The program in Medieval Studies at the University of Virginia provides an interdisciplinary and transhistorical network for the study, teaching, and learning of premodern world civilizations, from the first centuries of the Common Era through the fifteenth century.

Combining a major in Medieval Studies with extensive graduate and undergraduate course offerings in numerous fields, from Old French and medieval Latin language and paleography to Arabic philosophy in the Islamic world, from the writings of the patristic fathers of the Catholic Church to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, from the Europe of Charlemagne to the Japan of Yorimoto, Virginia's Medieval Studies Program conceives the medieval world from a truly global perspective.

Every period in history is better illuminated and understood by using evidence from research in different fields rather than by studying it solely from the point of view of a single discipline. People of the past, after all, did not live their lives according to the departmental divisions of a modern university. (Photo: Syria, Mameluk Water Flask, 14th century, Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia)

The Premodern Cultures and Communities certificate provides graduate students with advanced training in the methods and questions unique to the field of premodern studies (loosely conceived as stretching from 500 to 1700). (Photo: China, Shakyamuni, 1426 - 1435, Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia)