Medieval World
Semester II
Lecture Course: Open to 2nd semester MA students
Course Instructors: Professors Joy LK Pachuau and
Ranjeeta Dutta
Mode of Evaluation: Two Mid-Semester Exams
One-End Semester Examination
I. General Issues
• `Medieval’: the problematic
• Historiographical traditions in the medieval world (European, Islamic, Indo-Islamic,
and Chinese)
II. Western Europe—5th to 13th centuries
• Land control, manorial systems and power in the medieval Europe:
• Peasantries: serfdom and resistance
• Rural economy and agricultural change
• Towns, Trade and an `Urban’ revival
• Culture: trends, hierarchies and cross flows
• Spheres of gender: domestic, court and popular piety.
III. India
• Feudalism in India: the debate
• Land control and social structure: zamindars and peasants
• The state: power and legitimacy
• Patriarchy and Gender relation in medieval India
• Cultural trends: diversity, assimilation and syncretism
IV. Comparative Overviews: China
• The Song economic transformation—11th to 13th centuries
• The Mongol Irruption
• Confucian ethic: Social implications, gender and family
V. Comparative Overview: Japan
• Kamkura and the making Japan’s Medieval `world’.
• Economic growth under the feudal system
• Gender and warrior culture
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First Readings
• Abu-Lughod, Janet L., Before European Hegemony. The World System, A.D. 1250-
1350.
• Anderson, Perry, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism
• Chattopadhyay, B.D., The Making of Early Medieval India
• Coulborn, Rushton, Feudalism in History.
• Datta, Rajat, Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on Indian History from the
Eighth to the Eighteenth Century (introduction)
• Duby, Georges, Rural Economy and the Country Life in the Medieval West
• Duby, Georges, Warriors and Peasants: The Early Growth of the European Economy
• Green, V.H.H., Medieval Civilization in Western Europe
• Habib, Irfan, The Agrarian System of Mughal India
• Hansen, Valerie, The Open Empire. A History of China to 1600.
• Hodgett, G.A., A Social and Economic History of Medieval Europe
• Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, A History of Women: The Silence of the Middle Ages
• Ko, Dorothy, Kim, Habush, Kim Jayhun and Piggott, Joan R., Women and Confucian
Cultures in Premodern China, Korea and Japan (selected articles)
• Le Goff, Jaques, Medieval Civilization
• Lorenzen, David N, Religious Movements in South Asia, 600-1800 (selected essays)
• Mishra, Rekha, Women in Mughal India, 1516-1748.
• Mukhia, Harbans, (ed.) The Feudalism Debate
• Southern, R.W. The Making of the Middle Ages
• Totman, Conrad, Japan Before Perry: A Short History
• Wickham, Chris, The Framing of the Early Middle Ages
Further Readings
• Aberth, John, An Environmental History of the Middle Ages. The Crucible of Nature.
• Alam, Muzaffar, The Languages of Political Islam in India
• Bloch, Marc, Feudal Society, vols.1 and 2
• Bloch, Marc, Land and Work in Medieval Europe
• Cipolla, Carlo (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. 1: the
Middle Ages
• Day, John, The Medieval Market Economy
• Deyell, John, Living Without Silver
• Dobb, Maurice, Studies in the Development of Capitalism
• Duby, Georges, Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages
• Duby, Georges, The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society, 1980-1420, (translated
by Eleanor Levieux and Barbara Thompson),
• Duby, Georges, The Chivalrous Society
• Duby, Georges, The Knight, The Lady and the Priest
• Duus, Peter, Feudalism in Japan
• Eaton, Richard, India's Islamic Traditions, 711-1750
• Elvin, Mark, The Pattern of the Chinese Past
• Gies, Frances and Joseph, Marriage and the family in the Middle Ages
• Gurevich, Aron, Medieval Popular Culture.
• Haruko, Wakita, `Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan From the Perspective of
Women’s History’, Journal of Japanese History, vol.10 (1), 1984.
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• Heather, Peter, Empires and Barbarians
• Heitzman, James and Schenkluhn, Wolfgang, The World in the Year 1000
• Hilton, Rodney (ed.), The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism
• Hodges, Richard and Whitehouse, David, Muhammad, Charlemagne and the Origins
of Europe
• Innes, Mathew, Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300-900
• Ko, Dorothy, Teachers of the Inner Chamber: Women and Culture in 17th Century
China
• Lal, Ruby, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World
• Le Goff, Jacques, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages
• Le Goff, Jacques (ed.), Medieval Callings
• Linehan, Peter and Nelson, Janet L. (ed), The Medieval World,
• Logan, Donald F., A History of the Church in the Middle Ages
• Lopez, Robert, The Birth Of Europe
• Mass, Jeffery P. (ed.), The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World.
• Mukhia, Harbans, The Mughals of India.
• Pirenne, Henri, Muhammad and Charlemagne
• Rösener, Werner, Peasants in the Middle Ages
• Sharma, R. S., Perspectives in the Social and Economic History of Early India
• Sharma, R.S., Indian Feudalism
• Southern, R.W, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages
• Spufford. Peter, Money Use in Medieval Europe
• Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (ed.), Money and Market in India, 1100-1700
• Totman, Conrad, The Green Archipelago. Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan.
• Watson Andrew M., Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World. The
Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques
• Weinstein, Donald and Bell, Rudolph M., Saints and Society. Christendom, 1000-
1700.
• Wickham, Chris, The Inheritance of Rome
