exposé

So my second exposé was due yesterday, although I didn't have time to present it in class. It was for my medieval Paris IV course (which seems to switch titles every time I turn around; sometimes it's "Church and Society," sometimes "Power and Society," sometimes simply "The XI and XII centuries"). The topic was fascinating; the class was on the power of cities, and the text I had to commentaire was a notice from the cartulaire of Notre Dame de Chartres about a riot that occurred in that city in 1210. Here's a link to the text, if you want to check it out (it was, of course, originally written in Latin, and has only been translated into English, making my life a lot easier): http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1210chartres.html

The only difficulties I had in writing the exposé was that I didn't want to stop doing background reading! I read two books on the 12th and 13th centuries, one on the medieval city, and one on Chartres itself. (Hannah: the authors were Theis, Barthélemy, Le Goff, and Chédeville, respectively.) I did way more reading than was necessary (despite Harry's best efforts to distract me, ha!), but it was so interesting. The text itself speaks very clearly to medieval procedures of justice and the hierarchies of power, among other things. (If you want a homework assignment, Nana, look at how the author speaks of the rioters. Very cool.)

Anyway, I was supposed to present yesterday, but we ran out of time. I guess I'm lucky, because while it's done I have the next two weeks - Spring Break - to edit it. Wish I had known, though; I wouldn't have stayed up all Sunday night working! Meant that I passed out at 9pm last night. Bah.