- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2023-24
- See module specification for other years: 2024-25
Late-medieval England was awash with writing – from posters and pamphlets put up in the streets, to letters and books that people wrote at home. More and more people could read and write, and more and more of that writing was in English, which came to be used as a language of literature, government, and more controversially, religious debate. Even though the majority of the population were still unable to read, this was a world increasingly dominated by the power of writing. What did this technological transformation mean for social relations, for faith and belief, for politics?
This module explores this major development in cultural history through an exciting range of primary sources, provided in translation, from the cryptic manifestos of political rebels, to the treatises of lollard heretics, to the lavishly illustrated romances of the gentry (and plenty more in between). It asks students to think about the world of writing as it existed before the advent of printing, as a way of understanding our own age of proliferating media change.
Students taking this module must also take the second part in Semester 2.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Semester 1 2023-24 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 and a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight three-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
For formative assessment, students will be given the opportunity to produce text commentaries in seminar, including a written commentary.
For the summative assessment students build a portfolio of two parts, to be submitted together:
a) Two text commentaries of 500-750 words; and
b) One 1,500-word essay which reflects on the significance of the chosen texts in light of scholarship and sources from across the module.
The commentaries comprise 50% and the essay 50% of the overall mark for this module. Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
Formative work will be live marked in seminar and supplemented by the tutor giving oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For summative assessment tasks, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For semester time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading: