On completion of this module, students should be able to:
a) Identify and explain the key historiographical debates concerning the role of plague in effecting change in late medieval society.
b) Demonstrate their knowledge of a range of historical processes relevant to the social and economic history of medieval England and Wales.
c) Reflect critically on historical arguments associated with the impact of plague on medieval society and linked issues.
d) Analyse and evaluate a range of primary sources related to the society of later medieval England and Wales.
e) Gather and sift appropriate items of historical evidence.
f) Develop and sustain historical arguments - in both oral (not assessed) and written work.
g) Work both independently and collaboratively whilst being able to participate in group discussions (not assessed).
Brief description
This module will introduce, by way of close discussion of the Black Death, important aspects of the political, social, and economic history of fourteenth and fifteenth century England and Wales. Comparison of the experience of European countries will also be made. The module will present students with the opportunity, through essays and seminars, to tackle such issues as historical causality, and attention will be given to the different explanations which historians have offered in attempting to accommodate the devastating impact of plague within their own models of change or continuity in late medieval England and Wales. Students, while developing their own skills of presentation and argument, will also be encouraged to discuss historians? use of sources and methodologies.
Reading Lists
Books ** Recommended Text
E Duffy (1992) The stripping of the altars. Traditional religion in England 1400-1580 WJ Dohar (1995) The Black Death and pastoral leadership. The diocese of Hereford in the fourteenth century S Justice (1994) Writing and rebellion. England in 1381 RH Hilton Bond men made free. Medieval peasnat movements and the English Rising of 1381 LR Poos (1991) A rural society after the Black Death: Essex 1350-1525 PJP Goldberg (1992) Women, work, and life-cycle in a medieval economy. Women in York and Yorkshire c 1300-1520 R Horrox (1994) The Black Death P Ziegler (1969) The Black Death M Ormrod & P Lindley (eds) (1996) The Black Death in England J Hatcher (1977) Plague, population and the English economy G Twigg (1984) The Black Death: a biological reappraisal RC Palmer (1993) English law in the age of the Black Death, 1348-1381 C Dyer (1989) Standards of living in the later middle ages. Social change in England c, 1200-1520