1

(Due IN CLASS, Tuesday, February 20 - 150 points)

 Basic Guidelines - Please Read

(1) All papers must be typed, double-spaced, and run about 5 pages in length.  Papers may be slightly longer or slightly shorter if needed, but not more than 5.5 pages

(2) Please number your pages, and make sure that your first page includes a title (something other than "Essay #1"; creativity welcomed!) and your name. You do not need to attach a list of works cited.

(3) For purposes of citation, parenthetical, in-text references to class-assigned primary sources using a title/author + page  are all that is required. For example: (Orosius, 55; or Life of St Antony, 12). Make sure to scrupulously cite the sources for your assertions, evidence, and conclusions.

(4) You may use only those sources assigned in class and appearing on the syllabus. External sources or use of materials other than those assigned will result in deduction of 5 points per instance (scale of 100). I will be checking for scrupulous use of our primary sources; you may paraphrase but should also quote directly from the sources, citing appropriate page number and setting off direct quotations in quotation marks.

(5) An 'A' paper will have a clearly articulated thesis statement, which is an essential part of any critical analysis of sources. Your paper should therefore present an argument and defend it using evidence drawn from the texts, and it must be possible to raise a counter-argument to the propositions you are putting forward. No argument = no thesis. Thus, a thesis should communicate what you are arguing, and why or how that argument is significant for understanding whatever larger conclusions you wish to draw about early medieval history. If you are having problems formulating a thesis, ask your Instructor and Teaching Assistant for help. We will be happy to look over thesis statements and/or drafts of your opening paragraph in advance of the paper due date.

(5) Proofread, proofread, proofread. Proofread.

Late paper and auto-deduction policy

Completed papers are due in class. Late papers will be accepted until February 24  but will be marked down 3 points (3%) for every day they are late; this includes weekends!). Exemptions from the late paper policy and/or paper extensions will be given only in cases of genuine and demonstrated need, and only in advance of the paper due date. Students are directly responsible for ensuring that a hard copy of their papers get safely into my hands. You may 'timestamp' completed but late papers by sending them to me via e-mail, then bringing a hard copy to the next class.

Also, the following conditions apply:

Automatic deductions:

Your assignment

Craft a lucid essay in response to one of the following questions, using a minimum of four of the primary source readings up through 2/15.  This includes: the Life of St. Antony, the Life of St. Martin, Orosius, the panegyrics, Sidonius, Ammianus, Rutilius Namatianus, The Lausiac History, the Life of Radegund, Venantius Fortunatus, and Gregory of Tours. You may not use texts from outside the course in formulating your arguments.  In other words, while you may use course lectures and discussions to help formulate ideas, your argument should be built exclusively on evidence drawn from the primary readings listed above.  You may pick and choose your sources, but should use at least one earlier text (Antony, Martin, Orosius, etc.), and you must make use of  Gregory's History of the Franks.

Please note: You do not have to answer each question contained in the paragraph below, but should feel free to pick from among them and tailor your reponse as you like. I am looking for analysis rather than summary; thus, write as though your audience (me) is already familiar with the texts.


Questions

#1) LATE ROMAN AND EARLY MEDIEVAL SOCIETIES were notable for the degree to which people depended in their daily lives upon social networks and affinity groups.  These networks were in turn often dependent upon one or more powerful figures (emperors, bishops, aristocratic elites, holy men and women, patron saints, kings and queens, war-band leaders), objects (saints' relics, institutions such as churches, etc.) or ideas (texts, shared beliefs, educational systems, laws, etc.).  They also stretched out in various directions, connecting individuals with institutions, specific places, and with one another.  Thus, networks were often both hierarchical (top to bottom) and collective (comprised of a series of lateral, or essentially equal, relationships).  For your essay, examine one or more networks (of your choosing), while considering the following questions:

How did these networks function in practice?  How and by what were they bound together, that is, how were the networks constituted, and who or what was being connected by them?  How did their members benefit from the networks they belonged to, and what was the nature of those benefits?  What do they reveal about daily life in the early medieval world, and about individual experience(s) at the various levels of society (among elites, ordinary people, the educated, clergy, laity, etc.)? How did they help maintain social continuities, or help individuals adapt to changes, in the later Roman Empire and early Middle Ages?

#2) FOR CENTURIES, HISTORIANS have debated the reasons for the political demise of the Roman empire in Western Europe. But long before the last western emperor left the scene, the Roman Empire experienced a range of much slower and overlapping cultural, social, religious, economic, military, and political changes. What elements of Roman culture persist in Europe, even after the end of the empire in the west? What seems culturally new, or at least more prominent, from the fourth century onward, and what about it marks a difference from what had preceded it? (In other words, Christianity's success is "new,"  but the religion had already been around  for centuries. It will be important to identify what as changed, why, and its significance.)

#3) CONSIDER THE PORTRAYAL in at least four texts of "barbarian" or "barbaric" behavior. What are the defining features of conduct identified as "barbarian" across your chosen texts? Does the designation or description of barbarian groups undergo change in the period from 300 to 700? How do the referents or outward signs of the barbarian change? Why do they change? What do those changes tell us about the transformation of Roman culture in the early Middle Ages?