THE "MIDDLE" AGES: A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Professor Ian Blanchard

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This course is designed to form a component element of a new collaborative research-teaching programme involving the Economic and Social History at the University of Edinburgh and the Department of Medieval Studies, the Central European University. It is based upon a new research initiative, which was launched at Edinburgh in 1995 concerning patterns of economic development in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. In the next year following the presentation of these ideas concerning European economic development, 450-1340 AD in my inaugural lecture this involved research on developments in the late Middle Ages 1340-1540 AD when Central-, South-eastern Europe played a central role in the process of economic change. The preliminary ideas on this latter theme had been presented during the autumn semester 1997 at Budapest and a research seminar was held at Warsaw on the 24-25th October of that year to discuss these ideas. On the basis of subsequent discussions with the Austrian, Hungarian and Croat colleagues, a research group was formed in May 2000 with the objective of writing a new economic and social history of medieval Central-, South-eastern Europe. It was agreed, that the initial focus should be on Medieval Hungary and that a

Ian Blanchard (University of Edinburgh) and Balázs Nagy with the contribution of József Laszlovszky (CEU Budapest) and Erich Landsteiner (University of Vienna)

would be organized preparatory to the writing of a new economic and social history of medieval Central-, Southeastern Europe. The objective of this present course is to introduce students to the latest ideas (currently being developed by Pamela Nightingale, John Monro and myself) on the patterns of economic development in Western Europe 450-1340 AD, to Central European developments, 1340-1540 and to a "revised" assessment of the contribution of the "Middle" Ages to secular economic development during the last two millennia.

The A-course is divided into term-length courses, which may be taken either individually by students in appropriate curricula or as a whole. There are no special entry requirements. The available term-length B-courses are indicated below by an asterisk:

1. The Origins of the Middle Ages, 400-1340
This course is designed to train students in the critical appraisal of current typologies of 'pre-modern' European economic and social change, in the light of empirical investigations into the evolution of the mediæval (ca. 440-1340 AD) economy and society. It will examine the period following the collapse of Roman Imperial power in the West, when the populations of Europe existed in what was little more than a western appendage to the civilised world, inhabiting lands on the periphery of a world system whose epicentre lay in Central Asia (ca. 440-1040 AD). Then it will examine that phase of real economic growth from which emerged the "Middle" Ages in Western Europe (ca. 1040-1340)

2. The Medieval Society in its Prime, 1340-1540
This course examines that process of European integration, as economic development, stimulated by the contemporary mining boom of the years 1250-1392/1412, caused per capita incomes in Poland, Hungary and particularly Bohemia to equilibrate upwards to the levels prevailing in western Europe. It explores changes in the international economy and the process of regional specialisation, which in Western Europe, against the background of demographic decline, allowed the population to enjoy a standard of living, which was not surpassed until 1885.

Course Aims and Objectives: It is designed to train students in the critical appraisal of current typologies of 'pre-modern' European economic and social change, in the light of empirical investigations into the evolution of the mediæval economy and society. This will be set in the context of secular patterns of economic development over the last two millennia. The course will involve a direct study of historical data; primary sources, including not only textual materials (in translation) but also iconographic images and graphics, and interpretation by scholars, employing the tools of the social scientist. Students will thus learn methods of contextual analysis and interrogation, and gain insights into how to conceptualize and analyse such materials, utilizing historical, political science and economics methodology skills.

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