Postgraduate Course: Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches (PGHC11446)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course will focus on the key sources that have been used to study women below the ranks of the nobility in late medieval England. We will look at a key type of source each week and consider which methodologies are most appropriate. We will discuss the key areas that have been explored to date - legal status, work, marriage, life cycle, sexual behaviour, crime, piety, literacy - as well as more recent areas of research. |
| Course description |
This course will focus on the key sources that have been used to study women below the ranks of the nobility in late medieval England c.1275-1520. Although we will look at the sources in edited translations, we will also think about what survives and where and what relationship it bears to the editions that we have to work with. We will look at a key type of source each week and consider how it has been approached, what are the problems with those approaches and what we think we could get out of the source material. We will discuss the key areas that have been explored to date - legal status, work, marriage, life cycle, sexual behaviour, crime, piety, literacy - and think about some of the most recent topics such as space, emotion, material culture, and disability.
Indicative course structure:
1. Introduction
2. Manorial records
3. Coroners' rolls
4. Borough court records
5. Church court depositions
6. Conduct Texts
7. The Book of Margery Kempe
8. Letter Collections
9. Wills
10. Saints' lives
11. Conclusions
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate through seminar discussion and the coursework essay a detailed and critical command of the body of knowledge concerning women in late medieval England, c.1275-1520.
- Demonstrate through seminar discussion and the coursework essay an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship on women in late medieval England, c.1275-1520.
- Demonstrate through seminar discussion and the coursework essay an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon a variety of primary source material relating to women in late medieval England, c.1275-1520.
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and sustain original scholarly arguments in written form by independently formulating appropriate questions and utilizing relevant evidence considered in the course.
- Demonstrate originality and independence of mind, intellectual integrity and maturity, and a considerable degree of autonomy.
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Reading List
J. Goldberg, 'Women in Later Medieval English Archives', Journal of the Society of Archivists, 15:1 (1994), 59-71.
D. Watt, Medieval Women's Writing (2007).
P.J.P. Goldberg (ed.), Women in England c.1275-1525 (Manchester, 1995),
D. Watt (ed.), The Paston Women: Selected Letters (Cambridge, 2004).
B.A. Windeatt, The Book of Margery Kempe (1994). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- effective retrieval of scattered and highly technical information
- ability to evaluate critically a range of relevant scholarly methodologies and to choose and apply successfully the most effective one(s) necessary to answer specific research questions
- ability to evaluate 'primary' sources of evidence of the past in order to draw valid conclusions about it
- ability to produce a sustained and effective analysis of a difficult research problem
- preparing balanced and accessible discussions of complex issues and detailed material
- composing concise but effective arguments to firm deadlines
- ability to work effectively and professionally in a seminar/group discussion atmosphere
- critical thinking and reading as applied to fragmentary evidence and/or scholarly argument
- ability to develop a strong grasp of complex subjects through directed reading
- ability to test, modify and strengthen one's own views through collaboration and debate
- ability to identify and carry out a viable research project with occasional supervision, but with readiness to take responsibility for one's own learning
- ability to approach problems with academic rigour, imagination and mental agility
- possession of an informed respect for the principles, methods, standards, values and boundaries of study in this area of enquiry, as well as the capacity to question these
- IT skills connected with Internet use, online databases, and word processing
- command of bibliographical and library and/or archival research skills
- analytical reading skills |
| Keywords | Women,Late Medieval,England |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Cordelia Beattie
Tel: (0131 6)50 3778
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Lindsay Scott
Tel: (0131 6)50 9948
Email: |
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