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Study Abroad with MEMS

Summer B 2025

Medieval Studies in King Arthur’s England

Discover the causeways, caves, and sacred stones still haunted by the spirit of Arthur and the Knights of the Round table …

Explore the remnants of a Roman culture that mingled with Merlin and Druid magic …

Visit the castles and cloisters, chivalric and monastic communities that rose from the mists of Avalon …

And create your own Canterbury tale …

 


 

Highlights

  • Earn 6 credits in 6 weeks.
  • Study and live at Royal Holloway, University of London.
  • Excursions to Tintagel, Merlin’s cave, Glastonbury, Stonehenge, Canterbury, and the Tower of London
 


 

Brief description

Arthur appears as King for the first time in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (History of the British Kings, completed ca. 1136), in which he is presented as a model of political authority and power with which medieval and early modern European potentates could identify. Besides his political associations, Arthur remained connected to an otherworldly, Celtic mythical realm to which his advisor and protector Merlin and his fairy sister Morgan le Fay belonged. The narratives associated with Arthur first took shape during the migration period in the fifth and sixth century C.E. when incursions and settlements of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from the European continent led to the end of Roman Britannia. Tales about the heroic resistance of Romanized and Christianized Britons led by Arthur against the Germanic invaders were mixed with elements of the aforementioned Celtic mythical realm to form an oral Arthurian “legend” (or collection of related stories) that would be passed down through the generations in Britain for a half millennium. The Norman conquest of Britain beginning in 1066 as well as the Normans’ incursions elsewhere in Europe functioned as a catalyst that transformed and expanded the British oral legend of Arthur to a European literary legend of Arthur, beginning with Geoffrey’s above mentioned “history” (which was really more a pseudo-history) and extending to the invention of romance poetry as a new kind of literary artwork–the progenitor of the modern novel– by the French poet Chretien de Troyes in the twelfth century. Besides its indispensable involvement in the development of the novel as narrative art form, the Arthurian legend has remained at the cutting edge of literary and artistic developments in Europe and globally (see Richard Wagner, Mark Twain, Manga) to the present day.

panoramic view of some buildings at Royal Holloway University

In this six-week study abroad program hosted by the Royal Holloway University of London, students will return to the prehistoric, ancient, and medieval British origins of the Arthurian legend to explore how it emerges and develops from the Middle Ages to the present day in close association with cutting-edge developments in politics, religious experience, (narrative) art, music and musical performance, and film. In their Group Adventure projects, students will learn about what made the Arthurian legend so omnipresent in Britain and Europe before it became a global phenomenon in modern times. Just as important, students will learn about what the Arthurian legend means for them individually and how they individually–working jointly with other committed individuals–might also make their own mark on it.

 


 

Excursions

  • Bath
  • Stonehenge, Glastonbury, Exeter
  • Tintagel (Merlin’s Cave), Cadbury Castle (Camelot)
  • Windsor Castle
  • Oxford
  • Canterbury
  • The Tower, Buckingham Palace

 


 

Email Professors Mary Watt (marywatt@ufl.edu) or Will Hasty (hasty@ufl.edu) to be included in the listserv to get real-time updates.

Event schedule and More Information

Click here to view or print the PDF flyer