Unit name | The Intellectual Culture of the Twelfth Century (Level H Special Subject) |
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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 |
The twelfth century was a period of dramatic change in Western Europe. People thought and felt differently about themselves and about others, producing imaginative and accessible texts that are now available in translation. Cultural, intellectual, social, political, religious and economic 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 explore 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 examine how scholars viewed and interacted with the rest of society: gothic 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 develop further the ability of students to learn independently within a small-group context.
By the end of the unit students should have:
Seminars - 3 hours per week
1 x 3500 word essay (50%) and 1 x 2 hour exam (50%)
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)