Post-Classical (500 CE - 1450 CE)
Bernard of Clairvaux, Apology (Apologia), 1125
Bernard of Clairvaux was abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux, in Burgundy, France, and a well-known preacher who travelled widely and was involved with many of the most pressing issues of his day, from papal power to the Crusades.
Abbot Suger, On What Was Done In His Administration (De administratione), 1144–1148
In the later 1140s, Abbot Suger of the Royal Abbey of Saint Denis, outside Paris, wrote an account of his extensive project to rebuild and redecorate his abbey church.
Native Languages of the Americas
Native Languages of the Americas is a potent and valuable resource for introducing historical and contemporary linguistics into the classroom as an extension of the discussion of native peoples in the Western Hemisphere.
Primer: The History of Globalization
Globalization, defined here as the integration of an interdependent economy that simultaneously enhances cultural exchanges relying on the mobility of people, animals, plants, pathogens, objects, and ideas, is a useful concept for exploring connections across space and time.
Long Teaching Module: Masculinity and Femininity in the Mongol Empire
This module examines ideals of masculinity and femininity among the Mongols, the Central Asian nomadic pastoralists who in the thirteenth century under their leader Chinggis Khan created the largest land-based empire the world has ever seen.
Sorghaghtani Beki and Tolui
In this illustration from Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles Sorghaghtani Beki and Tolui sit together on a pillowed throne.
Sorghaghtani Beki in the eyes of court historians
Sorghaghtani Beki, the wife and then widow of Chinggis Khan’s youngest son Tolui, appears in many contemporary written sources about the Mongol Empire, and is always viewed positively.
The Anda Bond
Along with practices of male bonding that are shared with other times and places, such as membership in all-male groups with distinctive uniforms or clothing or socializing in places where women are not allowed or do not go, the Mongols also had a specific type of male bonding, the anda
Chinggis Khan and his wife Börte in The Secret History of the Mongols
Chinggis Khan had four sons by his principal wife Börte, though there is some question as to his eldest son Jochi’s true father.
Chinggis Khan’s mother Hogelun in The Secret History of the Mongols
The Secret History of the Mongols, the story of the rise and rule of Chinggis Khan and his son and successor Ogodei produced by an anonymous court scribe in about 1240, is full of close mother-son relationships.