The Middle Ages are a complex system of interrelated peoples' and events rather than a single era, sometimes disparagingly referred to as the "Dark Ages." In this presentation, I probe the complexity of the time, and try to explore some of what has influenced our faith today. While talking more about kings and leaders and battles and conquests than the everyday life of ordinary people may seem dry and academic, I hope to shed some light on how the way we live and believe today has many roots in these eras. The question, "So what?" is never far from my mind when I'm exploring these topics, and I hope what I say stimulates thought about our own faith in today's world.
Last Monday's presentation is titled "Middle Ages: Barbarians, Arabs and Islam, Crusades, Scholastric Revival; 711-1492."
You can listen to it easily with this embedded player:
The presentation is in two roughly one-hour parts. At the left you see the familiar right-pointing triangle, which is the "play button." The two triangles-with-a-line next to it are buttons that will toggle the first and second parts. (The only way visually you can tell them apart will be the timings on the right side of the bar: part 1 is 57:33 and part 2 is 35:03.)
Some browsers may not support the embedded player. You can download the files in MP3 format, to play on your iPod while exercising, driving, or whatever, or burn to a CD (it will need two CDs) on your computer if you wish. Here's the link:
http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation3
To download PDF files of the four pages of notes that I prepared for this presentation, click here. I made extensive use of maps in my presentation, which I projected on a screen. All of them are readily available from sources on the internet, and I've provided links to them at appropriate places in the notes. (In listening to the recorded talk, you'll not there was some difficulty because I neglected to load a couple of the maps on the PowerPoint program I used, but I have included them in the notes.)
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