At Leicester, we’ve got a lot of experience of delivering distance learning courses. We run a full set of programmes at masters and undergraduate level. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. So we think we understand the needs of distance learning students. This course is based around the Wars of the Roses. And it draws on the expertise of the team that was brought together in the aftermath of the discovery of the grave of Richard III in Leicester. This includes experts from forensic engineering through to art historians, English experts, archaeologists, and historians. So drawing on this expertise, we’ve developed a course that we think will really enhance your interest and understanding of the period.

The course is divided into six episodes, each of which deals with a different aspect of mediaeval life. And the themes covered range from mediaeval warfare through to the mediaeval landscape, death and commemoration, and the creation of texts, particularly the introduction of printing. This course will enhance your understanding of the period and also the way in which scholars go about identifying the questions that need to be answered and bringing data to bear on them. There are many controversies about the period. And we hope that by the end of the course, you will be armed with enough information and understanding to formulate your own views on the credibility or otherwise of some of the theories around.

When you put together a team of experts who understand the poetry of the period, who realise why certain things were recorded and others not, when people can bring their understanding of technology to bear on the issue, you get a rounded picture and understanding that goes far beyond just facts. And that’s why I think it’s all really, very exciting.