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 SheetHighlights 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