MA History

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2026, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £13,700
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £28,400
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £6,850
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,200

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

The fees quoted above will be fully inclusive for the course tuition, administration and computational costs during your studies.

All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review and incremental rises per annum are also likely over the duration of courses lasting more than a year for UK/EU students (fees are typically fixed for International students, for the course duration at the year of entry). For general fees information please visit: postgraduate fees . Always contact the department if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

Self-funded international applicants for this course will be required to pay a deposit of £1000 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. This deposit will only be refunded if immigration permission is refused. We will notify you about how and when to make this payment.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

• Information on university funding, loans, and scholarships available on the Masters student funding page
• The Faculty of Humanities offered a range of scholarship opportunities for eligible applicants starting in September 2025. Please check back to confirm availability for September 2026 start.
• Please visit the school funding page for more information on subject funding available
• Other funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages .

This module aims to explore the methodological, historiographical and analytical choices that shape our study of the medieval and early modern periods. Highlighting the variety of disciplinary approaches that are in use in current scholarship, this module shall investigate key themes within the field that have generated a range of methodological approaches and debates. Co-taught by a number of specialists from across the School, examples of such themes – which can vary on any given year  - may include 'identities’ , 'trade and society’, ‘environment’ and ‘biography’. Students will be encouraged to question issues of historical periodisation, the benefits of interdisciplinarity, and how an intellectual framework for the study of the medieval and early modern periods may be conceptualised.

The unit aims to:

• Permit students to acquire a broad knowledge of the variety of approaches current in the fields of medieval and Renaissance studies;
• Query the methodologies traditionally associated with specific disciplines of study;
• Deepen students' knowledge of the key thematic issues of the medieval and early modern periods;
• Problematise questions of periodisation, continuity, and transformation in the pre-modern world.

• Demonstrate a critical understanding of past and current scholarly debates relevant to the period;
• Engage critically with the themes discussed, and the sources and scholarship relevant to case studies used;
• Understand interpretative problems specific to particular issues, genres of evidence, and sources;
• Articulate comparative assessments of methodologies

• Conceptualise an intellectual framework for the study of specific aspects of the medieval and early-modern period;
• Understand why certain methodologies are best suited to particular sources or subjects;
• Analyse and debate complex issues relevant to the development of medieval and early-modern studies;
• Evaluate existing scholarship critically, and build upon it.

• Develop writing techniques, appropriate to the assessment;
• Synthesise large volumes of factual and theoretical perspectives in a critical manner;
• Retrieve and use relevant primary and secondary sources in a critical fashion;
• Identify appropriate source material, and compile specialist bibliographies.

 

• Develop oral presentation skills through participation in class discussions;
• Manage time through preparation of assignments;
• Use ICT resources for programme support;
• Write fluent prose 

Book Review: 25%

Essay: 75%

 

Students will receive formative feedback on an essay outline submitted in advance of the principal assignment. Written feedback on submitted assessed work shall be delivered within the time-frame recommended by SALC.

 

Arnold, J., What is Medieval History? (Cambridge, 2000)

Bull, M., Thinking Medieval: An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages (Basingstoke, 2005)

Geary, P., The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, 2002)

Greenblatt, S., Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: 1980).

Kerrigan, W., Braden, G., The Idea of the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1989)