CWC: An Overview

CWC is broken up into three chronological units. While there are common themes and questions running throughout the semester, each unit features its own distinctive personalities and stories. Here's an overview:

Unit Two: The Medieval World

Key Stories

• Medieval Christians built what they viewed as Christ's kingdom ("Christendom") on earth. While the Roman Empire in the East survived for another thousand years as the Byzantine Empire, the empire in Western Europe was defunct by AD 500. Yet out of the chaos, Christians became more optimistic that they could construct a Christian society -- or, at least, that their church's sacraments gave them the assurance of a better life to come. From Gothic cathedrals to the universities, Christianity was imprinted on European society in ways that still survive today.
  
• But as this society imploded, some longed to go "back to the sources." Christendom was never without problems in the High Middle Ages, but it began to fall apart in the 14th century, under the pressures of epidemics ("The Black Death"), frequent warfare, and splits within the church (which had two, then three popes for several decades). Many Christians sought a rebirth (in French, a "renaissance") of Greco-Roman culture, and proposed to go "back to the sources" of Classical art, literature, and philosophy. At the end of what we call the Middle Ages, a German monk named Martin Luther (1483-1546) demanded that the church return to the source of Scripture alone. His devastating critique of medieval Christianity led to the Protestant Reformation and, in some ways, to the Modern era.
  

Key Witnesses

• Benedict of Nursia (480 - 537): This Italian monk wrote a "rule" for monasteries that continues to be read to this day. Stressing hospitality to strangers, voluntary limits on personal freedom, and a life ordered by prayer, worship, and study of the Bible, Benedict provided a form of Christian discipleship that proved appealing to many medieval Europeans. Benedictine monasteries became repositories of knowledge in the "Dark Ages" and monks risked their lives to bring the Gospel to the peoples of northern and eastern Europe.
  
• Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179): A German nun, Hildegard wrote down accounts of visions she received from God. Though these visions generally upheld what the church taught, church leaders were always suspicious of mystics like Hildegard -- since they claimed direct, ecstatic contact with God outside of church channels (and also, perhaps, because many mystics were women, whose voices were generally not heard in the medieval church).
• Thomas Aquinas (1224 - 1274): Ranking with Augustine among the most influential Christian theologians, this Italian monk taught at the famed University of Paris and exemplified the medieval ideal of "scholasticism," which saw no contradiction between faith and reason (since, in his words, "God is the author of all truth") and sought to honor God with theological and philosophical study. His Summa Theologica remains one of the greatest works of systematic theology in Christianity.
• Erasmus (1466? - 1536): This "Prince of the Humanists" showed Renaissance Christianity at its best, blending faith with rigorous study and witty eloquence. In the new era of the printing press, Erasmus was one of Europe's first best-selling authors, writing everything from satire ("Praise of Folly") to devotional literature ("The Handbook of the Christian Warrior") to theology ("The Freedom of the Will"). Perhaps most enduringly, he revived the New Testament in the original Greek, pointing out mistranslations in the prevailing Latin edition. Although deeply critical of corruption in the church, he prized peace and unity above all else and refused to join the Protestant reformers.

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