Undergraduate Course: The Stewarts: Family, Feud and Faction in a late medieval kingdom (HIST10535)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | The course examines the political, literary and cultural life of the late medieval Stewart kingdom of Scotland. It will interrogate ideas of a crown-led fifteenth-century Renaissance through detailed study of a series of important texts and surviving material culture. |
| Course description |
The course examines the political, literary and cultural life of Early Stewart Scotland. The course will use documentary sources [Parliamentary and legal records, Great Seal Registers etc.] to trace the story of the establishment of late medieval Scotland's most durable royal dynasty and the cultural and literary world of the Stewart court. Texts will be analysed to determine what they reveal of the outlook and concerns of authors and audiences in their immediate Scottish context, but also as examples of wider medieval European debates or concerns. Thus, for example, Barbour's Bruce provides an insight into the martial aristocratic culture of late fourteenth-century Scotland in the reign of the first Stewart monarch, but is also part of a broader movement questioning the nature of 'true' chivalry and knighthood across Europe in an age dominated by war. Students will develop skills in understanding and reading primary sources as both the product of very particular circumstances and of longer-term intellectual, artistic and social movements. They will also heighten their awareness of the demands and expectations of genre in shaping the form and content of medieval sources, and the importance of language choice in composition.
The course outlines the political story of the dynasty established in 1371, and the family feuds and factional struggles that enveloped the royal court. Events such as the assassination of James I and crown conflict with the Lords of the Isles and the earls of Douglas wil be examined using documentary and literary texts [in translation] representing production in three of the four literary languages of late medieval Scotland [Scots, Latin and Gaelic]. The literary texts have been chosen to illustrate the contrasting and varied interests of the inhabitants of the medieval kingdom and different ways of understanding the nature and workings of medieval society. The sources will include: chronicles, most notably Walter Bower's Scotichronicon, and Andrew of Wyntoun's Original Chronicle: parliamentary and legal records; literary works such as Barbour's Bruce, the King's Quair, The Buke of the Howlat, the Book of the Dean of Lismore; devotional works such as The Scottish Legendary; advisory texts such as Gilbert Hay's Buke of the Order of Knighthood.
The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: violence. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Full Year |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
400
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 44,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
348 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:«br /»
Two 5000-word essays (each worth 40%)«br /»
One 2000-word source analysis (20%) |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate command of the body of knowledge considered in the course;
- read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship;
- understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source materials;
- develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence.
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Reading List
S. Boardman and S. Foran (eds.), Barbour's Bruce in Context (2015)
S. Boardman and J. Goodare (eds.), Kings, Lords and Men in Scotland and Britain, 1300-1625 (2014)
M.H. Brown and R.Tanner (eds.), Scottish Kingship, 1306-1542 (2008)
M.H. Brown, James I (1990)
A. Grant, Independence and Nationhood: Scotland 1306-1470 (1991)
N. Macdougall, James III (2009)
S. Mapstone, 'Was there a Court Literature in Fifteenth-Century Scotland', in Studies in Scottish Literature, 26 (1991)
S. Mapstone and J. Wood, eds, The Rose and the Thistle: Essays on the Culture of Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (1998)
J. Martin, Kingship and Love in Scottish Poetry, 1424-1530 (2008)
K. Stevenson, Chivalry and Knighthood in Scotland, 1424-1513 (2006)
R. Tanner, The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament (2001) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
This course will help students develop a range of transferable skills, including:
- the ability to manage one's time effectively, work to deadlines, and perform effectively under pressure;
- the ability to gather, sift, organise and evaluate large quantities of textual evidence;
- the ability to marshal argument in both written and oral form;
- the ability to work independently and as part of a pair or larger group. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Stephen Boardman
Tel: (0131 6)50 4035
Email: Steve.Boardman@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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