High Middle Ages Discussion

USE ATTACTCHED FILE FOR RESOURCES
For this unit’s discussion select one of the primary sources in chapters 8 or 9. As usual, the primary source excerpts are found in our textbook. Briefly summarize the content, fragmentary or otherwise, and answer one or more of the “Questions for Analysis”. Explain why this source is useful for historians in understanding Medieval Civilizations. This discussion is a good drill on interpretation or for more of a fancy term to impress your friends and family–the hermeneutics of historical sources.  What does the evidence reveal about the subject at hand?  Often we tend to read texts in a way that is familiar to us. That’s fine, for an introductory level such as this class. In the event, you have very little to say about one source, then by all means select a second one. 
In this assignment, furthermore, you must consult sources on the internet to help inform your knowledge concerning the primary source documents below.   Just let us know where you retrieved the insights at the bottom of your main statement in the Discussion. A simple webpage name or URL (uniform resource locator) is fine.  Try to stick to no more than two websites for each primary source (i.e. in other words, for this assignment you should not be consulting more than four websites total). Remember, some websites are more reliable, readable, and lively than others. It’s perfectly acceptable to find a website that is only tangential to your topic, but incredibly useful for what you wish to say in the discussion. Don’t just use the first site you encounter in Google! The deep internet has hidden gems if you are willing to make the effort to search and dig. If you discover a particularly good site, it may earn you a point or two for your Discussion grade.  
Above all, please be sure to place the piece in its appropriate historical context. Address the basics: who? why? where? how?  As for the source, you should focus on every word and every sentence of the passage if possible. Better discussions will demonstrate a deep reading of and an interrogation of the sources. Also, remember that sources are usually translations from languages other than modern English. It could be Latin, Old French, German, Arabic, etc. As other discussions, you should, of course, make a comment on at least one of your classmates responses. If one source for you doesn’t generate enough ideas, then write about two sources!  What do you think is the meaning and context of the source? 

Primary Sources in History (from Professor Brian Catloss book Kingdoms of Faith): Keep in mind the nature of primary sources. Most of our written evidence was produced by those who were literate and had access to writing tools (ink, paper, etc.) Often this meant rulers, bureaucrats, men of religion, and scholars. They were more likely than not, wealthy and male. They may have had a vested political and personal interest in portraying history as a moral struggle between the followers of the true religion (that is, their own) and everybody else. In formal terms, the authority of rulers rested on their ability to present themselves as the legitimate upholders of the divine order, and so they tended to express their agendas in the language of faith. In an era in which people generally attributed the workings of the world to the will of God, historical events were often explained in religious terms, as Gods’ rewards or punishment. 
At the same time, the chroniclers and histories that historians use as their data, and that constitute much of our evidence were written or compiled many years, often centuries, after the events they describe. As a result, they are distorted by hindsight, as well as by the prejudice, ideals, agendas, memories, aspirations, and convictions of the authors. Moreover, many things were not written for the purposes of education or entertainment; they could be political documents, intended to support the claims of the rulers, families, or individuals by glorifying the memory of their predecessors and establishing historical precedents for their politics. Exaggeration, distortion, and invention were deployed both consciously and unconsciously be medieval writers as they set out describe the past to justify the present. One of the jobs of the historian, then, is to assess the biases and inaccuracies build into these sources and to attempt uncover the reality behind the proclamations, myths, legends, errors of fact, contradictions, and carefully crafted historical fictions that make up the historical record. The goal is to determine what really made people tick and what forces truly shaped events–even when the details can never be definitively established. The historian should not assess fault, apportion blame or virtue, or moralize; the aim is merely to understand. As enlightened and self-critical as we may be, historians today are not that much less vulnerable than our medieval counterparts to bias and presumption.
The listed sources are the following. First step is to go to this unit’s chapter and look these up…1. A Miraculous Reliquary2. Preaching the First Crusade3. An Arab Aristocrat Encounters the Crusaders4. A Hebrew Poet from Muslim Spain5. The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council6. Two Conversion Experiences7. Peter Abelard Critiques Theological Contradictions
8. Illicit Love and the Code of Chivalry