Taught courses

You will take several courses across two semesters of teaching, including two compulsory courses and a range of optional courses.

Core courses

You will take two compulsory courses, which will provide a general introduction to graduate study in history and give you the opportunity to develop your research skills.

The compulsory courses for this programme are:

Course name	Credits
Developing Historical Research	20
Historical Methodology	20

Optional courses

You will choose a further 80 credits from a wide selection of optional courses.

You will be able to choose from two sets of optional courses, subject to availability, and must choose at least one course from each set.

One set will allow you to study a language relevant to the degree (Latin, Arabic or Persian).

The other set contains courses that reflect the research specialism of our medieval historians. There is also an opportunity to select up to two courses from all available postgraduate history courses

Option Courses for those students who started in September 2025 were:

* * Please note that the list of courses below is provisional and subject to change.

Medieval History MSc - Skills courses

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following skills courses

Course name	Credits
Advanced Latin (PG) 1	20
Advanced Latin (PG) 2	20
Elementary Latin (PG) 1	20
Elementary Latin (PG) 2	20
Arabic 1a for PG Credit	20
Arabic 1b for PG Credit	20
Arabic 2a for PG Credit	20
Arabic 2b for PG Credit	20
Persian 1A for PG Credit	20
Persian 1B for PG Credit	20
Persian 2A for PG Credit	20
Persian 2B for PG Credit	20
Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries	20
Turkish 1A for PG Credit	20
Turkish 1B for PG Credit	20
Turkish 2A for PG Credit	20
Turkish 2B for PG Credit	20

Medieval History MSc - option courses

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following Medieval History courses

Course name	Credits
Beyond Feudalism: Economy and Society in the Global Middle Ages	20
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Patristic and Medieval	20
Jewish Texts through the Ages	20
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages	20
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland	20
Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries	20
Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches	20
The Global Renaissance	20
The History and Culture of Iran	20
The Medieval Indian Ocean: Climates, Communities and Commodities	20
The Nine Lives of the Medieval Church	20

Students could choose up to two courses from the courses on offer to all students studying postgraduate history.

Course name	Credits
A Modern History of Demographic Angst and Population Control	20
An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s	20
Beyond Feudalism: Economy and Society in the Global Middle Ages	20
Capitalism and Slavery	20
Cinema and Society in England and Scotland	20
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Patristic and Medieval	20
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Reformation and Modern	20
Data Science for the Past: Statistical Thinking & Visualization	20
Economic and Social Theory for Historical Analysis	20
Genocide in Contemporary History	20
Intellectual History of the American Revolution	20
Islamic Africa	20
Jewish Texts through the Ages	20
Making Histories: Theories and Practices in Writing History	20
Muslim Societies in Southeast Asia	20
Muslims in Europe	20
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages	20
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland	20
Religion and the Enlightenment: The Birth of the Modern	20
Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries	20
Scottish Reformation Culture, c. 1540-c. 1640	20
Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches	20
The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Nations in Collision	20
The Civil Rights Movement	20
The Cold War in Latin America	20
The 'Dark Side': Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritages	20
The Global Renaissance	20
The History and Culture of Iran	20
The Holocaust in History and Culture	20
The Medieval Indian Ocean: Climates, Communities and Commodities	20
The Nine Lives of the Medieval Church	20
The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)	20
Theology in the Long Reformation 1400-1600	20
Unfolding Afghanistan in a Globalised Context	20
War and Identities in Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland	20
Before Scotland: The Transformation of Northern Britain in the First Millennium CE (Online)*	20
British Empires, 1601-1948 (online)*	20
Charlemagne and the End of Antiquity (Online)*	20
Islamic Africa (Online)*	20
Malfeasance and Misbehaviour in Finance - Perceptions and Realities, c. 1500 to the Present (online)*	20
Medicine and Society in Modern Britain (Online)*	20
Seeking 'Japan' in a Westernizing World: Revolution, Romance, and Imperialism, 1868 - 1945 (online)*	20
The Material Culture of Gender in Eighteenth-Century Britain (online)*	20
The Rise of Modern U.S. Conservatism (online)*	20
The School of Statecraft: History, Leadership, and Policymaking (online)*	20
The Shadow of Versailles: Europe Between the Wars, 1918-1939 (online)*	20

*A maximum of one online course can be chosen.

Option courses 2024/25

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following skills courses:

Arabic 1a for PG Credit
Arabic 1b for PG Credit
Arabic 2a for PG Credit
Arabic 2b for PG Credit
Elementary Latin (PG) 1
Elementary Latin (PG) 2
Intermediate Latin (PG) 1
Intermediate Latin (PG) 2
Persian 1A for PG Credit
Persian 1B for PG Credit
Persian 2A for PG Credit
Persian 2B for PG Credit
Turkish 1A for PG Credit
Turkish 1B for PG Credit
Turkish 2A for PG Credit
Turkish 2B for PG Credit

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following medieval history courses:

Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Suleyman the Magnificent
Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Patristic and Medieval
Mariners, Monks and Mobility: the archaeology of the early medieval Atlantic Archipelago
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages
Pretext, Context and Intertext: Navigating Viking Culture, Then and Now
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland
Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland
The Future of the Past? Doing History in the Digital Era
The Global Renaissance
The Medieval Indian Ocean: Climates, Communities and Commodities

Select between 0 and 40 credits of the following history courses:

An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s
Black Activism in Britain since 1800
Cinema and Society in England and Scotland
Cinema and Society in South Asia, 1947-Present
Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990
Constantinople: The History of a Medieval Megalopolis from Constantine the Great to Suleyman the Magnificent
Contemporary Scotland
Economic and Social Theory for Historical Analysis
Gender, Crime and Deviancy: Scotland and England c. 1860-1960
Genocide in Contemporary History
Global Environmental History
Intellectual History of the American Revolution
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland
Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War I
Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland
Scottish Reformation Culture, c. 1540-c. 1640
The Civil Rights Movement
The Cold War in Latin America
The European Enlightenments, 1670 - 1820
The Future of the Past? Doing History in the Digital Era
The Global Renaissance
The Medieval Indian Ocean: Climates, Communities and Commodities
The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)
The United States and the Cold War
Thinking with Things: History and Material Culture Studies

Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online courses:

British Empires, 1601-1948 (online)
Debating Marriage Between Antiquity and the Middle Ages (online)
Gender, Empire, and Labour in the Nineteenth Century: Perspectives from the Wider World (online)
Myth and the History of Scholarship in Early Modern Europe (online)
Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War I (online)
The Closest of Enemies: Cuban-American Relations 1898-2014 (online)
The Contemporary Theory of War (online)
The Holocaust (online)
The Lords of the Isles: Clan Donald, c.1336 - c.1545 (online)
Theories of Empire in the Early Modern Period (online)

Option courses 2023/24

Compulsory courses:

Historical Research: Skills and Sources
Historical Methodology

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following skills courses:

Elementary Latin (PG) 1
Elementary Latin (PG) 2
Intermediate Latin (PG) 1
Intermediate Latin (PG) 2

Select between 20 and 60 credits of the following medieval history courses:

Body and soul in early medieval thought
Debating Marriage between Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland
Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland
Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries
Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches

Select between 0 and 40 credits of the following history courses:

An uncertain world: the West since the 1970s
Black Activism in Britain since 1800
Body and soul in early medieval thought
Conservatism in the United States, c.1930-c.1990
Contemporary Scotland
Debating Marriage between Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Economic and Social Theory for Historical Analysis
Genocide in Contemporary History
Nepotism and Venality: Corruption and Accountability in the Middle Ages
Queens, Heiresses and Lords: Women Making Medieval Scotland
Race, Religion, and Ridicule: The American South from Reconstruction to World War II
Saints Cults, Pilgrimage and Piety in Scotland
Scottish Palaeography 12th-16th centuries
Studying Women in Late Medieval England: Sources and Approaches
The Civil Rights Movement
The Cold War in Latin America
The 'Dark Side': Dark Tourism and Difficult Heritages
The Demise of the Slave-Holding American South, 1846-1877
The European Enlightenments, 1670 - 1820
The Material Culture of Gender in Eighteenth Century Britain
The Politics of History in the Arabic-Speaking World (c.1750-Present)
The Sixties in the United States
The United States and the Cold War
'The wisest fool in Christendom': the Ideas and Writings of James VI & I
Thinking with Things: History and Material Culture Studies

Select between 0 and 20 credits of the following online history courses:

An Age of Great Dreams: The 1960s in the United States (online)
An Imperial Game? Cricket, Culture & Society (online)
Charles Martel in the Digital Age (Online)
Consensus to Thatcherism: Government and Politics in Post-War Britain (online)
Crisis and Conflict in Late-Victorian Britain (online)
Empire or Continent?: British Foreign Policy in the Era of the Great War (online)
Freedom and Coercion in the Making of the Atlantic World (online)
Islamic Africa (Online)
Medicine and Society in Modern Britain (Online)
Seeking 'Japan' in a Westernizing World: Revolution, Romance, and Imperialism, 1868 - 1945 (online)
The Crusades and the Euro-Mediterranean world of the Central Middle Ages (online)
The School of Statecraft: History, Leadership, and Policymaking (online)

Teaching and assessment

You will take a variety of seminar-style courses in small groups.

Most courses are assessed by means of an extended piece of written work, while some courses may also assess non-written skills.

Further information

You can see more details about the 2025/26 programme structure on the Degree Programme Table for the MSc in Medieval History. We expect the 2026/25 programme structure to be available from May 2026.

This article was published on 2024-08-01