HIST 418 Junior Seminar: The Year 1000
The coming of the first millennium was a date noted with interest and apprehension by many people in the Middle Ages. Modern scholars too have often seen it as a period of transition, positing eleventh-century changes like a "feudal revolution" or the "birth of a persecuting society" in medieval Europe. This seminar, meant to prepare history majors to write a senior thesis, will use the case study of change in the years surrounding the millennium to introduce how historians work with primary sources, shape arguments, and develop sustained written analyses. We will begin by reading a range of interpretations about what change meant around the millennium, looking at some of the primary sources that historians have used to shape these arguments. The majority of the class will focus on students developing a research project of their own choice within the broad umbrella of millennial change (topics could include feudalism, apocalyptic, dispute settlement, knighthood, and so on), with ample attention devoted to peer review and the writing process.