Winter semester
Subject: Medieval Europe through the development of urban networks: Historiographical approaches and modern sources.
Summary: The urban development viewed an element of cultural and economic differentiation within the framework of the organization of identities is the essential subject of this seminar. Emphasis is placed on the various historiographical traditions and the way in which the urban development has been interpreted. An attempt is made to interpret the passage to the economic realities linked to the development of cities during the different periods of the Middle Ages, with intermediate stages in Late Antiquity, the year 1000 and the Late Middle Ages.
Selected bibliography
Brown R., A History of Accounting and Accountants, Edinburgh, 1905.
Costen, M.D., The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, Μάντσεστερ, Manchester University Press, 1997.
Friedman, J. B. and Figg Kr. M., Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages, An encyclopedia, London, Routledge 2017.
Gies F., and Gies J., Life in a Medieval City, New York, Harper and Row 1981.
Given J.B., State and Society in Medieval Europe: Gwynedd and Languedoc under outside Rule, Νέα Υόρκη, Cornell University Press 1990.
Goodlich, M. and Ewald G., Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century: Private Griefand Public Salvation, Chicago, The University Chicago Press 1995.
Graham-Leigh, E., The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade, Suffolk, Woodbridge 2005.
Mundy J.H., Studies in the Ecclesiastical and Social History of Toulouse in the Age of Cathars, Aldershot Cornwall 2006.
Philippe, B., Kriegel A., and Roche D., Etrejuif dans la société française du Moyen-Âgeànosjours, Paris, Complexe 1997.
Pounds, N.J.G., An economic history of medieval Europe, London, Longman 1974.
Pryor, J., Commerce, Shipping and Naval Warfare in the Medieval Mediterranean, Variorum Reprints 1987.
Seaman, R., Epidemics and War: The Impact of Disease on Major Conflicts in History, Westport, ABC Clio 2018
Taylor, Cl., Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Medieval Quercy, York, York Medieval Press 2011.
Tuming, P., Municipal Officials, Their Public, and the Negotiation of Justice in Medieval Languedoc, Leiden, Boston, Brill 2013.
Woolf, A.H. and Cosmo A.G., A Short History of Accountants and Accountancy, London, Gee 1912.
Winter semester
Subject: Britain in Victorian era
Summary: During the so-called Victorian era (circa 1837-1901), Britain, the cradle of industrialization, the home of political and economic liberalism, and parliamentarism, a rising and then dominant colonial power, was the center of fundamental developments that exerted considerable influence within and beyond Europe. The seminar will focus on aspects of the social, economic, political, cultural history of Victorian England. We will deal with the social stratification, the formation of the middle- and working classes, the development and character of urban centers (notably London), politics, political ideologies and the functioning of the parliamentary system, with political parties, and the development of political and social movements, with male and female role models and stereotypes, the political and economic role of the ruling classes, the positions, roles and itineraries of men and women, the ideal of the bourgeois family and the central position of children within it, poverty and charities, aspects of daily work, daily life, Victorian cultural norms and perceptions.
Selected bibliography
Hewitt, Martin, «Why the notion of Victorian Britain Does Make Sense», Victorian Studies 48:3 (Spring 2006), 395-448.
Gunn, Simon, The public culture of the Victorian middle class: ritual and authority and the English industrial city, Μάντσεστερ, Νέα Υόρκη, Manchester University Press 2007.
Hoppen, K. Theodore, The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846-1886, Οξφόρδη και Νέα Υόρκη, Oxford UP 1998 (reprinted 2008).
Houghton, Walter, E., The Victorian Frame of mind, 1830-1870, Νιου Χέβεν και Λονδίνο, Yale UP 1985.
Kidd, Alan, Gender, civic culture and consumerism: middle class identity in Britain, 1800-1940, Μάντσεστερ, Νέα Υόρκη, Manchester University Press 1999.
Mitchell, Sally, Daily Life in Victorian England, Γουέστπορτ-Κοννέκτικατ και Λονδίνο, Greenwood Press 2008.
Newsome, David, The Victorian world picture: perceptions and introspections in an age of change, Νιου Μπρονσγουικ, Rutgers UP 1997.
Steinbach, Susie, Understanding the Victorians. Politics, culture and society in nineteenth-century Britain, Λονδίνο, Νέα Υόρκη, Routledge 2017.
Thompson, F.M.L., The rise of respectable society: a social history of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900, Λονδίνο, Fontana Press 1988.
Young, George Malcolm, Victorian England: portrait of an age, Λονδίνο, Oxford UP 1936.
Spring semester
Subject: The rise of marginal society: Strategies and mechanisms of social discipline and of exclusion of marginal and deviant groups in Early Modern Europe, 16th-18th century.
Summary: The rise of the social margins in early modern West was the product of a multileveled interaction between processes of state formation, pressure from the violent socio-economic transformation and the religious upheaval generated by the crisis of the Reformation. A particularly important development in the period was the revision of the notion – and feeling – of “belonging” by the communities, signalling a distancing from the late medieval relative tolerance towards “aliens” and the establishment of a systematic drive for social discipline which, when it failed to meet its goals, led to the physical exclusion of deviant groups.
Early modern historians have stressed that marginality did not simply constitute a social status but was rather an invented identity, often imposed by authorities for the implementation of the norms of the rising centralist state and of the new confessional Churches.
The “social margins” included a broad spectrum of people and groups, whose experiences of exclusion varied in intensity and duration. Amidst the groups systematically placed on the margins, the unworthy poor and wandering paupers occupied a major place. With the demographic growth of the era and the rise of national competitive economies focusing on transatlantic trade and the european colonies, poverty underwent a systematic and profound stigmatization. Wandering paupers were often denounced as members of criminal gangs threatening private property, a climate of fear that generated campaigns of exclusion and of forced labour.
Then followed social and professional categories that were deemed stigmatized and yet necessary for the communities: Executioners, prostitutes, pedlars and colonial slaves were essential for the proper functioning of society and economy, yet they were treated as pariahs.
Racial and religious minorities: The early modern era was marked by the rise of the transatlantic slave trade and the expulsion of minorities like the Moriscos in Spain. The Jews, spatially segregated in their ghettos, faced new exclusions, based on accusations of ritual violence against Christians and their “natural depravity”.
Mechanisms of social disciplining: The elites used a combination of physical, spatial control and of moral policing in order to impose social discipline on the targeted groups. Civic oligarchies drastically reshaped the urban geography, promoting a spatial separation of the “pure” inhabitants from the “impure” aliens. Venice was first in establishing its official jewish ghetto in 1516, while the establishment of “zones of prostitution” served the requisites of moral policing.
In the campaigns for social discipline launched by urban, territorial and monarchical governments, the law and language were systematically instrumentalized to deny agency from individuals and groups and relegate them to an inferior status. Legislative initiatives defined and redefined who was considered an “alien” or “vagabond”, while intellectuals of the era asserted that certain people (women, colonial slaves, foreigners, heterodox groups) were “ontologically inferior” thus they were legally excluded from the civic communities.
Facing this new bleak reality of exclusion and intolerance, the targeted marginal groups did not remain passive, but they struggled to re-incorporate themselves in society. Especially the exiled religious minorities (such as the Huguenots or the Quakers) created transnational diasporic communities of memory and mutual assistance, turning their marginalization into an identity statement and a manifestation of resilience.
The obsession of Western elites with social discipline and exclusion had profound effects on the shaping of Western communities. By regulating who was – and who was not – member of society, the authorities legitimized the extension of the state’s reach into private life, the policing of poverty, sexuality and of religion. Despite the fact that Protestants and Catholics were entangled in a permanent state of war, they were united in their fear of radicalism, atheism and the “wandering beggars”, thus forming a common “moral majority” against the deviant groups. The ghettos and the legal restrictions of the early modern period set the foundations for modern racism and for discriminations between the citizen and the “alien” that still govern our lives today.
Ultimately, the history of the social margins is not separate from “actual” history but constitutes an integral and major part of it. The rise of the “marginal society” was the direct outcome of the pursuit for order by the centralist states of the 17th century, revealing that the identity of “civilized” citizens/subjects was equally forged on the basis of the antithesis with the “deviant” outcast.
Selected bibliography
Fontaine, Laurence, The Moral Economy: Poverty, Credit, and Trust in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, CUP 2014.
Gorski, Philip S., The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe, Chicago, University of Chicago Press 2014.
Harris Tim, The Politics of the Excluded, C. 1500-1850, London, Palgrave, 2001.
Hitchcock, David J., Vagrancy in English Culture and Society, 1650-1750, London, Bloomsbury Academic 2016.
Jütte, Robert, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, CUP 1994.
Kinney Arthur F., Rogues, vagabonds, & sturdy beggars. Α new gallery of Tudor and early Stuart rogue literature, Amherst, Massachusetts University Press 1990.
Lis Catharina, Hugo Soly, James Coonan, Poverty and Capitalism in Pre-Industrial Europe, 1350-1850, Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press 1979.
Nichols, Tom (ed), Others and Outcasts in Early Modern Europe: Picturing the Social Margins, London, Ashgate 2007.
Roodenburg Herman and Pieter Spierenburg, Social control in Europe,1500-1800, Columbus, Ohio State UP 2004.
Spicer Andrew and Jane L. Stevens Crawshaw (eds.), The Place of the Social Margins, 1350-1750, London, Routledge 2017.
Spring semester
Subject: A Persecuting Society? Construction of Alterities in Medieval Europe
Summary: This seminar focuses on various (religious, ethnic, social, etc.) groups that found themselves on the margins of European society during the High and Late Middle Ages on account of certain characteristics, real or alleged, that differentiated them from the majority of the population. This included, among others, the Jewish and Muslim communities, those considered as heretics, the lepers, et al. The seminar will explore the factors that led to the foregrounding and the increasing categorisation of alterity during the period – as well as the methods of restriction, marginalisation and persecution that these groups faced. A central question is to what extent these observable tendencies led to the “formation of a persecuting society”, in the famous formulation of Robert Ian Moore. Among other aspects, the seminar will examine the strengthening of centralisation and the bureaucratic structures of both the Church and lay authorities, the role of intellectuals, the social and demographic transformations, the intellectual developments and the reform movements of the era.
Selected bibliography
Biller P. and A. Hudson (eds.), Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1994.
Bruschi C. and P. Biller (eds.), Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy, York, York Medieval Press 2003.
Carr M., N. Chrissis, G. Raccagni (eds.), Crusading against Christians in the Middle Ages, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan 2024.
Chazan R., Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism, Berkeley, University of California Press 1997.
Chazan R., The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, 1000-1500, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2006.
Cohen J., Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Berkeley, University of California Press 1999.
Cohn N., Αγώνες για την έλευση της χιλιετούς βασιλείας του Θεού. Επαναστάτες, χιλιαστές και μυστικιστές αναρχικοί του Μεσαίωνα, μτφρ. Β. Τομανάς, Αθήνα, Νησίδες 2006.
Deane J.K., A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition, Plymouth, Rowman & Littlefield 2011.
Frassetto M. (ed.), Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R.I. Moore, Leiden, Brill 2006.
Given J.B., Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline and Resistance in Languedoc, Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press 2001.
Κοφινάκης Α.Γ., Η αίρεση των Μπεγκίνων του Λανγκντόκ. Αιρετικός λόγος και ριζοσπαστικός φραγκισκανισμός. Χιλιαστικές και συνοδικές μορφές αντίστασης στην παπική εξουσία των αρχών του 14ου αιώνα, Αθήνα, Ηρόδοτος 2021.
Lambert, M., Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 3rd ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 2002.
Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Μονταγιού: ένα οξιτανικό χωριό από το 1294 έως το 1324, μτφρ. Ε. Καλπουρτζή – Ν. Κούρκουλος, Αθήνα, Εκδόσεις του Εικοστού Πρώτου 2008.
Leff, G., Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent c.1250-c.1450, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1999.
Moore, R.I., The War on Heresy, Cambridge MA., Belknap Press 2012.
Moore, R.I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society, 2nd ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 2006.
Moore, R.I., The Origins of European Dissent, rev. ed., Oxford, Blackwell 1985,
Nirenberg, D., Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, Princeton, Princeton University Press 1996.
Schwerhoff, G. (Γ. Σβέρχοφ), Η Ιερά Εξέταση, μτφρ. Η. Τσιριγκάκης, Αθήνα, Εστία 2010.
Sennis, A. (ed.), Cathars in Question, York, York Medieval Press, 2016.
Wakefield, W.L. and A.P. Evans (eds.), Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated, New York, Columbia University Press, 1969.
Spring semester
Subject: Bourgeoisie and Middle Classes in modern and contemporary Europe
Summary: The seminar examines the course of the bourgeoisie and the middle classes from the late 18th century onwards, namely from the era of their rising and gradual prevalence till the age of new liberal challenge and undermining of the postwar social model. It aims to stress the conditions/factors of the making, the factors of strengthening or weakening, of cohesion and differentiation of the middle classes according to their economic, professional, social and political status or to their regional or state origins. The seminar takes turning points such as French and Industrial Revolution, 1848, World War I and II, 1989-1991, etc. into account and approaches the middle classes as a continuously redefinable historical category in the context of the fundamental transformations in the age of modernity.
Selected bibliography
Kocka J., «Το ευρωπαϊκό πρότυπο και η γερμανική περίπτωση», στο Αναζητήσεις της νεότερης γερμανόφωνης ιστοριογραφίας, Μνήμων (2000), σ. 129-236
Mann M., Οι πηγές της κοινωνικής εξουσίας, τόμος Β΄, Αθήνα, Πόλις 2009.
Ράπτης Κ., «Αστικές τάξεις και αστικότητα στην Ευρώπη, 1789-1914: Προσανατολισμοί της σύγχρονης ιστοριογραφίας», Μνήμων 20 (1998), 211-243
Raptis, K., «From the Periphery to the Centre of European Social History: The Case of the Middle and Upper Classes in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Europe», Historein, 22/1 (2025).
https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.30323]
Bottomore T., Classes in Modern Society, London, Harper Collins Academic 1991.
Kocka J., Α. Mitchell (eds.), Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Oxford, Berg 1993.
Kocka J. (ed.), Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert, 3 τόμοι, Γκέτινγκεν, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1995.
Pilbeam P., The Middle Classes in Europe 1789-1914. France, Germany, Italy and Russia, London, Macmillan 1990.
Therborn G., European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, 1945-2000, London, Sage Publications 1995.
Vidich A., The New middle classes, London, Macmillan 1995.
