Unit information: Spectacle and Ceremony in 2009/10

Unit name	Spectacle and Ceremony
Unit code	HART20166
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Williamson
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History of Art (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will aim to provide a way of exploring the material culture of late-medieval religion in terms of function, not just appearance or style. It is deliberately interdisciplinary in outlook and will consider the relationships between sight and sound and between visual and aural experiences in the medieval church. It is created for undergraduates in both History of Art and Music degree programmes, and will be taught by members of staff from both departments. It requires no prior study either of medieval art or of medieval music. This second-level unit offers an opportunity for a thematic and chronological examination of several themes of art-historical and musical interest, through a study of the art and material culture created by and for the Church in the late-medieval period. It builds upon themes and material introduced in several different first-year units, and lays the foundation for further, more focussed study of related or complementary material in several different final-year units.

Aims:

This unit aims to consider the relationships between sight and sound and between visual and aural experiences in the medieval church, as a way of exploring the material culture of late-medieval religion in terms of function, not just appearance. The unit is created for undergraduates in both History of Art and Music degree programmes, and requires no prior study either of medieval art or of medieval music. It will consider the appearance and function of medieval religious buildings and artefacts, as well as the music created in and for these buildings. It will also consider apparently non-religious artefacts  secular literature incorporating the music of the liturgy  in which the sights and sounds of medieval religious culture are represented in order to enhance, emphasise or undermine the themes of the narrative. Manuscripts containing liturgical music will be studied with reference to their physical layout and the resonances which they evoke. The unit follows and extends recent attempts to adopt an integrated approach to medieval church buildings and other artefacts, seeking to consider the appearance and the use of medieval buildings and religious art against the background of an awareness of the effects of post-medieval alteration and/or iconoclasm, and incorporating consideration of liturgical use, political, civic, ecclesiastical and lay patronage, display, competition and emulation. There will be some consideration of the basic chronology of the stylistic development of medieval art and architecture, but this will form a background for thematic and object-based study of all the monumental arts, including painting, sculpture and glass, in their original contexts. A general overview of the musical contents of the medieval liturgy will be given as a basis for a more detailed study of the ways in which aspects of this music are employed, allegorised and parodied in liturgical drama, motets and secular, vernacular literature. The views of music held by medieval theorists will be discussed along with its perceived importance in religious devotion through its role of uniting the soul with the body and bringing man into harmony with God.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• Display a secure grasp of the roles of the visual arts, liturgy, music and procession in medieval religious observance and experience

• Display a secure grasp of chronology and also of key stylistic developments in the visual arts, liturgy and music and of medieval religious observance and experience

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of the cultural production associated with the church during the late middle ages

• Discuss the nature, significance and usage of manuscript sources of liturgical music of this period

• Explain some of the historical religious and cultural factors that determined the development of that cultural production

• Be aware of appropriate research methodologies and their application, including the ability to digest and apply interpretive and reception methodologies from art history or music to a musical or art historical situation respectively

Through the programme of seminars based on class discussion of prepared reading and student presentations, students should also have developed their capacity to carry out guided and independent research, to summarise and present, in oral form, complex arguments and/or information with due attention to the deployment of relevant visual examples. The formatively-assessed essays and the summatively-assessed written examination should enable students to develop a similar capacity for research and for organisation of material, with due attention to the deployment of sources and examples, as appropriate to written presentation.

Teaching Information

Seminars and lectures. Site visits to Salisbury Cathedral and Exeter Cathedral.

Assessment Information

3000-word essay (formatively assessed only); 2-hr examination.

Reading and References

• P. Draper, Architecture and the Liturgy, in J. Alexander and P. Binski (eds.) The Age of Chivalry, London, 1987, 83-91

• C. Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral, London, 1990

• E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: traditional religion in England, 1400-1580, New Haven and London, 1992

• M. Bent and A. Wathey (eds), Fauvel Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music and Image in Paris, Biblioth�que Nationale de France, MS Fran�ais 146 (Oxford, 1998)

• S. Rankin and D. Hiley, Music in the Medieval English Liturgy (Oxford, 1993)

• T. J. Heffernan and E. A. Matter, The Liturgy of the Medieval Church (Kalamazoo, 2001)