Aims
This course aims to:
• provide an introduction to post-Roman Britain and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria
• to assess the nature and extent of its cultural contribution
• to explore individual artistic and literary works
Content
“Renaissance and Renascences,” was a concept defined by art historian Erwin Panofsky (1892– 1968), who defended the unique status of THE Renaissance “revival of antiquity” over scholarly assertions of earlier or “rival” Renaissances (eg the Carolingian renaissance, the 12th-century renaissance).
According to Panofsky, these, although significant for their scholarship, literature, and the arts, were relatively short-lived and limited in scope, when compared to the “permanent” revival of antique forms accomplished during the Italian Renaissance. Panofsky described these earlier revivals as “renascences” (or “not-quite Renaissances”) that were strictly “mediaeval phenomena.”
This course will explore whether the cultural, scholarly, artistic and spiritual flowering that took place in Britain North of the Humber, in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria and its neighbours, during the 7th and 8th centuries constitutes one such renaissance / renascence and what contribution it made to western culture.
Areas of study will include the works of Bede, early English poems such as the Dream of the Rood, Benedict Biscop and Wilfrid’s building programmes (with their masonry, stained glass and sculptures), manuscripts such as the Book of Durrow, the St Cuthbert Gospel, the Codex Amiatinus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Durham Cassiodorus and the Moore Bede, carvings such as the Franks Casket, Cuthbert’s coffin, the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses, the St Cuthbert’s shrine textiles and Maaseik embroideries and metalwork such as the Cuthbert Cross, the Ormside Bowl, the Rupertus Cross and the Coppergate Helmet.
Presentation of the course
The course will be taught by lectures, richly illustrated by PowerPoint slides and readings from contemporary sources, followed by discussion.
Course sessions
1. The Post-Roman and Migration period and the establishment and conversion of the kingdom
of Northumbria.
2. Northumbria and its neighbours: Celts, Picts, the Columban mission and the continental mission fields.
3. Building Rome in Northumbria: the monastic foundations of Benedict Biscop and Wilfrid of York, their libraries, art and influence in England and beyond.
4. Bede, Eadfrith and the cult of St Cuthbert.
5. Northumbria under pressure – the rise of Mercia and the Vikings – and long-term contribution.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• gaining an understanding of the role of culture in the transition from late Antiquity to the Middle Ages in northern Britain and the scale of the Northumbrian contribution
• exploring the nature and significance of a number of key artistic and literary works from Northumbria
• examining the rise and decline of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom and its place in local and international affairs
