Medieval Reading List

For our high school class studying the Middle Ages (c. 500-1500)

To be further updated.

Movies:

• Pendragon Sword of His Father
• St. Anthony of Padua (Italian with subtitles)
• Very Late Medieval: A Man for All Seasons
• Very Late Medieval: Luther
• End of the Medieval Era: Ignatius--Soldier, Sinner, Saint 

Computer Games

• Joan of Arc Campaign on Age of Empires II (etc)
• [Mount and Blade computer game, the Saxon vs Danes one]

Novels:

• The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
• ?Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff
• Rolf and the Viking Bow by Alfred French
• ?Beorn the Proud  
• In Freedom's Cause G.A. Henty (original edition)
• ???The King's Shadow
• ???Son of Charlamagne
• ????Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks

Primary Sources

Pre-medieval but shaped the middle ages

1. The Gospels 
2. The book of Psalms
3. The Shepherd of Hermas
4. ?Didacheaga
5. Maccabbees
6. ??Some Early Church Fathers Reader
7. Augustine's Confessions + City of God
8. Catechetical Lectures by Cyril of Jerusalem
9. Novels of Justinian (laws)
10. [[History of the Wars--Procopius, but he's kinda a skunk]]

Early Medieval Texts 

1. ??Snorri's Viking Sagas (ask dad) also find some interesting viking sagas about drama and stuff
2. Boethius consolation of philosophy
3. History of Franks by Gregory of Tours
4. Salian Frankish lawcode
5. St. Patricks Confessio and letter to Coroticis
6. Venerable Bede history of the English People
7. Beowulf
8. Poems of Cynewulf
9. The Heliand*
10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
11. (history of the Germans 900s by a monk whose name starts with an A)
12. History of ht eTuetonic crusadeds in the 1100s by another monk whose name starts with an A)
13. ?Einhard's Charlagmane
14. Where is Charlamagne's laws? (no burning witches)
15. ?That monk who survived drowning in a bucket and the neighbor lady gave him honey as a baby

High Medieval?

1. Rule of St. Benedict
2. EXCERPTS from the Golden Legend (its like 6 books long)
3.  Assize of Clarendon (1166) [short, legal stuff]
4. SOMETHING by or about Bernard of Clairvaux (hannah fin
5. Life of St. Louis (IX) by John of Joinville [John of Joinville also wrote memoirs?]
6. d your notes)
7. ??Something by Aquinas
8. ?SOMETHING by that idealistic pope who argued with Eleanor of Aquitaine
9. ???Letters between Eleanor and Henry at the end, hoping their son wen to heaven, about that ring. Also quick primer on that whole crazy mess, and courtly love [too soap opera-ish?], and Robin hood etc. [lion in winter worth watching?]Chrétien de Troyes – Arthurian romances (Lancelot, Yvain, etc.) All the way to Richard the Lionheart, his saga, and Robin hood and all of it???
10. Thomas A Beckett letter to Henry II [state v church]
11. Something by Francis of Assisi
12. ?Isaac of Stella
13. Gratian's Decretum (canon laws, 1100s)
14. Deeds of the Franks
15. Deeds of Tancred
16. The Pearl by the Pearl Poet
17. Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight by the Pearl Poet 
18. Poems of Marie of Champagne
19. Open letters between Gregory VII vs Henry IV (investiture controversy)
20. The Song of Roland
21. Ok so a morbid rabbit trail on medieval suicide and heart-staking, but I found sunagainstgold's post very illuminating on how the bishop insisted they exorcise the corpse with an absolution paper and not a heart-staking. It seems there was a pre-existing pagan way of deal with corpses (see Rolf and the Viking bow...need to see if its in the sagas) and then there was the "new" christian way using the absolution paper. Here and Here (William of Newburgh "History of English Affairs" 1200s. Also he says that Geoffrey of Monmouth "lies about everything". Interesting....)
22. Stuff from my "death in the middle ages" class.

Late Medieval

1. Morality plays and Bible Story plays
2. Dante's Trilogy
3. Julian of Norwich
4. Trial Documents of Joan of Arc 
5. excerpts from Machiavelli's "The Prince"
6. Margaret of Porete "mirror of souls"
7. ?Piers Plowman excerpt

VERY LATE MEDIEVAL/REFORMATION (maybe do this next year)

1. Some excerpt of the Nun's tale or the Knight's tale (the non-bawdy ones) from Chaucer, as a spoof on the middle ages, which it was.
2. Luther's 95 Theses
3. Pope's letters responding to 95 Theses
4. Diaries of Christopher Columbus
5. John of the Cross (dark knight of the soul, ascent of mount carmel etc)
6. ?Thomas A Kempis
7. Therese of Avila (Interior castle)
8. Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence)

Secondary Sources/Modern Histories

1. Joan of Arc Her Story by Regine Pernoud
2. The Templars by Regine Pernoud
3. Justinian and Theodora (Bekahs thesis or reccs...)
4. 1066 by David Howarth
5. Church Fathers by Benedict XVI