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About the Programme
UCL's MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MARS) is an intensive interdisciplinary programme run and taught by scholars who are leaders in the field. Based in the heart of London's Bloomsbury, at the centre of an exceptional confluence of libraries and museums, the course is demanding, cosmopolitan and stimulating. We emphasise research-led teaching and equipping those students with the skills they need to continue with a career related to medieval and Renaissance studies.
Watch our introductory film to MA MARS:
Open Event
Hear from Dr Emily Corran about studying MA MARS at UCL:
Staff
Contact our academic staff:
Dr Emily Corran is a historian of medieval Europe, specialising in late medieval ethical thought. She particularly looks at manuals for priests and investigates the advice they were given on how to resolve dilemmas.
Dr Patrick Lantschner works and teaches on Europe and the Islamic world from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and is especially interested in comparative and transnational approaches.
Professor Sophie Page works in European medieval magic and astrology, especially in relation to religion, natural philosophy, and cosmology. She also researches the history of animals.
Professor John Sabapathy works on the comparative history of Europe/Christendom, primarily in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and on the Anthropocene, the proposed epoch in which humans became geological forces globally.
Dr Antonio Sennis is Associate Professor of Medieval History. He is a cultural historian whose focus is Western Europe in the period 800-1200 and in the writing of history in the Middle Ages.
Early Career Fellowships at MARS
The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies has a strong history for sponsoring early career Fellowships. In recent years, recipients of Early Career Fellowships at UCL include:
- Dr Rodrigo Garcia-Velasco, 'Documentary Afterlives: Recycling the Past in Premodern Iberian Judiciaries, 1371-1600' Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, 2022-.
- Dr Emily Ward, ‘Adolescence and Belonging in Medieval Europe, c.1000 -c.1250’, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2023).
- Dr Johanna Dale, 'Liturgical and literary landscapes: the cult of St Oswald of Northumbria in the German-speaking world', Joint AHRC project (Grant reference: AH/X003841/1)
- Dr María Ángeles Martín Romera, ‘Surveilling Communities: Public office holders under communities' surveillance in Southern Europe (13th-15th century), Marie Skłodowska-Curie Junior Fellowship (UCL, 2018-20); Ramón y Cajal tenure track award lectureship and Humboldt Fellowship, KMU Munich University (both July 2020– ).
- Dr Danica Summerlin, 'The relationship between the 'old' and 'new' laws in the twelfth century' British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014-2016).
- Minne de Boodt, ‘Inspiring ideas. A cross-contextual analysis of political thought in Burgundian Flanders (1400-1550)’, doctoral student at KU Leuven and visiting scholar at the Institute of Historical Research, September–November 2022).
We are keen to hear from prospective applicants for early career Fellowships.
Find out more about the Centre's affiliated research staff:
- Archaeology
Dr Corisande Fenwick
Research interests: late antique and Islamic archaeology, particularly in North Africa and the western Mediterranean; urbanism; medieval states and empires.Professor Andrew Reynolds
Research interests: the archaeology of early medieval societies in north-western Europe. Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the early middle ages, landscape archaeology and state formation.- Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
Dr Robyn Adams
Research interests: history of the Renaissance book; correspondence and manuscript networks; history of libraries, history of reading.Dr Matthew Symonds
Research interests: history of the Renaissance book, the history of information, networks of correspondence, and the digital humanities.- English
Dr Marilyn Corrie
Research interests: English and French literature of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; manuscripts produced in England in this period; later medieval English literature, including Lydgate and Malory; interactions between clerical teaching and Middle English literature.
Professor Susan Irvine
Research interests: Old English prose literature and language, especially those of King Alfred's court in the last part of the ninth century; late Old English manuscripts and their implications for literary activity in English in the transitional period between Old and Middle English; the use of rhetoric in Old English poetry.
Dr Natalie Jones
Research interests: Middle English literature, especially devotional literature and the religious lyric; the relationship between text and image in Old and Middle English literature; the patristic sources of Old and Middle English literature; Middle English devotional manuscripts and book history; Middle English language and dialect.
Professor Richard North
Research interests: Old English semantics, Old English elegiac and heroic poetry, including Beowulf, Old Icelandic pre-Christian Eddic and Skaldic poetry, including Haustlǫng and Thórsdrápa, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Old Norse mythology, Sagas of Icelanders, including Víga-Glúms saga, the world of Faerie in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.- Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Dr François Guesnet
Research interests: European Jewish history in the early modern and modern period; Jewish political culture.
Dr Israel Sandman
Research interests: Medieval Jewish thought, including biblical interpretation, philosophy, and mysticism; and medieval Hebrew manuscript study. In particular: Hebrew scribality in medieval Italy and the possibility of institutionally organised copying; relations between Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation in text and in art.- History
Professor Angus Gowland
Research interests: Renaissance psychology, medicine, politics, ethics, and rhetoric; theories of melancholy and dreaming in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Dr Lucia Patrizio Gunning
Research interests: history of collecting; diplomatic and state involvement in the collection of antiquities in the 18th and 19th centuries and its implications in contemporary ethics, restitution and cultural heritage relations with countries of provenance. Protection of and reactions to and reconstruction of heritage at risk, especially post-earthquake, including the use of information technology.
Dr Benet Salway
Research interests: late Roman history; Roman law and its medieval reception.- History of Art
Professor Rose Marie San Juan
Research interests: Early modern Italian art and culture (especially Rome and Naples); the reconception of the visual image through travel, cross-cultural exchange, and the emergence of natural history and cabinets of curiosities.Professor Robert Mills
Research interests: Medieval visual culture; representations of pain and punishment; saints; gender and sexuality; animal studies; translation; medievalism and medieval film.Dr Allison Stielau
Research interests: Northern European art and material culture, c. 1400-1700; early modern Germany; European Reformations; early modern print culture, precious metalwork, coins, and medals; gold as symbol and commodity; material practices and transformations.Professor Alison Wright
Research interests: Italian art and drawing / design from the 14th to the earlier 16th century. Conceptual and material relations across media including metalwork, paint and stone, artistic practice, functions, patronage, questions of ideology and reception.Dr Jacopo Gnisci
Research interests: Medieval art and architecture of Africa; Ethiopic, Syriac, Armenian, and Copto-Arabic illuminated manuscripts; Ethiopian and Eritrean art; historiography; Oriental Orthodox Christianity.- School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS)
French:
Professor Jane Gilbert
Research interests: Medieval French and English literature, especially narrative; constructions of identity; Narcissus, mirrors, doubles and the uncanny; comparative literature; literary theory, especially gender, queer theory, anthropology, psychoanalysis.
Dr Thibaut Maus de Rolley
Research interests: Renaissance literature and thought; comparative literature (French, Italian, Spanish); narrative fiction; early modern demonology and witchcraft; travel writing; literature and geography; the early modern imagination of space; history of science.German:
Dr Sebastian Coxon
Research interests: short comic narratives of the later Middle Ages; laughter, jest and ridicule in courtly and urban culture; medieval drama; Wolfram von Eschenbach's 'Parzival'.Italian:
Professor Catherine Keen
Research interests: Dante's Commedia and minor works; Italian vernacular lyric from the Sicilians to Petrarch; exile; classical reception; Brunetto Latini; medieval urban culture, political literature and chronicles.
Dr Lisa Sampson
Research interests: Italian Renaissance theatre and literature; court culture; early modern women's writing; academies and cultural institutions; early modern genre theory.Scandinavian:
Dr Haki Antonsson
Research interests: history and culture of Scandinavia between c. 900 and c. 1300; the Christianization of Scandinavia; cultural interaction between the British Isles and Scandinavia.
Dr Erin Goeres
Research interests: Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, especially skaldic verse, kings' sagas and translated romance.Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American:
Dr Alexander Samson
Research interests: literature, culture and history of early modern Spain and Latin America.- School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)
Dr Sergei Bogatyrev
Research interests: Medieval Russia; Muscovite court culture; cross-cultural contacts in Early Modern Europe, Ivan the Terrible.- Professional Services
Email: history.programmes@ucl.ac.uk
Seminars and Resources
The programme allows you to develop intellectual connections with research networks within and beyond UCL:
- Institute of Historical Research seminars, including European History, 1150-1550, Crusades and the Latin East, Italy 1200-1700, Interdisciplinary Seminar on Medievalism, Earlier Middle Ages, and Late Medieval Seminar
- UCL Early Modern Exchanges
- UCL Institute of Archaeology/British Museum Joint Medieval Seminar
- The Warburg Institute
- London Renaissance Consortium (Courtauld Institute)
- London Anglo-Saxon Symposium (School of Advanced Study)
- The London Medieval Society
Student Views
Heather Williams (MA Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2021)
The MARS scholarship was massively helpful to me. It allowed me to devote much more of my time to the MA because the pressure to support myself in London was significantly reduced. I could achieve much more than I would have, especially during the dissertation stage.
For me, the MARS MA's biggest strength is its focus on a historicist approach. Such close examination of contexts and causes was different from the analysis of my undergraduate in English Literature. The interdisciplinary nature of the MA exposed me to many other ways of thinking.
I'm studying for my PhD in medieval English Literature at Northwestern, exploring themes and texts similar to those of my Master's thesis. I also published my first novel, which has been heavily influenced by this period and its thought structures.
Maeve Coughlan (MA Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2022)
My MA dissertation focused on the interaction between landscape and identity in post-Anglo-Norman medieval Irish literature. I chose this MA for the hands-on experience with manuscripts and the chance to learn the original manuscript languages.
One of the MA's greatest strengths is the breadth of opportunity; you can take your studies in any direction, and with such a variety of modules, you will find something that sparks your interest. A discussion in a Power and Identity seminar inspired my MA dissertation, and my DPhil topic developed from an essay I wrote as part of the Magic in the Middle Ages module.
After finishing my MA in 2022, I successfully applied for a DPhil in English at the University of Oxford with the support and advice of my supervisor and lecturers at UCL.
- Vanessa Da Silva Baptista (UCL PhD in 'A Cultural History of Magic Tricks in the Late Middle Ages')
I realised very early during my undergraduate degree that I wanted to continue studying and researching the Middle Ages for postgraduate study. MARS was the next logical step - and one that far exceeded my expectations. MARS's focus on skills development, especially language learning palaeographical and codicological skills through the 'Manuscripts and Documents' module, has been invaluable as I now pursue my PhD, working predominantly with unedited medieval recipe collections.
I began MARS with no experience in either Latin or palaeography and finished the course able to transcribe and translate original sources confidently. The coursework element in the 'Manuscripts and Documents' module was the undisputed highlight of the MA. This was an opportunity to work closely, and for the first time, with medieval manuscripts in the British Library– choosing one as the focus of a longer written work. I felt very much like a detective trying to find clues that might tell me something about the person or people who owned my chosen manuscript, how they used it and why.
I pursued MARS part-time whilst working to support myself, which was a surprise advantage. Whereas most students learned (or further developed) their Latin and palaeography simultaneously, I built a foundation of Latin in the first year, which made me more able to engage with 'Manuscripts and Documents' in the second. The extra time also allowed me to think deeper and longer about my dissertation and what I wanted to do after the MA.
UCL is an excellent university for studying medieval history. Without exception, the department is devoted and dedicated both as researchers and mentors. Geographically, the department couldn't be better placed with The British Library, Wellcome Collection and Warburg Institute a short walk away.
- Gan Quan (PhD at the University of Texas at Austin)
My twelve months as a MARS MA student have been the most intellectually stimulating period in my life. As an international student without a solid knowledge of European cultures or medieval history, the MARS programme provided me with hard-core palaeographical training and the most comprehensive survey of French and German social theories necessary to tackle the most challenging socio-historical questions.
The wide range of modules available to an MA student here is remarkable. Through collaboration with several field-leading institutions, every student enjoys the freedom to build up their personal curriculum. In my case, I could further improve my Latin at King's, participate in early South Asian archaeological debates at the Institute of Archaeology, consolidate my Chinese history at SOAS, and, at the same time, learn social theories, comparative methodologies, and historiography in UCL.
With an emphasis on the Latin West, the MARS programme is never confined by the traditional boundary evident in most Medieval Studies programmes. A comparative, or even global, approach to essential but less studied historical phenomena is greatly encouraged. Therefore, I wholeheartedly recommend this programme to prospective candidates with comparative mindsets.
In this programme, one may meet brilliant minds committed to various fascinating research projects, like Japanese economic structure, Chinese Buddhist monasticism, or the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia. The unparalleled module 'Medieval Manuscripts and Documents' is the best training for understanding medieval Latin documents in Anglophone Academica and provides excellent insight for any historical enquiry involving unconventional primary sources.
It is common to share one's epiphany with either peers or supervisors over social drinks, and, rather impressively, the doors of leading scholars' offices are always open to students, even during the summer season. In a few words, the MARS programme is the optimal preparation for world-class intellects.
- Oliver Palethorpe (Civil Service Fast Streamer)
I will remember my time with UCL History incredibly fondly. While completing my BA in History with the department, I decided to stay at UCL to continue my studies in medieval history.
The MARS degree offered the perfect mixture of practical and theoretical components. I developed my Latin while learning new methodologies and approaches to medieval history. The course structure also allowed me to create the degree I wanted, from modules on medieval China to the Magna Carta.
The department's location allows for a richer study experience. The British Library and the Institute of Historical Research are right on our doorstep, and the proximity of these resources certainly allowed me to stay informed of the latest historical research.
However, the quality of teaching within the department was more important than all. All staff, particularly those who worked with MARS students, were friendly and accommodating while remaining challenging and committed in their approach as teachers. They offered invaluable guidance, whether about my studies or career goals. They were always willing to discuss my ideas, and I am incredibly grateful for their help.
Although I did not continue on the academic path, my time in the MARS programme made me a much more suitable candidate for my current role as a Fast Streamer in the Civil Service. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering it, regardless of their future career aspirations.
- James Worth (UCL PhD in Late Antique and Early Medieval History)
As a PhD student in Early-Medieval History at UCL, taking the Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MARS) MA part-time was crucial to my academic growth. When I initially decided to return to university for postgraduate study, I needed to find a course with a strong emphasis on the interdisciplinary technical and conceptual aspects of Medieval research and the ability to balance my home and work requirements with study.
Over the two years, I developed the requisite skills at my own pace, planned my dissertation research over two summers, and was involved in various extracurricular activities while working. The choice of modules was also more expansive, as I was able to take courses that traditionally conflicted over separate years rather than being forced to choose.
Ultimately, the part-time MARS course offered me a broader, more fulfilling educational and university experience than a traditional one-year course. Considering these benefits, I wholeheartedly recommend this course for anyone interested in Medieval and Renaissance studies.
- Giles Connolly (PhD at the University of Birmingham)
I cannot emphasise enough how the MARS course has positively impacted my life. The high academic standards, focus on technical and historical skills, and opportunities to conduct independent research projects were all instrumental in my personal development. They set the foundations for my success in being offered two full scholarships to undertake my PhD at Birmingham University.
Furthermore, the superlative degree of support I received from the staff was invaluable. They provided assistance throughout the year, helped me decide on the path I wanted to take after the MA, and advised me about the best way to do so.
- Hazel Blair (PhD at the University of Lausanne)
I learned about the MARS course in my second year of undergraduate study in medieval history at the University of St Andrews. I researched several potential Masters courses before submitting my application to join UCL. Still, MARS was my first choice - it was immediately apparent that the course combined academic rigour and intensive practical training with an interdisciplinary and flexible approach to study.
I was thrilled to be accepted into the MA programme (funded by the UCL Carol Chattaway Award and a scholarship from the British Society for the History of Science). The taught elements of the course introduced me to new areas of study, brought to life through interactive learning and manuscript handling sessions at the Wellcome Library, the Warburg Institute, the British Museum, and the British Library. I was even permitted to take a medieval science and medicine module run by the Department of Science and Technology Studies as part of their History and Philosophy of Science MSc.
But MARS's 'Manuscripts and Documents' course gave me the essential tools for research into the medieval past. Combined with regular training in classical and medieval Latin, this hands-on year-long course gave me the confidence to handle and analyse rare books and manuscripts. Those who took this class learned everything from the history of script and manuscript production to how to decode complex text, formally describe manuscripts and make sense of catalogue descriptions. I came away with the ability to conduct genuinely original research, and the opportunity to pick a manuscript from the British Library's vast archive was so exciting that it hardly felt like coursework.
My MA helped me secure my first permanent job as the Assistant Editor of Military History Monthly magazine - it proved I had specialist knowledge of the magazine's area of focus, the ability to write, and the ability to organise my workload. I then decided to return to academia and now work at the University of Lausanne as a doctoral researcher. My thesis is part of a 3-year project titled Region and Nation in Late Medieval Devotion to Northern English Saints, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
To say that I would not be where I am without the skills and language training the MARS programme offers would be an understatement.