Postgraduate Medievalist Chat

Where do you study?
I wish my undergraduate course offered more than a whopping two medieval modules throughout the whole syllabus.
I'm rather anti-historical; the chronology side of it never really interested me, which is probably why I'm not a huge fan of Le Morte D'Arthur.
I'm sure you wouldn't agree with all of my tastes, though.

Much 20th century literary criticism is rather laboriously written, and a lot of it simply doesn't make sense (I'm looking at you, Schofield). The key thing that I can't get my head around is all this variance with regard to what allegory actually is. The medieval 'four-fold' interpretation of allegory is confusing enough, but some of these critics can't even agree on what the four tenets of medieval allegory are. Some of them even write that allegory is a facet of allegory.

Not even my tutor agreed with my 'Pearl is not a holistic allegory' assertion, but how can it be? We're not dealing with levels of metonymy like those in Animal Farm or The Pilgrim's Progress. We have a mix of extended metaphor (which could be read as self-contained allegories), the most obvious one being the central Pearl image. Actual Biblical allegories are incorporated into the text (Workers in the Vineyard/ Pearl of Great Price), but the fact that these self-contained allegories are part of the text, does not mean that the text, as a whole, is an allegory. It seems like such a simple notion to argue, but it's so bloody confusing. You can't argue that the Dreamer's process of consolation is allegorised as a journey into Heaven, because, unlike in Bunyan, the reader is literally being told that the ultimate goal is Heaven and/ or The New Jerusalem. We're not dealing with the Celestial City, here. The Pearl Maiden isn't masking her rhetoric (as in Boethius).

It's just an elegy; not an allegory. I can't be the only one who thinks this.

I bet your material is miles more comprehensible than the stuff I've had to put up with.

Isidore summarized antique allegory wonderfully in what now fits into a modern page of writing. It saddens me that late medieval and modern scholars have sought to imbue it with such complication and so many contradictions.

Good luck with your dissertation. For what my opinion is worth, your interpretation sounds persuasive.

Hi everyone!
I'm just finishing up my undergraduate degree in History (general, although I have studied mostly late medieval and Reformation history). Just on the verge of submitting my 40,000 word thesis about queenship, English Reformation, blah blah I can't even talk about it anymore... I need a really long nap.
I'm going to Durham in the fall for the MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. I want to maintain my focus on history but it is an interdisciplinary programme so I'm excited to be able to study history of art a little more (I was planning to do a minor in Art History for my undergraduate but I decided two minors were too many, so I dropped that and just kept a minor in Latin).
My main interest is... something I don't know a name for. I don't think it's exactly architectural history because while I love historic buildings and love to study them, it's not the actual architecture of buildings that interests me the most. I love historic buildings because of their connection to past events... so I'm interested mostly in what HAPPENED in the buildings and the lives of the people who lived there. I would love to work for a heritage organisation some day.
Is anyone else going to Durham? Or, are there any other international students here? I'm from Canada

I did realise when I was applying to Masters programmes that the dissertations never seemed to need to be more than 20,000 words. The minimum requirement for my undergraduate thesis was about 30,000 words but obviously I've gone a bit over that. Then there were lots of other lengthy papers I've had to write this year as well. I am very tired. Sometimes it can be more challenging to write concisely so maybe a Masters dissertation will be even more challenging, but for now I'm just thinking if I only have to write half of what I did this year... that is definitely doable. And honestly after I got past about 25,000 words the quality started to go downhill. I hope I will be able to be more focused and have more time to edit and perfect my Masters dissertation. But first I'm going to have a lot of drinks and a lot of naps.

Hello! another medievalist checking in. I'm currently in my final year of my undergraduate degree in history at Oxford, and have developed a love for the early medieval period since taking a first year module on Europe 300-900 (although I'm pretty sure it can also be linked back to growing up a stone's throw away from St Wilfrid's church at Hexham and numerous trips to Bede's World in Jarrow with my grandma…). Since then, I've squeezed as much early medieval stuff as I can into my history degree - this summer I'll be sitting final exams that include a study of western Europe from 700-900, 7th and 8th century Anglo-Saxon archaeology, and analysing sources from tenth-century Byzantium. I wrote my thesis, a mere 12,000 words including footnotes, on material evidence for cultural interaction on the Danelaw, taking a comparative approach towards numismatics and metalwork, mainly dress accessories. It don't think it was very good, but I really enjoyed it (or at least, in hindsight - at the time it was a big messy panic!). Surprising how much you can fit in to a degree that's technically 'modern' history.

Next year I will (grades dependent!) be staying at Oxford for the MSt in archaeology, hopefully writing my thesis on something to do with numismatics and material culture and power and kingship and some other vague interests that I really need to hone a bit! My ultimate life goal is some form of medieval museum job - I spent six weeks last summer as an intern in the numismatic department of the Berlin State museums and now have some idealised view of my future in which I spend my days playing with Carolingian coins, which really isn't going to happen, but a girl can dream...

I'm currently struggling through a comparative essay for revision on reasons for shifts in artistic styles in the middle Byzantine empire and seventh to tenth century England. It isn't going too well...

On a related note, and something I've wondered about - are there 'historical' and 'literature/cultural' branches of medieval literature/language study? On the history side, there's definitely a clear dividing line between historians certainly not interested in literature as a literary enterprise (even if they use it as a historical source) and those (usually described as 'cultural' historians) who are. Is there a similar divide on your side? ON a more general level, is there a difference between the study of medieval history and medieval literature, especially when one gets into cultural history?

Discuss!

So, I managed to get a hold of a formal definition of medieval exegetics, via the Dictionary of the Middle Ages (i.e. literal/ typological/ tropological/ anagogical), but, even in this particular entry, they use Pearl as a completely paradigmatic example of four-fold allegory.

What
I've tried my best to refute it, but it's just so DIFFICULT.
I wish I could actually get some help with this. Too bad my tutor is nowhere to be found.

Hi everyone!

Is anyone else going to Durham? Or, are there any other international students here? I'm from Canada

Currently struggling with a section of my dissertation. Does anyone know any good secondary sources on women and siege warfare? I'm looking at the 12th century, Iberia here.

Wow great! I go on holiday and come back and a Medievalists forum is up and running - thanks Ellie.Rew!

Thank you! I will see if my library has any of his works.

Thank you! I will see if my library has any of his works.