Songs of the Earth: Texts and Landscapes in Early Medieval England

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Mike Bintley
• Assessment: a 5000-word research essay (100%)

How did people living in the early Middle Ages think about the landscapes they inhabited, and how were their ideas shaped by literature and other texts? In what sorts of ways were the textual and material traditions of early medieval England moulded by external influences from places such as Rome, Scandinavia and Ireland? How did this affect the development of ideas concerning ethnic identity, gender, power and authority? This module will introduce you to the landscapes, spaces and places of early medieval England through its literature, artefacts, architecture and significant sites. We will consider a broad range of Old English poetry and prose in translation, alongside manuscript illustrations, stone sculpture, architecture, artefacts and places, thinking about the way in which these texts reflect approaches to the landscapes of early medieval England. This module will consider a broad range of literary and historical contexts, including issues such as migration, conversion, the growth of the Church, the ‘Viking Age’, the Benedictine Reform and the beginnings of urbanism.

Indicative module syllabus

• Introduction: Reading Texts, Images and Objects
• Postcolonial Anxieties: The Ruin, The Wanderer, Exodus (ruins in the landscape, migration mythologies)
• Timber Halls and Earthen Barrows: Beowulf (the materiality of wood, stone, and earth in early medieval architecture)
• In the Beginning: Caedmon’s Hymn, Beowulf and the Junius Genesis (conceptions of the origins of the earth and cosmos)
• Landscapes of Belief: The Dream of the Rood group and Elene (the influence of Christianity in the landscape, also considering imperialism and Romanitas)
• Saints in the Landscape: the Lives of Aethelthryth, Guthlac and other royal saints (the influence of Christianity in the landscape, also considering imperialism and Romanitas)
• Cities of Men: Andreas (Augustinian influence on the idea of the city, and ninth/tenth century proto-urbanism)
• Cities of God I: Judith (Augustinian influence on the idea of the city, and ninth/tenth century proto-urbanism)
• Cities of God II: OE Psalms, OE Orosius, Prefaces to the OE Soliloquies and Pastoral Care, Durham (Augustinian influence on the idea of the city, and ninth/tenth-century proto-urbanism)
• Coursework conference (an opportunity for students to share work-in-progress in preparation for the essay assignment)

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate knowledge of key texts and topics reflecting the development of ideas about landscape in early medieval England
• recognise the intellectual, social, religious, political and cultural contexts in which these ideas developed
• engage with secondary criticism and other forms of evidence including historical texts and material culture 
• demonstrate an understanding of current approaches to landscape and environment in medieval studies.