The Knightly World: Ideals and Reality

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The aristocratic culture in the late Middle Ages
• Key primary sources for the study of the chivalry
• Order and Hierarchy in Medieval Society
• The multiple facets of chivalry, as an order of knights, an ethos, a status and a concept
• Medieval legacy to western societies: A system of values based on honour
• The social, political, technologic and economic changes in the late Middle Ages

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Select relevant information and provide a critical analysis of it
• Analyse a (historical) concept in all its complexity
• Select and analyse critically relevant information for the study of a particular topic
• Develop sound and well supported arguments

Cognitive Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Analyse critically these primary sources: extract relevant information from them and comment upon this information perceptively (using secondary sources)
• Engage with historical debates.
• Identify nature, aims and composition of contemporary sources both textual and iconographic
• Use technical vocabulary relating to chivalry: chivalry, vassal, lord, nobility, feudalism, tournaments, jousts, indentures, brotherhood-in-arms, round tables, Arthurian romances, orders of chivalry, etc.
• Structure your ideas and research findings into written assignments (essays and commentaries)

Topics may include, but are not limited to: What is a knight? The perfect knight or the ideals of knighthood A military ethos: Honour and courage Chivalry, mercy and ransoms Arthurian Romances Heralds and heraldry Tourneys: Tournaments, Jousts and Pas d’armes Brotherhood-in-arms and chivalric orders Vows, crusades and crusading Ideals Chivalric kings and national chivalry

• Weekly one-hour lecture and one-hour seminar • An additional session on Essay Writing • Field trip to Winchester • Individual tutorials (preparation for essay and feedback) This module aims at giving you an in-depth knowledge and understanding of chivalry and the chivalric culture in the Late Middle Ages. The approach is thematic. Each week a new theme will be examined. A lecture will set the framework (question, sources, state of current knowledge) while the appending seminar will be focused on one or two primary sources linked with the weekly theme. It is therefore essential that you attend both lectures and seminars. The trip to Winchester may include a visit to the cathedral, the Westgate, Sally Port and the Great Hall to see the round table. Visits to these buildings will help you think about the spaces and places associated with knights, chivalry and the aristocratic culture. Participation on this trip is not a formal requirement of the module, although you are strongly encouraged to do so. This module, like all of the 15 credit History modules offered to second year students, will be research led and it will focus heavily on primary sources. You will study an individual source in depth each week. As such, this module will provide you with a sound preparation for the source- based work undertaken in year 3 during the Special Subject and the dissertation.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Presentation

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Feedback on presentation will be given verbally in the seminars and there will also be the possibility to discuss them in tutorials
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.