Course overview
This course explores the lives and experiences of three key social orders in western Europe during the Middle Ages: the aristocracy, the church, and the peasantry. We also consider the lives of women, both as members of the three orders and generally. We begin the course in the early Middle Ages with Charlemagne and his successors, and the upheaval caused by Vikings and other invaders. We shall then consider the expansion of European power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (including the Crusades), and the flourishing of European civilisation and culture, trade and urban life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At the end of the course, we discuss the crisis of medieval civilisation that was brought about by conflicts within the Church, the great struggle between France and England, and the Black Death.
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate a broad knowledge of the history of Europe in the middle ages and the ways in which historians have interpreted and explained this history.
- identify and use effectively a wide variety of secondary sources relevant to the study of Europe in the middle ages, and in particular to understand and critically to evaluate the arguments of historians.
- contextualise and interpret a wide variety of primary sources, including medieval texts, images and physical artefacts.
- construct evidence-based arguments in which students engage with the key debates about the nature of European society in the middle ages.
- communicate their own ideas about medieval history - both orally and in writing - in a manner that is clear and persuasive.
- access and use effectively the wide range of relevant primary and secondary sources on medieval history that are available on-line.
- develop and communicate their ideas about the middle ages within the scholarly conventions of the discipline of history.