I’m Amanda, and I’m going to tell you about my experience of studying medieval studies at York, and what I learned.
Entering the Medieval City
After a nine-hour flight and subsequent three-hour train journey, I sat in the back passenger seat of my cab heading to Wentworth from the station. Upon seeing the city walls for the first time, I could feel the tears welling up. I was finally here in a medieval city!
York’s Centre for Medieval Studies has been on my radar since undergrad as an excellent place for interdisciplinary medieval research. In particular, I liked their attention to medieval languages/paleography and modules centering the local region were a huge draw.
I had written quite a lot of medieval course work before coming to York. I covered everything from Italian frescos to Flemish Beguines. It gave me a breadth of knowledge about the general medieval period in Western Europe. But I didn’t know the granular detail regarding any particular region. So I devoted my time at York to immersing myself into its local medieval history!
Medieval Studies modules centring on locality
When selecting my modules for the academic year, my decisions were governed by the following question: “Could I take a course like this in North America?” My intention was to prioritise coursework unique to this course. It was incredibly challenging to narrow myself down to only three choices. I picked:
- The Vikings in Northumbria
- Painting on Light: Stained Glass in the Medieval Tradition
- Extreme States: Religion and The Self in the High Middle Ages
The modules
The Vikings in Northumbria gave me the context for York’s prominence throughout the later medieval period. It also expanded my understanding of the Dark Ages. My favourite component of the course was its exploration into local material culture. One of our lectures was hosted by Viking North curator and numismatist, Andrew Woods. He even brought in Viking coins for us to carefully handle!
Painting on Light felt like an obvious module choice to the point that I wrote about it in several scholarship applications. I work on medieval manuscript culture, so I wanted to learn a different medium that overlapped with the illuminations I frequently encounter. The module included several visits to local stained glass sites. We visited York Minster’s Chapter House, All Saints Church North Street (York), St John’s Church (Howsham) and St Martin on the Hill (Scarborough). These visits were certainly the highlight of the class, as there is no better way to study art than looking at the work in-person.
Extreme States explored the broader, medieval conception of “the self.” It overlapped with my bachelor’s thesis on Julian of Norwich. Many of the Saints included in the module were local to Yorkshire, including Aelred of Rievaulx and Robert of Knaresborough. I eventually visited the namesakes of their regional epithets; there, I situated myself into the daily landscape of these Saints, deepening my understanding of their hagiographies.
The staff
Outside of specialised modules, I was also impressed with how staff, like Christine Williamson and Holly James-Maddocks, incorporated several local documents into their language and paleography courses. In beginners “Latin” and “Old English,” Christine assigned translations of Alcuin’s poetry, wills from the Borthwick, and accounts from chronicles. James-Maddocks worked with the York Minster Library to run a transcription bootcamp where we handled several medieval manuscripts written in Middle English.
Finding Myself as a Researcher
After centering so much of my masters on medieval York, it’s no wonder that my dissertation focuses on a local topic as well. With my background in rare book libraries/archives, I knew I wanted my project to focus on under-researched materials housed by the York Minster Library. Eventually, I settled on the sixteen medieval manuscripts of Marmaduke Fothergill (d.1731). He was a liturgical scholar whose full library of 1,700 volumes was donated to the Minster in 1737 by his widow. My work examines Fothergill’s annotations, considering how this early modern man mediated his medieval collection. The project has been incredibly rewarding, using many of the technical and analytical skills fostered by the Centre for Medieval Studies.
My time in York has shown me that I’m completely fascinated by researching medieval manuscripts. It’s so interesting to explore written text, artistic design, object materiality, provenance, and institutional organisation. I am proud to say that I will be starting my PhD in English at the University of Toronto in September. Though my background is in literature, I’m always drawn to how interdisciplinary context informs our engagement and interpretation of medieval materials. I am so thankful to the Centre of Medieval Studies for empowering me to pursue and advocate for this type of research.
Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about my experience of studying medieval studies at York, and what I learned.
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