Week 4: Investiture Controversy

Writing Assignment:

There are two parts to this week’s assignment. Make sure to complete and submit both of them.

First, write an outline for the paper topic you have chosen for the first paper. Outlines should contain the following:

1. an updated thesis statement

2. placeholders for where you will place your historical background and source introduction(s)

3. subsections that each contain the following elements:

• • • a claim you will make supporting your argument
    • evidence from our primary source(s) to support that claim
    • a placeholder for your analysis (in the paper, the analysis portion of each body paragraph is where you will explain what the evidence means and how it supports your argument)

4. a placeholder for a conclusion (this will usually be a reiteration of your argument/thesis)

These outlines don't have to be incredibly long or detailed (a page of bullet points will do), but you want to think about what points you want to make and how to logically arrange them so that your reader can easily follow your argument. You will peer review your outlines in section, so bring this with you on Friday in addition to submitting it online.

For the writing assignment proper (250-300 words), this week we've been reading about the Investiture Contest in Tierney and the debate between papalists and royalists. You have randomly been assigned a side to argue using the primary sources in Tierney. Everyone whose last name begins with the letters A-M will be a papalist, everyone whose last name begins with the letters N-Z will be a royalist.

Papalists (everyone whose last name begins with the letters A-M will be a papalist):

If you have been assigned to the Papalist group. You'll be making an argument in favor of papal power, so focus on these sources:

Dictatus Papae, p. 49 
Letter from Gregory to Henry, p. 57 
Manegold of Lautenbach, p. 78

But of course they won't make much sense unless you read the other ones too! 

For the writing assignment, distill the arguments from Papalist sources into one coherent argument. This should include both philosophical, abstract points (e.g. "God has ordained that...") and ones more closely tied to the material world (e.g. "Clerics [or nobility] have abused their powers in the following ways, and they need restraint from the other side." Cite sources in the text (e.g "As Gregory remarks in Dictatus Papae, God ordained that...") If you want to rebut the opposing argument that's fine, but it should be secondary to your positive argument. Keep your argument between 250 and 300 words. As always, provide page numbers for where the specific points you are making can be found.

As with any piece of scholarly writing, we value a lot of information in a little text, as long as it's clear. 

Royalists (everyone whose last name begins with the letters N-Z will be a royalist):

If you have been assigned to the Royalist group. You'll be making an argument in favor of royal power, so focus on these sources:

Letter from Henry to Gregory, p. 59
Henry to German bishops, p. 61
Anonymous of York, p. 76

But of course they won't make much sense unless you read the other ones too! 

For the writing assignment, distill the arguments from Royalist sources into one coherent argument. This should include both philosophical, abstract points (e.g. "God has ordained that...") and ones more closely tied to the material world (e.g. "Clerics [or nobility] have abused their powers in the following ways, and they need restraint from the other side." Cite sources in the text (e.g "As Henry notes in his letter to Pope Gregory, God has instituted...") If you want to rebut the opposing argument that's fine, but it should be secondary to your positive argument. Keep your argument between 250 and 300 words. As always, provide page numbers for where the specific points you are making can be found.

As with any piece of scholarly writing, we value a lot of information in a little text, as long as it's clear. 

Answers should be 250-300 words and include specific details and page numbers from the reading.

Grading:

The purpose of these assignments is to demonstrate that you've done the reading and learned something from it. You should make sure to address all parts of the question and provide specifics like names, places, context, and page numbers in your answers.

For example, if you say that someone gave a speech before a battle, I'm going to want to know who gave the speech (names), which battle it was (context), and where it was (places). I also want to know what page(s) this material is on. Although these are short writing assignments, you still want to provide details (history is all about the details).

100% - addresses all parts of the question and provides details like names, places, context, and page numbers.

90% - addresses all parts of the question, but may lack some detail -OR- provides great detail but does not answer part of the question.

80% - answer is correct, but vague, one or more parts of the question may be unanswered.

70% - answer is very vague and multiple parts of the question are unanswered.

50% - I suspect that you read the source, but your answer totally lacks detail and doesn't demonstrate that you learned anything from the reading.

0% - It's clear that you didn't read the source, or you didn't turn in a writing assignment.