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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Centre for Open Learning : History, Classics and Archaeology

Undergraduate Course: Food and Society in Early Modern Europe (LLLE07020)

Course Outline
SchoolCentre for Open Learning CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits10 ECTS Credits5
SummaryThis is a for-credit course offered by the Office of Lifelong Learning (OLL); only students registered with OLL should be enrolled.

Food is essential for human survival and a valuable tool for analysing society. Explore the diets of rich and poor in Early Modern Europe, the effect of famine, and the role of food in religion. Food was also a valuable commodity, an instrument of power and social control. Find out how the medical rationale of diet changed, both as a result of scientific advances and changing patterns of consumption, and discover the social impact of new foods and drinks in Early Modern Europe.
Course description Content of course
1. Introduction: Food and Society in Early Modern Europe
2. Food and status: elite diets.
3. Consumption and cooking in early modern Europe (1).
4. Consumption and cooking in early modern Europe (2).
5. Famine and dietary deficiency.
6. The effect of food supply on population patterns.
7. Food and trade: food as a commodity.
8. New foodstuffs and changing patterns of consumption.
9. Food, religion and ritual.
10. Food, medicine and science.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites 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:
  1. understand and compare the food cultures of different social and geographical groups in early modern Europe;
  2. evaluate and explain the extent to which patterns of consumption changed over the period;
  3. discuss the social and economic effects of food shortage and other dietary deficiencies;
  4. assess the value of food in a variety of contexts, e.g. as a sign of status, as a valuable commodity, its ceremonial value;
  5. engage critically with primary and secondary sources.
Reading List
Essential
Albala K., 2003. Food in Early Modern Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press
Recommended
Cullen, K. J., Whatley C. A., Young M., 2006. ¿King William¿s Ill Years: new evidence on the impact of scarcity and harvest failure during the crisis of the 1690s on Tayside¿. Scottish Historical Review, 85.
Clarkson L. 2001., Feast and Famine: Food and Nutrition in Ireland, 1500-1920. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mennell S., 1985. All Manners of Food: eating and taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the present. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Schwartz S., ed., 2004. Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Shammas C., 1983. ¿Food Expenditures and Economic Well-Being in Early Modern England¿. Journal of Economic History, 43.
Strong, R., 2003. Feast: a history of grand eating. London, Pimlico.
Wheaton B., 1983. Savouring the past: the French kitchen and table from 1300 to 1789. London: Chatto & Windus.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
Special Arrangements This is a for-credit course offered by the Office of Lifelong Learning (OLL); only students registered with OLL should be enrolled.
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Sally Crumplin
Tel:
Email:
Course secretaryMs Kameliya Skerleva
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email:
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