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| Saturday, 9th October 2010 | | |  From the Lindisfarne Gospels in the early Anglo-Saxon period to the Books of Hours in the fifteenth century, illuminated manuscripts are a quintessentially medieval art form whose beauty can still captivate the spirit. The course will explore the three main phases of illuminated manuscript production in England: the Anglo-Saxon (e.g. the Lindisfane Gospels, the Book of Kells and the later Benedictional of St Aethelwold); the Romanesque (e.g. the Great Bibles of Dover, Lambeth, Bury and Winchester); the Gothic (e.g. the Ormesby and Luttrell Psalters, the Bedford Book of Hours). Although so much has been lost in England, in particular through the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Reformation, what remains bears eloquent testimony to a remarkably rich culture and industry for the production of manuscripts which could reach very high levels of artistic achievement.
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| Saturday, 27th November 2010 | | |  For five hundred years, through a range of styles, the great cathedrals of England were built. In terms of resources applied, space covered, design and craftsmanship employed, the period remains the greatest single architectural achievement in England history. The aim of this course is to look at how the cathedrals evolved from the Norman period of the late 11th century t the Perpendicular at the end of the Middle Ages. It will also look at the historical context of the cathedrals and at the people and ideas which shaped them.
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| Saturday, 19th February 2011 | | |  Richard II's personality and policies stirred up debate and controversy in his time and still do today. His highly personalised, authoritarian concept of kingship, putting royal authority on a different, more arbitrary footing than his predecessors was to end in disaster - deposition and death. Temperamentally, he did not seem suited to kingship or to be able to generate popular interest and support. Yet some of his policies and perceptions can be seen as constructive and influential. The Wilton Dyptich reminds us that, beyond the business of kingship, his reign saw remarkable achievement in both the literary and visual arts. The course will look at Richard's kingship and his reign as well as the cultural achievement of the period.
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| Saturday, 26th March 2011 | | |  The search for the North-West passage was the search for a navigable channel leading westwards from Europe round the north of the American continent to the Pacific and ultimately to the fabulous riches of the Far East and China. For centuries it captivated the imaginations of explorers, merchants and adventurers: from Frobisher and Davis at the time of Elizabeth I, through Victorian enterprises like the tragic Franklin expedition to its final conquest by Roald Amundsen early in the twentieth century. The aim of the course is to follow this saga of a great heroic odyssey which pitted human courage, endurance and ingenuity against awesome hardships and threats. Ultimately it is, as Gherry Gerrard, a member of Scott's Antarctic expedition put it, 'a response of the spirit'.
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| Saturday, 14th May 2011 | | |  In popular perceptions of England's medieval past, two figures in particular stand out: King Arthur and Robin Hood. Both men are more the stuff of legend than history and the legends are remarkably persistent, evolving through time. The course will look at the historical evidence and literary treatment of both figures. Particularly in the case of Arthur, this will include the contribution of archaeology in attempting to establish his identity. We will try to get some understanding of both men in their historical contexts and how and why, they have kept such a hold on our imaginations.
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