The charismatic spiritual figure of Francis of Assisi (1180-1226) was founder of the most successful spiritual movement Europe has even known. This course will place Francis in his Italian and European context, examine his own religious development and analyse his appeal to contemporary audiences. The course will also look at the so called ‘Franciscan questions’, the way in which his biography was re-told in the light of the controversies within the Franciscan movement in the later thirteenth century. The course will also study some of the remarkable spiritual contemporaries of Francis’, such as Clare of Assisi, Dominic of Calaruega, Pope Innocent III and Saint Sava of Serbia. It can be argued that Francis’ emphasis on the lay experience of religion transformed not only spiritual life, but led to the rise of the ‘consumer of religion’ and this theory will be tested in the examination of a range of source material.

A detailed examination, using contemporary chronicles, poems, art and architecture of the reign of one of the most successful and legendary of medieval rulers. Themes include the practice of kingship, warfare and generalship, the nature of the Angevin empire and the often turbulent family relationships of the Plantagenêt s. Particular focus is given to the Third Crusade and Richard’s dealings with Saladin, as well as the governance of Richard’s lands in his absence, and the struggle for power by his brother John. All sources are in translation.

This special subject is primarily an examination of the history of feminism as an idea and a movement, the preconditions for its emergence, the circumstances in which feminists formulated their ideas and their actions, and the changing ways in which women challenged ideologies, systems and institutions which excluded or subordinated them.