We explore art’s roles in politics and religion from ca. 600-1300 CE in Europe, the
Middle East, and Africa. The course introduces the arts of Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
Judaism, and Islam; great courts and migratory societies; works made for private use
and public display. Through narrative arc in lecture and precepts dedicated to artistic
media, textual and material primary sources, and/or key intellectual themes, we consider
how art participates in forming sacred and secular power. We explore how the work of
‘art’ in this period carries powers of its own, and how art shaped a multi-lingual, multi-confessional, multi-cultural medieval world.
