MST 1000Y. Level I Latin – R. Macchioro / W. Robins
This year-long course is a core requirement for the MA in Medieval Studies. By the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of the full range of Latin grammar through sight translation and reading comprehension; identify and explain examples of specific Latin grammatical features in assigned readings; recall essential medieval Latin vocabulary (~ 2,000 words); identify orthographical variations of words found in the word lists; have experience of using a range of medieval Latin dictionaries and lexica; and translate medieval Latin texts of simple to moderate difficulty with minimal use of a dictionary. This course also prepares students to sit the Level I exam.
MST 1001Y. Level II Latin – S. Ghosh
Prerequisite: Level I Latin Exam pass OR completion of MST1000 OR permission of the instructor
This year-long course is a core requirement for the PhD in Medieval Studies. By the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of the full range of Latin grammar and syntax through sight translation, reading comprehension, and composition exercises; identify and explain examples of specific Latin grammatical features, and the particular idiosyncrasies of the main varieties of medieval Latin, in assigned readings; employ medieval Latin vocabulary well beyond the core vocabulary of MST1000Y; use a range of medieval Latin dictionaries and lexica; translate independently medieval Latin texts of moderate to advanced difficulty; and identify the varieties of medieval Latin texts and articulate a general sense of the history of Latin language and literature from late antiquity down to the early modern era. This course also prepares students to sit the Level II exam.
MST 1003H. Professional Development for Medieval Studies PhDs - TBA
This course is intended to prepare PhD students in Medieval Studies for the job market. It will provide an overview of the non-scholarly skills they will need to acquire for the academic job search and for their professional lives beyond the job search, as well as give them information about non-academic options. The course will meet for 12 two-hour sessions over the course of three academic years and will include presentations from a range of faculty and guest speakers, with special attention given to the unusual challenges faced by students in our unit. Individual sessions will include coverage of the following topics:
- Funding, Grants, Bursaries, Fellowships
- Planning for the PhD with an Eye on the Future
- Coping with Academic Stress; iv. Gender Equity in Medieval Studies
- Alternatives to Academia
- The Medievalist and the Department
- The Teaching Portfolio
- The Conference Circuit
- Publishing Research as a PhD Student
- CVs, Cover Letters, and How to Prepare for Them
- Postdocs
- The Academic Job Search in North America and Beyond
MST 1105H. Latin Paleography II - R. Macchioro
Prerequisite: MST1000Y OR permission of the instructor.
This course guides students through the study of Latin scripts from 1200 to 1600 A.D. Lectures and hands-on sessions are supported by selected readings on the cultural-historical background of Gothic writing, the physical characteristics of manuscripts, library practices and bibliographical resources. Training in reading scripts is provided through weekly exercises. The course includes a practicum on the transcription of Latin manuscripts.
MST 1115H. English Paleography - S. Sobecki
This course teaches students to read medieval texts in Old or Middle English in manuscript form from the period up to and including the English reformations. The books in which we will read these will be from the same or later periods, in order to familiarize students with all hands, including post-medieval hands, in which medieval texts have been preserved. There will be some emphasis on reading contemporary and post-medieval marginalia and ownership inscriptions (up to 1800) in medieval manuscripts. Practical paleographical exercises will be supplemented by broader reading, discussion of, and a short essay about the relationship between scripts and scribal cultures, literature and criticism, and the history of the book.
MST 1384H. The Exeter Book of Old English Verse - R. Trilling
Prerequisite: ENG1001H OR permission of the instructor.
The late tenth-century Exeter Book is one of the four major codices containing Old English verse, and includes the greatest variety of vernacular poems of any surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscript. With its eclectic mixture of both native secular heroic poetry and verse that draws deeply on the imported Latin Christian tradition, the Exeter Book offers a unique and compelling snapshot of the literary culture of Anglo-Saxon England. This course will introduce students to the full range of saints’ lives, elegies, riddles, translations, snippets of Germanic legend, and adaptations from Latin in the Exeter Book.
MST 2001H. Old Saxon - S. Ghosh
No prerequisites required, but prior knowledge of Old English OR modern German or Old High German is recommended.
This course provides an introduction to Old Saxon, the language of the continental Saxons and closely cognate with many dialects of Old English. This language has left very few surviving texts; its principal witness is one of the great poetic works of the period, the Heliand, a Bible epic based on a gospel harmony, composed in Germanic alliterative metre. Also extant is a fragmentary poem on Genesis, which is generally agreed to be the basis of the Old English Genesis B. This course will be devoted to reading and translating excerpts of the Heliand and in so doing also acquiring a competent reading ability in Old Saxon as well as an introduction to the literary, cultural, and historical context of the Heliand.
MST 2029H. Old Irish I - B. Miles
This course provides an introduction to Old Irish, the language of Western Europe’s earliest vernacular literature. Students will gain a reading knowledge of Classical Old Irish, drawing on the most recent teaching aids and incorporating translation exercises and prepared reading passages from the early literature. The course will also teach the linguistic vocabulary for describing a Celtic language.
MST 2031H. Topics in Medieval Celtic Literature - B. Miles
This course introduces students to the rich vernacular literary remains of the medieval Celtic nations. In any given year the course may focus on different selected literary genres or geographic areas, such as ‘The Heroic Tradition in Ireland and Wales’, ‘Wales and the Four Branches of the Mabinogi’, or ‘The Otherworld in Medieval Irish and Welsh Literature’. While no prior knowledge of Celtic languages is required, as all material will be read in English translation, the instructor is available to support students who wish to conduct their seminar research primarily in Irish, Welsh or Latin.
MST 2040H. Beginnings of Medieval Rhetoric and Poetics - J. Ross
This course traces the medieval transformation of classical ideas about persuasive language and literary aesthetics, by focusing on such topics as the role of figurative language, especially metaphor and allegory, the structural principles of literary works, and the function of literature in society. Students will become familiar with the classical basis of medieval rhetorical thought through an analysis of select writings of the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Augustine and Horace, before turning to early medieval rhetorical and linguistic thought, in the writings of such theorists as Martianus Capella, Isidore of Seville, and Donatus. Finally, the course will illustrate how the views of language expressed in classical and early medieval rhetorical texts shaped the later development of medieval literature.
MST2041H. Medieval Storyworlds - W. Robins
The concept of storyworlds has enlivened recent approaches to the study of narrative. Developed especially to account for phenomena in modern popular culture — from film franchises, to gaming, to artworks engaging multiple media — and animated by new research in the psychology of imaginative experiences, the idea of immersive storyworlds has reshaped concepts such as setting, emplotment, and fictionality.
Medieval literature is full of storyworld effects. Devout Christians projected themselves into the world of the Bible and the saints. Listening audiences immersed themselves in the recitation of folktales and the staging of dramas. When viewers encountered visual artworks, they did so in light of well-known back stories. Distant, exotic, miraculous, and magical narrative worlds were as familiar as realistic ones, while legendary heroes such as King Arthur and Robin Hood anchored whole realms of stories, plays, and songs.
In this course we will delve into some of the narrative worlds most familiar to generations of medieval readers and writers. We will analyze written texts (both learned and popular), visual artworks, and other elements that enlivened the circulation of stories across medieval Europe. We will ask how the notion of storyworlds can enrich our understanding of these stories, and also how this medieval material might offer new insights to modern narrative theory.
MST 3035H. Medieval Representations of Death, Sickness, and Crime (1100-1500) - Y. Iglesias
This course addresses the variety of representations of death, sickness and crime (including representations of burials, tombs, last judgment, tortures, mortal illnesses, suicide, medical care, and plagues). Iconography will be used together with legal, historical and literary sources. The goal of the course will be to understand better how these different sources interact, complement and sometimes even contradict each other. The course mainly focuses on Medieval Spain and examines representations and texts from England and Italy as well. However, students can conduct research on any area of their interest.
MST 3123H. Introduction to Medieval Medicine - N. Everett
This course surveys the major developments and examines key texts in the history of medicine in Europe and the Mediterranean from c.300 to 1400 AD. Topics include pharmacy and pharmacological treatises, surgery, therapeutics, regimen and diet, the transmission and adaptation of ancient medical works, the contributions of Arabic authors, the school of Salerno, the rise of academic and professional medicine in the 13th and 14th centuries, medical responses to the Black Death, and anatomy on the eve of Renaissance medicine.
MST 3124H. Medieval Studies in the Digital Age - A. Bolintineanu
From digitized corpora of texts and manuscripts to virtual and augmented-reality reconstructions of objects, buildings, and archaeological sites, the materials of medieval history, literature, and cultural heritage archives are increasingly entering the digital realm. Students will familiarize themselves with the intellectual landscape of digital medieval studies—from editions, archives, and tools, to communities of practice and theoretical approaches. They will also critically engage with debates in the field of digital humanities from a medievalist’s point of view, examining the fault lines in digital tools and approaches that are revealed through their contact with fragile, fragmentary medieval data.
MST 3164H. Medieval French Romance: The Grail and Salvation Stories - D. Kullmann
Intensive study of medieval French romance, centering around texts about the Grail and salvation history. Close reading and interpretation of Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval (Conte du Graal), Robert de Boron’s Estoire dou Graal, and André de Coutances’ Evangile de Nicodème will be supplemented by the study of selected passages out of other French texts. These will alternate with students’ presentations on specific aspects of the texts read and/or additional texts.
MST 3226H. Medieval Mediterranean History - M. Meyerson
This course treats major themes in the history of the ‘multi-cultural’ (Christian, Muslim and Jewish) Mediterranean world during the Middle Ages. Among the themes treated are: conquest and colonisation; relations between the adherents of ruling faiths and religious minorities; ideologies and practices of ‘holy war’; slavery; gender, honour, and shame; interfaith commerce; and cultural exchange.
MST3231H. Cleo's Workshop: Introduction to Historical Methods - S. Ghosh
History is rarely, if ever, 'innocent': all historians select their themes, sources, and methods in accordance with conscious or unconscious agendas which, more often than not, are dictated by contemporary preoccupations. It is therefore incumbent on the historian to reflect on the methodologies she uses, and to render explicit the underlying assumptions that inform his or her research. This course has three objectives: 1) to help historians at CMS think reflexively about historical methodology by reading and discussing some key texts on the practice of history in general; 2) to introduce students to key texts and theories that have been influential in historical practice in the past several decades, including those from cognate disciplines; and 3) to see how various methodologies work in practice by examining medievalist scholarship influenced by some of the theoretical approaches discussed in the course. In addition to classic attempts to define history, the course will cover the following topics: the Annales school; Marxist history; economic history; nations, tradition, 'ethnicity'; sociology and historical sociology; gender and queer studies; anthropology and history; art and history; environmental history.
MST3322H. William of Ockham - M. Pickavé
William of Ockham (ca. 1287-1347) is one of the most prominent figures in medieval philosophy. He is famous as a logician and for his reductionist approach in metaphysics that earned him the label "nominalist". But there are many other areas of philosophy to which Ockham has made interesting contributions too: epistemology, the philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and ethics. This seminar is an introduction to and overview of Ockham's philosophy; since that will involve some discussion of other high medieval philosophers, the course can serve as an introduction to medieval philosophy.
MST 3501H. Introduction to the Medieval Western Christian Liturgy - J. Haines
This introductory course is designed to supply participants with essential tools for further research in medieval liturgy, regardless of their field of expertise. The first four weeks cover basic aspects of private and public Western Latin worship in the Middle Ages. This is followed by an in-depth study of extant liturgical books, especially those from the 13th through the 15th centuries. The latter will include hands-on work with liturgical books housed in University of Toronto library collections.
MST5002H. Topics in Medieval History: Medieval Italy and its Invaders - N. Everett
This seminar examines how medieval Italy’s development was characterised by invasions and settlement of different peoples on the peninsula and their types of governance- the Ostrogoths (5th-6th cent.), the Lombards (6th-8th cent.), Carolingians (9th cent.) Arabs (9th-11th cent.), Ottonians (9th-10th cent) and Normans (10th-12th cent.). This course will examine the motives, impact and long-term consequences of these invasions by examining key literary sources, legislation, documentary sources and archaeology.
MST5003H. Topics in Medieval Languages and Literatures: Monsters in the Medieval Imagination - A. Walton
This course will explore the enormous diversity of monstrous encounters found in medieval texts. We will draw from many genres of medieval literary production, including heroic poetry, natural history, hagiography, encyclopedic writings, romance, and travel narratives. Set course readings will largely (not entirely) be drawn from the texts of medieval England, but students are welcome to submit final projects drawn from their own areas of interest.
MST 9310H/Y. Directed Reading
CMS students may request to complete an individual reading or research course with a faculty member of their choice who must have a Graduate Faculty (SGS) Appointment through CMS. Barring exceptional circumstances, directed reading courses will be authorized only for students in the second year of registration, on topics directly related to their main research Areas, and for which CMS or one of the cognate Departments has no comparable offering.
The student is responsible for finding a faculty member who is willing to work with the student (Browse the list of CMS Faculty). Together, they will create the learning goals, deliverables, resources, timeline, and mechanism for feedback. With input from the supervising faculty member, each student will submit the SGS Request for Reading and / or Research Course form along with a brief course outline that includes all of the following: course title (max 60 characters) and a paragraph describing the body of work to be studied; learning goals and objectives; required readings (journal articles, book chapters, (non) governmental documents, etc.) necessary to meet learning goals and objectives; assignments with corresponding due dates and relative weights; a statement regarding the penalty for late submission of work; and planned contact with instructor and mechanism for obtaining instructor feedback.
The form and outline should be submitted to the Graduate Administrator for approval by the PhD Coordinator, at least one week before the sessional deadline to enrol in courses.