2024/25 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

MEDV5295M Religious Communities and the Individual Experience of Religion, 1200-1500

30 creditsClass Size: 14

Module manager: Professor Emilia Jamroziak
Email: E.M.Jamroziak@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2024/25

This module is not approved as an Elective

Module summary

The module introduces you to the complex interactions between communal and individual religious experience in the later Middle Ages (14th –15th c.) using a verity of textual, visual and material sources.

Objectives

The module challenges students to explore 'lived religion' – what was it like to be a monk, friar or a nun? How did lay people engage with religion through the parish community and in their private devotions? What was the experience of solitary religious pursuits (of visionaries, hermits and anchorites) in a largely communal age? These questions will be studied in the context of the institutional frameworks for religious experience (such as the monastic and mendicant orders, and the parish community) and by exploring the opportunities and tensions experienced by medieval Christians as participants in overlapping and competing approaches to religious life. These issues are considered through textual, visual and material sources using material from across Latin Christendom to see how trans-European structures were part of a very local experience.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Critically assess of the structures of the late medieval Church and the role of laity in it
2. Evaluate the role of monastic and mendicant orders in enabling and mediating religious experience
3. Comment sensitively on the character of late medieval piety in monastic, mendicant and lay contexts
4. Engage in a sophisticated manner with expressions of communal and individual religious experience, including issues of gender, genre and transmission
5. Analyse a range of sources for late medieval piety and their strengths and weaknesses

Skills Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
6. Examine complex textual, visual and material sources from the late middle ages using appropriate terminology
7. Explain cultural change and process of acculturation in relation to historical material
8. Present and interpret complex historical material.

Syllabus

The module will cover the following topics: the frameworks of religious experience; religious acculturation and formation, the experience of monks, nuns, friars, hermits and anchorites, the relationship between religious communities and the lay world, lay experiences of religion and popular piety, experiences of the mixed life (beguines and tertiaries), and the role of visionaries and mystics.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Seminar	11	2.00	22.00
Private study hours			278.00
Total Contact hours			22.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			300.00

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Student progress is monitored through written feedback given on non-assessed presentations. It is given individually for each student, whilst discussion in the seminar following each presentation is an opportunity for peer review.
The first and second essays have the following formative feedback via individual meetings:
- initial discussion of the essay topic and title
- advice on bibliography and feedback on the structure of the essay
- feedback session following the grading of the essays

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	Essay 3000 words	50.00
Essay	Essay 3000 words	50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Resits will take the same form as the assessment specified above.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 18/10/2024

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