Courses
Courses for the Medieval Studies Major and Minor are composed of a dedicated core of three Medieval Studies courses [MDVL 210 (3); MDVL 310 (3) and the research intensive course, MDVL 490 (3) , which are required for Medieval Studies Majors; Minors must take MDVL 210 and MDVL 310. In addition, MDVL 301 (3); MDVL 302 (3) D; MDVL 449 (6.12) C] may be offered. These dedicated Medieval Studies courses are supplemented with a range of Approved Courses in Medieval Studies offered by various departments in the Faculty of Arts.
MDVL: Medieval Studies
Please click on individual course numbers in the left-hand column for current details about this years MDVL courses
Winter 2023MDVL210 Introduction to Medieval Studies Sections
A survey of the study of the medieval period in Western Europe (400-1550), integrating history, literature, and the arts; topics vary from year to year; interested students should consult the Medieval Studies Advisor.
This course introduces students to both the Middle Ages as a subject, and to the interdisciplinary nature of the study of the period. Through a progression of thematic sections, students encounter a range of historical, literary, and artistic material from medieval Europe. The course begins with the fall of Rome and the spread of the migratory tribes of Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Franks, etc.) across Northern Europe. Britain will be our case study for this early period, as we examine how the pagan Anglo-Saxons were converted by the Christian missionaries, thus becoming part of a wider medieval Christendom. From here we move to cover the social structure of the medieval world, taking as our guide the Dubyian framework of The Three Orders.
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Interdisciplinary approaches to selected topics in medieval history, literature, and the arts; topics vary from year to year; interested students should consult the Medieval Studies advisor.
This lecture course examines the role and impact of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, not only encompassing the physical practice of travelling to holy shrines to venerate bodies and relics of saints and to the Holy Land to visit and touch the very sites where biblical events had taken place, but also the metaphorical understanding of pilgrimage as a journey of the soul striving through the hazardous pilgrimage of life on a spiritual quest of constant improvement with the hope of reaching the Heavenly Jerusalem of salvation in the end. In pilgrimage there is a continual play between the earthly and the heavenly, the material and the spiritual, the imperfect sinful body in its encounter with the revivifying presence of the divine. Such is the ideal of pilgrimage. The course will not neglect that pilgrimage became a big business, even one that was critiqued as such in the Middle Ages....
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