Background Reading for Course Literature
(click on  links below)

Required

What were the Middle Ages all about?
Fate and Free Will (entries in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
Feudalism (also try the Wikipedia entry that is pretty good as of 5.27.10)
Chivalry
Courtly Love
The Code of Chivalry and the Rules of Courtly Love
The Camelot Project -- Arthurian literature


Optional

How is the Renaissance Different from the Middle Ages?
The Renaissance
End of Europe's Middle Ages
Defining the Middle Ages (an Age of Ages)
The Twelfth-Century Renaissance I
The Twelfth-Century Renaissance II
The High Middle Ages
The High and Late Middle Ages