A Free Yale Course on Medieval History: 700 Years in 22 Lectures

In 22 lec­tures, Yale his­to­ri­an Paul Freed­man takes you on a 700-year tour of medieval his­to­ry. Mov­ing from 284‑1000 AD, this free online course cov­ers “the con­ver­sion of Europe to Chris­tian­i­ty, the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam and the Arabs, the ‘Dark Ages,’ Charle­magne and the Car­olin­gian renais­sance, and the Viking and Hun­gar­i­an inva­sions.” And let’s not for­get St. Augus­tine and the “Splen­dor of Byzan­tium.”

You can stream all of the lec­tures above. Or find them on YouTube and this Yale web­site.

The Ear­ly Mid­dle Ages: 284‑1000 will be added to our list of Free His­to­ry Cours­es, a sub­set of our meta col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Below, we’ve added a list of the key texts used in the course:

• Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Com­plete Ein­hard. ed. Paul Edward Dut­ton, Broad­view Press, 1998.
• Gre­go­ry of Tours: The Merovin­gians. ed. Alexan­der Callan­der Mur­ray, Broad­view Press, 2006.
• Pro­copius, The Secret His­to­ry. ed. Richard Atwa­ter, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Press, 1961.
• Wick­ham, Chris, The Inher­i­tance of Rome: A His­to­ry of Europe from 400 to 1000. Viking, 2009.
• Richards, Julian, The Vikings: A Very Short His­to­ry. Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2005.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es

160,000+ Medieval Man­u­scripts Online: Where to Find Them

The Medieval Mas­ter­piece, the Book of Kells, Is Now Dig­i­tized and Avail­able Online

How to Make a Medieval Man­u­script: An Intro­duc­tion in 7 Videos