82418 - History of Europe in the Modern Age (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student has an in-depth and direct knowledge of the sources and current historiographical trends in different thematic and chronological areas of modern history. The student is able to identify the contribution that this study can make to understanding the present time.

Course contents

The course will focus on the history of the legitimisation of armed conflicts, religious rhetoric of war, justifications for military atrocities, and accounts/memories of war violence in early modern Europe (16th-17th centuries).

The following topics will be covered in the lectures:

1. Just war and holy war: the classical tradition and Christianity

2. The Crusades, Islam and the Papacy

3. Barbarism and conversion: early justifications for colonialism

4. Erasmus and the radical sects: the challenge to Augustinianism

5. Machiavelli and realism: freedom and military virtue

6. Christianity torn apart: France during the Wars of Religion

7. The laboratory of Flanders: violence and the containment of violence

8. Being a Christian soldier: the Catholics

9. Being a Christian soldier: the Protestants

10. Uses of the Old Testament: Joshua, Samson, the Maccabees

11. Neutralising war? Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius

12. The bloodbath: the Thirty Years' War and religion

13. The Revolution of the Saints: fighting in England and Ireland

14. Jerusalem in the New World: exterminating the Canaanites?

15. After Westphalia: a new order?

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Readings/Bibliography

All students, whether attending or not attending, must prepare for the exam on three of the following texts:

David Abulafia, La scoperta dell’umanità. Incontri atlantici nell’età di Colombo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2010

Roland Bainton, ll cristiano, la guerra, la pace. Rassegna storica e valutazione critica, Torino, Gribaudi, 1968

Ilya Berkovich, Motivation in War: The Experience of Common Soldiers in Old Regime Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017

Gianclaudio Civale, Guerrieri di Cristo. Inquisitori, gesuiti e soldati alla battaglia di Lepanto, Milano, Unicopli, 2009

Michela Catto, Cristiani senza pace. La Chiesa, gli eretici e la guerra nella Roma del Cinquecento, Roma, Donzelli, 2012

Natalie Zemon Davis, Le culture del popolo. Sapere, rituali e resistenze nella Francia del Cinquecento, Torino, Einaudi, 1980

Barbara Donagan, War in England, 1642-1649, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008

Maria Teresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, Cristiani in armi. Da sant'Agostino a papa Wojtyla, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006

Mark Greengrass, La cristianità in frantumi. Europa 1517-1648, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2020, parts III, IV, V

Guerre ed eserciti nell’età moderna, a cura di Paola Bianchi e Pietro Del Negro, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018

Vincenzo Lavenia, Dio in uniforme. Cappellani, catechesi cattolica e soldati in età moderna, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2017

Tra Marte e Astrea. Giustizia e giurisdizione militare nell'Europa della prima età moderna (secc. XVI-XVIII), a cura di Davide Maffi, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2012

James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Christian World, 1250-1550, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1979

Anthony Pagden, La caduta dell’uomo naturale. L’indiano d’America e le origini dell’etnologia comparata, Torino, Einaudi, 1989

Geoffrey Parker, La rivoluzione militare, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014

Géraud Poumarède, Il Mediterraneo oltre le crociate. La guerra turca nel Cinquecento e nel Seicento tra leggende e realtà, Torino, Utet, 2011

Michael Roberts, The Swedish Imperial Experience 1560-1718, Cambridge-London-New York, Cambridge University Press, 1979

Georg Schmidt, La guerra dei Trent’anni, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2015

Violenza sacra, vol. 1, a cura di Lucia Felici, Roma, Viella, 2022

Corrado Vivanti, Le guerre di religione nel Cinquecento, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007

Michael Walzer, La rivoluzione dei santi. Il puritanesimo alle origini del radicalismo politico, Torino, Claudiana, 1996

Non-attending students must also read the following text:

Giampiero Brunelli, La guerra in età moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2021

Teaching methods

The teacher will use texts and images to get the students able to reading the sources and to understanding the representations in history. Any teaching materials will be made available online in the appropriate section of the University's website.

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending. The oral examination will take place in the exam sessions provided at the end of the course. To evaluate the exam, the teacher will take into account the student's ability to master the contents of the course, to understand the historical concepts, to orientate himself in the bibliography, to know how to read a source, to connect the informations acquired, to expose what he has learned in a synthetic way and with an appropriate language. The student who will meet these demands will have an excellent mark. The student who will simply repeat the informations acquired in a mnemonic way and with a language not entirely adequate will have a discreet evaluation. The student who will show that he knows the contents superficially and with some gaps, using an inappropriate language, will have a sufficient evaluation. The student unprepared and incapable of orientation in the subject will have a negative evaluation.

Instead of studying the texts adopted for the exam, attending students can choose to write a paper (max 5,000 words) on a specific topic, agreeing the choice with the teacher. The evaluation of the essay will depend on its originality and its critical depth.

The present course is a part of the Integrated Course 'History of the Early Modern Age C.I. (LM)'. If the student has the Integrated Course (12CFU) in his / her study plan, the final grade will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in the two components (History of Europe in the Early Modern Age; Politics and Historiography of the Early Modern Age).

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

Oral Exam sessions are scheduled for the following months of the academic year:

January (all students), March (all), May (all), July (all), September (students in debt), November (students in debt)

Teaching tools

Attendance of the course may also include participation in seminars promoted by the teacher and visits to archives and libraries to contact the sources on the subject kept in the city of Bologna and its surroundings. The Internet will be used to access sites that contain manuscript sources, images, texts and materials of interest.

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Vincenzo Lavenia