- Department: Centre for Medieval Studies
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: M
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2022-23 |
The module aims to:
After completing this module students should have:
As the Roman empire collapsed or transformed, so too did social relationships. New roles emerged for families in political culture, while changing attitudes to marriage, virginity, adoption and abortion interacted with new types of kinship, including godparents and religious brothers and sisters. This module investigates this series of significant shifts in family roles, structures, expectations, and meanings from the end of the Roman empire to the dawn of the Carolingian Empire, focusing primarily on Gaul, North Africa, and the insular world.
Students will have the opportunity to meet a range of late-antique and early-medieval sources in English translation, including saints’ lives, legal texts, conciliar acts, penitentials, letters, tombstones, and sermons. Further reading options will be available for students who wish to explore the evidence from material culture and students with prior Latin experience can be supported in accessing the source texts in their original language, if they are interested.
Students will attend eight weekly two-hour seminars in weeks 2-9. The provisional outline for the module is as follows:
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
CMS Students are expected to develop their essay topic in consultation with staff teaching on the module, and they are also strongly encouraged to submit a draft of their essay for feedback before the end of term. The draft essay replaces any formative assessment assignments and is a unique opportunity given to CMS students in recognition of the challenges they face in writing in an unfamiliar discipline.
Draft essays are normally submitted to the relevant staff member by the beginning of week 9 at the latest, in order to receive feedback by the end of term. The word limit for the draft essay is 2,500 words.
Students will then submit a 3,500 - 4,000-word assessed essay for the summative assessment in week 1 of the spring term.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required.
For term 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: