Current Graduate Courses

Course Descriptions | Upcoming Language Exams | Past Language Exams

CMS Course Information

You can view the PDF icon2025-2026 CMS timetable, check the preliminary CMS Course List below, and browse current course descriptions.

Check the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) website for the current sessional dates.

To enrol in a course on ROSI, provide the course code in a format without spaces, and with an additional Y (for full-year courses) or H (for half courses), following the examples below:

  • MST1000Y
  • MST1101H

In addition to those courses offered by the Centre for Medieval Studies, students may enroll in courses offered by other departments relating to the Middle Ages. Approved courses from other departments will be cross-listed below (but the list is not yet complete); other relevant courses not listed here may be taken in consultation with the Associate Director or the PhD Co-ordinator. NB: Course offerings are subject to change. All details concerning course offerings cross-listed from other departments should be checked with the relevant academic department as changes can occur which may not be reflected in our listing. 

  • Y and L indicate full-year courses.
  • F and S indicate half-year courses taught, respectively, in the fall and spring terms.
  • H indicates half-year courses.

Please refer to the calendar of the School of Graduate Studies for information about regulations.

Course Instructor Time / Day Location Term
MST 1000Y.  Medieval Latin I C. O'Hogan M-F  1:00-2:00 pm LI 301 Full Year
MST 1001Y.  Medieval Latin II S. Ghosh M-F  1:00-2:00 pm LI 310 Full Year
MST 1003H.  Professional Development for Medieval Studies PhDs K. Gaston F  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 310 Full Year
MST 1022H.  Transmission and Reception: The Survival and Use of the Latin Classics C. O'Hogan M  9:00-11:00 am LI 301 Fall
MST 1104H.  Paleography I B. Miles M  2:00:-4:00 pm PIMS Fall
MST 1105H.  Paleography II R. Macchioro R  11:00 am-1:00 pm PIMS Spring
MST 1107H.  Latin Textual Criticism R. Macchioro W  9:00-11:00 am LI 310 Spring
MST 1117H.  Medieval English Handwriting 1300-1500 S. Sobecki T  9:00-11:00 am LI 301 Fall
MST 1422H.  Introduction to Study of Magic J. Haines R  2:00-4:00 pm LI 310 Spring
MST 2010H.  Old Norse S. Ghosh T  2:00-4:00 pm LI 301 Fall
MST 2051H.  Middle Welsh I B. Miles M  2:00-4:00 pm LI 310 Spring
MST 3025H.  Beowulf's Afterlives  A. Bolintineanu M  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 301 Fall
MST 3123H.  Medieval Medicine N. Everett T  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 310 Fall
MST 3150H.  Medieval French Epic D. Kullmann W  2:00-4:00 pm LI 310 Fall
MST 3159H. Classical Antiquity in medieval French literature: adaptations of Ovid D. Kullmann T  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 3226H.  Medieval Mediterranean History M. Meyerson W  4:00-6:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 3237H.  Monastic Rules and Customaries  I. Cochelin R  2:00-4:00 pm LI 301 Fall
MST 3241H.  Everyday Life in Medieval Europe  S. Ghosh T  2:00-4:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 3301H.  Themes in Medieval Philosophy: Augustine’s Confessions P. King T  4:00-6:00 pm LI 310 Spring
MST 3321H.  Philosophy of Mind in the Middle Ages D. Black W  2:00-4:00 pm JH 401 Fall
MST 3346H.  Medieval Islamic Philosophy J. McGinnis / R. Hadisi M  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 3501H.  Introduction to the Medieval Christian Liturgy J. Haines R  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 301 Fall
MST 3602H.  Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages  Y. Iglesias M  4:00-6:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 5002H.  Topics in Medieval History: Medieval Italy and its Invaders N. Everett R  4:00-6:00 pm LI 301 Spring
MST 5003H.  Topics in Medieval Literatures: ‘Beowulf’ R. Trilling W  11:00 am-1:00 pm LI 301 Spring

 

Current Course Descriptions

If you are not a CMS student and wish to enroll in CMS courses, please complete an SGS add/drop form and submit it to gradadm.medieval@utoronto.ca.

Other Courses and Training Opportunities

In view of the Centre’s interdisciplinary nature, some courses on the Middle Ages can be taken in other departments with the approval of the PhD Coordinator before enrollment.

Art History

(Students who would like to register for an Art History course must contact the instructors directly to request permission, and to send a completed add / drop form to graduate.arthistory@utoronto.ca.)

Course Information

Course  Instructor Details

FAH 1118HF

The Medieval Treasury

J. Caskey

Thursday, 3-6 pm

This course examines medieval church treasuries, their contents and architectural settings, and the ways they have been conceptualized from the Middle Ages to the present. It highlights the diversity of treasury contents, from liturgical chalices to legal documents, who contributed to the shape of such collections and why, and how the collections were documented. Major themes in present-day art history create the conceptual underpinnings of the course, including materiality, collecting and display, mobility, and patronage. The course will provide opportunities for students to work with objects in local museums and to develop research projects in the Digital Humanities.
Recommended: Reading knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Latin helpful.

FAH 1130HS

Architecture of the otherworld: Islamic Architecture and the Immaterial

H. Mostafa

Wednesday, 10 am-1 pm

This course reexamines how notions of the otherworldly shaped Islamic architecture, with a focus on its formative period. It explores the act of building as a form of being, considering the ways architecture upheld human encounters with the divine, the celestial realm, as well as other otherworldly beings, benign and malevolent. The course considers the ways Muslims navigated notions of sacrality through a lifecycle, from daily to annual ritual practices and how architecture and material culture emerged dialogically within this context. Through an exploration of Islamic temporality, eschatology, the afterlife, early Islamic sacred geographies, sacred cities, ritual practice, pilgrimage, relics and funerary cultures of early Islam, the course challenges notions of sacred space as a typology to reveal Islam’s relation to the otherworldly as an embodied enactment of transcendence.

Book History and Print Culture (Collaborative Program)

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Classical Studies

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Comparative Literature

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East Asian Studies

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English

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Course Instructor Details
ENG 1001F

Old English I

R. Trilling

Tuesday, 10 am-12 pm / Thursday, 11 am-12 pm

Old English is the language spoken and written in England between roughly 500 and 1100 AD, and it offers a window to the past through a wide range of beautiful and evocative texts.  In this course, you will encounter the very oldest English literature in its original form—the tales of kings, battles, heroes, monsters, and saints that have inspired writers from John Milton to J.R.R. Tolkien.  Because Old English is almost like a foreign language to Modern English speakers, the course will begin with intensive work on the basics of Old English grammar and translation practice before we move on to more in-depth study of the literature and culture of early medieval England.

NB: Students must attend both classes each week.

ENG 5103HF

The Canterbury Tales

K. Gaston

Thursday, 2-4 pm

This course explores Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the context of several different critical approaches, such as historicism, formalism, intertextuality, gender studies, and textual criticism. We read the Canterbury Tales in their entirety, examining some of the interpretive issues with which recent Chaucer criticism has been most concerned, and considering relevant ancient and medieval sources and analogues.

ENG 5202HS

The Invention of Colonialism: Richard Hakluyt and Medieval Travel Writing in Early Modern England

K. Gaston

Tuesday, 10 am-12 pm

Early modern writers readily seized on medieval texts to advance political positions. Richard Hakluyt, the great Elizabethan collector of travel writing, is often credited with first formulating England’s budding colonial ideology. In doing so, Hakluyt relied largely on medieval texts, such as the 14th-century Mandeville's Travels or the 13th-century missions to Mongolia. This course will explore how these premodern texts already conveyed the essence of the expansionist mercantilism and colonialist imperialism that would characterize the Elizabethan reach for the New World. Our course will involve working with manuscripts and early printed books at UofT's Fisher Rare Book Library. The course will advance three positions: first, that Hakluyt, John Dee, Sir Walter Raleigh, and their contemporaries were much better and closer readers of medieval travel texts than we give credit them for; second: that the ideology behind English colonialism was invented in the late medieval period, not in Elizabethan England, and third: that another facet of periodization, with its emphasis on rupture rather than continuity, comes under scrutiny.

ENG5103HS

Writing the Self in Late-medieval England: Thomas Hoccleve and Margery 

S. Sobecki

Wednesday, 11 am-1 pm

What did it mean to be an “author” in late-medieval England? How do premodern writers compete for authority with scribes and readers? Are fifteenth-century autobiographical narrators literary fictions or biological selves? To answer these questions, we will explore how two of the most exciting and original fifteenth-century English writers, Thomas Hoccleve and Margery Kempe, establish their voices while writing under the conditions imposed by manuscript culture. We will read Thomas Hoccleve’s cycle of five poems, The Series, and his earlier Le Male Regle, as well as The Book of Margery Kempe, the first autobiography by an English writer. Both authors have produced some of the most personal works in medieval England. Hoccleve’s poems try to process his struggles with mental health and personal loss, while Kempe’s extravagant, larger-than-life personality breaks new ground in women’s literature and life-writing. We will discuss premodern concepts of authorship, (auto)biography, social identity, gender, and mental health, alongside exploring material culture. We will follow cutting-edge research and examine Hoccleve’s and Kempe’s works in surviving manuscripts, some of which were written in their author’s own hand.

French Language and Literature

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Course Instructor Details

FRE 1164F

Medieval French Language / Initiation à l'ancien français 

D. Kullmann

Monday, 4-6 pm

This course aims to introduce the basics of the medieval French language through examination of a selection of original text extracts. We will study the morphology and syntax of Old French, with a glimpse into the appearance of Old French in manuscripts. The selected texts will allow students to acquaint themselves with various dialects and offer a panorama of the main literary genres of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries; however, the emphasis will be on reading, and interpretative aspects will not be explored in depth.
This course is also available at the undergraduate level. The common components of the course will focus more on the synchronic dimension than on the diachronic; graduate students will additionally learn some fundamentals of historical phonetics and other aspects of French development since Latin.
The course will be taught in French. Students from departments outside the Department of French who are interested in taking this course but believe they have not achieved the required level in modern French should contact the instructor. Efforts will be made to accommodate these students with the aid of online resources.

FRE 1312S

Emancipation and Erudition: Christine de Pisan / Émancipation et érudition : Christine de Pisan

D. Kullmann

Monday, 4-6 pm

Introduction to Middle French literature and the cultural changes of the late Middle Ages in France through the in-depth study of Christine de Pisan. Often presented as the inventor of feminism and as a fighter for the economic autonomy and intellectual authority of women, she was a prolific writer in various genres and also directed a workshop producing manuscripts. The seminar will be divided into several units, each of which will combine the study of single texts of each genre with more general aspects of her work. Three units will be dedicated to: 1) her lyrical poems (familiarizing students with the language and existing tools), 2) the Cité des Dames (role of women, use of sources, ideology, etc.), and, 3) religious poetry (women and devotion, manuscript production, etc.). A fourth section will concentrate on two further texts (an allegorical-autobiographical text and a political or historical treatise), to be chosen by the students.

Germanic Languages and Literature

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Course Instructor Details
GER 1200HF Middle High German M. Stock

Friday, 10 am-2 pm

This course offers an introduction to the German language, literature, and culture of the Middle Ages. We will read and translate Middle High German texts, study facsimiles of medieval manuscripts, and inquire into epochal cultural concepts like courtly love and chivalry as well as courtly and clerical designs of identity. Authors discussed will include Hartmann von Aue and Walther von der Vogelweide among others. The course fulfills the departmental requirement in Middle High German

GER 6000S

Reading German for Graduate Students

V. Melnyk

Friday, 2–4 pm

In this course, German reading knowledge is taught following the grammar-translation method designed for graduate students from the Humanities. It is an intensive course that covers German grammar with focus on acquiring essential structures of the German language to develop translation skills. The course is conducted in English, and consequently participants do not learn how to speak or write in German, but rather the course focuses exclusively on reading and translating German.
Prior knowledge of German not mandatory. By the end of the course, students should be able to handle a broad variety of texts in single modern Standard German. 

History

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Course Instructor Details

HIS 1215HF

Social Change in Medieval England, 1154-1279

M. Gervers

Wednesday, 1-3 pm

A research seminar devoted to the study of social and economic change from the accession of Henry II to the passage of the Statute of Mortmain under Edward I.  Subjects of inquiry will depend upon the interests of the class, which among other things may include: 1) social status and responsibility; 2) the means available to obtain, hold and transfer land; 3) the distribution of wealth and the value of property; 4) trade, industry and markets in town and country; 5) the feudal and manorial “familia”; 6) employment opportunities; 7) food production and transportation; 8) record keeping and literacy; 9) technology; 10) family ties; 11) crime and justice.  Knowledge of Latin and modern European languages is highly desirable.

Institute for Christian Studies

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Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science

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Italian Studies

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Course Instructor Details

ITA 1200HS

Dante

E. Brilli

Wednesday, 11 am-1 pm

An examination of Dante’s works and criticism of them.

ITA 1540HS

Renaissance Crossroads: Tales of Exchange in Pre-modern Italy

L. Ingallinella

Tuesday, 3-5 pm

This course explores drama and performance culture in Renaissance Italy (1350-1650). Students explore a variety of dramaturgical genres (e.g., comedy, tragedy, pastoral drama, and commedia dell’arte) to answer this question: How did Renaissance Italians represent, question, and subvert issues related to identity and difference on stage? Assigned readings feature works by Niccolò Machiavelli, Isabella Andreini, and Pietro Aretino, and class discussion will focus on topics such as the history of gender and sexuality, social class, ethnicity and race, disability, and aging.

Musicology (Faculty of Music)

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Near and Middle Eastern Civilization

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Course Instructor Details

NMC 2081HS

Anthropology of the Middle East

N. Moumtaz

Wednesday, 3-5 pm

This course examines current theoretical and methodological trends in the anthropological study of the Middle East. The readings will offer students ethnographic insight into the region, introduce them to current research, and acquaint them with the kinds of questions anthropologists ask (and the ones they fail to ask). Possible topics include (post)colonialism, nationalism, gender, violence, history/memory, the politics of archeology, mass mediations, neoliberalism, and questions of ethnographic authority. A central goal of the course is to enable students to think in new, creative, and critical ways about their own research projects.

NMC2085HS

Methods in Medieval Middle East History

A. Razzaque

Thursday 1-3 pm

This course serves as a foundation in the study of the medieval Middle East and early Islamic history, through an introduction to the field, key problems in historiography, and methodological debates in current scholarship. The period from late antiquity to the Mamluk era is considered, with a focus on the question of sources and the challenges they pose for modern scholars. Topics of interest include historical periodization, the potentials of non-Arabic sources on the rise of Islam, and the relationship between social, political, and intellectual history. The medieval Islamic historiographical tradition is surveyed across its various forms, with attention to critical considerations in the use of narrative sources. The relevance of material sources such as numismatics and archaeology, as well as documentary sources such as epigraphy, papyri, and archival material from the Genizah, are considered seriously. Students are also introduced to key reference works. This course is open to graduate students in all fields of medieval history, Middle East Studies, and Islamic Studies.
No language prerequisite.

NMC2226HS

Medieval Persian Historiography and Diplomatics

M. Subtelny

Tuesday, 1-4 pm

This seminar is concerned with Persian historical writing and documentary sources for the study of the history and culture of greater Iran during the medieval Islamic period. Selected excerpts from major Persian chronicles and other historical writings will be read and analyzed in their historical contexts. Students will also be introduced to Persian diplomatics, i.e., the study of various types of documents, including correspondence and legal documents, as well as chancery manuals and notarial formularies.

NMC 2311HF
The Rise of the Ottomans
V. Ostapchuk

Monday 6-8 pm

A survey of the Ottoman Turks from their late 13th–early 14th century origins on the frontiers of the Seljuk, Mongol, and Byzantine empires to their establishment of an Islamic empire. Topics include the principalities known as beyliks that came into being in Anatolia as the above empires declined, the nature of the early Ottoman beylik, conquests in the Balkans, the destruction of the early Ottoman state by Timur and its rebirth, and Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople. Coverage includes Ottoman institutions, economy, society, and culture.
 

NMC 2312HW

The Ottoman Empire in its Classical Age

V. Ostapchuk

Monday 6-8 pm

A survey of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. From the victory by Selim I the Grim over Safavid Iran and conquest of Syria and Egypt to the resplendent age of Süleyman the Magnificent to the internal and external challenges that forced transformation or decline. Topics include wars in Europe, the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and with Iran; internally, the rise of the harem and “sultanate of the women,” rebellions in Anatolia, military reform, religious controversies, and art and architecture. The endpoint is the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) when the expansion of the empire ended.

NMC 2331YY

Ottoman Palaeography and Diplomatics

V. Ostapchuk

Tuesday, 5-8 pm

This course is an introduction to Ottoman palaeography and diplomatics. The participants are presented with a range of Ottoman documents such as imperial edicts (firman/hükm) and their registrations (mühimme defterleri), diplomas (berat), reports and petitions (‘arz-i hal, ‘arz), vizierial summaries (telhis), memoranda (tezkire), receipts (temmesük), and legal registrations (sicill, hüccet). In addition, there will be samples from various types of registers (defter), for example, surveys of taxable population (tahrir defteri) or records of the financial department (maliye), such as day books (ruznamçe defterleri) and financial edict registry books (ahkam defterleri). For each seminar meeting photocopies of original Ottoman documents will be assigned for reading and analysis.

Philosophy

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Religious Studies (Department for the Study of Religion)

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Slavic Languages and Literatures

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Spanish and Portuguese

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St. Michael's College

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Toronto School of Theology

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Reminder: Level One Latin/MST 1000Y is the only language requirement for the MA program (see the MA requirements); and Medieval Latin (level I and II), modern French and German are the language requirements for the PhD program (see the PhD requirements). 

Beyond program requirements, advanced training in a variety of languages relevant to the field of Medieval Studies, broadly conceived, is available to CMS students. Please find below a non-exhaustive list of such languages and the Department & CMS faculty member contacts for each.

Language Department / Contact
Arabic

Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
At CMS: prof. J. Miller, W. Saleh

Aramaic Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
Chinese, Classical and Modern

Department of East Asian Studies
At CMS: prof. J. Purtle

English, Old

Department of English
At CMS: prof. R. Getz, F. Michelet, S. Pelle, A. Walton

English, Modern Department of English
French, Old

Department of French Studies
At CMS: prof. D. Kullmann

German, Middle High

Germanic Languages & Literatures
At CMS: prof. M. Stock and S. Ghosh

Ge’ez At CMS: prof. M. Gervers and R. Holmstedt
Greek, Byzantine At CMS: prof. D. Kullmann
Greek, Classical Department of Classics
Greek, Modern Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES)
Greek, New Testament Toronto School of Theology
Hebrew, Biblical

Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
Toronto School of Theology

Hebrew, Modern

Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
Department for the Study of Religion

Irish, Old and Middle At CMS: prof. B. Miles
Italian, Medieval and Modern

Department of Italian Studies
At CMS: prof. E. Brilli

Japanese, Classical and Modern Department of East Asian Studies
Latin, Classical Department of Classics
Mongolian, Preclassical and Modern At CMS: prof. J. Purtle
Norse, Old At CMS: prof. R. Getz, S. Ghosh
Occitan At CMS: prof. D. Kullmann
Ottoman Turkish Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
Pali Department for the Study of Religion
Persian, Medieval and Modern

Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
At CMS: prof. M. Subtelny

Portuguese, Medieval and Modern Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Sanskrit

Department for the Study of Religion
Department of Philosophy

Slavonic, Old Church Slavic Languages & Literatures
Spanish, Medieval and Modern

Department of Spanish & Portuguese
At CMS: prof. Y. Iglesias

Syriac Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilization
Tibetan Department for the Study of Religion
Welsh, Middle At CMS: prof. B. Miles
Yiddish Germanic Languages & Literatures

 

Reminder: The School of Graduate Studies provides helpful resources, courses, boot camps, and workshops in various fields. While these activities do not count toward satisfying course requirements, they might prove crucial to a successful and comprehensive educational path. Please find below a non-exhaustive list of areas of interest and the Graduate Centres responsible for each. 

Training Centre
Advanced training in academic writing and speaking Graduate Centre for Academic Communication (GCAC)
Professional development, including developing research and communication skills, and refining professional goals Centre for Graduate Professional Development (CGPD)
Support to supervisory relationships Centre for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision (CGMS)

 

For additional info about SGS services, please consult the SGS website.

 

Location Key

View the University of Toronto interactive map.

Building Code Location
AH Alumni Hall, 121 St Joseph Street
BC Birge–Carnegie Library, 75a Queen’s Park
BF Bancroft Building, 4 Bancroft Avenue
BT Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street West (3rd floor - Comparative Literature Seminar Room)
CR Carr Hall, 100 St Joseph Street
EJ Music Library, Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park
IN Innis College, 2 Sussex Avenue
JH Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St George Street
KL PIMS Library, J.M. Kelly Library, 113 St Joseph Street, 4th floor
LA Gerald Larkin Building, 15 Devonshire Place
LI Lillian Massey Building, 125 Queen’s Park, 3rd floor (SE corner of Bloor Street & Queen’s Park)
MA Colin Friesen Room, Massey College, 4 Devonshire Place
NF Northrop Frye Hall, 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East
OH Odette Hall, 50 St Joseph Street
PI Pontifical Institute of Mediæval Studies (PIMS), 59 Queen’s Park Crescent East
PR E.J. Pratt Library, 71 Queen’s Park Crescent East
RB Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 120 St George Street
RL Robarts Library, Dictionary of Old English, Room 14284, 14th floor, 130 St George Street
SS Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St George Street
TC Trinity College, 6 Hoskin Avenue
TF Teefy Hall, 57 Queen’s Park Crescent East
UC University College, 12 King’s College Circle
VC Victoria College, 73 Queen’s Park Crescent East
WI Wilson Hall, New College, 40 Willcocks Street