Law & Society in Medieval England - HIS00161I

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Module summary

We often think of the Middle Ages as a lawless, violent, and anarchic time: yet law was one of the most important ideals of medieval society, as a means of establishing order, justice, and peace. Law in later medieval England was not just handed down by kings, but also demanded by peasants; it did not just involve capital and corporal punishment, but also sophisticated contractual obligations.

This module focuses on law as a way of opening up much bigger questions about late-medieval society: what kind of social order did people want? How were bonds of trust established and maintained? Was law a mechanism of social discipline, or a force for equality in an unequal world? In attempting to answer these questions, students will have the opportunity to work closely with legal sources such as witnesses statements, jury reports, coroners’ inquests, and inquisitions into heresy. Such sources not only provide us with detailed glimpses of everyday life in this period, but also ask us to consider the distortions and omissions of legal evidence more generally, and what they can tell us about the medieval past.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2024-25

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

• To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth
• To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material
  

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

• Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
• Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
• Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
• Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching
  

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW) during which there are no seminars. Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

1. Crime and Punishment
2. Custom and Community
3. Reputation and Revenge
4. Property and Possession
5. Sex and Marriage
6. Gossip and Reputation
7. Witnesses and Testimony
8. Legal Culture
   

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative assessment, students will complete a referenced 1200 to 1500-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This will be submitted in either the Week 5 or Week 9 RAW week (on the day of the weekly seminar).

For summative assessment, students will complete an Assessed Essay (2000 words, footnoted). This will comprise 100% of the overall module mark.

Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will typically 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 formative 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 25 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 course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

• Anthony Musson, Medieval Law in Context: The Growth of Legal Consciousness from Magna Carta to the Peasants' Revolt (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).
• Paul Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003).
• Elizabeth Kamali, Felony and the Guilty Mind in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).