if you want to learn more:

Take a virtual tour of the Cistercian Abbeys at Rievaulx and Fountains in Yorkshire, England.

Innocent III is widely regarded as the architect of the papal monarchy; his 1202 decretal (= legal response to a question or a request from a petitioner, originally issued by Roman emperors) Per Venerabilem illustrates this pope's genius for seizing on an insignificant local squabble as a pretext for constructing far-reaching claims of papal authority. Read this and other statements of Innocent's. You may also wish to consult the short, brilliant analysis by Cornell's own great historian Brian Tierney -- whom you may occasionally glimpse, still spry at age 88, on his way into or out of Olin Library -- "Innocent III as Judge," in Innocent III: Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World? ed. James M. Powell ( Boston: Heath, 1963, 2nd edn rpt. 1994), pp. 95-104.

Edward Grim, a monk at Canterbury, witnessed the assassination of his Archbishop, Thomas Becket, in 1170; read his account of the event.

Examine the pointed hat worn by medieval Jews from a social historical perspective.

The Dominican St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) was one of many medieval scholars deeply influenced by Aristotle, whom they regarded as The Philosopher par excellence. Aquinas only became synonymous with Scholasticism during the 19thC Catholic revival, however; in his own lifetime and in the years immediately following, he was locked in competition with (and often overshadowed by) his Franciscan contemporary, St Bonaventure (1221-74).