Medieval History
About the Course
Medieval History takes us into societies and periods profoundly different from our own.
In Medieval History, we encounter some of the most exciting topics in all the human past. We enter a world more dangerous and more alien than the societies we study in Modern History, and we examine how people lived, what they believed, and how they struggled with each other over power, faith, and gold. In Year 12, you will study the Crusades, the great religious conflicts that began when European Christian knights invaded the Islamic Middle East. You will examine the development of the idea of “holy warfare” from both sides, and you will see how the armies of both cultures wrestled for control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. At the same time, you will study the Wars of the Roses in late medieval England: the struggle for the throne between rival royal dynasties that gave rise to some of the most dramatic political and military contests in British history. In Year 13 you will move on to the Vikings, and you will study these remarkable Scandinavian seafarers as raiders, conquerors, traders, settlers, and explorers. You will study their impact on Britain and Ireland, but you will also learn about their life, culture, and religion, and trace the impacts of their many voyages of conquest and exploration all over Europe and the wider world. Medieval History builds directly on some of what WLFS students have studied at GCSE, but will also be fully accessible to students joining us from other schools, including those who have not previously studied history at GCSE. The course is excellent preparation for studying history at university, not least because of its breadth, covering well over 500 years of the past and incorporating British, European, and Arab history.
As a history department we take pride in the fact that all our teachers are experts in the topics they teach. We work very hard to ensure we are up to date with all the details of the assessment for each exam, and a number of the faculty are trained examiners for our chosen exam board, OCR.
Studying history at A level is very highly regarded by top universities and our chosen topics aim to prepare pupils for further study of history at university as well as providing entry to a wide range of subjects including law, politics, economics, philosophy and English literature. The course also includes independent study on a period of history of your choice, which will help you to develop the independence you need to be successful in your future studies.
Examination Board
OCR
Course Structure
- Unit Y105: England 1445-1509: Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII
- Unit Y203: The Crusades the Crusader States 1095-1192
- Unit Y302: The Viking Age c.790-1066
- Unit Y100: Topic Based Essay