You are required to write TWO papers of (about) 1,000 words to be submitted to your discussion group tutor (in the same way as the earlier tutorial essay) in week 4. Please give your papers directly to your tutor at the discussion group.
One paper is to be a book review of one of the specified books.
The other paper is to be a discussion of one of
the primary documents used for the discussion groups.
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FIRST HALF TERM STRUCTURES, PEOPLES, BELIEFS The sources are: ‘The Ballad of the Tyrannical Husband’ Rosemary Horrox, ed., The Black Death, documents 112, 113 Robert
Swanson, ed., Catholic England, part II, no. 5
The books are: Werner Roesener, Peasants in the Middle Ages Judith M. Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside N.J.G.Pounds, An Economic History of Medieval Europe [discuss in relation to the period from 1250] Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages Robert Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe, c.1215-c.1515 John Bossy, Christianity in the West [part i only]* * Do not review this item if you have already
reviewed it for Historical Perspectives
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GOVERNMENTS, IDEOLOGIES, CONFLICTS The sources are: The panegyric to the city of Florence by Leonardo Bruni Chris Given-Wilson, ed., Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397-1400: The Reign of Richard II, Document 17 Edward III’s manifesto of 1340
The books are: David Nicholas, The Later Medieval City Charles Nauert Jr., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe D. Hay and J. Law, Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1380-1530 W.M. Ormrod, Political Life in Medieval England, 1300-1450 Bernard Guenee, States and Rulers in late Medieval Europe Maurice Keen, Chivalry Christopher Allmand, The Hundred
Years War: England and France at War c.1300 - c.1450
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The purpose of the book review is to demonstrate you have read with critical understanding and are prepared to engage with one or other of the books noted above. This means that in compiling your review you need to reflect the content, structure and argument(s) contained within the book, but also show that you have understood these and can say what is convincing, what is problematic, what could be better explained etc. Simply to give a potted version of the book is not enough.
For examples of published reviews, you may find those on The Medieval Review site helpful, but under no circumstances may you copy these!
The document discussion is an opportunity to show that you have a good understanding of the particular text in terms of why it was written, what it was trying to do, and how we as historians can try to use it. The questions you ask of these texts need not be so very different to those contained on the pertinent 'discussion group' pages, but other issues may be raised by your own close reading of the texts. Although your understanding of these documents will (or ought to) be informed by the other specified reading, you are not required to do any additional reading specific to the text.