Sexuality in Early Medieval Europe
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| HIST2006 | History | 2 | 20 | Spring UK |
- Code
- HIST2006
- School
- History
- Level
- 2
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Spring UK
Summary
This module deals with an important, but long neglected, aspect of life in the early medieval West - sexual behaviour and attitudes to human sexuality. Key issues include:
- ancient, medieval and modern theories of sexuality
- Christian beliefs about the family and marriage, and challenges to these, especially in the Carolingian period (AD c.750-c.900)
- the regulation of sexual behaviour as expressed in law codes and books of penance, including violent sexual activity
- alternative sexualities
Target Students
Students must have taken HIST1001 or HIST1002. Also available to exchange students hosted by the Department of History.
Classes
- One 1-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks
- One 2-hour lecture each week for 10 weeks
Assessment
- 50% Coursework 1: 2,500 word essay
- 50% Coursework 2: 2,500 word source-based assessment
Assessed by end of spring semester
Educational Aims
To develop students' existing analytical and research skills in the context of a challenging historical subject area; to encourage students to develop an in-depth knowledge of attitudes to sexuality and the realities of sexual life in early medieval Europe, through critical reading of a wide range of secondary and some primary material.Learning Outcomes
a. Knowledge and understanding of:
• selection of primary texts dealing with sexual life in the early Middle Ages c500-c1100AD
• the diverse - often competing - attitudes towards a fundamental fact of human life revealed in these texts and their consequent value as historical sources
• wider patterns, particularly the changes in attitudes to sex in this formative period in European history
• the methodologies necessary for analyzing sexuality in a problematically-documented period
b. Intellectual skills:
• think critically and imaginatively on the history of sex and sexuality
• to engage with key problems in early medieval European social and cultural history
• to assess competing explanations put forward in the historiography
• construct coherent and independent arguments on the subject matter
c. Professional and practical skills:
• analyze information and arguments from a wide range of secondary and some primary sources
• provide footnotes and bibliography in reports
• use IT to access sources and to complete written assignments
d. Transferable skills:
• working actively with other students on the module to research primary and secondary sources
• managing large and often incomplete bodies of information
• develop oral and written communication skills
• take responsibility for their own learning
• improve IT skills in word processing
Conveners
- Dr Rossano Balzaretti