Module manager: Dr Jonathan Jarrett
Email: j.jarrett@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
This module is approved as a discovery module
Objects are the actual stuff of history. A crystal commissioned for a wronged wife, an African salt-cellar made for Portuguese traders: objects like these speak without need of translation. This module opens up the world of the Middle Ages through things. Exploring themes like religion, technology and identity in societies across the medieval world, it equips you to do history from new angles and places, enriching your ability to make comparisons and envisage differing lives.
The aim of this module is to:
- introduce you to the attitudes, understandings and activities of the pre-modern medieval world, both within and outside Western Europe, through study of objects and material culture;
- develop contextual knowledge of the times, places and natures of different medieval societies;
- allow you to acquire new skills in understanding and analysing sources.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Critically assess the resources, ideas and events which shaped different pre-modern societies.
2. Evaluate and examine the ways that historians can use material culture and objects as a key to understanding past societies.
3. Critical understanding of the range, value, and challenges of a selection of primary sources including but not limited to material culture and objects.
4. Apply fundamental standards and practices of historical study for research, discussion, and assessed work.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
5. Present structured and coherent analysis based on appropriate and relevant historical sources.
6. Create resources suitable for conveying historical information to a range of audiences.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supervision | 2 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| Lecture | 11 | 1 | 11 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Private study hours | 178.6 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 21.4 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
There will be a formative exercise, comprised of a critical review of an existing wiki page on a medieval object. You will receive full written feedback on this work, in sufficient time for the feedback to be taken into account in students’ work on the group project. Formative feedback will also be provided by tutors through in-class discussion and you will also have the opportunity to meet with your tutor for one-to-one meetings to get feedback on your approach to each assignment prior to the deadlines.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Wiki project | 40 |
| Essay | Essay | 60 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
The wiki project will be run in a Teams Class Notebook and groups allowed to choose their own objects, with support from tutors in locating suitable secondary resources. The catalogue portfolio will be entries for a student’s own imaginary exhibition of medieval objects that have not been exhibited before. Resit for the wiki project will be a solo 500-word wiki entry on a different object.
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 30/04/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team