• Course begins September 19, 2024

  • Live sessions with the instructor every week

  • Sessions from 11:00am - 1:00pm Eastern U.S. Time

Week 1

THE VIOLENCE OF THE BATTLEFIELD: CHIVALRY AND WARFARE

What did violence look like in war? What was the reality vs. the image? We will look at various sources on medieval warfare, the kinds of violence enacted on the field and off and its effect on ideas of chivalry.

Week 2

EXILE AND EXECUTION: THE VIOLENCE OF OUTLAWRY

This week, we will look at outlaws—those who were exiled rather than executed, the violence they carry out and their tenuous position outside the law. We will look at figures like Robin Hood, Havelok the Dane, Hereward the Wake, and others.

Week 3

BEHEADINGS AND DISMEMBERMENT

From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to historical beheadings, equine quartering, hanging, and breaking on the wheel, we will look at the reality of medieval punishment and how it plays out in medieval literary sources.

Week 4

RETRIBUTIVE VIOLENCE

This week we focus on Old Norse/Icelandic sagas and the culture of violence surrounding the practice of blood feuds in both law and literature.

Week 5

CONTRAPASSO, TORTURE AND RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA

Torture was a common feature of medieval stories about saints; Dante’s Inferno includes vivid descriptions of souls in torment; images of the Inquisition are popular in modern cinema, but what is the reality of medieval torture? We will consider that question through a variety of sources.

Week 6

COMIC VIOLENCE

Comedy often employs violence for effect—but how consequential was that violence? Is serious violence funny, if so, why? This week we will look at medieval comedic literature and images that engage in brutality, and see who gets the last laugh.

More About This Course

The body in pain and its representation in art, literature, and historical record have created a modern impression of the Middle Ages as barbaric, bloodthirsty, and consumed with cruel desire. Many people, scholars and students alike, have formed their image of the medieval period based on a foundational belief that violence was a common and enjoyable spectacle and that torture was a pervasive part of medieval life. This course will examine this “culture of violence” through a wide range of sources, covering religious and secular texts that deal with all manner of violence from blood feud and battlefield to torture and comedy. We will investigate the reality of medieval violence, against the backdrop of modern popular culture in order to understand what it means to really “get medieval.”

Meet Your Instructor

Larissa Tracy

Larissa “Kat” Tracy is faculty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She has appeared in several History Channel, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel documentaries, including Dark Marvels and The Unbelievable! hosted by Dan Aykroyd. Her work focuses on thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth century English literature that looks back to the pre-Conquest period in England and the Viking Age, with cross-cultural contacts in medieval French, Irish, and Welsh and a specific focus on social justice, law, medicine, and judicial punishment. Her publications include Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature (2012) and the edited collections Heads Will Roll with Jeff Massey (2012), Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages (2013), Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, with Kelly DeVries (2015), Flaying in the Premodern World (2017), Medieval and Early Modern Murder (2018), Treason (2019), and Medieval English and Dutch Literatures with Geert H.M. Claassens (2022).

  • Start Learning

    The first live session September 19, 2024 at 11:00am Eastern U.S. time

  • Access

    Course materials are available for three months from the first course session.