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The Frontiers of Reason, 1200-1450 - HIS00061M

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Lucy Sackville
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
    • See module specification for other years: 2021-22

Module summary

From the thirteenth century, academic thought drove contemporary debates as never before. On the shoulders of the pioneering scholars of the twelfth century, later medieval thinkers built a system of study in which reason and enquiry, rather than authority, formed the basis of academic research. In its ascendancy, the scholastic project explored the scope, and reach, of human understanding, but inherent in this approach was a capacity for radical and even heterodox thought that generated debates whose implications resonated far beyond the confines of the universities.

This module looks at the impact of this changing attitude to the role of rational intellect and human knowledge. Our focus will be on the Universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford, but we will also look at Prague and other northern universities. Through the treatises, polemics, and letters that make up the substance of the intellectual world of the period, we will examine the major debates and controversies that lie at heart of shifts in the cultural and religious climate of the later Middle Ages. We will look at the ways in which discussions about how the world should be understood and ordered led inevitably to discussions about the source of spiritual, and by implication secular, authority. The role of scepticism and heterodoxy in the formation of orthodoxy will be considered, as well as the relationship of universities to dissent, a recurring theme in contemporary discourse as well as in modern historiography

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 successfully completing this course students should:

  • Have an understanding of the history of the medieval university and its relationship to the contemporary intellectual climate
  • Be familiar with the principal sources for central medieval thought, and their interpretation
  • Understand and be able to critique the key methodological and interpretative approaches to the intellectual history of the central Middle Ages

Module content

Teaching Programme:
Students will attend eight weekly two-hour seminars in weeks 2-9.

The likely seminar programme is as follows:

  1. The schools in 1200
  2. Academic heresy: Speroni, Amalric, David of Dinant
  3. The persistence of error: the condemnation of 1277
  4. Scholars versus the mystics
  5. The schools in 1300
  6. The invincible doctor: William of Ockham
  7. Paris theologians and magic
  8. The reformers: Wyclif and Hus

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
4,000 word essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Students will complete a 2,000-word formative essay, due in week 6 of Autumn term. They will then submit a 4,000-word assessed essay for summative assessment in week 2 of Spring term.

For further details about assessed work, students should refer to the Taught Masters Degrees Statement of Assessment.

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
4,000 word essay		 N/A 100

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment, students will receive oral feedback at a one-to-one meeting with their tutor and written feedback consisting of comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission. Tutors are also available in their student hours to discuss formative assessment. For more information, see the Statement on 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. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the module starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

Baldwin, J. W., The Scholastic Culture of the Middle Ages, 1000-1300 (1971)

Grant, E., God and Reason in the Middle Ages (2001)

Fichtenau, Heinrich. Heretics and Scholars in the High Middle Ages, 1100-1200. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

Leff, Gordon. Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: the Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, c. 1250-c.1450. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967, repr. 1999.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.