Face-to-face , first and second term, 30 hours of theory.

First term
Friday from 13:00 to 15:00 at 119 Marais 1300
Second term
Tuesday from 15:15 to 17:15 at 119 Marais 1300

French. Knowledge of Latin is not compulsory.

This seminar aims to develop the students' skills (research, reflection, critical mind) through a long-term research work of real scientific relevance.

For the Bachelor in History :

None

Each student will be requested to address a specific aspect of a common theme, within the research fields of the professor and relating to medieval history. Each student is invited to compare his/her results with those of the other students and to enrich his/her own work as the course and work develop. The theme and the type of sources implemented vary from one year to another. For instance: "The hundred new news at the court of the Dukes of Burgundy: faithful or biased reflection of society?"; "Relationship, sociability, material culture, religious sensitivity and socio-political structures: Nivelles in the fifteenth century. A town through its testaments." ; "Violence, honor and courage. Representations and experiences of violence through narrative sources of the late Middle Ages."

The course takes the form of seminars, alternating joint sessions and individual work of the student on original documents.
The professor will develop a research issue and framework; bibliographical research and status report; supervised palaeographic initiation (in the case of original documents); critical editing of documents (if applicable); use of documents and historian argumentation; discussion sessions about the problems and results; writing of an individual piece of work.

Final written work. The assessment also takes into account the students' participation in the discussions and an intermediate presentation of the results in an oral presentation.

The writing of the bibliography, starting from the leads provided by the professor, is an integral part of the students' work.

Syllabus of the “Heuristics of the Middle Ages” course.
Besides the libraries of the faculties, the students are invited to attend different major documentary deposits nearby (such as the National Archives of Belgium and the Royal Library of Belgium) or within a reasonable distance.