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 also find them on YouTube, iTunes 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:

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es

Dis­cov­er the Great Medieval Man­u­script, the Book of Kells, in a Free Online Course

Yale Intro­duces Anoth­er Sev­en Free Online Cours­es, Bring­ing Total to 42


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Comments (16)
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  • Wendy Burgess says:

    Do these cours­es count towards a degree?

  • Azay Delay says:

    What book does one rec­om­mend along with Paul Freed­man’s course on medieval his­to­ry? I’d like to fol­low up with some­thing writ­ten. Please advise.

  • Evangeline Englert says:

    I donate month­ly from my check­ing account.

  • Barbara Hess says:

    Dr Feed­man is a superb lec­tur­er and is quite engag­ing. Excel­lent use of vocab­u­lary and knowl­edge.

  • Jodi Sedlarczuk says:

    How and when can I start

  • Sunita Jayakumar says:

    I would like to enroll in the above course.

  • Jack Redden says:

    Is the sub­se­quent course on the high Mid­dle Ages also avail­able online? This first course is fas­ci­nat­ing — a won­der­ful pro­fes­sor.

  • Daniel Seligman says:

    A thor­ough and engag­ing set of lec­tures. Pro­fes­sor Freed­man’s exper­tise and enthu­si­asm make the ear­ly Mid­dle Ages a joy to study.

  • Berislav Kangrga says:

    This is a great idea that we can watch live teach­ing.
    Pro­fes­sor has very inter­est­ing mod­el of teach­ing. All the best from Ser­bia.
    Berislav Kan­gr­ga, a his­to­ry teacher

  • ATTY. RENATO M. ESMALE says:

    I am a Fil­ipino. I am very inter­est­ed to lis­ten as his­to­ry is my inter­est.

    How can I join?

    Is this Yale Uni­ver­si­ty?

    Thank you very much.

    My con­tact num­ber is 09195391119.

    Tru­ly yours,

    Atty. Rena­to M. Esmale

  • mary lee says:

    There is noth­ing on the arch of Con­stan­tine that depicts mes­sages in the sky.

  • Margaret Gadke says:

    When does it start?

  • Jan Spiljard says:

    As this course has been made a free online course, I would like to start doing it.

    I have looked through the course mate­ri­als and found almost every­thing. What I seem to be miss­ing is the read­ings for each lec­ture. As I under­stand it you read parts from at least from the key text as prepa­ra­tion for a lec­ture and pos­si­bly some extra read­ing stuff.

    I see a read­ing list per lec­ture, but that seems to be a list of option­al addi­tion­al read­ing stuff on the lec­ture, not any­thing that must be read to pre­pare for a lec­ture. Is there such a list.

    Thanks and regards
    jan spil­jard

  • Jan Spiljard says:

    Nev­er mind.

    Found it.

  • Abdelouadoud El Omrani says:

    No medieval his­to­ry is reli­able and com­pre­hen­sive as long as it skips (very inten­tion­al­ly and against all sci­en­tif­ic method­olo­gies) the 700 years of that bril­liant Euro­pean his­to­ry craft­ed by Arabs in Andalu­sia

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