DPT: Ancient and Medieval History (MA Hons) (UTANMEH)

Jump to: Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4

Year 1 Academic year: 2026/27, Starting in: September

First year students on this programme will be asked to complete a pre-course enrolment form online, prior to arriving in Welcome Week. Full details on how to do this will be provided in the email we send to you in late August. Please consider the following courses.

The credits for your courses should total 120 in each year.
Students must pass a minimum of 80 credits, including a pass in both The Historian's Toolkit and Medieval Worlds, to be eligible to progress into Year 2.

Compulsory courses

Medieval Worlds: A Journey through the Middle Ages

Must be passed

The Historian's Toolkit

Must be passed

Course options

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling.

Selected courses must be passed

The Greek World 1A: Greece in the Making

The Greek World 1B: Greece's New Horizons

The Roman World 1A: The Rise of Rome

The Roman World 1B: The Roman Empire

AND

You may only choose one History course (course codes starting HIST and ECSH) as part of this option.

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling.

Architectural History 1B: Revivalism to Modernism

Architectural History 1A: Introduction to World Architecture

Buddhism in Global Contexts

Popular Religion, Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe

History of Christianity as a World Religion 1A

History of Christianity as a World Religion 1B

Jews and Muslims: Religions, Cultures, Histories

The History of Edinburgh: From Din Eidyn to Festival City

Islamic History A: The Formation of the Islamic World

Islamic History B: From the Crusades to the 'Gunpowder Empires'

Modern Middle Eastern History A: Domestic Transformation and International Challenges

Modern Middle Eastern History B: Postwar Independence and Conflict

Introduction to the History of Philosophy A

History of Science 1

History of Medicine

AND

You may not choose History (course codes starting HIST and ECSH) as part of this option. You may find it valuable to take Latin or Greek as outside courses.

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling.

A limited number of courses are also available in Schedules S and X.

AND

Challenge Courses are designed to bring together students from different degree programmes to explore the complex issues facing the world today through interdisciplinary collaboration and creative thinking.

Working with each other and expert academics, students will gain new perspectives and develop important life skills highly valued by employers, such as teamwork, problem-solving and adaptability.

Our Changing World

Sustainability and Social Responsibility (UG)

Wicked problems: Reason and Rhetoric

Understanding decolonisation in a globalised world

Sustainable Development Goals: History, Progress and Beyond 2030

Living in the Anthropocene

Understanding Society with Big Data: Computational Social Science

Health in a Changing Climate

Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World

Navigating Energy Transitions

Healthy Eating for People and Planet

Year 2 Academic year: 2026/27, Starting in: August

All second year students will be asked to complete a course enrolment form online from the selection below. Full details will be provided by email.

Your attendance will be confirmed at your first cohort meeting of the semester in week 2. Details of these meetings will be sent to you by email. You are expected to attend cohort meetings, and should let your Student Adviser know if you must be absent.

The credits for your courses should total 120 in each year.

Compulsory courses

Introduction to Historiography

Must be passed

The Transformation of the Roman World, ca. 300-800: Towards Byzantium and the Early Medieval West

Must be passed

Course options

You must take one of these courses as a core course, but if you would like to take both, you can take the other one as an elective option from the Level 7 and 8 courses in Schedules A-R, T, W and Y collection subject to availability and timetabling.

Selected courses must be passed

Ancient Historiography

Themes and Theories in Ancient History

AND

You can choose only 20 credits of History courses (codes starting HIST and ECSH) as part of this option. We would recommend taking a Year 2 History course as beneficial. Taking or continuing Latin or Greek is also recommended, as are historical courses in other areas such as Ecclesiastical History, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, or History of Medicine.

In order to progress to honours years, you must ensure that at least 90 credits of your chosen courses across years 1 and 2 are at level 8. Please note that you may be restricted on the number of level 7 courses you can take depending on your degree programme.

We recommend the following course for students on this degree (when running) HIST08047: Making and Breaking Medieval Britain.

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling.

A limited number of courses are also available in Schedules S and X.

AND

Our Changing World

Sustainability and Social Responsibility (UG)

Wicked problems: Reason and Rhetoric

Understanding decolonisation in a globalised world

Sustainable Development Goals: History, Progress and Beyond 2030

Living in the Anthropocene

Understanding Society with Big Data: Computational Social Science

Health in a Changing Climate

Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World

Navigating Energy Transitions

Healthy Eating for People and Planet

Year 3 Academic year: 2026/27, Starting in: August

Entry into Honours normally requires
(i) passes in 240 credits of courses taken in the first two years,
(ii) passes in either Ancient Historiography or Themes and Theories of Ancient History.
(iii) passes in the two compulsory year 2 courses.

Entry to honours in Classics remains at the discretion of the Head of Classics in the light of performance across all courses.

Your attendance will be confirmed at your first cohort meeting of the semester in week 1. Details of these meetings will be sent to you by email. You are expected to attend cohort meetings, and should let your Student Adviser know if you must be absent.

The credits for your courses should total 120 in each year.

There are no compulsory courses in this year of this programme.

Course options

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling. Popular courses may fill up quickly.

Hellenistic Egypt: Society, Economy and Culture (332BC - 31BC)

Ancient Superpowers: The Armies and Military Monuments of Rome and Persia

After Alexander

The formation of the medieval Roman Empire, 602-867

The Long Twelfth Century: Byzantium in the Era of the Crusades (1071-1204)

Dispute Resolution in the Roman Empire

Romans Overseas

Honour in Ancient Greece

Greek History Seminar 2

Women and Agency in the Imperial Greek East

Greece and the Near East: Contacts, Conflicts, Exchanges

Herod the Great and the End of Hellenism

Early and Archaic Greek Art and Archaeology

Art and Society in the Byzantine World

Race and Ethnicity in the Roman World

Classical Mythology in the Renaissance

Making Saints: Hagiography and the Holy in Late Antiquity

Jewish Greek Literature

Slavery in the Early Middle Ages

The End of an Empire: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

AND

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling. Popular courses may fill up quickly.

The formation of the medieval Roman Empire, 602-867

The Long Twelfth Century: Byzantium in the Era of the Crusades (1071-1204)

Gender and Society: Men and Women in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500

Machiavelli and His World

Dante's Inferno: medieval society, sin and eternal damnation

Historical Skills and Methods II

Historical Skills and Methods I

No such thing as a free gift: a long history of donation

Slavery in the Early Middle Ages

The Doomed Kingdom: Power, Law and Religion in Early Medieval Europe

The End of an Empire: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

AND

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling. Popular courses may fill up quickly.

Hellenistic Egypt: Society, Economy and Culture (332BC - 31BC)

Ancient Superpowers: The Armies and Military Monuments of Rome and Persia

After Alexander

The formation of the medieval Roman Empire, 602-867

The Long Twelfth Century: Byzantium in the Era of the Crusades (1071-1204)

Dispute Resolution in the Roman Empire

Romans Overseas

Honour in Ancient Greece

Greek History Seminar 2

Women and Agency in the Imperial Greek East

Greece and the Near East: Contacts, Conflicts, Exchanges

Herod the Great and the End of Hellenism

The Hittites: The Archaeology of an Ancient Near Eastern Civilisation

The Archaeology and History of Egypt: the Second Intermediate Period until the end of the Late Period (1650-332 BC)

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: The Basics and Beyond

Mariners, Monks and Mobility: the archaeology of the early medieval Atlantic Archipelago

Marine Archaeology

Island Worlds in Mediterranean Prehistory

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs II: Texts and Contexts

Celtic Connections: the Archaeology of Iron Age Europe

Early and Archaic Greek Art and Archaeology

Roman Architecture

The Art and Archaeology of Sparta and Laconia

Archaeology, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Art and Society in the Byzantine World

Race and Ethnicity in the Roman World

Women, Writing, Greece: From Sappho to Virginia Woolf and Beyond

Classical Mythology in the Renaissance

Odysseys: Afterlives of Homer from Dante to the Present

Making Saints: Hagiography and the Holy in Late Antiquity

The Ancient Novel

Roman Satire

Stoic Philosophy at Rome

Plato's Republic in Translation

Jewish Greek Literature

Ancient Greek 1Ha

Ancient Greek 1Hb

Ancient Greek 2Ha

Ancient Greek 2Hb

The End of an Empire: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

After Byzantium: An Intellectual History of the Greek world, 15th-19th c.

Latin 1Ha

Latin 1Hb

Latin 2Ha

Latin 2Hb

Year 4 Academic year: 2026/27, Starting in: August

Your attendance will be confirmed at your first cohort meeting of the semester in week 1. Details of these meetings will be sent to you by email. You are expected to attend cohort meetings, and should let your Student Adviser know if you must be absent.

The credits for your courses should total 120 in each year.

There are no compulsory courses in this year of this programme.

Course options

Classics Dissertation

The dissertation topic must be in medieval history

History Dissertation

AND

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling. Popular courses may fill up quickly.

Damnation and redemption in the medieval world: a journey through Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio

Globalisation Before Modernity? The World of the Silk Roads, 900-1400

War and History, c.1350-c.1650

Charlemagne's Europe, c. 750 - 825

The Third Europe: Imagining the Czech lands, Hungary, and Poland in the Middle Ages

The Worlds of Orderic Vitalis, 1075 to c. 1140

AND

Please note that Historical Skills & Methods I and Historical Skills & Methods II cannot be taken in 4th year.

Please note that places on the courses are subject to availability and timetabling. Popular courses may fill up quickly.

The formation of the medieval Roman Empire, 602-867

The Long Twelfth Century: Byzantium in the Era of the Crusades (1071-1204)

Gender and Society: Men and Women in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500

Machiavelli and His World

Dante's Inferno: medieval society, sin and eternal damnation

Historical Skills and Methods II

Historical Skills and Methods I

No such thing as a free gift: a long history of donation

Slavery in the Early Middle Ages

The Doomed Kingdom: Power, Law and Religion in Early Medieval Europe

The End of an Empire: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

AND