The Story of Ancient & Medieval Christendom
Video Lecture Series
By Dr. Matthew Hoskin
$139
Students seeking credit for this Lecture Series should email [email protected] for a coupon code. Upon completion, click on the assessment at the bottom of this page.
Group Viewings: If you wish to arrange group viewings of these lectures, please contact us at [email protected] to discuss an appropriate payment scheme.
About These Lectures
Light in the “dark ages”
In this course, students will study Christian history from the post-apostolic age to the middle decades of the 1400s. Through these centuries, the body of Christ went from a small persecuted band of disciples to a nearly worldwide organisation gathering in councils to determine the future of its faithfulness to its head.
The course’s vision of the church will not be restricted to the Mediterranean and western Europe but will present Christianity in mediaeval Africa and Asia as well with a geographical sweep from Iceland in the North to Ethiopia in the South, from Ireland in the West to China in the East.
Professor Hoskin believes that law and its outworking is one major thread running from God’s self-revelation in Scripture until today, in canon law, in liturgy, in ethics, in the many ways God’s people have sought to live out their faithfulness through the ages–even in theology and private devotion.
This course closes in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople, the failure of East-West reconciliation, and the structural seeds of Reform already being sown with the failure of the Conciliar Movement.
VIDEO Series | 20 one-hour Lectures | Lifetime Digital Access | Available Aug 1, 2025
Included Lectures
I
The Apostolic Fathers and the Second Century
II
Persecution and Martyrdom in the Early Church
III
Christianity in Alexandria: Clement and Origen
IV
Constantine and the Transformation of Ancient Rome
V
The Council of Nicaea, Athanasius, and Ephrem the Syrian
VI
The Council of Constantinople (381) and the Cappadocian Fathers
VII
Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo
VIII
The Monastic Movement up to the Year 600
IX
How Christianity Survived the “Fall of the Roman Empire”
X
Ecumenical Councils, 431-681
XI
Gregory the Great and Missionary Monks
XII
The Age of Charlemagne and the Second Council of Nicaea
XIII
The Eleventh Century: Eucharist and Reform
XIV
The Rise of the Papacy
XV
Gratian’s Decretum, Pope Innocent III, and the Rise of Universities
XVI
Francis, Dominic, and the Friars
XVII
The Flowering of Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century
XVIII
John Wycliffe and the Later Middle Ages
XIX
Gregory Palamas and Byzantine Christianity
XX
Councils, Schisms, and the End of the Middle Ages
About the Lecturer
Dr. Matthew Hoskin (PhD, University of Edinburgh) teaches ancient and medieval Christian history for Davenant Hall. His research focusses on manuscripts, monks, popes, canon law, and councils, which all feature in his book The Manuscripts of Leo the Great’s Letters (2022), and he blogs about the historic faith at Classically Christian. He lives on Superior’s northern shore in Thunder Bay, Ontario, with his wife and sons.