Richard A. Landes, professor of history and director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, will give a University Lecture titled "When Adam Delved and Eve Span: Demotic Christianity and the Economic Expansion of Europe, 11th-13th Centuries," Thursday, March 11, at 4:30 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall on the Cornell University campus. The talk is free and open to the public. Landes' lecture serves to launch the third annual Vagantes Conference in Medieval Studies, to be held this year for the first time at Cornell. Vagantes is an annual meeting established in conjunction with Harvard University and the University of Toronto by and for graduate students from across the country and elsewhere, studying the Middle Ages in a wide variety of ways. The full conference program can be accessed at http://www.vagantes.org/programme.htm .

"Landes' perspective on medieval history should generate much campus interest today at a time when scholars in seemingly quite remote and unrelated fields are looking at medieval experience as a model for modern challenges," said Paul Hyams, Cornell professor of history and director of the Medieval Studies Program. "'Crusading' is no longer simply a metaphor when some Washington policymakers talk of military initiatives to convert the Islamic world to Western-style government. Landes, for one, is happy to come out of the cloister to scrutinize and critique his own time."

Though most people date the medieval period to between 500 and 1500, Landes argues that socio-economic developments in Europe from the 10th century onward liberated this formerly backward region to catch up with the great civilizations of Islam and China. "This was the first phase of European 'modernization,'" Landes writes. "What we call 'early modern,' then, is really 'early secular.' The economic activity, the psychological attitudes, the technological prowess, the aggressivity of commoners, the novelty of intellectual discourse -- all these appeared first in the form of explicitly religious behavior in the previous half-millennium."

Landes states that classifying the period as "early modern" has major implications, "not only for the way we conceive of the transformations of the 15th to 17th centuries, but also for the current identity crisis of 'post-modern.'"

Landes is the author and co-editor of several books, including The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Studies in the Mutation of European Culture (Oxford University Press, 2003), Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements (Berkshire Reference Works; Routledge NY, 2000), and The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France Around the Year 1000 (Cornell University Press, 1992), among others. He has authored numerous articles and has been interviewed in People magazine, a rare coup for any medievalist.

At Cornell, the designation of university lecturer is given to speakers whose subjects have wide-ranging appeal. Guest speakers are selected by a University Lectures Committee composed of faculty members and students.

For more information about the lecture, contact Hyams at (607) 255-2076 or prh3@cornell.edu .