Seminar für Englische Philologie

Thesis Guidance Medieval Studies

Key Data

Bachelor of Arts Thesis

  • Credit count: 12 credits
  • Length: 30–40 pp
  • Completion module: none


Master of Arts Thesis

  • Credit count: 30 credits
  • Length: 70–90 pp
  • Completion module: M.EP.07b


First Steps

  1. Read “First Steps” on the Department’s central Thesis Planning page;
  2. Proceed to Topics and Supervisors below


Topics and Supervisors

The Medieval Studies section of Göttingen’s English Department supervises theses on any aspect of medieval English language and literature, as well as such history as is reflected in the literature. “Literature” is broadly understood to include any writing. When not on leave, here you can find staff are available as supervisor or second reader in Medieval English Studies.

The following list may help form an idea of what sorts of topic are appropriate:

  • Beowulf as wisdom literature
  • Code-switching in the Canterbury Tales
  • Functions of the dream-vision in Middle English verse
  • Functions of seafaring imagery in the Old English Exodus and the Exeter Book poetry
  • Gender associations in late medieval mysticism
  • Medieval Latin rhetoric and Middle English poetics
  • Monsters as allegory in Beowulf
  • The design and politics of Middle English prologues
  • The purpose of the Exeter book of Old English poetry
  • Old Saxon language features in Genesis B and beyond
  • Rules of succession in Beowulf and pre-Conquest England
  • The shape of the alliterative long line in the fourteenth century
  • The versification strategy of the Old English Consolation of Philosophy
  • What the miscopied names in Beowulf reveal


For inspiration, you may also


You may additionally choose to consult tertiary sources, i.e. works that summarize the state of scholarship about a given topic. However, whereas tertiary sources with long chapters, such as Beowulf and Other Stories or the Cambridge Companions to Old English Lit, and Chaucer , may be helpful in getting you up to speed on a topic like religious prose or education, or introducing you to relevant texts, they aren’t as good at suggesting concrete approaches or topics. On the other hand, subject-specific encyclopedias such as The Wiley–Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England or All Things Chaucer are great at summarizing specific topics and pointing you to the most important secondary sources. You can find them in the Department’s brick-and-mortar library . You don’t want to rely on either kind of tertiary source as your highest or go-to authority to cite, although they may certainly be cited in addition to more in-depth secondary sources. Wikipedia too is a tertiary source, and like all tertiary sources is best at pointing you in the right direction; but whereas you can cite volumes like those listed above, you cannot cite Wikipedia.

Research Aids

In addition to the resources listed above, you may try the following search engines: Some generative AI models are also good at listing sources on a given topic, but do not accept their output uncritically (see further below).

Aids on Composition, Style, and Formatting


The Use of AI Tools

Generative AI is good at producing text on widely understood topics, mostly because generative applications of current large language models rely on next-token prediction as trained on large quantities of text. Thus the more scholarly and thus obscure your prompt, the more unreliable the outcome. Conversely, if your research question is such that AI tools are able to answer it to satisfaction, it’s probably not specific enough to be academic. Either way, you should under no circumstances submit computer-generated text as your own, because regardless of who your supervisor thinks wrote it, if it’s deficient it won’t do well. In addition, the aspect of your work assigned the most weight in assessment is your own reasoning, so if we do not see your mind at work, we cannot award a good grade.

This does not mean AI can play no role in your work at all. After all, it’s already at work behind the scenes in your web searches and your word processor’s grammar check. If you find it helpful to
use a chat interface for brainstorming or to identify relevant sources, or to translate relevant
passages from foreign-language scholarship, you have access to a range of models via
https://chat-ai.academiccloud.de/chat (see these slides for further pointers on the uses and limitations of generative AI in literary research). Just don’t trust the results uncritically. University is the most advanced training programme in critical thinking at your disposal, but if you don’t do your own legwork, you will not come out a critical thinker.

We require that you append our twin declarations of responsible scholarly practice and the use of AI to all written work, whether it be a midterm commentary, a term paper, or a thesis. You can download both forms here.

For the University’s guidelines on AI in examination, see here.

For general reading on AI, see:


Frequently Asked Questions


  • Can I use the MLA stylesheet?
    MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, and MHRA are all admissible. It is advisable to pick a stylesheet that is defined in great detail (Chicago stands out here) over one that lacks detail, such as MHRA. If you prefer a stylesheet from a different discipline, such as APA, ask your supervisor; but to demonstrate your ability to work within a literary discipline, you ought to write a thesis adhering to a stylesheet native to the field. NB if you learn to use a citation manager, you can automate citation formatting and change the stylesheet at any time.
  • What about margins and line spacing?
    Although the Göttingen tradition holds to 1.5 line spacing, in Medieval Studies we prefer 2 so as to leave space for interlinear feedback. Whether and how that affects the 30–40 page length specification is something you will have to ask your supervisor. As for margins, keep them at default settings; and if your software defaults to letter-sized paper, set it to A4.
  • Does the bibliography/list of works cited count towards the page count?
    Talk to your supervisor. As a rule, the quality of the work is more important than matching the prescribed length exactly.
  • How many sources should I cite?
    It rather depends on your approach, but even a BA thesis heavy on the close reading of a single text ought to cite at least a low-double-digit number of secondary sources. If little has been written on your exact topic, use that as an occasion to cite more theory, history, or other background sources. An MA thesis should list at least a couple dozen secondary sources. Look out for the pitfall of continually citing just one or two secondary sources over extended parts of the thesis (particularly hard to avoid in theory sections).