Who is this course for?
No previous experience in the subject is necessary and the course is open to anyone with an interest in the subject area.
What will I be studying?
The Certificate is divided into three termly units taught via remote delivery. Students are expected to attend all of the scheduled teaching sessions.
Unit 1: The Landscape History & Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England
This unit explores two questions central to understanding the medieval and modern English landscape: how local peasants and their lords coped with calamitous economic and political changes and significant immigration, in the centuries between 400 and 650 AD; and how agricultural, administrative, economic and social innovations were scored into fields and settlements and the landscape between 650 and 1100. Underlying both questions are the two central problems for the period: first, the degree of continuity from Roman Britain into the Anglo-Saxon centuries against the extent of change in the same period; and second, how that balance between tradition and transformation is to be explained. The principal source for the unit is the landscape itself - fields and pastures, woods and marshes, villages and hamlets, forts and towns – supported by the available archaeological and documentary evidence.
Unit 2: Becoming English: The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England c400-1100AD
Roman administration was withdrawn from Britain in about AD400; by 700 the inhabitants of England were calling themselves ‘English’ and by AD950 the kingdom of England had been established. This unit explores surviving British and evolving Anglo-Saxon identities through the rich and often enigmatic archaeology of the period. Roman towns and villas gradually disappeared and the landscape evolved in a very different way as new Anglo-Saxon influences took hold. The development of Anglo-Saxon kingship, trade and other economic links, changes in religious belief and practices, Viking raids, new settlements, the development of estates and manors, and the Norman conquest all left their mark.
Unit 3: Anglo-Saxon Art and Architecture
The art and architecture of Anglo-Saxon England is numinous and intriguing and from the period after c.600, dominated by the Church. It is investigated in this unit through a wide range of objects - iconic jewellery such as the gold and garnet shoulder-clasps discovered at Sutton Hoo, magnificent illuminated manuscripts from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, reliquaries of carved ivory and precious metals, brass, glass and other high status objects, some imported from Europe and Byzantium, as well as carved stones and monumental churches and other buildings.
What can I go on to do?
The Institute offers two 60 credit complementary one year Certificate courses about Early Medieval and Medieval England which are taught and awarded at first year undergraduate level (FHEQ 4). The Certificates are currently taught in alternating years and can be studied independently of each other, and in any order.
Certificate in the Study of Medieval England
This Certificate course which is planned for 2024-25, includes units on the landscape archaeology of Medieval England, Politics and the State in Medieval England and Art and Architecture in Medieval England.
Students who have successfully completed the Undergraduate Certificate in the Study of Early Medieval England (60 credits at FHEQ level 4) and the Undergraduate Certificate in the Study of Medieval England (60 credits at FHEQ level 4) can apply to be awarded the Undergraduate Certificate of Higher Education in the Study of Early Medieval and Medieval England (120 credits at FHEQ level 4).
Credit awarded by the Institute can also be transferred into the degree programmes of other higher education providers. However, the amount of credit which can be transferred into degree programmes varies from institution to institution and is always at the discretion of the receiving institution.
