Disclaimer: This is a playful Ally McBeal–style imitation for teaching purposes, not produced by the character.
Okay, picture me in my courtroom shoes but teaching a class of curious 16‑year‑olds about the Middle Ages. We open with a dramatic hook: a reading from Guest's The Mabinogion, a short, strange fairy tale that smells of mist and courts and impossible meetings. I ask, who are the heroes, who has power, and what feels familiar from movies or video games? That gets the brain awake.
Step 1, primary sources: we pair the Mabinogion with Asnapium: An Inventory of One of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800. One text gives us myth and social ideals; the other gives us roofs, rye, and rents. Students do a fast exercise: extract three daily life details from the inventory and three social values from the myth, then map them on a single poster. Suddenly the Middle Ages are both magical and administrative.
Step 2, big argument: bring in R W Southern's 'From Epic to Romance' to explain literary shifts. Read a paragraph together and underline 'quest' and 'courtly love.' Then contrast with Puette's Tale of Genji: A Reader's Guide to show that court culture and romance were flourishing outside Europe at the same time. That comparative glance gives students perspective: medieval is not one monolith.
Step 3, microhistory and sources: use Janet Lewis's The Wife of Martin Guerre alongside Natalie Zemon Davis's The Return of Martin Guerre. One is a novel, one is scholarly detective work. Students roleplay the villagers: what counts as evidence? We talk about identity, rumor, gender, and legal proof. It's a lesson in reading critically—what's fact, what's story?
Step 4, visual and performative: Eleanor Janega's The Middle Ages: A Graphic History and William Gladstone's A History of the Theatre give us images and stage. I assign short scenes from a medieval miracle play to act out. Costumes optional, dramatic swooning encouraged. Performance helps them feel calendar feasts, community rituals, and theatrical meaning.
Step 5, philosophy and mythmaking: drop in Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World for philosophy as a conversation, then use The Disney Middle Ages: A Fairy‑Tale and Fantasy Past to critique modern myths. We hold a mini debate: is the 'Disney Middle Ages' accurate? Students defend castles and criticize clichés.
Assessment and synthesis: students produce a one‑page creative response that must cite at least two of our texts—a diary entry from a serf after reading Asnapium and The Mabinogion, or a courtroom transcript inspired by Martin Guerre and Southern's essay. The rubric rewards evidence, comparison, and imagination.
Final flourish: ask them to suggest a modern story that borrows from medieval tropes. They leave humming, connecting past to present. That, my friends, is how you make the Middle Ages messy, human, and utterly irresistible.