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Remember, it's never too late to register for a class, even after it's begun. You can always catch up with any sessions you may have missed by watching the video recordings of previous sessions. The time remaining to register before the first class session is below, so stop hesitating and get to it!

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Offered:

as in-person, Zoom, or video recordings

  • • HIS321 is offered in Term 3 (Jul-Sep) pending sufficient student enrolment.

  • • This course is offered as an in-person course at the EarthDiverse Centre in Hamilton, New Zealand, live-streamed via Zoom if you live elsewhere, and as video recordings of the live sessions if you cannot attend the regularly scheduled class.

Date & Time:

Begins Tuesday 30 Jul 2024

  • • Our HIS321 course is offered on Tuesdays 6:30-8:00pm (NZ time) beginning Tuesday 30 July 2024 and meets for 8 consecutive weekly sessions. The last class of the Term is on Tuesday 17 Sep 2024.

  • • If you live outside of New Zealand and wish to Zoom in to our live class sessions, check the nearest local Time Zone equivalent below:

Time Zone equivalents:

for live-streaming Zoom Sessions from New Zealand. If your Time Zone doesn't suit our live-streamed class, you can also access our courses by watching the live-recorded sessions that are posted to the course webpage each week, usually within 1-2 days.

  • Honolulu, Hawai’i: begins Mon 29 Jul 2024, 8:30-10:00pm

  • US Pacific: begins Mon 29 Jul 2024, 11:30pm-1:00am

  • US Eastern: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 2:30-4:00am

  • London, UK: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 7:30-9:00am

  • Paris, France: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 8:30-10:00am

  • New Delhi, India: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 12:00-1:30pm

  • Bangkok, Thailand: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 1:30-3:00pm

  • Singapore & Shanghai: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 2:30-4:00pm

  • Tokyo, Japan: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 3:30-5:00pm

  • Sydney, Australia: begins Tue 30 Jul 2024, 4:30-6:00pm

Description:

HIS321: Christianity in Late Medieval Europe, circa 1417-1517 CE.

TOPICS:

Week 1: Introduction: Faith in the Fifteenth Century:

Week 2: Medieval Christianity: An Institutionalized Worldview

Week 3: The Late Medieval Church -- Rigorous or Corrupt?

Week 4: The Great Schism

Week 5: The Scholastic Quest for Certainty

Week 6: Christian Humanism and Catholic Reform before the Reformation

Week 7: Brother Martin (Luther): A Late Medieval Catholic Reformer

Week 8: Realization or Critique?: The Luther/Erasmus Debate

  • • This will be an exciting eight-week course that will have you on the edge of your seat!

  • • In this course we will examine the basic structures, practices, changes, and crises in the Western Church in the fifteenth century. We will learn about the beliefs and practices both of ordinary laity and often illiterate clergy, as well as those of learned scholars, Popes, Cardinals.

  • • Our chronological starting point will be the crisis of the “Great Schism” in which the Roman Catholic Church faced the crisis of two — and later three (!) — competing popes. We will then learn about Christian Humanism and Catholic Reform movements in the Renaissance. We will conclude with the debate between Desiderius Erasmus and a young Catholic Friar named Martin Luther on the Eve of the Reformation.

  • • Throughout this course, we will scrutinize competing narratives of whether the late medieval church was rigorous or corrupt. Was its spirituality emotionally manipulative and abusive or meaningful and comforting to peasants? Did the Reformation that followed spring from a groundswell of popular demand for change, or from the top- down imposition of a new religion against the will (and to the detriment of) faithful believers.

Meet our Instructor

Professor of History and Religious Studies Dr Adam Duker, PhD

Professor Duker is an expert in medieval and early modern Christianity. He was won numerous research and teaching prizes. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Switzerland, where he worked at the Institute for Reformation History at the University of Geneva. He spent over a year in France conducting research at the BnF and multiple other archives as a visiting research fellow at the Sorbonne. He taught a political science course at Berkeley and undergraduate courses in History, Theology, and Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame. After completing his doctorate, he became a Professor at the American University in Cairo – where he held the largest university endowed chair in the Arabic-speaking world and where he served as the Director of the only non-sectarian Religious Studies program in any Muslim-majority country. He then became a Professor of History, Religion, and Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke College before moving onto Alphacrucis College in Australia. He has held a visiting research fellowship at the University of Waikato and is currently a Research Fellow at Laidlaw College in Auckland.

Location:

This class is a hybrid class with both in-person sessions in our classrooms and streamed live via Zoom.

All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.
Location

Course curriculum:

Week by week new material will be posted throughout the duration of the course. Video recordings of each weekly session will be posted here after 1-2 days after each class.

    1. EarthDiverse Course information

    2. EarthDiverse Zoom Instructions

    3. Late Medieval Christianity - Course Schedule

    4. Late Medieval Christianity - A Brief Bibliography

    5. Late Medieval Christianity - Terms for Weeks 1 & 2

    1. 20240730 T3.1 HIS321 - Week 1 List of Terms PDF

    2. OPTIONAL READING: The Church and the Faith, by Thomas Brady

    3. 20240730 T3.1 His321 video

    1. OPTIONAL READING: The Church in the Fifteenth Century, by Van Engen

    2. OPTIONAL READING: Imitation of Christ, by Kempis

    3. 20240806 T3.2 HIS321 video

    1. Terms and Concepts PDF

    2. OPTIONAL READING: Nation Against Rome PDF

    3. OPTIONAL READING: Savonarola on the Renovation of the Church 1495 PDF

    4. 20240813 T3.3 HIS321 video

    1. 20240827 T3.4 HIS321 Summa Theologica PDF

    2. OPTIONAL READING: 20240827 T3.4 HIS321 Van Engen article "The World of the Fifteenth-Century Church" PDF

    3. 20240827 T3.4 HIS321 video

    1. 20240903 T3.5 HIS321 video

Additional course info:

  • Video and PDF content of class presentations or whiteboard notes are uploaded weekly after each live session
  • Begins on Tue 30 Jul 2024
  • NZ time: Jul 6:30-8:00pm

Pricing options:

• All prices are in New Zealand dollars and include GST.

• Unwaged includes students, seniors, retirees and unemployed.

• Prices remain the same regardless of your chosen method for accessing this course.

Distance Learning:

This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton, New Zealand. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:

  • Attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time.

  • Attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time.

  • Watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.

Distance-Learning options:

Live Zoom sessions or Video-Recordings

  • • In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, our courses offer distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.

  • • Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.

  • • Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.

Prerequisites:

A keen interest in the History of the Church

• There are no prerequisites for this course.

• Available for adult 16 years and above.