This course will run from September to December 2026 and will be delivered entirely online. It will include ten live lectures with discussion led by one of the academics on the course but will be supported by the other academics taking part.

Throughout the course you will have access to a specially selected bank of online resources to support your learning and understanding of the topic. Recordings of the live sessions will be added to the resource unit around a week after they have taken place.

Those who sign up for the course can dip in and out as they wish, attend the live lectures, or catch up on the recordings afterwards; however, we encourage live participation in these lectures and workshops to make the most of the experience. There are no requirements for participants to produce any output or assessment for the course – just to take part and enjoy the opportunity to learn about a fascinating subject from leading academics in the field.

Unless otherwise stated, all sessions will take place between 7.30–9.00pm (45mins lecture, 45mins chat, discussion and Q&A). You need to book for the course to receive the meeting link details and access to the accompanying resource unit.

Sessions include:

• • 29 Sept: The Settlement of Normandy | Leonie Hicks
• • 6 Oct: Edward the Confessor: Normans before Conquest | Levi Roach
• • 13 Oct: The Normans in the Mediterranean: Southern Italy and Sicily (c.1000-c.1100) | Paul Oldfield
• • 20 Oct: William the Conqueror and the case for conquest | Levi Roach
  
• • 3 Nov: The Bayeux Tapestry | Emily Winkler
  
• • 10 Nov: Living, ruling and writing in Norman England | Emily Winkler
• • 17 Nov: The Normans and the origins of English omperialism | Colin Veach
  
• • 24 Nov: Conquest and colonisation: Wales and Ireland | Colin Veach
• • 1 Dec: Norman identity and material culture | Leonie Hicks
  
• • 8 Dec: The ‘Other’ Realm’: The Kingdom of Sicily until c.1200 | Paul Oldfield

This course is free to all current HA members, subject to booking. You must have a valid membership at the time of booking and attending the course. If you have a corporate membership, the additional staff users on your account can also register for free.

The course is charged at £90 (including VAT) for non-members. Registration is available online only through Cademy, and payment must be made at the point of booking by credit or debit card.

To access the module content, you will either need to have an active HA membership or a free basic account. Become a member or register for a free basic account.

The course is open to everybody but is particularly designed for lifelong learners. It is available to anybody with an interest or curiosity in the topic who wants to learn more while developing their historical knowledge and skills, without the pressure of any form of assessment. It is ideal for those who prefer a flexible pace of learning and who would like the opportunity to interact with the course leaders and participants. You do not need any prior knowledge of the topic to take part.

Professor Leonie Hicks is professor of medieval studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has written widely on aspects of Norman religious, social and cultural history and is currently finishing a book on landscapes in Norman historical writing  arising from a Levehulme Major Research Fellowship. She is the author of A Short History of the Normans (2016).

Professor Paul Oldfield is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Manchester and his research focuses primarily on Medieval Southern Italy and Sicily c.1000-c.1300. He has published four monographs (including Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000-1200 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and Documenting the Past in Medieval Puglia, 1130-1266 (Oxford University Press, 2023)), two co-edited volumes (Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World, with Kathryn Hurlock (Boydell Press, 2015) and Rethinking Norman Italy: Studies in Honour of Graham A. Loud, with Joanna H. Drell (Manchester University Press, 2021)) and multiple journal articles and book chapters in edited volumes. Paul’s research explores urban cultures, and sanctity in Southern Italy and Sicily, including the impact of the intervention of the Normans in the region and the creation of the Kingdom of Sicily which was founded by descendants of the Norman Hauteville dynasty.

Professor Levi Roach studied at the Universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg, receiving his PhD from the former in 2011. Since 2012, he has taught at the University of Exeter, where is presently Professor of Medieval History and Diplomatic. His research and teaching interests lie in the political and ecclesiastical history of western Europe between the ninth and twelfth centuries. He has published four books on these themes, including a popular history of the Normans (Empires of the Normans).

Dr Colin Veach is a historian of politics, culture and society in medieval Britain and Ireland. His first monograph Lordship in Four Realms: The Lacy Family 1166-1241 (Manchester, 2014) utilised the lens of ‘lordship’ to look at how one family adapted its strategies of domination in four distinct polities: England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. He is currently writing a monograph on the English invasion of Ireland for Yale University Press. He is Head of History at the University of Hull and Director of the Victoria County History: Yorkshire, East Riding.

Dr Emily Winkler is Lecturer in Medieval History at Hertford College and St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford, working in research areas spanning the Norman world from England and Wales to Sicily and southern Italy. As a cultural historian of high medieval Europe, her main research interest is storytelling: she tries to understand how and why medieval people told stories about their own past. She has written about how medieval people imagined leadership and conquest; madness and the mind; chronic grieving; compassion for mercenaries; and the long legacy of ancient Rome in medieval Europe. Her trade book Pocket Bayeux Tapestry (Bodleian Library Publishing) will be published in September 2026.

Book your place here. The course is free for members or £74 for non-members. More information about membership can be found here.

(Registration is via Cademy which opens in a new window. Please read the course terms and conditions before registering)