Skip to main content
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
The Minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies allows students to immerse themselves in the art, history, literature, world languages, and philosophy of this unique era of world history. This interdisciplinary field of study surveys a breathtaking vista of the multicultural, social, and technological accomplishments dating from the fall of the Roman Empire to the close of the seventeenth century.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance are continually reborn and recreated in our modern times, and this course of study enables students to examine critically this provocative period’s myths and its many realities. Throughout the variety of courses and subjects covered in the minor, students will engage with the meanings of history and culture and their continual rebirth over the centuries.

Declaring a Minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Students must declare the minor through their myUCF Student Center in order to be awarded the minor upon graduation. Detailed instructions are available from the college’s advising office.

UCF Catalog: Medieval & Renaissance Studies Advising Sheet

Highlights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

All students’ journeys through the minor will be unique to their interests, yet they might partake both of the following topics listed below and of the many more not included:

Art History and Architecture

  • Books of Hours
  • Donatello
  • Gothic cathedrals and stained glass windows
  • Illuminated manuscripts
  • Islamic art
  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • marginalia
  • Michelangelo
  • reliquaries
  • stave churches
  • Viking metalwork

Literature and World Languages

  • Celtic mythology
  • Cervantes’s Don Quixote
  • Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
  • Christine de Pizan
  • El Cid
  • Dante’s Divine Comedy
  • John Gower
  • The Legend and Literature of King Arthur
  • Latin
  • John Milton
  • William Shakespeare
  • Theatrical texts

History

  • The Byzantine Empire
  • Charlemagne
  • Chivalry
  • The Crusades
  • The 100 Years War
  • Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Iberia
  • Joan of Arc
  • The Norman Invasion
  • The Reformation(s)
  • The War of the Roses
  • Vikings

Philosophy and Religious Studies

  • Abelard and Heloise
  • Thomas Aquinas
  • Islam and Its Influence
  • Monasticism and Scholasticism
  • Fraternal Orders
  • Peter of Spain
  • Rise of Universities
  • John Wyclif

Faculty

Medieval and Renaissance Studies is supported by faculty from many disciplines and UCF departments.

View Program Faculty

Program Coordinator

Francois-Xavier P. Gleyzon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
[email protected]

Courses