The Age of Cathedrals: A Free Online Course from Yale University

Image by Rafes­mar, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

From Yale pro­fes­sor Howard Bloch comes Age of Cathe­drals, an online course that offers “an intro­duc­tion to some of the most aston­ish­ing archi­tec­tur­al mon­u­ments the world has ever known—Gothic cathe­drals,” includ­ing Notre Dame, Chartres, and Saint-Denis. The course descrip­tion adds: “We shall study the art, lit­er­a­ture, intel­lec­tu­al life, eco­nom­ics, and new social arrange­ments that arose in the shad­ow of the cathe­drals and that were such an impor­tant part of the revival of cities in the twelfth and thir­teenth cen­turies. The goal of the course is a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of the High Mid­dle Ages, a world that is still rec­og­niz­ably our own.”

You can take Age of Cathe­drals for free by select­ing the audit option upon enrolling. If you want to take the course for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

Age of Cathe­drals has been added to our list of Free His­to­ry Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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