This core course introduces students to different types of evidence, and to the relationship between evidence, disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, analysis, method and argument. The teaching is based around categories of evidence and the ways in which scholars have written about them, using detailed work on primary-source examples. In addition to this explicit engagement with interdisciplinarity, which introduces students to the different approaches they will encounter in the weekly research seminar and in the series of options courses taught by staff across the Faculty, the course encourages students to think about the process of constructing a dissertation in relation to published work within the field. The assessment relates to both of these interrelated aims.

The aim of the module is to give students a firm foundation in Classical Latin, both vocabulary and grammar (accidence and syntax), using a modern course with precisely that objective in mind. Schedule will follow the structured approach of Wheelock's Latin, covering:-

• verbs: all four conjugations, indicative (both active and passive), present infinitive and imperative active.

• nouns, all five declensions, singular and plural, pronouns demonstratives, relatives:

• adjectives, prepositions, the use of the cases, simple sentence construction.

In the first term the students will be introduced to Medieval and Early Modern Palaeography. The course will be structured chronologically, tracing the development of documentary and manuscripts scripts and will include a pathway for the Medieval period, based on Latin and English hand writing, and a pathway for the Early Modern Period, concerned with English and French secretarial and book hands. Topics will include Medieval and Early Modern cursive scripts, Medieval and Early modern book-hands, abbreviations, numerals, codicology, archival conservation practices, skills for the transcription and edition of texts. In the second term the students will be introduced to the development of documentary and manuscripts production, This second part of the module will also include a pathway for the Medieval period, based on Latin and English documents, and a pathway for the Early Modern Period, concerned with English and French documents and manuscripts. Topics will include Early Medieval documentation, papal documents, royal charters and writs, records of financial offices, Middle English manuscripts and texts, Medieval illumination, Early modern petitions, Early modern correspondence, Early Modern incunables, and the invention of print.

This module will introduce students to the poetry and poetics of two Middle English writers, Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower.  Readings will be drawn from their respective vernacular tale collections (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Gower’s Confession Amantis) with a view to comparative analysis of these works and a particular emphasis on selected tales each has in common. 

Chaucer and Gower were themselves friends and literary colleagues who lived and worked in and around London in the second half of the fourteenth century. Reading Chaucer alongside Gower gives us a useful vantage from which to compare their different literary styles and critical preoccupations, especially as today Chaucer is too often considered in isolation from his literary milieu. 

One reason for this is that Gower has long been reputed to be the more ‘moral’ of the two, and yet on close inspection that appellation may not stick. Gower doubtless has a more urgent and candid political voice, whereas Chaucer is difficult to pin down within the context of current events. Yet Gower dwells on serious if sensational human interests—incest, social rebellion, homosexuality—that Chaucer refuses to touch or refers to only obliquely.

In this course we will consider how each poet envisaged his literary enterprise. What did they use their texts for?  For whom were they written?  Why did they write in different ways?  Topics we may cover include sexual politics and social poetics; patronage; writing in the vernacular; and courtly love and conduct. 

The inquiries we make will depend, to a large extent, on the interests and initiatives of individual students.

This course will examine the uneven and contested spread of Protestantism in Elizabethan and Jacobean England through original sources, and the strategies by which they can now be interpreted. Evidence includes official formularies and directives, puritan proposals for reform, polemical texts, spiritual diaries, catholic recusant literature, and constructions of the godly preacher and godly bishop. Themes will include the ambiguous character of the Elizabethan settlement, divisions among protestants over discipline, doctrine and piety, the persistence of Roman Catholicism, and the impact of Protestantism on parochial life and popular culture. A central issue will be the tensions arising from the state church’s dual role as bastion of political stability and vehicle for evangelism.

The module is structured around a selection from six key topics: poetry, portraiture, and ‘self-fashioning’ in the Henrician and Elizabethan courts; ‘private’ miniatures and sonnets; emblems and emblem books; iconomachy and iconoclasm; women and visual-verbal culture; and death, elegies and funerary arts. Each seminar will examine a set of visual texts (reproduced in books, or available from the slide library) alongside selected literary texts (which will probably be best made available in the form of a handbook that students will buy), and criticism. Where possible relevant documents in the Cathedral Archives and Library and/or surviving material culture (such as funerary monuments in the Cathedral) will also be studied, and students will be encouraged to initiate their own ‘case studies’ of visual-verbal imagery and culture based on local archives (thereby drawing students’ attention to research possibilities in the field locally). Issues of ongoing concern to the course are the consumption and social function of visual-verbal imagery, the spaces in which such imagery was used, the ways in which writers approached visual-verbal relations in the period and, more generally, the possibilities and problems of interdisciplinary criticism.

The module will explore the original staging practices and material qualities of theatrical performance which shaped the drama which Shakespeare wrote. It will consider the role of material culture outside the theatre in a partially literate society in a period before mass production, examining the way it functioned to define gender and social differences between individuals. The majority of the seminars, however, will be spent analysing the role of material culture within the genres of comedy, tragedy and history, engaging students with a wide range of Shakespeare’s writing and with the conditions under which it would have been performed

This module will draw on the research interests of Dr Barbara Bombi (History) and Dr Sarah James (English), both of whom work on aspects of ecclesiastical history, theology and literature between c. 1180—c. 1530. The course, which will be structured chronologically, traces the development of devotional theories and practices as they affected both religious and lay communities, and will draw on a range of source materials, including legal documents, philosophical and theological treatises, and literary texts. Topics will include the papacy and theology, preachers and pastoral care, eucharistic theology, religious guilds and mysticism.

Rome continued to play a defining role in European history long after it had ceased to be the centre of the Roman Empire. This course looks at the profound changes that took place in Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of Roman rule. It will also examine changing attitudes towards Rome as it was repeatedly re-imagined. The course will serve as training in the use of archaeological sources for those students who have primarily studied other disciplines such as History and English Literature. But it will also deepen and extend knowledge of this period for those who have already studied archaeology. Topics will include late Roman society, the creation of new ethnic identities, the collapse of the Roman economy, the afterlife of Roman towns, changes in rural settlement, the formation of new kingdoms, early medieval Kent, Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian views of Rome.

This module will draw on the research interests of Dr Barbara Bombi (History), who works on aspects of ecclesiastical history, theology, Medieval canon law and Medieval political thought c. 1180—c. 1320. The course will be structured chronologically, tracing the development of political theories and practices of government developed by popes and lay rulers during the thirteenth century. Topics will include the ideas of papal power, ideas of state in England, Germany and Italy, the clash between papacy and lay rulers, the rise of new political subjects within Medieval Europe, especially towns.

Three case studies will be examined, each of which experienced distinctive and sometimes rapid phases of growth, accompanied by significant changes of function: Hampton Court (1515-39 and 1689-94), Whitehall (the 1540s, 1619-22, 1686-91) and Somerset House (1547-52, 1620-35, 1776-96).  This enables us to focus on specific moments in political history (the 1530s and 40s, the 1620s, 1689, the late 18th century), juxtaposing the changing needs of government, the vicissitudes of the crown’s and the nation’s finances, changes in building methods and architectural language, and the development of the fine arts, especially painting.  The expansion of London and the emergence of a public sphere for the arts form the overall context within which these developments will be analysed.

The teaching will focus on a number of inter-related themes which will be studied through differing types of evidence from written and printed texts to objects and standing buildings. Consequently, certain seminars will take place outside the seminar room, looking at the evidence in situ. Topics covered will include topography, civic governance, house and household, commercial practices and premises, Anglicans and dissenters, immigration and city-central government relations, as a way of examining issues such as space, power, patronage and responses to changing social, political and economic conditions. Students will be encouraged to think comparatively, both nationally and internationally, to assess Canterbury’s place within early modern European society.

The teaching will focus on a number of inter-related themes which will be studied through differing types of evidence from written and printed texts to objects and standing buildings. Consequently, certain seminars will take place outside the seminar room, looking at the evidence in situ. Topics covered will include topography, civic governance, urban defence, house and household, commercial practices and premises, parish church development, the place of religious houses, pilgrimage and city-crown relations, as a way of examining issues such as space, power, patronage and responses to changing social, political and economic conditions. Students will be encouraged to think comparatively, both nationally and internationally, to assess Canterbury’s place within medieval European society.

Anglo-French relations have been extensively studied in their diplomatic and military contexts. Though there will be a certain amount of this material included, the aim here is to concentrate on the reception of influences from France on English culture in the 16th century.  An important part of the module will concentrate on the teaching and inculcation of the French language in the period as well as the influences of reading French literature in the original and in translation (from Rabelais to Montaigne) in England. A knowledge of French would be an advantage by not essential for anyone taking the module. Another significant aspect of the module will concentrate on the portrayal of France, firstly by travellers and secondly by systematic observers between the reign of Henry VIII and the early 17th century.

The course will be concerned with town life in the late 14th and early 15th centuries; the late 15th and early 16th centuries; and the mid to late 16th century. Students will be introduced to the secondary literature appropriate to these periods and to a range of primary sources including chronicles; the financial, administrative and legal records of urban society; testamentary records; and the materials of the ecclesiastical courts, royal records, as well as literary sources. It is intended that special use will be made of the manuscript evidence of the town of Kent, including Canterbury, Sandwich, Fordwich, Folkestone, Faversham, Lydd, New Romney, Hythe and Rochester. Particular attention will be given to the impact of plague on urban society; the social and economic nature of the urban family and household; neighbourhood, parish and community relations; literacy; piety; the roles of women, crime and disorder; space and time; the urban politics of the Reformation.

This module offers a broad-ranging introduction to the study of the visual art produced or owned in England in the Middle Ages, focusing on the period c. 1200-c. 1450. In our seminars we will be discussing works of art as physical objects (considering, for example, artists, materials, and techniques), looking critically at the secondary literature, and debating about interpretative strategies for the 21st century (art) historian. Some of the themes that will be of particular interest will be: the functions of storytelling images; art and medieval death culture; and the iconography of monstrosity. The architecture, stained glass, and monumental sculpture of Canterbury Cathedral will be a particular focus of the module.

This module will draw on the research interests of Dr Sarah James (English) and Dr Alixe Bovey (History), both of whom work with the art and literature of England between c. 1200—c. 1500. The course will be structured as a series of chronological case studies, in which the relationships between literary texts and works of art are considered in a variety of contexts. Issues of patronage, production, and audience will be considered, as will the complex relationships between orality, aurality, literacy, and visual culture. Topics will include the art and literature of medieval London c. 1340; the Gawain manuscript; visionary literature and devotional imagery; and the Lollard critique of images.

The objective of this  option will be to trace the development of constructing the narrative of warfare from the chronicle form of the later Middle Ages (and here the dominant figure is obviously Froissart) to the writing of war memoirs by military professionals during the sixteenth century up to the 1570s with Blaise de Monluc. The geographical scope will be limited to France and England but this is appropriate because of the close involvement of the two countries in hostilities during the period and the shared assumptions of many of their writers. Froissart’s objectives in the multi-layered construction of his narrative will be considered as well as the influence of translation of his work into English by Berners in the sixteenth century. Ability to read French would evidently be an asset, though it is assumed that the text will be studied from the complete translation by Johnes in 11 volumes (while students will be encouraged to distinguish between versions). Similarly, Philippe de Commynes’s memoirs are available in a number of translations and Monluc (the most important individual memoirist of the sixteenth century) can be read in full through an electronic version of the 17th-century translation. The subject of the objectives of military memoirists from the late 15th century onwards has recently become a very lively issue as a result of Yuval Harari’s work.

Beginning within Art History, this postgraduate module will take an interdisciplinary approach to explore ‘The Idea of the Renaissance’. It will seek to analyse the uses to which the term ‘Renaissance’ has been put, and its continued relevance for the academic study of an ill-defined period of European cultural history (1300-1600?). Unlike other descriptive terms used to define historical periods – ‘medieval’, ‘baroque’ and certainly ‘early modern’ – the idea of cultural ‘rebirth’ at least had its origins within the thought of the period, and with this concept of rebirth came also a sense of an altered relationship between a modern present and past antiquity. While few scholars would now agree with the total cultural history that the idea of the Renaissance defined for a nineteenth-century thinker like Burckhardt, the concept still has meaning and currency in art historical, literary and philological studies. To give an indicative example, the module might begin with a classic case study: the Primavera of Sandro Botticelli, and the parallels that exist with the Stanze of Angelo Poliziano in the novel way in which both artist and poet revive the art of antiquity. It would then develop beyond a particular case to approach other aspects and other questions raised by the ‘Idea of the Renaissance’: how is the Renaissance different from earlier revivals of classical antiquity (what Panofsky called ‘renascences’) and what precisely of antiquity did it revive (the forms or the substance – i.e. paganism); how is the Renaissance related to ‘humanism’; to ‘modernity’; to an emphasis on the lives of significant individuals (most recently discussed as ‘self-fashioning’). Was the Renaissance purely an Italian phenomenon, or did Northern Europe, including England, have its own Renaissance? Has the idea of the Renaissance distorted our view of what came before: ‘the Middle Ages’? Drawing on other case studies – for example, the relationship between manuscripts and printed books – this module will address these questions and also provide a historiographical survey through selected readings of the concept of the Renaissance.

The English Parliament holds a central position in the historiography of the English-speaking world. From the teleological approach of the Whig historians to modern revisionism, scholars have debated the nature and pace of Parliament’s development and its relationship to other parts of the English polity. This module will begin by examining the ‘Dark Century’ of English parliamentary development, beginning with the ‘Lancastrian Constitutional Experiment’ and ending with the tyranny of the ‘New Monarchy’ of the early Tudors. Sandwiched between the much better known Parliaments of the Three Edwards and Queen Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, this period nevertheless witnessed important changes in the balance between the three constituent parts of Parliament (King, Lords and Commons) and fundamental changes in the nature of the sources available to historians and other scholars. The module will then look at the Parliaments of Elizabeth’s reign, exploring the notion of the ‘Monarchical Republic’ and the challenge of female monarchy.  It will explore those changes through focusing on individual Parliaments, the problems they confronted, and the sources available to both contemporaries and modern observers to make sense of them. A wide range of primary sources  - from the poetry of the early Lancastrian period and the official parliamentary records of the mid-fifteenth century to the early Tudor diaries of MPs, draft legislation of Thomas Cromwell and the official parliamentary proceedings of Elizabeth’s reign – will be deployed to understand both the business of Parliament and the contemporary response to its proceedings. To what extent did this period see fundamental changes in English political culture and what light can the study of Parliament shed upon these developments?

Many of the thousands of medieval churches that are such a familiar element in the English landscape originated in the late Anglo-Saxon period. These buildings tend to have extremely complex histories but unravelling them is hugely rewarding because they provide evidence for understanding many aspects of medieval social, intellectual, artistic, political and economic history. In the first half of this course we will focus on how to go about investigating churches and dating them using a range of case-studies. In the second half we will focus on some of the best surviving Anglo-Saxon churches. Students should gain confidence in using architectural and archaeological evidence, in how to look carefully at medieval churches, and also learn about a range of Anglo-Saxon sites. There will be opportunities for site visits and in their written work, students will be able to research a particular building, or some related aspects of Anglo-Saxon art, architecture or history.