- Department: History
- Module co-ordinator: Dr. Sethina Watson
- Credit value: 40 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2021-22
At the end of the twelfth century, religion took to the streets. Monks and nuns had sought salvation by abandoning the world, but a new generation headed into the city streets to forge lives among the destitute and despised. Theirs was a period of huge social change. Urbanization created new riches, and new social problems. Victims of the profit economy became objects of concern, and models for a new religious life. Poverty was now a religious preoccupation. From the streets came voices of dissent, and heresy, proclaiming the corruptions of wealth. Radicals like Francis of Assisi became beggars and preachers. And women led new calls, as mystics and beguines, embracing voluntary poverty to care for the poor and diseased, outside the structures of the church. These voices were inspiring, but also dangerous; the more extreme became objects of wonder, attracting biographers whose writings survive.
This module will explore this era of religious ferment, of social change and social challenge, 1170–1250. It focuses on the city streets of England, Flanders and France, but looks, too, into Italy and Germany. It uncovers the upheaval of the profit economy through the social responses, religious zeal and controversies that were produced by the clash between urban wealth and poverty. It looks at the new forms of religious life -- the radical preachers, mendicants, and beguines – as well as the leper-houses and hospitals, and the sick and paupers they served. At its heart is the new public space of the marketplace, and the radical voices it enabled. To do this, we will deploy a range of source material, including lives of saints, chronicles, law, theology, regulations and court inquests. All material will be provided in English.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2021-22 to Spring Term 2021-22 |
The aims of this module are:
On completion of this module a student will:
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1 of the autumn term, and a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-5 and 7-9 of the autumn term and weeks 2-5 and 7-10 of the spring term. Both the autumn and spring terms include a reading week for final year students and so there will be no teaching in week 6. Students prepare for and participate in fifteen three-hour seminars. One-to-one meetings will also be held to discuss the assessed essay.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
1. Three lives in a changing world: anchorite, layman and hospitaller
2. Two views of Poverty: Caesarius of Heisterbach and Valdes
3. Lepers: those who give and those who suffer
4. Poverty and Revolution I: Longbeard and the London revolt
5. The profit economy and its critics I: scholars and dirty money
6. Poverty and Revolution II: Pope Innocent III and the 'Deviants'
7. The profit economy and its critics II: St Frances takes to the streets
8. New voices: Mary d'Oignies and Jacques de Vitry
9. The rise of the Beguines
10. Hospitals and the Charitable Revolution
11. Experience: emotions and Charity
12. Experience: the poor and agency
13. Order, Disorder and 'the Woman Question'
14. Franciscan Poverties
15. Challenging Paradigms
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework Essay 4,000 words |
N/A | 50 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) Online Exam |
8 hours | 50 |
None
For formative assessment, students will be given the opportunity to do practice gobbets and then required to write a 2,000-word procedural essay relating to the themes and issues of the module in either the autumn or spring term.
For summative assessment, students complete a 4,000-word essay which utilises an analysis of primary source materials to explore a theme or topic relating to the module, due in week 5 of the summer term.
They then take a three-hour closed examination for summative assessment in the summer term assessment period comprising: one essay question relating to themes and issues, but showing an awareness of the pertinent sources that underpin these AND one ‘gobbet’ question (where students attempt two gobbets from a slate of eight).
The essay and exam are weighted equally at 50% each.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework Essay 4,000 words |
N/A | 50 |
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled) Online Exam |
8 hours | 50 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.
Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work during their tutor’s student hours. 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 unless submitted in week 5 of the summer term, in which case these are available within 25 working days. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
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:
Sharon Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology and the Daily lives of the Poor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.Carol Symes, A Common Stage: Theatre and Public Life in Medieval Arras. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007