- UCAS course code
- VR11
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Heroes and Holy Men: The Irish Sea World in the Viking Age, c. 780-1100
Unit code | HIST31362 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
This course examines the Irish Sea zone during the height of Viking activity and locates that examination in the wider context of Viking activity across northern Europe. It will focus on the impact of Viking activity – trading, slaving, raiding and settlement - across the Irish Sea and the extent that to which historians can talk of the Irish Sea as a ‘cultural zone’ by the eleventh century. The key processes we will be examining are acculturation, assimilation and identity formation.
Pre/co-requisites
This module is only available to students on History-owned programmes; Euro Studies programmes; History joint honours programmes owned by other subject areas; and CAHAE-owned programmes. Available to students on an Erasmus programme subject to VSO approval.
Aims
- Students will be encouraged to engage with different perceptions of Viking activity and identity, using a variety of on-line and library resources.
- Students will also engage with a range of primary sources, both documentary and material, to garner a greater understanding of the issues and debates around the formation of: (1) cultural provinces (2), the creation of new historical landscapes (e.g. the Viking Wirral) and (3) the emergence of new polities and identities during this period.
- Students will also engage with the concepts and methodological approaches surrounding identity, acculturative processes (eg assimilation) and diasporas.
Knowledge and understanding
Manifest knowledge and understanding of:
- Debates around/interpretations of Viking identity
- The political chronology of the Irish Sea area between 780 and 1100
- Historical paradigms around the formation of cultural zones/provinces
- The relationship between history and archaeology in terms of the interpretation of landscapes, settlement and place-names
Intellectual skills
- Students should be familiar with and be able to use a range of different types of evidence, from documentary to material culture in their writing
- Student should be able to place discussion of source material in a wider understanding of theoretical frameworks used by historians to explore group identity, ethnicity and the emergence of cultural provinces
Practical skills
- Essay writing
- Seminar participation and communication of complex ideas to a wider group
- Document/artefact analysis and commentary
- Identify the major historiographical debates underpinning the topic
- The use of electronic resources for Historians, for instance the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (www.pase.ac.uk)
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Present arguments and interpretations through oral and written communication
- Independent research
- Group working/working with peers
- Contextualising data of different types
- Critical thinking and analysis
Employability skills
- Analytical skills
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Group/team working
- Collaboration in team settings
- Leadership
- Acting autonomously and take leadership and responsibility (through independent learning, seminar preparation and contribution, assessment activities)
- Oral communication
- Convey complex ideas concisely via written and verbal communication skills
- Research
- Data handling
- Written communication
- Convey complex ideas concisely via written and verbal communication skills
Assessment methods
Source Analysis Exercise - 40%
Research Essay - 60%
Feedback methods
Feedback Method | Formative or Summative |
Oral feedback on seminar handout, seminar participation, group discussions and presentations | Formative |
Written feedback on coursework submissions via Turnitin | Summative |
Additional one-to-one feedback (during office hours or by making an appointment) | Formative |
Recommended reading
- S. Brink and N. Price, The Viking World (Routledge, 2008)
- C. Downham, The Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, 2007)
- C. Downham, Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 2017)
- D. Griffiths, Vikings of the Irish Sea (Stroud, 2010)
- D. Hadley, The Vikings in England: Settlement, Society, and Culture (Manchester, 2006)
- D. Hadley and J.D. Richards (eds.), Cultures in contact: Scandinavian settlement in England in the ninth and tenth centuries (Turnhout, 2000)
- S. Mossman (ed.), Debating medieval Europe. The early Middle Ages, 450-1050 (Manchester, 2020)
- P. Stafford (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland c. 500 – 1100 (Oxford, 2009)
- A. Woolf, From Pictland to Alba: Scotland 789-1070 (Edinburgh, 2007)
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Seminars | 33 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Charles Insley | Unit coordinator |