Europe
Excerpt of Le Fresne
Lais are short, poetic romances written during the Middle Ages in Western Europe. These stories were written and shared orally among nobility. Click on the image of writing to read an excerpt from the lai entitled Le Fresne. You also see an image of the author, Marie de France.
Analyzing Personal Accounts
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history.. In the video below, historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks analyzes two personal accounts written by women living in northern Germany in the 17th century.
Excerpt from Memoirs by Catharina Schrader
This is a memoir written by a Protestant midwife, Catharina Schrader, who lived in Germany during the 1600s. It offers an important window into the daily lives and life cycles of non-elite women living in early modern Europe.
Excerpt from Memoirs by Glikl
The is a diary written by a Jewish merchant, Glikl of Hameln, a woman living in northern Germany in the 17th century.
Analyzing Official Documents
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history. In the video below, historian Dina Khoury analyzes two official proclamations by the government of the Ottoman Empire.
Analyzing Newspapers
The modules in Methods present case studies that demonstrate how scholars interpret different kinds of historical evidence in world history.
People Reading the Gazette
This is an image of the reading public in 18th century France. This image can tell us about who read newspapers, how they read them, and how easy or difficult it was to access newspapers.
Taking of the Bastille
This color print emphasizes the populace’s participation in the storming of the Bastille, showing the urban population fighting under a red banner with muskets, swords, and pikes against the royal soldiers.
Taking of Weapons at the Invalides
From the City Hall, the crowd that had gathered on the morning of 14 July crossed the Seine River and sacked the royal veterans’ hospital known as the Invalides, where it hoped to capture arms. In Berthault’s engraving, the scene appears chaotic.
Speech in the Garden of the Palais-Royal
In this artistic rendition, on 12 July 1789 Camille Desmoulins stands on a table and encourages his listeners to rise against the threat to the Estates–General. He, and others of his ilk, would be successful in bringing about the fall of the Bastille on 14 July.