Unit information: The Intellectual Culture of the Twelfth Century (Level H Special Subject) in 2014/15

Unit name	The Intellectual Culture of the Twelfth Century (Level H Special Subject)
Unit code	HIST37001
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Wei
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

The twelfth century has long been recognized as a period of dramatic change in Western Europe. Economic, social, political, religious, cultural and intellectual historians have all deployed the most dramatic terms favoured by their generation to express the significance of this change: renaissance, reformation, discourse, etc. We will focus on the culture of learning in the twelfth century and its role in wider social change.

The first part will concern the contexts of learning and intellectual methods: the culture of competition in the new schools, the study of logic and philosophy in the schools, ways of knowing God in schools and monasteries, techniques of textual interpretation, science and cosmology. The second part will concern how scholars viewed and interacted with the rest of society: architecture, courtly culture and sexuality, pastoral care, social satire, law, the role of intellectuals in politics. We will conclude by exploring the emergence of universities.

Aims:

• To place students in direct contact with the current research interests of the academic tutor

• To enable students to explore the issues surrounding the state of research on the intellectual culture of the twelfth century

• To develop further students' ability to work with primary sources

• To develop further students' abilities to integrate both primary and secondary source material into a wider historical analysis

• To develop further students' ability to learn independently within a small-group context.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit students should have:

• Developed an in depth understanding of the intellectual culture of the twelfth century

• Become more experienced and competent in working with an increasingly specialist range of primary sources

• Become more adept at contributing to and learning from a small-group environment.

Teaching Information

• 10 x weekly 2 hour seminar

• Tutorial feedback on essay plus access to tutorial consultation with unit tutor in office hours.

Assessment Information

1 x 3500 word essay (50%) and 1 x 2 hour exam (50%)

Reading and References

C.B. Bouchard, ‘Every Valley Shall Be Exalted’: the Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 2003)

M.T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford, 1997)

G. Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996)

D.E. Luscombe, Medieval Thought (Oxford, 1997)

C. Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200 (London, 1972)

R.N. Swanson, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance (Manchester, 1999)