History of Christendom

This page exists to index stories and themes that could be covered in relaying the history of Christendom (also known as 'Europe') to the young.

The intergenerational shocks of persecution, wars, and migrations across the ocean have rendered American culture amnesiac regarding the trunk of the tree from which it branched. We must think of Europe, our older brother, as the regulated child, and we America, as the wild child, who God for now has elevated over the elder. And older brothers can be weird, can be cool, can be rivalrous, but we must love them and learn everything we can from their mistakes.

This curriculum's core lessons are designed to be covered over the course of one year or two years in the secondary, with additional lessons included for years of further exploration.

Ancient

See Ancient History.

Barbarian Kings

The Christians

Arians Diocletian Constantine Milvian to Milan Constantinople Nicea Athanasius Visigoths Cappadocian Fathers; John Chrysostom National conversions Augustine Jerome Alaric Nestorianism Attila the Hun Chalcedon Theodoric Pope Leo The Fall of Rome Clovis and Merovingians Saint Patrick Invention of Charity by Christians

Early Medieval Thought: syncretism; orthodoxy; Boethius; Cassiodorus' classical education; Isidore of Seville's etymologies; Anno Domini calendar, Bede's concern with calendar and time

Byzantium and Islam

Justinian and Theodora The Hagia Sophia Seven Sleepers Plague of Justinian

St. Benedict - civilization and decline

Second Council of Constantinople

Roman Persian Wars

The Iconoclastic controversies; Byzantine mosaic art

Lurid stories and gruesome deaths of the emperors Byzantine - Muslim conflicts over centuries

Arab Conquests Mecca Medina Jihad Djinn and the djinn kings Taqiyya Muslim legendary magicians

Iconoclasm and Muslim art

The North

Irish Monasticism

Charlemagne; Muslims conquering the Visigoths, Charles Martel taking over from the merovingians, Battle of Tours, Charlemagne, Alcuin, undefeated conquering of europe and forced conversions; Legends of Charlemagne, Song of Roland, matter of france; Holy Roman Empire; ambiguity of coronation; personal fealty and medieval governance, immediate fragmentation; Verden Massacre and what the Nazis thought

Donation of Pepin - formation of the Papal States

The Iron Crown Throne of Charlemagne

Legends of Charlemagne

Viking; Raids and Longships; Danes, Danegeld; Great Heathen Army - Ragnar Shaggy Trousers and his sons; the Blood Eagle; Saint Edmund

Alfred; Battle of Ashdown, White Horse Hill, Witan, Wessex, Shield Wall; could have been the last english king, but built fortified cities, defended his people and subdued the vikings, made peace with them, promoted learning and reformed laws; ! key descendants of Alfred - Aethelstan; Asser's genealogy to Adam; Battle of Brunanburh

Anglo-Saxon Saints

Christianization of Scandinavia; Saint Olaf

Edda - Voluspa creation; Volundr - Weyland - Iron Man - Daedalus myth Ragnarok and Loki pagan-christian transition commentary

The Franks Casket

Leif Erikson, vinland saga, erik the red; Nordic navigation; iceland and greenland; the Eben Horsford Statue in America

Norman Invasion; Normans and Rollo; William the Conqueror, Battle of Hastings, Bayeux Tapestry

High Medieval

Plantagenets, Mongols, Dynasties, Crusades

Norman Conquest of Italy; Twelve Sons of Tancred

France as the center of Christendom

Capetian Dynasty and the House of Anjou - how dynasties work Saint Louis

Investiture Controversy and the Bad Popes

Tour de Nesle and the Tour de Nesle Affair

Crusades Speech at Clermont Massacre of Jerusalem Is Christianity a Religion of Peace? Can Christians and Muslims get along? The Immovable Ladder Medieval Jerusalem Sack of Constantinople; Urban II, 4th Crusade, Turks Children's Crusade Most Famous Crusaders Legends of Frederick the Great Richard the Lionheart Saladin; the Assassins Crusader States Crusader orders - Bernard of Clairvaux; Templars Women who went crusading The Holy Land Today

Destruction of the Templars

The Islamic Golden Age

Just War - Are the crusades just? Did they even turn out?

Thomas Becket - Henry II and Eleanor

Plantagenet Dynasty Robin Hood Legends John and the Magna Carta; Barons' Revolt; Parliament

Canterbury; Chaucer; Canterbury Tales

Alexander Nevsky - the Battle on the Ice

Simon de Montfort and the beginnings of parliament; Edward I; expelling the jews Do kings really have all the power?

Albigensian Crusade

The Spanish Reconquista, El Cid

Papal Schism; Avignon Papacy

Dante, Guelphs, and Ghibellines

Teutonic Baltic Crusade

Marco Polo

Medieval Lifeways

Medieval Life - these lessons could be woven throughout

Dark ages -> High middle ages (differences between); Petrarch

Monasticism; anchorites

Medieval feasting and aristocracy

Manuscripts and manuscript art; doodling like a monk

Heraldry Feudal structures Feudalism strategy

Peasant Revolts

Knighthood Evolution of armaments and warfare Castles Other Medieval architecture: cloisters, hortus conclusus

Book of Hours, Breviary Material culture: aquamanilia; effigies; saint relics and medals; shrines

The Church Calendar and Festivals: Carnival, Lord of Misrule

Cult of the Saints; highlights of the most fun stories

Bishop-Princes

Medieval Jewry

Discarded Image - magic, symbolism, astrology, alchemy, herbology, microcosm, angelology

Medieval city and guilds; cathedrals; sewage; money

What school was like and who it was for

Cathars

Troubadours and Courtly Love; Tristan and Isolde

Language - Old English, Middle English, Elizabethan English comparisons

Marriage and Family Life at different layers of society

The Black Death; medicine and hospitals

Movie depictions of the middle ages

Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses

The Hundred Years War : Black Plague, Henry V, Battle of AgincourtJoan of Arc, Siege of Orleans

War of the Roses; Richard III; Lost Princes of the Tower

Avignon and diminishing of papal authority; Catherine of Siena; Clement vs. Urban

Wycliffe and the Lollards Jan Hus

Henry the Navigator

Expanded Lessons:

The Battle of Nicopolis - last major crusade

Owain Glyndwr

Tamerlane

Holy Roman Empire during this time

Mont Saint Michel

Renaissance, Reformation and Exploration

The Fall of Constantinople Martyrs of Otranto

Renaissance men Medicis and patronage Architecture - Bruenelleschi and Masaccio The Arts - Giotto, Botticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, etc. Mona Lisa St. Peter's Basilica Julius II

Cesare Borgia and wars in Italy Machiavelli

Renaissance Humanists and reviving ancient ideals, Petrarch

Cultural shifts from the middle ages; feudalism replaced with banking, etc.

Florence, Venice, Milan

Expanded Lessons:

Renaissance music

Tournaments and jousting

Castiglione and the Renaissance courtier

letters of Isabella d'Este, refusing to give up her son

Age of Discovery

Ferdinand & Isabella - Reconquista completed Spain and Portugal - Treaty of Tordesillas

The Beginning of Colonialism Columbian Exchange

The Evolution of Maps

Explorers and Conquistadors: de Gama, Columbus, Cortes, etc.

Porteguese Empire - Magellan, Albuquerque

Was Columbus a hero or villain?

Aztec Life

Cortes and The Conquest of Mexico

Pizarro and the Inca Empire

English Explorers

Expanded Lessons:

Fountain of Youth, City of Gold

Virgin of the Navigators

The Black Legend

Reformation & Religious Wars

Core Lessons:

German Reformation Martin Luther, posting of 95 Theses (10/31/1517), indulgences, Johann Tetzel, Justification by Faith, Leipzig Debate (1519), diet of Worms (1521), Charles V, Leo X

Swiss Reformation: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), The Consistory, Ulrich Zwingli; Affair of the Sausages; Tudor England & English Reformation; Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn; Mary Tudor; Walsingham and Mary queen of Scots; Francis Drake; Elizabeth I, defeat of the Spanish Armada; Church of England; The Development of the English Bible; The Dissolution of the Monasteries; Thomas Cromwell; Thomas Cranmer; Pope Clement VII; Poor Edward VI

Catholic Reformation; Ignatius Loyola, Jesuits

Council of Trent

Huguenots and Wars of Religion; Catherine de Medici; Charles IX; Iconoclasm; Henry of Navarre - Henry IV; Edict of Nantes

Peace of Augsburg, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre

Schmalkaldic League

Radical Reformation; Anabaptist Persecution; Peasant rebellions and Munster Rebellion; Menno Simons and the Mennonites

Foxe's Book of Martyrs vs. Martyr's Mirror

Ottoman Wars; Siege of Malta; Battle of Lepanto; Suleiman the Great Knights of Malta

Witch Hunts

Warfare - Pike and shot; muskets and crossbows

Hapsburg Dynasty

Expanded Lessons:

Reformed vs. Lutheran conflict

Francis Xavier and the mission to Japan

Paracelsus

Battle of Cerignola

William Hacket

Martyr's Mirror

Giambattista della Porta

Stuarts

Dissenters and Republicans

Gunpowder Plot

Absolutism & Mercantilism

Bach

Stuart England: James I, King James Bible,

Pilgrims and ongoing colonialism

Dutch and Spanish Wars, Eighty Years War

Thirty Years War - Bourbon vs. Hapsburg, fighting over the netherlands protestant union v catholic league 1618 defenestration into a manure pile Gustavus Adolphus - developed the first standing army of conscripts, other military innovations Cardinal Richelieu Peace of Westphalia - pope was ignored; growing separation of church and state there were only four years between 1562 and 1721 in which all of europe was at peace musketeers and pikemen rather than archers and knights croatian mercaneries introduce cravats to france, causing a sensation and birthing the necktie; charles ii brings it back with him in 1660

Peace of westphalia left each of the three hundred or more German states comprising the Holy Roman Empire virtually autonomous and sovereign. After 1648, the HRE was largely a diplomatic fiction (hence Voltaire's quip). Of the over three hundred Germanies, two emerged as great powers: Prussia and Austria.

Rebellions always cause warps in the historiography; do you side with parliamentarians or royalists? support oliver cromwell? was the drogheda massacre really that bad?

peasant rebellions, though most all unsuccessful except for the English revolution

Jenny Gedes throws her stool Scottish National Covenant

Charles I, Interregnum, roundheads, cavaliers, Oliver Cromwell incredibly well regimented army

Westminster Assembly

Empires of Sail

Beginning of Colonialism and the British Empire:

Francis Drake Sir Walter Raleigh Privateers East India Company Jamestown Virginia Roanoke Lost Colony

Restoration: Charles II, James II, William & Mary, Glorious Revolution

Continuing Scientific Revolution in England and the Continent Francis Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Leeuwenhoek, leading up to !! NEWTON !!

Golden Age of Piracy

Hobbes vs. Locke

Expanded Lessons:

Samuel Pepys

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment was written during the ECW. (moment where we compare excerpts from the text with gnarly moments from the war)

David Teniers the Younger: gallery paintings, monkey singeries, genre paintings

Montrose

Wren

Scottish Borderers

Dutch West India Trade company

The Newspaper

The Second Hundred Years War - The Great Powers

Louis XIII, Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV, 30 Years’ War

Versailles

Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern Frederick William and Militarism

Seven Years War

Scottish Enlightnment

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rationalists, Empiricists, Immanuel Kant,

Voltaire Encyclopedists

Russia - Rulers of Russia; Battle of Poltava

French Revolution with causes and effects; Identify/explain: First Estate, Second Estate, Third Estate, Estates General, Jacobins, Danton, Robespierre, National Assembly, Louis XV, Louis XIV, Napoleon Jacques Louis David

Colonialism - Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Plantations

Expanded Lessons:

1700s and the invention of fashion Rococo and 18th century vibes

The Idea of Progress

French and British Gardens -

Baroque and Classical Music - J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,

Freemasonry

Jacobite Rising

Methodism and revivalism

Tom Jones

Robinson Crusoe

Barry Lyndon clip

Wollstonecraft and Feminism

The Geometric Spirit

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Romantic Era

Napoleon

Napoleon and the Louvre

Waterloo - differing accounts

Romanticism

Victorian Empire: Pax Britannica

The Great Game

Opium Wars

Scramble for Africa

Macaulay | Whig History | British exceptionalism | How British colonialism reshaped India

Revolutions, Nationalisms, Unifications

Age of Ideologies

Crimean War:

although russia loses, laying the groundwork for Russia being the great power in eastern europe, unbalances the balance of power

Ottomans (helped by British) vs. Russian Empire

first war that extensively used railways, telegraphs, explosive shells

charge of the light brigade

battle of sevastopol

Unification of Italy: Giuseppe Garibaldi 781-785 + brown box

Unification of Germany: SPV 783 - 788  led by Prussia

Bismarck

Kaiser

Second Reich

Franco Prussian War

Artists

Paris Commune - lives of the anarchists

Industrialism; Robert Owen

Trains

Wilberforce and Abolitionism; Rise of Prisons

Expanded Lessons:

Political cartoons

Jane Austen

Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt.

Les Miserables

the parody maps of nations

Arthur Conan Doyle - Brigadier Gerard - waterloo; retreat from moscow

belle epoque / fin de siecle:

Haussmann

1889 world fair; 1900 exposition universelle

art nouveau - vienna secession; klimt

impressionists and postimpressionists - Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh

not everyone was having a good time - degas, lautrec, munch

medieval building restoration - william morris, ruskin, viollet le duc,

the statue of Charlemagne et ses Leudes

New Woman and the Bicycle

anglo venezuelan boundary dispute; anglo american relations; monroe doctrine; political cartoons

Dutch pushing opium in 19th century indies

Papal Infallibility

Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man

White Slavery

Charles Darwin

19th century fashion - the corset

Abdelkader - revolutionary French colonialism; honored with Iowa city

Italy in Ethiopia

the rise of Advertising

The Man Who Would Be King

1832 Anatomy Act - what does it say about science and the poor at the time?

1871 and Alsace-Lorraine

Simon Bolivar and Latin America's revolutions

Bentham and Utilitarianism

Lord Byron the Romantic

Richard Burton the Explorer

Punch and Judy show

Assassination of Czar Paul

the plate glass window shop introduced (1801)

Elgin Marbles taken by the Earl from Athens

Madame Tussaud's Waxworks

1803

Louisiana Purchase

invention of morphine and anaesthetics - stories?

Death of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haiti's Freedom

Natural History Explorations of Humboldt

the gaslamps of London

Master and Commander

Belle Époque

1870s:

bank holidays introduce new leisure culture for the working and middle class; seaside resorts; racecourses; seabathing

Bicycle and the New Woman

Anglo-Boer War

Italy and Ethiopia

Zulu Wars

1880s:

Pifre's solar power

Louis Pasteur and vaccination

Victoria's Golden Jubilee

Statue of Liberty given by France to America; Ellis Islanders emigrating to America

Beardsley, Art Nouveau

French Pres Carnot stabbed to death by anarchist

Cecil Rhodes

invention of movies

Benin Expedition of 1897, conquest of African kingdom

Zeppelin's designs

Imprisonment of Oscar Wilde

Dreyfus Affair

1899 Percy Pilcher dies in flight; 1895 Otto Liliental also dies in flight

Anglo-Boer Wars

Occultism, theosophy, blavatsky, and new thought

Collapse of Christendom

The Cataclysmic End of Christendom

Modernist Art

Expanded Lessons:

World War 1 Postcards

Scriabin - poem of fire, 1910, prometheanism, esotericism

Science fiction, russian cosmism

Modernity and Coffeehouse culture