About the major

The Medieval Studies Program provides an interdisciplinary context for students who wish to study the European Middle Ages. Students normally concentrate on one of four fields:

Students are also expected to do course work in several of the other areas. In certain cases the program may also provide a framework for students wishing to cross the somewhat arbitrary temporal, topical, and geographical boundaries of medieval studies in order to consider such problems as relationship between classical and medieval literature or art or the broader history of the pre-industrial European studies.

The Majors Program. Each student concentrating in medieval studies will be guided by a principal adviser within the field of specialization and two other faculty members from other fields of medieval studies. In some cases a consulting faculty member may be chosen from a field that is not an integral part of medieval studies but that is closely related to the student's main area of interest (e.g., classics, linguistics). At the beginning of the fifth semester each student is expected to submit for approval by his or her adviser a tentative schedule of courses to be taken to fulfill the requirements of the major. Subsequent changes in this schedule may be made only with the approval of the adviser.

Students are expected to specialize in one of the four fields mentioned above. They are required to take ten upper level courses, which will normally conform to the following:

• Four courses in the student's field of specialization including one seminar (a student may take more than four courses in this area, but only four may be counted toward the major);
• At least two courses in a second and one in a third field of medieval studies; at least one of these courses must be a seminar;
• Three additional courses.

Two of these additional courses may be taken in outside fields that the student and the adviser consider to be closely related to the student's work in subject matter or method. For example, a student specializing in medieval history may count toward the major a course in ancient history or historical method, while a student specializing in medieval literature may include a course in classical literature or in the theory of literary criticism.

No courses taken at another college or university, in the United States or abroad, may be counted toward the major before enrolling in the course.

Students in the program are normally expected to complete at least one long paper, which may be a senior thesis, a senior essay or a seminar paper. They are also required to demonstrate, at the latest by the beginning of their senior year, a reading knowledge of at least one European foreign language Students interested in pursuing graduate work in medieval studies are strongly urged to begin language training as soon as possible and to give special attention to the study of Latin. Ways of satisfying the language requirement can be determined by the advising committee of each student.