(in collaboration with Prof. Dion. Benetos)
Winter semester
Subject: The Development of Urban Networks in Medieval Europe: Historiographical Approaches and Modern Sources
Summary: The issue of urban development as a marker of cultural and economic differentiation within the broader framework of identity formation constitutes the central theme of this seminar. This year, however, the analysis will focus specifically on the conditions that shaped the historiographical approach to the subject. In this context, the seminar will explore the historical conjunctures within which these themes emerged, with particular emphasis on the period of the First World War and the interwar years. Special attention will also be given to the relationships between Europe and the United States during this time.
Selected bibliography
Brandes J., Herbert Hoover and economic diplomacy; Department of Commerce policy 1921-1928, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962.
Brown, R., A History of Accounting and Accountants, Edinburgh 1905.
Friedman, J. B., Kr. M. Figg, Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages. An encyclopedia, Routlege, 2017.
Gies, F., J. Gies, Life in a Medieval City, Harper and Row, 1981.
Given J.B., State and Society in Medieval Europe: Gwynedd and Languedoc under outside Rule, Cornell University Press, 1990.
Goodlich M., G.Ewald, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century: Private Griefand Public Salvation, The University Chicago Press, 1995.
Graham-Leigh, E., The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade, Woodbridge, 2005.
Mundy J.H., Studies in the Ecclesiastical and Social History of Toulouse in the Age of Cathars, Cornwall, 2006.
Philippe, B., A. Kriegel, D.Roche, Etre juif dans la société française du Moyen- Âge à nos jours, Complexe, 1997.
Pounds, N.J.G., An economic history of medieval Europe, Longman, 1974.
Pryor, J., Commerce, Shipping and Naval Warfare in the Medieval Mediterranean, Variorum Reprints,1987.
Rosenberg, Emily S., Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900–1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999.
Taylor, Cl., Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Medieval Quercy, York Medieval Press, 2011.
Woolf, A.H., A.G. Cosmo, A Short History of Accountants and Accountancy. London,
Winter semester
Subject: History / Histories of European Migration (ca. 1750-1930)
Summary: We examine aspects of internal, intra-European and intercontinental migration/movement of populations from Western, Northern, Central and Central-Eastern Europe, in relation to fundamental economic, social and political processes that decisively influenced, transformed and/or subverted the lives of Europeans during the period under consideration (industrialisation, urbanisation, economic crises, war conflicts, colonial expansion, social and welfare policies, the development of nationalisms and nationalist policies). Within this broader context, we will be particularly concerned with specific forms of migration, such as cyclical or seasonal migration (especially among rural populations), transatlantic migration and phenomena such as rural exodus, the influx of internal migrants into urban centres and their integration or marginalization. We will also address poverty and crime in Europe in relation to forced, intercontinental movements/migrations, the search for better living conditions within the context of colonial empires, population displacements resulting from the First World War and the inter-war crises. Our approach combines both top-down perspectives -based on state policies, laws, statistics and discourses surrounding migration- and bottom-up histories that explore the motives, strategies, practices and lived experiences of historical subjects.
Selected bibliography
Bade K., Migration in European History (μετάφ. από τα γερμανικά Allison Brown), Blackwell, 2003.
Bade, Klaus J., Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen, Jochen Oltmer (eds), The Encyclopedia of European Migration and Minorities. From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, Cambridge University Press, 2011. (μετάφραση από τα γερμανικά)
Baines, Dudley, Emigration from Europe 1815-1930, Macmillan Education LTD, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London, 1991.
Hahn, Sylvia, Historische Migrationsforschung, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., New York, 2012.
Harzig, Chr., Dirk Hoerder, What is Migration History?, Polity Press, Cambridge, Malden 2009.
Hoerder, Dirk, Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millenium (Comparative and International Working-Class History), Duke University Press, 2002.
Lucassen, J., L. Lucassen, (επιμ.), Migration, Migration History, History. Old Paradigms and New Perspectives, Peter Lang, Bern, Berlin et.al., 1997.
Manning, Patrick, Migration in World History, Routledge, New York 2005.
Page, Moch, L., Moving Europeans. Migration in Western Europe since 1650, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 22003 [ 1992].
Siddle, D. J. (επιμ.), Migration, Mobility and Modernization, Liverpool University
Spring semester
Subject: The War of Words, Sounds and Symbols. Propaganda warfare between Protestants and Catholics in the West during the 16th and 17th Century
Summary: With the emergence of Martin Luther, the Roman Catholic Church faced a full-scale attack, unprecedented in its long history. It was an assault where acts of physical violence (iconoclastic attacks) and verbal violence (preaching from the altar, debates in public spaces) were combined with the revolutionary medium of the printing press, with theatrical performances and graffiti in the streets and squares of cities and towns and, ultimately, with full-scale military conflict. With the rise of John Calvin, the Reformation crisis initially spread to France and the Low Countries and rapidly took on a global dimension, marked by the formation of Protestant and Catholic Leagues which clashed across European territories and, soon, in the colonies of the New World.
The confrontation between these two mutually-exclusive manifestations of the Christian religion soon escalated into a total propaganda war. Both sides used all means̶ ̶separately or in combination (hybrid forms of propaganda), in order to crash the opponent, revealing to their target audiences his demonic/heretical nature. In the urban communities of the West that experienced religious division, the propaganda war quickly surpassed preaching from the altar, posting of billboards, iconoclastic violence, public gatherings and processions, to include targeted interventions in urban soundscapes, even olfactory warfare. The urban milieu was subjected to repeated and violent attempts of restructuring, with the major stake being the dominant –if not exclusive– presence of one side over the other.
The seminar initially attempts a detailed mapping of the fields of propaganda war between Protestants and Catholics. We shall then investigate various facets of this conflict (war of words, symbols and sounds) in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, to conclude with an overall appraisal of the Reformation crisis as a revolution in communication.
Selected bibliography
Auerbach, Jonathan, Russ Castronovo (επιμ.), The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies, Οξφόρδη, OUP, 2013.
Behringer, Wolfgang, “Communications Revolutions: A Historiographical Concept”, German History Vol. 24 No. 3, 2006, 333-374.
Brady, Thomas Jr., Communities, Politics and Reformation in Early Modern Europe, Leiden, Brill, 1998.
Chartier, Roger (επιμ.), The Culture of Print. Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1987.
Diefendorf, Barbara B., Carla Hesse (επιμ.), Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800), Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Edwards, Mark U. Jr., Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1994.
Fisher, Alexander J., Music, Piety and Propaganda. The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria, Οξφόρδη, OUP, 2014.
Γαγανάκης, Κώστας, Ο Πόλεμος των λέξεων. Θρησκευτική διαμάχη και προπαγάνδα στη Γαλλία τον καιρό της Νύχτας του Αγίου Βαρθολομαίου, Αθήνα, Νεφέλη, 2003.
Koerner, Joseph Leo, The Reformation of the Image, Λονδίνο, Reaktion Books, 2004.
Loewe, Andreas, Katherine Firth, Martin Luther and the Arts. Music, Images, and Drama to Promote the Reformation, Leiden, Brill, 2023.
Pettegree, Andrew, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion, Κέιμπριτζ, CUP, 2005.
Scribner, R.W., Για το καλό των απλών ανθρώπων. Η λαϊκή προπαγάνδα κατά τη Γερμανική Μεταρρύθμιση, Αθήνα, Εκδόσεις Ξιφαράς, 2011.
Stephenson, Barry, Performing the Reformation. Public Ritual in the City of Luther, Οξφόρδη, OUP, 2010.
Waite, Gary K., Reformers on Stage. Popular Drama and Religious Propaganda in the Low Countries of Charles V, 1515-1556, Toronto, The University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Spring semester
Subject: Latins in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean (12th-15th c.): a Comparative Examination of Institutions, Society, Sources and Historiography
Summary: The seminar focuses on the Western presence, settlement and dominions in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in the context of the crusading movement. It aims to provide a comparative examination of the period of Latin rule (the so-called Frankokratia) in the Greek lands and the “crusader states” established in Syria-Palestine following the First Crusade. Key topics include: the transfer of institutions from the West and the parallel influence and adaption of local elements; social organization and relations with native populations; perception(s) of Otherness and the creation of new, mixed identities; the main primary sources for the study of Western dominions in the Eastern Mediterranean; historiographical trends and questions pertaining to the crusades and the crusader states – for example, whether and to what extent they constituted an incipient form of “colonialism”. Overall, the objective is to situate both the Frankokratia and the crusades within a wider European and Mediterranean context.
Selected bibliography
Balard, M., Les Latins en Orient (Xe-XVe siècle) (Presses universitaires de France, 2006).
Barber, M., The Crusader States (Yale University Press, 2012).
Chrissis, N.G., Crusading in Frankish Greece: A Study of Byzantine-Western Relations and Attitudes (Brepols, 2012).
Edbury, P.W., The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374 (Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Gerstel, S.E.J. (ed.), Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2013).
Γιαννακόπουλος, Δ. Κ., Δουκάτο των Αθηνών: η κυριαρχία των Acciaiuoli (Βάνιας, 2006).
Hendrickx, B., Οι Θεσμοί της Φραγκοκρατίας (Σταμούλης, 2007).
Jacoby, D., La féodalité en Grèce Médiévale. Les «Assises de Romanie». Sources, application et diffusion (Mouton, 1971).
Jotischky, A., Crusading and the Crusader States (Pearson, 2004).
Kedar, B.Z., Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton University Press, 1984).
Kedar, B.Z., Cultures of the Medieval Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cornell University Press, 2025).
Lock, P., The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500, Longman, 1995 [ελληνική μετάφ. Οι Φράγκοι στο Αιγαίο, 1204-1500 (Ενάλιος, 1998)].
MacEvitt, C., The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
Μοσχονάς, Ν.Γ., Μ.-Γ. Λίλυ Στυλιανούδη (επιμ.), Το δουκάτο του Αιγαίου (Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 2009).
Murray, A.V., The Franks in Outremer: Studies in the Latin Principalities of Palestine and Syria, 1099-1187 (Ashgate, 2015).
Ντούρου-Ηλιοπούλου, Μ., Το φραγκικό πριγκιπάτο της Αχαΐας (1204-1432): ιστορία, οργάνωση, κοινωνία (Βάνιας, 2005).
Prawer, J., The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972).
Riley-Smith, J. (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford University Press, 1997).
Setton, K.M., Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311-1388 (Variorum Reprints, 1975).
Shawcross, T., The Chronicle of the Morea: Historiography of Crusader Greece (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Tsougarakis, N.I., P. Lock (eds), A Companion to Latin Greece (Brill, 2014)
Tyerman, C., The Debate on the Crusades (Manchester University Press, 2011)
