Resources

Featured Resource Pages

The following pages are highlighted as useful resources for educators.

Click here for Medieval Meets Modern
Click here for Medieval Meets Modern

 

Medieval Academy of America
For the Tool Talks featured on the Medieval Academy of America Online Teaching Webinar, search "Teaching with Digital Tools."

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Use the filters below to search by century, era, geography, type of resource, and other topics of interest to students of the medieval past.

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Pandemic Lessons and Post-Pandemic Pedagogy

The following two videos include the morning and afternoon sessions of the New England Medieval Consortium’s 2021 Conference, “Teaching the Middle Ages: Pandemic Lessons and Post-Pandemic Pedagogy.” These videos focus on lessons learned during what might be called "the long 2020", a period marked by extraordinary disruptions and difficulties but also by extraordinary resilience and creativity on the part of teachers and students of Medieval Studies.

 

Hip-Hop and the Holy Grail (Video Lecture by Richard Sévère)

View a video comparing hip-hop music and Malory's tale of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, along with generous visual references to Monty Python.

Anatomy of a Duel: Jean de Carrouges versus Jacques Le Gris (Video lecture)

View a video lecture discussing the case of Jean de Carrouges versus Jacques Le Gris, a lawsuit that occurred in Paris in 1386. It’s the subject of the book The Last Duel by Eric Jager, and also of the upcoming movie The Last Duel directed by Ridley Scott.

MEDIEVAL MEETS MODERN: "Sir Orfeo" and the 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire

View a video comparing two retellings of the story of Orpheus, the medieval romance poem "Sir Orfeo" alongside the 2019 French historical romance film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Video by Rachel Linn Shields. 

NJ Standards (6.2.8.HistoryCC.4.c): Assess the demographic, economic, and religious impact of the plague on Europe
Introducing Plague as a Topic for Social Studies

Here are some preliminary ideas and questions that will help connect students with videos and other materials on this topic.

"How does plague impact people who don't get sick?" 

One valuable aim is to get students discussing plague and pandemic…
"The Tale of the Bloody Child” and “Foul Play"

This video highlights ideas about teaching an exemplum from an early 14th century Middle English text in tandem with a 1950s American Horror comic.

Talis Elevate (promoting collaborative online reading)

This video offers an introduction to Talis Elevate (https://talis.com/talis-elevate/), a digital resource annotation tool used in the School of History and Heritage at the University of Lincoln (UK) since September 2018. Talis Elevate was initially used to foreground students' online reading practices outside class (to support collaboration, preparation and assessment), but since the pandemic it has been used in a variety of different ways across the curriculum. Talis's developers are now exploring the broader pedagogic implications of our use of this tool under the rubric 'active online reading' and welcome input from other users of Talis Elevate and similar resource annotation tools.  

"Book of the City of Ladies" and "Fun Home"

This lesson plan examines women’s literary authority in Christine de Pizan’s 15th-century treatise and in Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir.

Video by Moira Fitzgibbons

The Case of Rolandina Ronchaia, a 14th - century transwoman?

In this video three historians of gender and sexuality examine the legal case of Rolandina Ronchaia, a transwoman in mid-fourteenth century Venice,

Women of 1000 AD

A blog with stories (and artistic interpretations) of women around the world who lived in the year 1000.

The Justinianic Plague
Video

Primary sources along with reading questions for each of them can be found here in a PDF document.

Primary Sources

The complete passage on Procopius and the Plague in…

Tips for Teaching Medieval Studies Online

This video gives tips and ideas on teaching medieval courses online.

Abelard and Heloise

This video introduces letters to and from Heloise, a 12th-century abbess in France, discussing, among other matters, her efforts to get her son a better job.

A Life in the Black Death: The Inventory of Alayseta Paula (Marseille, 1348)

This video introduces Alayseta Paula, a fourteenth-century inhabitant of Marseille and survivor of the Black Death who asks forgiveness for bringing her legal business to court past the required date.