Taught courses
You will take several courses across two semesters of teaching, including two compulsory courses and a range of optional courses.
Core courses
You will take two compulsory courses, which will provide a general introduction to graduate study in history and give you the opportunity to develop your research skills.
The compulsory courses for this programme are:
| Course name | Credits |
|---|---|
| Historical Research: Skills and Sources | 20 |
| Historical Methodology | 20 |
Optional courses
You will choose a further 80 credits from a wide selection of optional courses, subject to availability.
Option courses previously offered include those listed below. Option courses change from year to year and those available when you start your studies will be different from those shown in this representative list.
You will choose from two sets of optional courses.
One set of optional courses will allow you to further expand your research skills. You must choose at least one of these optional courses. Most students study Elementary or Intermediate Latin, although other skills courses may be taken with the permission of the Programme Director.
The other set of optional courses contains courses that reflect the research specialism of our medieval historians.
In this set of option courses you will choose from a selection such as the courses listed below:
| Course name | Credits |
|---|---|
| Body and soul in early medieval thought | 20 |
| Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages | 20 |
| Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland | 20 |
| Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries | 20 |
| The Crusades: Thirteenth Century Crossroads | 20 |
| Medieval Men and Masculinities | 20 |
| Literature and History in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland | 20 |
| Debating Marriage between Antiquity and the Middle Ages | 20 |
| Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches | 20 |
| Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Suleyman the Magnificent | 20 |
| Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland | 20 |
| Medieval Travellers in the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia | 20 |
You can also choose up to two courses from the courses on offer to all students studying postgraduate history.
Teaching and assessment
You will take a variety of seminar-style courses in small groups.
Most courses are assessed by means of an extended piece of written work, while some courses may also assess non-written skills.
Further information
You can see more details about the 2023/24 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the MSc in Medieval History. We expect the 2024/25 programme structure to be available from May 2024.