The course studies the formation of Europe in the first millennium, from the Roman empire to the year 1000 CE. It was in this period that we observe the emergence of a Western Latin culture whose distinctive features came to characterize Europe and Western civilization for many centuries to come, even until now. In pursuing the question why and how the early medieval present became so different from the Roman past we will explore the formation of some of the foundational features of the Latin West-such as the emergence of a plurality of ethnically defined nations, a Western legal pluralism, or the formation of a distinct Western Christianity.
