Module HIST50030: Renaissance Germany, 1440-1520

Department: History

HIST50030: Renaissance Germany, 1440-1520

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To enable students to gain specialist knowledge and understanding of an aspect of the cultural and intellectual developments taking place in Germany in the decades immediately preceding the Lutheran Reformation, and a grasp of its social, religious and political contexts.

Content

• The content and preoccupations of German 'humanism', its social and cultural foundations, and the reasons for its development in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• The complex relationships between German renaissance culture and, on the one hand, Italian cultural developments and, on the other, older German traditions and perspectives.
• The development of the visual arts in Germany at this time, and their foundations in German social, economic and religious life.
• The cities, particularly those of southern Germany, as settings for the development of new cultural and intellectual currents.
• The importance of patronage, the identity, motivations and background of the patrons, and their relationship with artists, craftsmen and scholars in Germany at the end of the Middle Ages.
• The ways in which scholarship and the arts interacted with the main currents and developments in German religious life at this time.

Learning Outcomes

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Individual tutorials

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

There is no seperate formative assessment, but at least one initial draft of the summative essay will be handed in for comment. The tutor will provide regular oral feedback on work in progress.