The course will provide medievalists, historians but also students of sociology, anthropology, or political studies, with the basic erudition for handling the doctrinal developments of the period, whose impact can be felt up to the present day. Hopefully, students will acquire a solid overview on this history. Particularly, the course will give an insight into the inseparable processes of doctrinal debates and political strife, a phenomenon that is inevitable in theocratic states, where theology is immediately translated into politics and where political strife is expressed in theological debates.