Elementary Program: Volume Two

The Growth of the Christian World: 33AD to 1300

The Origins of Christianity
Life of Christ

• Annunciation/Nativity
• Jesus’ Mission: John the Baptist/Calling of Disciples/Wedding of Cana/Sending of the Disciples
• Jesus’ Teaching: Sermon on the Mount &parables: prodigal son / workers in the vineyard
• Jesus’ Miracles: The man born blind/the paralytic through the roof/Lazarus
• Last Supper and Crucifixion
• Resurrection and Ascension

St. Stephen
St. Paul & his journeys
Peter and Paul in Rome
other early martyrs (Perpetua & Felicity)
sack of Jerusalem & diaspora

More Rome
Pompeii and Herculaneum
Year of Four Emperors – Vespasian’s Stability
the “five good emperors” (focus on Tragan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius) and the return of chaos: Commodus
the ‘barbarian’ tribes
the spread of Christianity—why did people become Christian
christians as the romans saw them / persecutions
life in the early Church
Crisis of the Third Century, the non-Roman emperors, co-emperors: Diocletian & Maximian
Constantine (sidebar: Helena)
Julian the Apostate
St. Jerome—include stuff on formation of canon?
St. Monica / St. Augustine
The Desert Fathers
Theodosius
“fall of Rome”: Attila the Hun and Pope Leo
St. Benedict

”Dark Ages”
“barbarian invasions”: franks, angles, saxons, vandals, goths, etc.
Theodoric (sidebar: Boethius)
St. Patrick
Celtic monasticism (sidebar: St. Brigid)
the Eastern Empire – Jusinian & Theodora
Clovis & the Franks
Beowulf
Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia – Frankish civil wars
the re-conversion of Britain, St. Augustine of Canterbury
St. Columbanus
Byzantium
Muhammad & Islam
The Spread of Islam
Charles Martel & the Carolingians
Charlemagne (must include his learning to read, his elephant)
Roland
life in Charlemagne’s empire
viking raids: the new dark ages
Norse Mythology:

• Out of Fire and Ice: The Norse Creation Story
• Odin, Thor, Loki, Frey, Freyja, Heimdall
• building of Asgard’s walls
• binding of Fenrir
• theft of Thor’s hammer
• death of Baldur (& binding of Loki)
• Ragnarok (& world reborn)

King Alfred the Great
The Norse Explorers: Iceland, Greenland, Vineland
Norsemen settle in Northern England, Normandy, Russia, etc. / Danish Kings of England
Conversion of Norway (include King Olaf)
Conversion of Iceland (include Thangbrand vs. berserker)

Medieval
Norman conquest
crusades
Gothic Architecture & the Great Cathedrals
monastic manuscripts & illuminations
Henry II & Eleanor of Aquitaine
St. Thomas Becket
chivalry
Sories of King Arthur

• Origin story: Uther, Merlin, sword in stone
• something re: Lancelot? (How clean are we keeping this?)
• Gawain & the Green Knight
• Merlin & Nimue
• the Grail
• death of Arthur

Later Crusades / Kingdom of Jerusalem / Saladin
King Richard/King John
the Magna Carta
Robin Hood
St. Francis (should include wolf of Gubbio and preaching to Sultan) (sidebar: St. Claire)
St. Dominic
St. Thomas Aquinas
The Italian City States: Florence, Venice
The Medieval Papacy
Edward I, wars against Wales and Scotland, (sidebar: castles)
Marco Polo and the first contact with the Far East
Medieval Mystery Plays