In the margins of medieval manuscripts, we find windows onto a strange world: snails fighting knights, nuns picking phalluses from trees, rabbits shooting bows and arrows. Look again, and the world of medieval England becomes more familiar as tales of romance, community, and everyday life emerge from the page. 

Welcome to the extraordinary world of medieval manuscripts, where historians, art historians, archaeologists, literary scholars, and musicologists come together to interpret some of the most luxurious books ever produced. 

In this course, we will discover the manuscript as text, artistic object, and archaeological material. We will learn how manuscripts reflect significant developments in medieval English culture, society, religion, music, economics, politics, and law. We will also learn how manuscripts were made, how to read them, and even try our hand at illustrating our very own manuscript.

Related Study Trip:

A class visit to Bath Abbey Archives or the University of Bristol Special Collections.

ASE reserves the right to change the content of course-specific study trips where necessary.