Storia Medievale - Monarchie in crisi (XIV-XV secolo) (Ordinario)

1°: The early signs (Ordinary students)

The aim of the course is to encourage students to reflect on the concept of ‘crisis’, and on what Reinhardt Koselleck termed its ‘metaphorical polyphony’, in relation to an institutional form – the monarchy – which was still taking shape between the 14th and 15th centuries. We shall therefore examine, in broad terms, the events and political and cultural debates that led to the ‘crisis’ of the French monarchy and the papacy, as reconstructed by historiography.

2°: The French monarchy and the dynastic ‘crisis’ (Ordinary and PhD students)

The course will focus on the gradual consolidation of the French monarchy during the ‘crisis’ of the Capetian dynasty and the so-called Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453).

Supplementary teaching:

Celestine V in the his contemporaries' words

The course traces the life and abdication of Celestine V through the biographies left by his contemporaries: the so-called Autobiography, probably written shortly after Celestine V’s death by a fellow monk; the Opus metricum by Iacopo Caetani Stefaneschi, an eyewitness to the election and pontificate of Celestine V, written in three parts between 1294 and 1314; a Vita, of which three versions exist, written by the Pope’s fellow friars, the earliest of which was probably written between 1303 and 1306, perhaps by Bartolomeo da Trasacco and Tommaso da Sulmona.