Lectures:

1. What is Central Europe: Historical concepts, demarcation and origins

2. Crisis of the middle ages and Central Europe

3. The Luxembourgs, Angevins, Jagellonians: Emerging dynasties in the region

4. Central Europe in European politics and conflicts

5. Central Europe and Holy Roman Empire: Mutual influence and relations, CE states in imperial politics

6. Midterm essay

7. Triangular trade: Italy, Flanders and Central Europe

8. Church vs. state: Religious reform and heresy in regional context

9. Hussites and Lollards; The Anti-Hussite crusade in England

10. Pilgrimages. Papal legates and collectors in Central Europe.

11. The “other“ in Central Europe: Religious and ethnic minorities

12. Oral presentations in form of round-table discussion

13. Final essay

Required readings:

WILSON, P. H. Heart of Europe A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Boston: Harvard University Press 2016. ISBN 978-0-674-05809-5. Selected chapters.

SEDLAR, J. W. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1994. ISBN 0-295-97290-4. Selected chapters.

JARITZ, G. and SZENDE, K. (eds.). Medieval East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge, 2016. ISBN 978-1-138-92346-1. Selected chapters.

Recommended readings:

BOEHM, B. D. and FAJT, J. Prague–The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. ISBN 1-58839-161-2. Selected chapters.

SUCHÝ, M. England and Bohemia in the Time of Anne of Luxembourg. Dynastic Marriage as a Precondition for Cultural Contact in the Late Middle Ages. In: Prague and Bohemia. Medieval Art, Architecture and Cultural Exchange in Central Europe, Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 2009, pp. 8-21. ISBN 978-1-906-54059-3.

ASTON, M., The Fifteenth Century: The Prospect of Europe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969. ISBN 978-0-500-33009-8.

KAMINSKI, H. A history of the Hussite revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press 1967, 2nd ed. 2004. ISBN 978-1-592-44631-5. Selected chapters.

BARTLOVÁ, M. Understanding Hussite Iconoclasm. Filosofický časopis, 2009, Suppl. 1, pp. 115-126. ISSN 0015-1831.

ZAORAL, R. Silver and Glass in Medieval Trade and Cultural Exchange between Venice and the Bohemian Kingdom, Český časopis historický/The Czech Historical Review 109, 2011, pp. 235-261. ISSN 0862-6111.

ZAORAL, R. Pilgrims and their Money on their Travels to Rome: Reflections on the edition Il Libro del pellegrino (Siena, 1382–1446). Czech and Slovak Journal of Humanities – Historica, 1, 2014, pp. 19–34. ISSN: 1805-3742.

ZAORAL, R. The management of papal collections and long-distance trade in the thirteenth-century Czech lands. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge [Online], 127-2, | 2015. ISSN 0223-5110. https://mefrm.revues.org/2732

KEENE, D., NAGY, B. and SZENDE, K. (eds.). Segregation, Integration, Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 978-0-754-66477-2. Selected chapters.