Module Information
Course Delivery
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Project 3000 Words | 75% |
| Semester Assessment | Short Essay 1000 Words | 25% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Project 3000 Words | 75% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Short Essay 1000 Words | 25% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate an understanding of how medieval historical writings have been used by historians and an awareness of the challenges of working with these sources.
Demonstrate an understanding of contrasting historiographcial perspectives on these works.
Analyze and reflect critically on the relationship between the intentions of those who participated in creating these sources and their historical value.
Construct cogent historical arguments relating to medieval chronicles.
Select appropriate examples to support their arguments.
Brief description
History may be the study and discussion of the past, but the idea of what 'history' is, and thus how the past should be written about, changes over time. This module concerns medieval ideas about historia: studying and writing about the past. We explore a range of ways in which medieval scholars recorded and expressed ideas about the past in written form. The module focuses particularly on two forms of historical narratives and considers the extent to which their production, form, style, and content differed: sagas and chronicles. Students will engage in a close examination of one set of sagas, the kings' sagas, and compare them to a set of chronicles from England, in order to explore the variety of modes of expression that history could take from 1000-1300.
Aims
This module will provide an additional choice as part of the range of skills, sources and methods modules available to second year students, which will be of particular interest to students studying for the single honours in Medieval and Early Modern History. It will give students an opportunity to consider how and why medieval chronicles and texts were produced and how they may be used as a source by historians.
Content
Indicative seminar content:
- Understanding medieval chronicles
- Thinking about history
- Production and Reception: The foundations of textual analysis
- Status and learning
- Biblical and classical influences
- Truth and verisimilitude
- Instruction and edification
- Poems, speeches, and other interpolations
- Understanding behaviour and rituals using textual evidence
- What was history?
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Communication | Oral and written communication skills will be developed through seminars and feedback on written work. These skills will be assessed through assignments. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | Written work will be returned in tutorials where advice will be given regarding the improvement of research and techniques and essay writing skills |
| Information Technology | Through the retrieval of primary and secondary works from online resources and AberLearn Blackboard and through the writing, formatting and printing of essays. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | This module will develop oral and written skills. It will also prepare students for careers which involve the research, critical analysis and presentation of material relevant to a particular problem or set of problems |
| Problem solving | Students are expected to note and respond to historical problems which arise as part of the study of this subject area, and to undertake suitable research for seminars and essays. |
| Research skills | Students will be required to carry out research for seminars and written work. |
| Subject Specific Skills | This module will develop a knowledge of how to use particular types of medieval texts and how they have been utilised by historians. |
| Team work | Through seminar activities, including seminar leading with another student. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5