Module Identifier HY12620  
Module Title THE BLACK DEATH  
Academic Year 2007/2008  
Co-ordinator Professor Phillipp R Schofield  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Course delivery Lecture    
  Seminars / Tutorials   Seminar.  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Exam2 Hours  70%
Semester Assessment Essay: 1 x 2,500 word essay  30%

Learning outcomes

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
C Dyer (1989) Standards of living in the later middle ages. Social change in England c, 1200-1520
E Duffy (1992) The stripping of the altars. Traditional religion in England 1400-1580
G Twigg (1984) The Black Death: a biological reappraisal
J Hatcher (1977) Plague, population and the English economy
LR Poos (1991) A rural society after the Black Death: Essex 1350-1525
M Ormrod & P Lindley (eds) (1996) The Black Death in England
P Ziegler (1969) The Black Death
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
RC Palmer (1993) English law in the age of the Black Death, 1348-1381
RH Hilton Bond men made free. Medieval peasnat movements and the English Rising of 1381
S Justice (1994) Writing and rebellion. England in 1381
WJ Dohar (1995) The Black Death and pastoral leadership. The diocese of Hereford in the fourteenth century

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 4