Module HIST2721: THE COURT: ART AND POWER IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Department: History

HIST2721: THE COURT: ART AND POWER IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

Prerequisites

• A pass mark in at least ONE level one module in History.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To introduce students to a comparative history of European courts from c.1500 to c.1715.
• To introduce students to a variety of historical approaches, including art history, architectural history, history of collecting, and music history.
• To introduce students to some key themes of early modern social and cultural history.

Content

• The content will include the following themes to be covered in lectures and/or in seminars
• The court was the focus of political, social and cultural authority in much of early modern Europe. It had different identities and functions for rulers, their elites, their states and, more broadly, for international audiences. This module will examine the nature of early-modern courts through a variety of examples from the Burgundian court to Papal Rome, encompassing also the English court, the Habsburg courts at Madrid, Vienna and Brussels, and Louis XIV's Versailles, with a thematic and comparative focus. The module is divided into three sections. The first section is formative, and the second and third sections comprise the summative work. For each section, students will write one essay. For the formative essay, students examine issues such as definitions of the court, the roles of favourites, ideas of court corruption, and the attractions of the court to elites. For the assessed essays students examine court culture in its different forms. The first assessed essay focuses on ceremonial culture. Essay questions cover topics such as palace architecture, urban planning, chivalric culture in England, court entertainments and court celebrations in cities. For the second assessed essay, essay questions focus on art, court artists, princely portraits, Habsburg iconography, and collecting at the Stuart court. Particular attention through the year will be given to the mechanisms of art patronage, the use of art by rulers and other elites to construct justifications for the legitimization of authority, and the roles of artists, patrons and scholars in the formulation of ideological programmes within court contexts. Students will be encouraged to think about different types of art, from the visual arts to palace architecture, music and theatre, which the coursework components will allow students to incorporate into their assessed work.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will gain: Knowledge and understanding of aspects of early modern European court history.
• Understanding of different approaches for examining aspects of early modern court history.

• Subject specific skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/ModuleProformaMap/
• In addition students will acquire an ability to construct analytical and sophisticated arguments on historical issues in a form and at a length appropriate to the material.

• Key skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/ModuleProformaMap/

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

• Teaching will be by lectures and seminars.
• The lectures will indicate to the students the major historical and historiographical issues and seminars will give them the chance to focus on issues arising from the lectures.
• Formative work will include seminar presentations which will be submitted and returned with comments.
• Summative assessment will be by two essays of 2,000/4000 words.
• This will enable the students to examine particular areas in detail within the module's range of study in greater detail, reflecting the particular nature of the secondary material and teaching resources available for art and cultural history.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One or more short assignments submitted in writing or delivered orally in a group seminar context.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University