Developments in Late Antiquity gradually produced the three great “worlds” of the Middle Ages: where the Roman Empire once stood, we find the medieval West, Byzantium, and Islamic civilization. Although the principal focus of this course will be on Western Europe, the history of the medieval West is not intelligible without some understanding of the development of the Byzantine and Islamic worlds as well. Therefore, through the study of primary and secondary texts, students will be introduced to the integrated narrative of medieval history from the beginning of Late Antiquity through the fall of the crusader states in 1291. The course will pay particular attention to the fall of Rome in the West and its survival in the East, the development of the medieval ecclesiastical and political order, the Arab and Seljuk conquests, the Gregorian reform, the crusades, the intellectual and cultural movements of the Early and High Middle Ages, the rise of the medieval papacy, and the centralization of European kingdoms in the thirteenth century.