Studying at York
Transformations of the family from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages (300-900) - MST00085M
- Department: Centre for Medieval Studies
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: M
- Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Autumn Term 2022-23 |
Module aims
The module aims to:
- Develop skills of source analysis and interpretation
- Assess a range of source material and relevant secondary works; and
- Develop students’ powers of evidence-based historical argument, both orally and in writing.
Module learning outcomes
After completing this module students should have:
- Identified various early-medieval sources available to social historians and assessed their suitability for investigating different questions.
- Demonstrated knowledge of key debates in the field of late-antique and early-medieval social history
- Assessed the limitations and possibilities of textual evidence for the study of late-antique and early-medieval social history and the family
- Developed their own definition and understanding of ‘family’ and its use in understanding past social structures
Module content
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:
- What is family? Legal, social, and religious frameworks.
- The late Roman marriage revolution
- Families as political units: maternal and paternal kinship
- Virginity, abortion, infertility and familial power(lessness) over bodies
- Enslavement and the family
- Divorce, abandonment and breaking up the family
- Death, widowhood, orphanhood, and inheritance
- Family transformations in the insular world.
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
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.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
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.
Indicative reading
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:
- Cooper, Kate. The Fall of the Roman Household. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
- Hummer, Hans. Visions of kinship in medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
- Mistry, Zubin. Abortion in the Early Middle Ages, c.500–900. Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2015.
- Nathan, Geoffrey. The Family in Late Antiquity: The rise of Christianity and the endurance of tradition. London: Routledge, 2002.