History of Women in the Middle Ages
Code: 100368 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2500241 Archaeology | OT | 3 |
| 2500241 Archaeology | OT | 4 |
| 2500501 History | OT | 4 |
Contact
- Name:
- Helena Kirchner Granell
- Email:
- helena.kirchner@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
No needed
Objectives and Contextualisation
The aim of this subject is to study the role of women from the 5th to the 15th century in different geographical and political areas of the Western European world from different perspectives (family, marriage, inheritance, church, social class, work and thought). Even today, historical research and its explanation are carried out without a gender perspective. The vision transmitted by medieval intellectuals, mainly from the Church, often excludes women or is simply impregnated with misogynistic ideas about the female sex. The direct testimonies of women are even rarer, and those of peasants and workers even more so. However, there is a great deal of research to be done on the basis of written documents of various origins: from biblical exegesis texts to wills or property deeds. Even from an archaeological point of view, little attention is paid to these issues. In general, historical and archaeological research on gender and women has been segregated from the main subjects of research, and the gender perspective is hardly integrated into historical narratives.
Competences
- Archaeology
- Contextualizing and analysing historical processes.
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Managing the main methods, techniques and analytic tools in archaeology.
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethic relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- History
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Identifying the main historiographical tendencies and critically analysing their development.
- Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing the key issues that allow us to address the study of historical phenomena from a gender perspective.
- Applying both knowledge and analytical skills to the resolution of problems related to their area of study.
- Applying proper techniques and analytical tools in case studies.
- Assessing and critically solving the characteristic historiographical problems of gender history.
- Autonomously searching, selecting and processing information both from structured sources (databases, bibliographies, specialized magazines) and from across the network.
- Critically analysing informational speeches, especially in relation to ideology and ethnocentric and sexist bias.
- Describing the economic, social and political structures of the Middle Ages.
- Effectively expressing themselves and applying the argumentative and textual processes of formal and scientific texts.
- Engaging in debates about historical facts respecting the other participants' opinions.
- Identifying main and supporting ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
- Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
- Interpreting and analysing documentary sources.
- Knowing the main historiographical debates concerning the Middle Ages.
- Organising and planning the search of historical information.
- Properly using the specific vocabulary of History.
- Reading and interpreting historiographical texts or original documents and transcribing, summarizing and cataloguing information produced in the Middle Ages.
- Recognising and implementing the following teamwork skills: commitment to teamwork, habit of cooperation, ability to participate in the problem solving processes.
- Recognising diversity and multiculturalism.
- Recognising the importance of controlling the quality of the work's results and its presentation.
- Relating elements and factors involved in the development of historical processes.
- Solve the methodological problems posed by the use of medieval historiographical sources.
- Solving problems autonomously.
- Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
- Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.
- Using the specific interpretational and technical vocabulary of the discipline.
Content
1- History and historiography of women in the Middle Ages. Concepts.
2- The inheritance of ideas: the Christian tradition.
3- Family, kinship relations, marriage and family states.
4- Women and the church: women's monasteries.
5- Educated and noble women.
6- Women and power: countesses, princesses and queens.
7- Women and work: peasantry, trade, crafts.
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Masterclasses and text analysis | 86 | 3.44 | 6, 1, 2, 4, 13, 12, 16, 9, 18, 25 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| assessment | 25 | 1 | 6, 1, 3, 2, 22, 4, 8, 24, 12, 16, 23, 19, 20, 21, 15, 25 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| essay | 27 | 1.08 | 1, 3, 2, 22, 5, 8, 24, 12, 14, 23, 17, 19, 21, 15, 25 |
There will be lectures and practical classes in the classroom, based on text commentaries and discussions.
Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| essay | 30% | 8 | 0.32 | 6, 1, 3, 2, 22, 4, 5, 13, 7, 8, 24, 10, 11, 12, 16, 14, 9, 23, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 15, 25 |
| exam 1 | 35% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 4, 13, 7, 24, 10, 11, 12, 18, 20, 21, 15 |
| exam 2 | 35% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 4, 8, 24, 10, 12, 16, 21, 25 |
The assessment will be based on:
- an essay done by two students (30%)
- exam 1 (35%)
- exam 2 (35%)
Dates of delivery will be fixed at the beginning of the term.
Attendance and participation in class activities will be assessed to round up marks.
Exams will include text commentaries and theory questions.
To pass the course, it is necessary to submit all the assessment activities.
No marks below 4 will be averaged with any of the failed marks.
The minimum average to be able to make the recovery must be 3.5.
Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted
more than 1/3 of the assessment items.
The recovery will consist of an exam. Students will only be able to attend the exam if they have done all the activities. The essay cannot be repeated. The maximum overall mark will be 5/10.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation
in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this
activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as
the final grade for this subject. The assessment items with irregularities will not be reassessed.
Single assessment:
- an essay (30%)
- exam 1 (35%)
- exam 2 (35%)
The delivery date of the paper and exams will be unique (January 2024).
The same recovery system will be applied as for continuous assessment.
On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the
procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a
review will take place.
Bibliography
A. M. Aguado ... [et al.], Textos para la historia de las mujeres en España. Cátedra, 1994
M. Aurell, Les noces del comte. Matrimoni i poder a Catalunya (785-1213). Omega, Barcelona 1998
M.M. Rivera, Textos y espacios de mujeres (Europa siglos IV-XV). Icaria, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 1990.
C. Segura (Ed.),La Voz del silencio I. Fuentes directas para la historia de las mujeres (siglos VIII-XVIII),
Asociación Cultural Al-Mudayna, 1992.
C. Segura (Ed.),La Voz del silencio II: Historia de las mujeres: compromiso y método, Asociación Cultural
Al-Mudayna, 1993
T. Vinyoles, Història de les dones a la Catalunya medieval. Eumo Editorial, Pagès Editors, Lleida, 2005.
P. Dronke, Las Escritoras de la Edad Media, Crítica, Barcelona 1994
J.I. Saranyana, La discusión medieval sobre la condición femenina (siglos VIII al XIII). Publicaciones de la
Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Salamanca, 1997
J.M. Bennett, R M.Karras (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2013
Software
There is not a specific software
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |