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Summary complete lectures of turning points
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complete lectures of turning points + little notes from the book to clarify some examples
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LECTURE 1A: PERIODISATION AND NARRATIVES- Turning Point: history is changing and a new era starts (e.g. after the 2ww)
- There aren’t predictable patterns, changes depend on particular circumstances (war,
revolution), but also on some aspects of social formation
- One of the most fundamental operations historian undertake is periodisation
- Periodisation is a way of perceiving changes of human societies over time and it consists in
dividing time into homogeneous compartments in order to make it understandable
- The terms in which periods are expressed are largely inherited from earlier generations and they
shape the assumptions that contemporaries have about interpretation of the past
- However it represents an obstacle for fresh thinking because in this way particular views of
history are naturalised (it becomes di cult to analyse them critically)
- Also we should never forget about the inventiveness of human memory: historians should be
sceptical about the accuracy of chronological informations
- Classical periodisation in European History: Antiquity-Middle Ages-(Early) Modern/
Contemporary Age
Middle Ages:
- The term “Middle Ages” is a humanist construct and it was introduced in the fourteenth century
by Italian scholars who claimed to be the promoters of a new cultural era, based on ancient
ideals, which had to emerge from the darkness of the previous centuries. This period, which
conventionally starts with the fall of the Western roman empire in 476 and ends with the
discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, was de ned “Middle Ages” negatively, as an
uninteresting age of decay: in fact, since it can be considered a west European concept, it’s
argued that in this age there were no turning points that particularly a ected European History,
especially given the fact that evolution and growth occurred slowly and at di erent levels of
development between the various regions of Europe.
- On the other hand, the “Middle Ages” was a period of great dynamism, not only because of the
expansion of the Latin Frankish core and the growth of population, but also because, especially
in Western Europe, the beginning of the process of urbanisation, the growth of towns and the
extensive network of commercial relationships changed the society completely. Moreover, after
the sixteenth century there were quantitative but not qualitative changes, hence there are no
radical di erences between the late Middle Ages and early modern history: this is the reason
why the “Middle Ages” are very good example of a very political concept and that historical
periods are not neutral.
The beginning of European history? = European countries
- The beginning of European history correspond to European narratives
- Narrative: a way of presenting or understanding situation or series of events that re ects and
promotes a particular point of view
- The pluralist narrative of European History consists in the economic, political and cultural
diversity/fragmentation within Europe (especially in the 18th centuries during the
Enlightenment), which often formed an important basis for ideas of the continent’s superiority
and uniqueness
- Also the church became fragmented, especially after the 16th century
- Historians usually claim that, with the end of the Roman Empire, Europe acquired the
characteristic of pluralist as an enduring hallmark;
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, - in particular, Blockmans argues that the lack of a political, economic and religious centre was
the main reason why in the twentieth century Europe became the leading character on the
global stage from a technological and economic point of view
- Then, the pluralist narrative gained prominence not only after the two World Wars, but also after
the end of the Cold War, re ecting the dynamic of European integration a the beginning of the
twenty- rst century.
Eurocentrism and European history
- European history is di erent from the history of other countries
- From the 18th century onwards, European history has often been taken by Europeans as the
history of mankind
- In fact during the Enlightenment, historians did away with the biblical stories, but at the same
time they invented new stories of development, of progress, and the rest of the world was
measured by to what extent did they follow this European path
- Over the last 30-40 years there was an increasing criticism of these claims of European history:
European history is not the history of the world
The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen
- the year 1000 is seen as start of globalisatio
- Transregional trade routes came into being, new world religions consolidated, new
imperial states came into being: it was an Asia-centred history (Europe as periphery
- European states start to dominate by the discovery of America
- This rst year of globalisation wasn’t only about Europe, but it also involved other parts
of the world
LECTURE 1B: FALL AND LEGACY OF ROM
- The Roman Empire did not see itself as “European” (the idea of Europe existed in Antiquity only
as a geographical term), but it was a Mediterranean Empire (consisting with the South of
Europe, the north of Africa and a large part of the Middle East) around the sea, which formed an
important sort of communication
- Charlemagne (Frankish) crowned himself emperor by the pope in 800 and he’s still seen as the
father of modern Europe; there’s still the idea of the Charlemagne’s empire which consists in
France, Western Germany, the low countries and northern Italy as so collard “core” of Europe
- However, Charlemagne himself would not regard himself as a European probably, he would
consider himself more as a Roman emperor
- Also, it’s not only western Europe which is drawing upon the roman legacy, but other parts of
the world as well (East roman empire: for example Moscow sees itself a the Third Rome)
The appropriation of the roman legacy
- the memory of the past glory of the Roman Empire remained profound: there is a roman legacy
in Europe, notably in its Western part (Blockmans)
- The ideal of the empire, thus of the sovereign power over an immeasurable area encompassing
numerous ethnic groups: even if Europe never became over the long term uni ed imperial
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, structure, the dream of reviving the Empire was kept alive; it can be seen many times over with
Napoleon, Hitler or many others dreamt about restoring roman empire
- Another important legacy of the Romans is law: emperor Justinian in the sixth century created
the Body of Civil Laws (Corpus Iuris Civilis) which became the roman law and which was being
used throughout Europe in the Middle Ages , especially on legal concepts and the
administration of justice (it can be seen that in a certain way Europe was already uni ed in a
legal way, in fact we still see roman law concepts still to a large extent in uencing our own
- also the Catholic Church was certainly the most important heir to the Roman Empire: its main
bishop was in Rome and it used roman language and roman clothing for its bishops and priests
and it used in many ways the tradition of administration of using legal abstract administer
concepts was preserved in the church, much more in other parts of the early medieval society
( so many parts of the high levels organisation of the roman empire was adopted by the catholic
church and preserved its administrative legacy
- another legacy is the cities, in fact many cities, especially in the Southern part of Europe,
remember the ones in the roman empire (Walhalla vs French Roman Pantheon)
- however study of the roman legacy in Europe is controversial, it has been criticised by the
cambridge anthropology Jack Hoody (europeans did not inheritance nothing from Romans but
they created their own antiquity)
- even if the empire was never really reconstructed, renovatio imperii did continue to exist
Example exam question: ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire in 476 was a turning
point in European history’. Give two arguments to support this statement and
two arguments that criticise it.
It’s claimed that fall of the roman empire can be considered a turning point in European history.
After the deposition of the last roman emperor by the German army leader Odoacer, German
tribes destroyed Rome and its civilisation leading to an unstable situation which is considered the
end of Antiquity and the beginning of the “dark” Middle Ages; also, between the 5th and the 8th
century, this discontinuity caused a decline in urban population, the cities became smaller, there
was a decline in literacy and the overall level of society became less complex and more ruralized
with the rise of latifundia. However, this was a very slow process and not a sudden change:
contemporaries living in the 5th century did not consider the deposition of the Roman Emperor as
a turning point, but they were much more impressed by what had happened in 410 with the Sack
of Rome by the Germanic tribes, which was seen more symbolic of the decline of the Roman
Empire, or in 439 with the conquest of Africa by the Vandals who cut o grain supply to Rome.
Furthermore, even if after 476 West roman Empire disappeared, in many ways roman culture and
traditions survived: in fact, Germanic tribes adopted them bc they all wanted to be “roman” to a
certain extent and nowadays there’s still a roman legacy in Europe, especially from an a collapse
of the society: on the contrary, there’s the rise of the Islamic empires and the East roman Empire
didn’t collapse as well, but it continued to exist becoming the Byzantine Empire, where the
emperor Justinian in the 6th century had a project to restore the roman Empire, the as called
renovatio imperii, which, unfortunately, did not succeed.
LECTURE 2A: SIXTEENTH CENTURY REBIRTHS
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, 1) to what extent can the early sixteenth century era be seen in a Turning
Point in European history (give two arguments for and against)
- The early 16th century can be considered an important turning point in modern European
history. It was an age of improvements and developments: Europeans experienced the rst
great wave of mass communication due not only to the media revolution, which radically
changed the way people communicated, but also to the rise of printing presses which allowed
the production of books to be vastly easier and cheaper and, for the rst time, it made it
possible to publish for the masses and to reproduce on a very large scale all kinds of texts
(which in the Middle Ages were copied by hand). It was also the age of military revolution which
leaded to larger states and more intense forms of taxation thanks to the increasing use of
gunpowder and the creation of new kinds of forti cation came into being; furthermore, the
population grew from 40 million to 75-80 million (in the later Middle population decreased
signi cantly due to pandemics and diseases) and the core of demography, but also of power
and economy, shifted from the Mediterranean to the north Sea (especially in France, England
and the Low Countries). However, 16th century can also not be considered a turning point: in
these improvements there are numerous medieval patterns continuing: for example, the
discoveries made about other continents, which made the vision of the world so much larger at
Europeans’ eyes, were built on older medieval trends; also the International trade, which
increased thanks to geopolitical discoveries, was already existing during Middle Ages.
Renaissance and Humansim
- according to Jacob Burckhardt’s classical interpretation, after the dark ages, in the 16th century
suddenly modern individual was discovered and many people developed themselves in terms
of both creativity and power
- also recent researches had become more modest about 16th century humanism: as the English
scholar Peter Burke claimed, humanism did not consist in the discovery of the modern man,
but it was mostly an educational and cultural programme based on the study of the classics
and human dignity
- It’s interesting that all these intellectuals and artists, who claimed that they were enriching a
new kind of artistic perfection, defended their work not in the sense that they were doing
something new, but they saw themselves as going back to the form of perfection which
characterised ancient times and, in particular, they went back to the Roman Empire
- they claimed a return to the ancient world, but it was a remote past being lost and which had to
be rediscovered
- Humanists: Machiavelli (south renaissance) and Erasmus (North)
- what makes 16th century di erent from earlier centuries is that there is a whole new view of
authority, and this is well explained by the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla, who discovered that
in the donation Costantini, the document which stated that the emperor Constantine gave
power to the pope, many of the words could not have been written in the Antiquity but there
were much more modern terms, so the document was false
- also, people started to look di erently at the Bible, not longer seen as he word of God, but as a
book written by humans: God turned out to be a human production; however many humanists
were very devoted christians and they were only studying texts because they wanted to a purer
form of religion
- nonetheless, despite christians motivations, people started to look di erently at texts, less in an
authoritarian way, which opened ground for new ways of viewing the truth and authority in the
16th century
- Renaissance also a ected reformations as people tried to go back to purer past
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