Essay Topics:

1.) How did kings of France or the Two Sicilies or León-Castile or Aragon or the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem consolidate power and centralize governance in their realms c.1050-1250?

2.) How did the Norman & Plantagenet kings of England govern their disparate domains in the period 1066-1199?

3.) How did the fact that the Christian kingdoms in the Spanish peninsula were expanding at the expense of Muslim states affect social and political developments in the Christian realms there, c.1050–1250?

4.) Discuss the relationship between knights (whether fighting mounted or dismounted) and other combatants in warfare, c.1050–1250

5.) Discuss the shared values, cultural/religious practices, and social or political institutions that constituted ‘Latin-Christian Europe’, notably as it expanded geographically from c.1050 to c.1250.

6.) victim of COVID-19!

7.) ‘The emergence and growth of religious movements based on apostolic poverty – heretical and orthodox alike – are inexplicable without the growth of towns’. Discuss.

8.) Discuss the most important consequences of the growth of towns, c.1050–1250. [Do not limit your essay to economic affairs.]

9.) To what extent were the reform goals of 11th-early 12th-century popes implemented in practice by c.1250?

10.) How did lay people express their religious beliefs and yearnings?

11.) Victim of COVID-19!

12.) Why did the pursuit of higher education, both at cathedral schools and universities, become so popular?