Trinity College Dublin

The Frankish super-state pieced together by bloody conquest in the reign of Charlemagne (768-814) comprised much of modern-day France, Germany, Italy, Catalonia, and the Low Countries. It remains popularly seen today as at once a restoration of the western Roman Empire, and as a precursor to modern European unity.

By consulting first-hand the remarkable variety of contemporary literature produced at the courts and monasteries of this age, together with the boom in modern scholarship on the subject published in recent decades, we will seek to deconstruct both these notions, and uncover instead a ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ on its own, eighth- and ninth-century terms: one of ritual, theocracy, and prophetic visions; of brutal violence, learned polemic, and carefully balanced consensus. Above all, the course asks: how were such extraordinary political and territorial ambitions achieved and legitimized in a world of such rudimentary resources? And why, once accomplished, could it not last?

The course presents an overview of the historical geography of Ireland from the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Mesolithic through to c.1840 A.D. Throughout the course developments in Ireland are set within appropriate comparative and theoretical contexts. The principal topics explored are settlement, land use and agriculture, the changing environment (including human impacts), patterns of cultural variation and interaction, and how these have come together to forge changing landscapes and regions.

Reflecting the increased focus on social and cultural themes in Irish historiography, this course addresses the ways in which historians are tackling a broad range of societal questions.  What characterised peoples’ family, working, and social lives? How did people interact with the apparatus of the state and of religious bodies? How did the evolution of media affect daily life? What forces and ideas shaped the provision of education and welfare? What impact did emigration have on both host and home societies? Key to the course is an understanding of what differentiated experiences; how did gender, class, geography, and moral/status hierarchies of different kinds shape individual lives? It also places the social history of Ireland in comparative and global contexts, in order to question ideas of Irish insularity and exceptionalism.