Themes in Medieval History

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• to analyse critically a variety of sources and develop your own research questions
• to engage with secondary literature on the middle ages, and contribute to the debates relating to the historiography of medieval themes and its relationship to the wider world
• to structure your ideas and research findings into well-ordered essays

Knowledge and Understanding

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

• Different Approaches of historians to the selected themes
• A wide variety of sources for the selected themes
• the Medieval world through the selected themes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• locate and use effectively sources in the library and on-line, synthesising this material in order to develop cogent arguments
• research historical questions and communicate your findings convincingly and concisely in written essays and reports
• utilise and develop your time-management skills

The module will introduce you to the wide range of uses historians have made of medieval documentation from 1000 to 1500. Approaches to the study of sources are often oblique and many classes of record are employed to support research on themes far from those envisaged by their original creators. We will introduce you to these methods in the first seminar through case studies in selected documentary classes.

Subsequent seminars will follow themes, partly set by student choices: an indicative list of areas for study would include the nobility; nation and community; the uses of the past; lordship; everyday life; war; political and religious culture.

Teaching and learning methods

The current intention is to deliver teaching for this module online. If circumstances allow, some form of blended delivery methods, including seminars, workshops, or individual tutorials may be introduced if it is safe for all concerned to do so. However, delivery will remain entirely online if face to face teaching is not possible or advisable.

Summative

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