Unit name | History in the Middle Ages |
---|---|
Unit code | HIST30101 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Pohl |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit explores the way in which people in the Middle Ages conceptualized the world and their past. Together we will aim to examine different types of historical writing and the different approaches they took in, for example, chronicles, histories, annals, biographies, and gestae (deeds). What were the models for writing history? Did the future have a place in the writing of history? Why did some people write world chronicles and others national chronicles? What was the place of biography? We will explore these and other questions focused on primary material mostly from Western Europe to c.1250.
Upon completion of the unit, successful students will be able to:
1 x 2-hour seminar
1 x 1-hour seminar
1 x 3500-word Essay (50%) [ILOs 1-5]
1 x 2-hour Exam (50%) [ILOs 1-5]
Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed. Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried and Patrick J. Geary (2002)
Michael T. Clanchy, From memory to written record: England 1066-1307 (1993)
Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: the writing of history in medieval England (2004)
Antonia Gransden, Historical writing in England: c.550 to c.1307 (1974)
Nancy F. Partner, Serious entertainments: the writing of history in twelfth-century England (1977)
Benjamin Pohl, Dudo of Saint-Quentin's Historia Normannorum: tradition, innovation and memory (2015)