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

First term
Tuesday from 15:45 to 17:45 at Ommegang Om320
Second term
Tuesday from 10:45 to 12:45

French. Additionnal readings might be required in other modern languages (such as English and Dutch). Knowledge of Latin is not compulsory.

The advanced level seminar aims to develop the students' skills (research, reflection, critical thinking) through a long-term research work of real scientific relevance. The Faculty of Arts aknowledges that this work has the value of a bachelor's thesis (‘travail de fin de cycle').

For the Bachelor in History :

None

This is a research seminar on primary sources. 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. The work entrusted to third-year students is more advanced than that of second year students that follow the intermediate level seminar. 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 ‘Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles' 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 secondary literature and primary sources.
The professor will develop a research issue and framework. The students will achieve bibliographical research and state of the art. The seminar also includes 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 paper, following the standards of scientific writing (critical apparatus, footnotes, annexes, argumentation). 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 (part of “Heuristics of the various periods of Histoy” course).
Besides the libraries of the University, 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.
Attendance to the seminar sessions is mandatory.