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Basic Program 2023-2024

The basic program comprises a total of thirteen courses organized by the Research School, that have been purpose-developed for training and support of PhD students and Research MA students who specialize in Medieval Studies (history, art history, and literary history, in particular). The courses have a study load of 3-5 ECTS points. The Research School reserves itself the right to cancel a course in case of insufficient interest (i.e. less than 4 registrations for a course). At the same time, the Research School aims to allow as many people as possible to participate in these courses. However, if there is great interest in a particular course, a maximum number of participants may be set. The maximum number of participants will be communicated via the website and/or newsletter. In addition, there will be several (inter)national symposia, (co-)organized by the Research School, and the yearly Medieval Studies’ Day, whose active attendance can generate 1-2 ECTS points.

  1. Medieval Studies' Day
  2. Introduction to Dutch Medieval Studies
  3. Foundations of Research – 1
  4. Foundations of Research – 2
  5. Basic Course in Palaeography
  6. How to research medieval books?
  7. Literary Culture
  8. Material Culture
  9. Visual Culture
  10. Archival Sources
  11. Medieval Latin
  12. Presenting Medieval Research
  13. International Symposium
  14. Masterclass Heraldry
  15. Medieval Middle East Meeting
  16. Medieval Book Scripts

Yearly open day for all members of the Research School, including Flemish colleagues. By turns organized by one of the participant universities; sometimes by an associated Flemish university. Usually, the program comprises two keynote lectures around a chosen theme, followed (or preceded) by 10-20 short papers on a variety of subjects, presented in a number of parallel sessions by PhD students and/or tenured staff.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students, PhD-students; other members of the Research School and Flemish associates.
- Date: November 3, 2023
- Place: Utrecht
- Coordinator: Prof. Dr H.G.E. Rose (UU)
- Course load (for Research MA-students only): 1/2 ECTS

The course wants to offer an introductory survey of what is going on in the field of Dutch medieval studies. It tries to answer such general questions as: what disciplines contribute to medieval studies; how can we get informed on the field; which are the leading Dutch centers of education and research; what are fashionable themes and topics in medieval studies; what’s new in theory and methods of research; and what have Dutch universities to offer in all these respects?

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students at the start of their programs resp. research projects.
- Period & location: February-March 2024; six course days in total: starting with 1 session (of 3 hours) in Leiden, followed by 5 sessions in several medieval studies departments of other Dutch universities as well as the Huygens/ING.
- Course Coordinator: Dr I. Wolsing (Leiden)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 25

The course offers researchers who are in the initial stage of their project the opportunity to reflect thoroughly on the primary sources they are going to use – in terms of typology, heuristics (theoretical) approaches, and methods of analysis – before specialists who first give short presentations on their own use of the same or similar source types.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD-students in the initial stages of their research.
- Period: January 2024; one course week of 2-5 days (depending on the number of participants).
- Location: Course center.
- Course Coordinator: Dr I Wolsing (Leiden)
- Course load: 3/5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 15

The course offers PhD-students who are about halfway with their project the opportunity to have the complete lay-out of their project scrutinized by invited specialists in their field who are not their supervisors. A close and critical look will be taken at research questions, the (first, provisional) analysis of research results, and the design of the dissertation in the making. In preparation the participants turn in a complete draft of the Introduction of their dissertation.

- Aimed at: advanced PhD-students.
- Period: June 2024; 1-2 full days (depending on the number of participants).
- Location: Leiden University.
- Course Coordinator: Dr R. Stein (Leiden)
- Course load: 3 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 5

In this course, the principles of reading late medieval writing are taught on the basis of administrative sources, like charters and accounts. It will mainly deal with administrative texts, dating from the late Middle Ages and written in Middle Dutch and Middle French. 

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: April-May 2024
- Location: Leiden University
- Course Coordinator: Dr R. Stein (Leiden)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Minimum number of participants: 4
- Maximum number of participants: 10
- Passive knowledge of (Middle) Dutch and (Middle) French is required

Medieval books are objects which can be studied for all kinds of angles into the Middle Ages. Of course, they can be explored for their content, but their materiality offers so many more footholds to interpret medieval cultures of reading, writing, learning, practicing religion, law or medicine, etcetera. In this course, 4 teachers will take you to different periods and different collections of medieval manuscripts and take you on an exploration of their research potential. In each session you will learn about new research that is taking place, and there will be a hands-on element: see material with your own eyes and discuss it. You will also be given an assignment to work with one manuscript that fits into your own research topic. In the last session, the students are asked to present their work in a symposium.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: April-May 2024
- Location: Leiden / The Hague
- Course Coordinator: Prof. dr M. Teeuwen (Leiden)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 15

Medieval literature can be seen as historical object, but also as literature in its full right – and this tension between its Alterity and its Modernity will be illustrated from several perspectives. The course features an eye on Latin literature, on less known traditions, but also an oversight of main developments in vernacular literature. It will be dealing with performance as a key to understanding the literary fact, music and poetry, formalizations of medieval imagination, and the history of criticism on medieval literature. Next to that, it will address the forms and modalities of its conservation in connection to ‘modern reading’ culture.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students
- Period: April-May 2024
- Location: Unversity of Amsterdam
- Course Coordinator: Dr J. Koopmans (UvA)
- Course load: 2/5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 12

The course will be dealing with various kinds of material culture as sources for knowledge and research in Medieval Studies. A basic premise is that material sources are of the same level of relevance as other source types, such as written sources. With respect to relics of material culture, the questions of reliability and meaning are particularly fascinating. In addition, various types of material sources will be discussed and analyzed, varying from pictorial to archaeological remains, and from liturgical objects to buildings. Part of the course will be on-site and museum visits. 

- Period: March-April 2024
- Location: Utrecht University
- Course Coordinators: Dr A.J.M. Irving (Groningen) and Dr W. Welie- van Vink (Amsterdam)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
Maximum number of participants: 15

This course deals with a variety of aspects of medieval visual culture: the ‘grammar’ of visual representation; how to ‘read’ medieval images in their written, oral or cultural context; how to search for representations of a specific topic; its historiography (including the ‘minor arts’) and the importance of ‘auxiliary sciences’ such as costume history and heraldry. This course not only aims at participants with an art historical background, but also encourages participation from other fields of study where the study of visual aspects, as an extra carefully studied source, can add new perspectives. 

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students
- Period: March-April 2024
- Course Coordinator: Dr M. Meuwese (Utrecht)
- Location: Utrecht University
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 12

This course deals with several kinds of archival sources as basis for research on finances and on material and administrative culture in the Late Middle Ages. At one point or another, most of us will have to deal with accounts, charters or other archival material as a source of our research. These sources have many advantages: they can be dated; they can be located; they usually fit within a clear organizational structure, and they have been handed down in relatively large quantities. Nevertheless, the heuristics, the positioning of the sources and their interpretation requires specific expertise. That is what this course is about.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: April-May 2024
- Location: National Archive, The Hague 
- Course Coordinator: Dr R. Stein (Leiden)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 12
- (Basic) knowledge of (Middle) Dutch is required

The course trains medieval historians, art historians and literary historians in the practical reading of all sorts of source texts/source text types written in medieval Latin. The participants bring in texts from, or related to, their own research projects. Aim of the course is to considerably widen the use of primary sources in the practicing of medieval history, and through that to enlarge its effectiveness. A requirement for participation is a basic knowledge of classical Latin (secondary school-level).

- Aimed at: Research MA-students (and PhD-students).
- Period: May-June 2024
- Location: Utrecht University
- Course Coordinator: Dr R. Flierman (Utrecht)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 12

The course coaches the participants in preparing a paper for an international congress on Medieval Studies (e.g. the yearly International Medieval Congress at Leeds).

- Aimed at: PhD students and Research MA students.
- Period: June-July 2024 (with introductory session in September 2023).
- Location: Utrecht University / International Medieval Conference Leeds. 
- Course coordinator: Dr S. Meeder (Nijmegen).
- Course load: 5 ECTS.
- Maximum number of participants: 12

In this study component, you get involved in the organisation of a symposium or a workshop, and in some cases, you can also contribute to it. The topic and content of these symposiums change annually, and usually there are multiple options.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: Varying
- Location: Varying
- Course Coordinator: Varying
- Course load: 2/5 ECTS
- Maximum number of participants: 10

Heraldry is often viewed as an antiquarian auxiliar science, or even as a hobby similar to stamp collecting. However, many scholars who are doing research into medieval manuscripts, are confronted with coats of arms or other heraldic items which more often than not challenges their knowledge of these particular cultural expressions. Moreover, there are new approaches in heraldry which contribute to current debates in the cultural and social history of the later Middle Ages. Therefore, this course explores how heraldry can serve both as a research tool and as an object of study for medievalists. It traces the development of heraldry from its origins in the second half of the twelfth to the early sixteenth century, introduces the basic terminology used to describe a coat of arms, and develops a typology of the available  sources. Armorials will receive special attention both as objects for research and as a research tool for identifying coats of arms. Several methods used to identify an anonymous coat of arms  will be put into practice. Lastly, the course will survey the new approaches in which heraldry contributes to the cultural and social history of the Middle Ages.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: Varying
- Location: Varying
- Course Coordinator: Prof. dr L. Duerloo (Antwerp) and Dr M. Damen (UvA)
- Course load: 3 ECTS
Maximum number of participants: 15

​​​​This event aims at promoting the thinking across boundaries: across disciplinary boundaries between the study of history and religion; language and literature; and the arts and material culture; and across regional boundaries to see the medieval world as interconnected. The Medieval Middle East Meeting is a yearly forum for students, junior researchers and senior scholars to present historical work-in-progress that is related to the Middle East broadly defined to include North Africa, Central Asia, and Mediterranean world (e.g. Andalusia). The conception of medieval likewise is broadly defined, also including late antiquity to early modernity. Students will benefit from presenting their research before senior scholars and by attending the presentation of more senior scholars and seeing research in process.

The program includes a keynote lecture and a roundtable on a theme, plus 10-20 short papers on a variety of subjects, presented in a number of parallel sessions by research students and tenured staff.

Participation is encouraged both from specialists on the Middle East (e.g. Arabists or Persianists), but also from scholars whose major research focus is only partially associated with that region, for example the European circulation of art objects originating in the Middle East, or the representation of Islam and Arabs in European literatures.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students, PhD-students; and other colleagues.
- Date: 6 October 2023
- Place: Radboud University, Nijmegen
- Coordinators: Dr E. Hayes (RU), Dr J. van den Bent (UvA/RU)
- Course load (for Research MA-students only): 1 ECTS

This course introduces students to a range of scripts used for copying medieval books (focusing in particular on the Latin tradition, but also incorporating vernacular examples). In addition to teaching skills for reading such scripts, it will also contextualise the development, presentation, and use of various book scripts within medieval written culture. Throughout students will learn up-to-date methodologies for studying book scripts, while also engaging with current research perspectives on scribal practice and script proliferation.

- Aimed at: Research MA-students and PhD students.
- Period: April-May 2024
- Location: Leiden University
- Course Coordinator: Dr I. O'Daly (Leiden University)
- Course load: 5 ECTS
- Minimum number of participants: 4
- Maximum number of participants: 12
- Basic knowledge of Latin is required. Students will also be introduced to scripts used for writing in medieval vernaculars (e.g. Dutch, English).

 

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