Course Handbook - Faculty of History

1.1 INTRODUCTORY WELCOME LETTER
October 2010
May we offer you a warm welcome to Cambridge, and to the MPhil in Medieval History, which we
hope you will enjoy over the coming year.
The MPhil serves two purposes. It is a degree in itself, acquainting you with scholarly practice and
giving you the opportunity to do an extended piece of independent research. It also provides
research training for the PhD.
In Part I, before you proceed to your specialised research in the second part, the course is designed
to provide you with a broad general knowledge of the field in which you will do your dissertation,
and the ancillary skills you will need for your dissertation and, more generally, for research in
medieval history. The subject classes in Part I are designed to introduce you both to the broader
issues within your chosen period and to different categories of source material and problems in
their interpretation.
It is absolutely essential, regardless of your own research interests, that you do the work for these
classes. All of it will prove relevant in some way and without this broad knowledge your view will
be too narrow and your research may well suffer, both in the MPhil and if you move on to do a
PhD.
At the end of both Parts of the course, we will ask you to fill in a Feedback Questionnaire, which
is very important for us in monitoring the course and enabling us to make improvements in future
years. May I urge you strongly to take the time to fill in these questionnaires, without which it is
difficult for us to assess how well the different parts of the course are fulfilling their objectives.
Please read all the papers in this portfolio. All future letters will be sent to you at your college
address unless you specifically tell the MPhil Office that you want them sent elsewhere. It is very
important, therefore, that you get into the habit of checking your pigeonhole, and your e-mail,
regularly.
This handbook is designed to give you full information about the course, how it is taught and
examined, where you need to be and what work you need to do and when. For information about
contact points within both the university and faculty, library and computing facilities, supervision,
graduate training, financial assistance, maps and useful web addresses, please consult the Faculty
of History General Graduate Handbook 2010. For contact details for the course, and whom you
should approach in the event of any problems, see below Section 9, pages 24-26.
Please complete the reply form at the back of the handbook, and return it to the MPhil Office
as soon as possible.
Please consult the checklist in Section 1.2 for a list of the key meetings in the first week of
term. Your attention is also drawn to the general timetable (2). For details of place of meetings
you need to consult the sections describing each course in detail. All classes are in the History
Faculty unless otherwise indicated. Full details of the classes in Part I are in Sections 3 to 5.
Information on the examination of Part I is to be found in Section 6. Section 7 describes Part II.
Finally, if you have not already done so, you should now get in touch with your supervisor for
the year. If you find it impossible to get in touch with him or her please let the MPhil Office
know.
May we wish you the very best of success on the course, in the hope that you will both enjoy it
and make the most of the facilities available to you in Cambridge.
Prof M C Carpenter, Chairman, MPhil Sub-Committee
1