MPhil in Medieval History

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Bestiary (MS Ii.4.26) Crocodrillus UL collection

Overview

Cambridge University is a uniquely rich place to be a medievalist. The university is over 800 years old, with a wealth of medieval buildings and traditions, as well as countless manuscripts and early printed books held by our many libraries. Across the university, there is a strong concentration of scholars of the middle ages not only in History but also in related faculties, such as Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Archaeology, Art History, Medieval Languages and within the museums and libraries of Cambridge. The MPhil in Medieval History forms an integral part of the teaching and research here at the History Faculty (widely regarded as one of the best in the world). The course provides students with intensive training in concepts and methods of medieval history, as well as skills in Latin and Palaeography, to help them become innovative, cutting-edge scholars.

At a glance

The MPhil in Medieval History is a taught postgraduate course with a substantial research component, which runs for nine months covering the three terms (Michaelmas, Lent and Easter) of the Cambridge academic year. It is designed both for students who want to enhance their understanding of the Middle Ages and for those who want to go on to complete further primary research at PhD level. It provides experience with a broad range of ways to analyse the medieval past as well as intensive research training. Students on the MPhil will join a community of researchers across the field of medieval history, and integrate with the rich research culture of medieval studies across the university.

If you have any questions, drop us a line on medieval@hist.cam.ac.uk

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Paul Aste
Paul Aste
MPhil student in medieval history
Cambridge has a way of enveloping you in academic opportunity that I have never felt anywhere else. I felt like not only a student, but a budding historian in my own right.

The Course

Course Outline and Schedule

The course is designed for those who have completed degrees in which History is the main or at least a substantial component and who want to consolidate their knowledge of medieval history. It is particularly appropriate for those who may wish to continue on to a PhD, at Cambridge or elsewhere. It is also well-suited to those who seek simply to explore medieval history at a deeper level, building independent research skills.

Students will be provided with an in-depth study of some of the key areas of research in medieval history as well as the historiographical knowledge and the analytical and technical skills to support work in their chosen field. All students will have a supervisor who will guide them through the requirements of the course and, most crucially, the dissertation.

In this manner, all students are provided with the historiographical knowledge and analytical skills necessary to understand and evaluate both medieval sources and existing research and to pursue research in their own fields of intellectual interest. Through individual supervisions and classes, students are introduced to the more specialised and intensive nature of research required at a postgraduate level.

The MPhil involves 3 assessed components:

  • two core courses (16 x 2 hour classes each option, 4 hours per week) each course worth 10% of the overall mark;
  • one option course chosen from a list offered by the Faculty (8 x 2 hour classes) worth 10% of the overall mark;
  • a dissertation (15,000 – 20,000 words) worth 70% of the overall mark.

In addition to the above, students will attend the weekly Medieval History research seminars and workshops.

Students may also take optional skills modules in Greek or Latin and may choose to audit additional option courses. These are not assessed elements of the MPhil but will help students develop the skills needed for the MPhil in Medieval History.

Note on Start Dates

Whilst the course will officially start in October, all students will be required to attend an intensive Latin course before the MPhil commences. This will begin usually in the third week of September.

Core Course: Latin & Palaeography

'Pre-Sessional' Intensive Latin

All candidates for the Cambridge MPhil in Medieval History are expected to have a “basic understanding of Latin grammar and the ability to translate straightforward Latin texts” by the start of the course in October. All candidates who have no Latin, or Latin that does not reach this standard, are required to attend the preliminary intensive three week course in Latin immediately before the beginning of the academic year.

Many Cambridge Colleges are able to provide accommodation for students for the duration of this course.

At the end of the three-week course all students will sit an examination to test their Latin skills. Students who have not taken the pre-sessional course for any reason will also be required to sit this test.

Latin Classes

Following on from the pre-sessional Latin course in September, Dr Jacob Currie teaches three Latin reading classes during term. Each takes place once per week for 20 weeks (Michaelmas, Lent and the first half of Easter Term).

  • Late-antique and early-medieval Latin
  • High-medieval Latin
  • Late-medieval and renaissance Latin

Each class will read Latin texts in digitised manuscript form. Students may choose the class (or classes) whose chronological range best matches their interests.

There is no formal assessment for the Latin component of the course.

Palaeography

For palaeography, students take one of the following: Palaeography I (covering the period c. 500-1150 AD) or Palaeography II (covering the period c. 1000-1500 AD). Each is taught by a weekly one-hour lecture followed by a one-hour transcription class. Students attend the strand (I or II) that best fits the chronological focus of their dissertation topic.

The lectures will provide students with a historically contextualised survey of script and scribal conventions in western European books and documents of the earlier and later middle ages, respectively, and an introduction to the methodological issues involved in analysing handwriting and dating and localising written artefacts on the basis of their script.

The classes focus upon the practical skills of transcription: identifying the letter-forms and scribal conventions of punctuation and abbreviation in books and documents, and transcribing according to modern scholarly conventions. Additional practice in transcription will be provided each week as homework.

Core Course: Concepts and Methods

This course involves discussion and analysis of different approaches, sources, debates and ideas in the study of Medieval History. The course aims to provide all students with key higher-level skills, and to prompt the exploration of a wider historiographical area pertaining to a student’s chosen dissertation topic.

Seminar topics for 2023-24:

  • Introduction: Sources and the Challenges of Medieval History
  • Critical editions and textual criticism
  • Social structures
  • State and Nation in the Middle Ages
  • Ritual and symbolic communication
  • Economic systems
  • Saints, Scepticism and Belief
  • Writing Medieval History

Option Courses for 2023-24

This unit provides an introduction to the use of medieval manuscript evidence, drawing upon opportunities for manuscript study provided by the collections of manuscripts at the Cambridge colleges, the University Library and elsewhere.

Modern editions are an incomplete and sometimes misleading lens through which to examine the texts that were composed, copied, handled, read and heard during the Middle Ages. First-hand analysis of medieval manuscripts brings us closer to the ways in which their contents were encountered and absorbed by medieval audiences, and contributes to our understanding of both the significance of those texts to those by whom and for whom they were produced as well as the practical means by which literature, knowledge and ideas were transmitted.

The unit will provide instruction in the analysis of the physical structure of manuscripts, the identification of their contents and the forms of evidence for their place of origin and history of ownership and use, and the scholarly conventions of manuscript description. The manuscripts studied will range in date from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries but there will be a particular focus upon those containing texts that record or were used to mark the passage of time: from chronicles and historical narratives to saints’ lives, sermon collections and liturgical calendars.

What pastoral care meant in theory and in practice in the high middle ages has been the subject of extensive research and debate. Historians have been repeatedly drawn to an area which starts in the High Politics of the Medieval Church but ends in the ordinary streets and houses. The reform movement often called the Gregorian Reform, in its late twelfth and thirteenth century forms, helped to shape and to express ideas in medieval thought and belief in the Middle Ages for both the clergy and the laity. This module looks at the ways in which this was made manifest in the realm of ideas (legislation and theology), and in the lived experience of men and women, to whom the theory meant very little. The area is thus a case study in how ideas and concepts were transmuted into social and cultural practice. The first half of the module focuses on the theory and legislation of the movement (particularly the Paris Schools and the legislation it produced at international, national and regional level). The second half of the module considers the practical results and compromises, using the test case of England, which has rich records for the study of lived religion in particular localities. Each session will consider a particular issue and its influence, via a set of relevant records, asking how the lives of ordinary men and women were (or were not) affected. There will be an opportunity to consider the standard forms and constructions (the diplomatic) of the documents and how a knowledge of these allows us to a better understanding of what is happening in the records. Several sessions will also make use of original medieval manuscripts held in the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College.

The primary aim of this module is to encourage students to think about the issues involved in using legal records to explore medieval social practices, structures, beliefs and norms. It also engages with the concept of ‘legal culture’ as used by medievalists, by exploring expectations of the law held by those who used and shaped it. A particular focus involves tracing the development and character of ‘legal culture’ among non-elites. The category ‘legal records’ is defined fairly broadly but the classes focus primarily on law codes, legislation, records of trials, and litigation. In the module we will consider some well-known attempts by previous social and cultural historians to ‘read’ this kind of material, and also debate the techniques and challenges involved via encounters with the primary sources themselves. The classes do not aim to give a comprehensive introduction to medieval law and legal records, and the consideration of legal technicalities is relevant only in so far as it helps elucidate the bigger themes of the module. Nor can the classes consider every area of society subject to legal control in the medieval period. Instead the focus is on problematizing the simple notion of employing legal evidence as a ‘window’ onto practices and mentalities. In doing so students will have an opportunity to look at material from a variety of courts and jurisdictions, and to range widely across time and space.

Once thought of as the ‘Age of Faith’, recent work on the middle ages has demonstrated how complex and variegated belief could be. The exploration of the intersection of ‘religion’ – being bound by the law of faith – and power highlights crucial aspects of medieval society. This 8-week course will explore a number of conjunctions of religion and power, spanning from the highest to the lowest in medieval society. The terrain covered will fall mainly within the central and later middle ages, and will focus mostly on Catholic Europe, whilst also including Christian relations with and understandings of Judaism and Islam. The primary aim of this module is to encourage students to explore the different ways in which medieval religion intersected with aspects of social, political and cultural power in the period. Through these explorations, we will engage with the fundamental nature of ‘religion’ in the medieval past - its boundaries, its core functions, its claims upon groups and individuals – and the various different ways in which medievalists have approached, practically and conceptually, medieval Christendom and its discontents. There will be a deliberate bias toward ‘religion’ as experienced by the laity rather than only the ecclesiastical or spiritual elite.

Each week will focus on a particular area of analysis, using this to explore both interpretive arguments and different bodies of primary source material. The module as a whole does not (and could not) aim to cover ‘all’ of medieval religion: the point rather is to focus on particular areas that will illuminate wider issues methodologically, and which introduce students to a variety of perspectives and types of sources.

Medieval History: Concepts and Methods

  • Teaching: weekly seminars
  • Assessment: essay (c. 4,000 words)

Palaeography

  • Teaching: weekly lecture & transcription class
  • Assessment: examination

Latin

  • Beginner course from mid-September to the start of term 
  • Teaching: weekly classes
  • Assessment: examined jointly with Palaeography

Applying to the course

To apply to the MPhil in Medieval History, you will need to consult the relevant pages on the Postgraduate Admissions website (click below).

Since applications are considered on a rolling basis, you are strongly advised to apply as early in the cycle as possible.

On the Postgraduate Admissions website, you will find an overview of the course structure and requirements, a funding calculator and a link to the online Applicant Portal. Your application will need to include two academic references, a transcript, a CV/ resume, evidence of competence in English, a personal development questionnaire, two samples of work and a research proposal.

Research proposals are 600–1,000 words in length and should include the following: a simple and descriptive title for the proposed research; a rationale for the research; a brief historiographic context; and an indication of the sources likely to be used. The document should be entitled ‘Statement of Intended Research’. Applicants are encouraged to nominate a preferred supervisor, and are invited to contact members of the Faculty in advance of submitting their application to discuss their project (see our Academic Directory: https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/academic-staff).

Below are some anonymised examples of research proposals, submitted by successful applicants to the MPhil in Medieval History. You may use these to inform the structure of your submission. Please note that they are purely for guidance and not a strict representation of what is required.

Medieval History - Research Proposal 1

Medieval History - Research Proposal 2

 

Assessment & Dissertation

Thesis

The dissertation is Part II of the MPhil in Medieval History.

All students will submit a dissertation of 15,000-20,000 words, worth 70% of the overall mark.

At the discretion of the Examiners the examination may include an oral examination on the thesis and on the general field of knowledge within which it falls.

Essays

For the core module Medieval History: Concepts and Methods students will prepare a historiographical and bibliographical essay preparatory to the dissertation. Students will meet with their supervisor to discuss the essay and get feedback in preparation for the dissertation.

For the optional module students will submit a 3,000-4,000 words essay (or equivalent).

Each will count toward 10% of the final degree mark, for a total of 20%.  Taken together with the written examination in Latin and Palaeography, these are Part I, and students must achieve pass marks in order to move to Part II.

Written examination

Students will sit one exam in Latin and Palaeography Transcription worth 10% of the overall mark for the MPhil.

Practical assessment

All students will present their work at least once during the academic year and will receive feedback from academics and peers on their work-in-progress. This is not an assessed element of the course but is a valuable feedback tool for the dissertation.

The Dissertation, or thesis, is the largest element of the course.

Students are admitted to the University on the basis of the research proposal, and each student will be assigned a Supervisor who will support the preparation of a piece of original academic research. Candidates must demonstrate that they can present a coherent historical argument based upon a secure knowledge and understanding of primary sources, and they will be expected to place their research findings within the existing historiography of the field within which their subject lies.

All students should be warned that thesis supervisors are concerned to advise students in their studies, not to direct them. Students must accept responsibility for their own research activity and candidacy for a degree. Postgraduate work demands a high degree of self-discipline and organisation. Students are expected to take full responsibility for producing the required course work and thesis to the deadlines specified under the timetable for submission.

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