This course provides an introduction to the built environment of the Middle Ages. From the fall of Rome to the dawn of the Renaissance, a range of architectural styles shaped medieval daily life, religious experience and civic spectacle. We will become familiar with the architectural traditions of the great cathedrals, revered pilgrimage churches, and reclusive monasteries of western Europe, as well as castles, houses, and other civic structures. We will integrate the study of the architecture with the study of medieval culture, exploring the role of pilgrimage, courts and civil authority, religious reform and radicalism, crusading and social violence, and rising urbanism. In this way we will explore the ways in which the built environment profoundly affected contemporary audiences and shaped medieval life.