Exploring the World of Ascetics, Ethnicity and Empire: Studying European and World History from 370 to 900
this paper turned out to be one of the most fascinating and rewarding academic experiences of my first year
Alicia is a second-year undergraduate student from Wolverhampton who is studying History at Worcester College. She was educated at non-selective state schools. Alicia took part in the Oxford UNIQ Summer School when she was in Year 12 and completed the Opportunity Oxford residential just before starting her degree.
There is nothing quite like the moment you realise that things aren’t going to go as planned—especially when it comes to university. That is exactly how I felt when I first encountered the “Transformation of the Ancient World” prelims paper at Oxford. What I had imagined to be a straightforward selection of course choices turned into an unexpected journey that, to my surprise, ended up being transformative (yes, the irony isn’t lost on me).
It all started during the Opportunity Oxford residential. I was sitting with friends when I received a notification from my college on my phone. Attached was a document outlining what studying History at Worcester College would look like. I had spent the summer excitedly scrolling through the History Faculty website, mentally picking out the papers I was eager to explore. So, you can imagine my shock when I realised my first term would be centred around a paper I had no say in— European and World History from 370 to 900: The Transformation of the Ancient World.
The subject was completely unfamiliar to me. I hadn’t studied anything close to it before; the oldest period I had ever explored was 1250-1500 for my GCSE History Crime and Punishment exam. I had already struggled through the infamous Rise and Function of the Holy Man article by Peter Brown during Opportunity Oxford, so I wasn’t exactly eager to dive into a topic I felt entirely unprepared for. The idea of tackling the ancient world, with its complicated timelines and unfamiliar empires, filled me with some excitement, but mostly nerves.
Once the residential ended, I went home and tried to make sense of it all. I even read The World of Late Antiquity (by, you guessed it, Peter Brown), though I was still finding it difficult to distinguish between the many rulers, empires and dynasties. By the time the reading list for my first essay, on the impact of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, landed in my inbox, I was convinced this paper would be my biggest challenge—and, if I’m being honest, probably my least interesting.
Fast forward a year, and while I was right about it being challenging, I couldn’t have been more wrong about its value. Yes, grappling with the vast timeline and geography of the ancient and early medieval world was difficult, but this paper turned out to be one of the most fascinating and rewarding academic experiences of my first year.
What surprised me the most was how relevant the range of topic inquiries in this paper felt. Studying the period’s debates on ethnicity, for instance, revealed how they shaped modern concepts of race, nationality, and identity. I had no idea that questions from the ancient world would have such clear echoes in 20th-century European nationalism. I found myself captivated by how ideas concerning ethnicity from the fall of Rome continued to influence political and cultural identities long after the empire crumbled.
The more I delved into the paper, the more I found myself drawn to themes that explored the social and cultural dynamics of this period, particularly religion, gender, and sexuality. One of the most fascinating discoveries for me was the practice of asceticism, where early Christians would embrace extreme self-denial to attain spiritual purity. What intrigued me was how this practice often intersected with the rise of saint cults, where figures projected divinity and became the focal points of personal devotion. The wide-ranging scholarship about asceticism opened my eyes to the complexity of these practices, particularly how expressions of sanctity differed for men and women, as well as the growing preoccupation with physical, moral and sexual purity in this period.
I also found it fascinating to trace these religious practices through later periods of history. While recently writing an essay on the Reformation, I noticed how Protestant reformers rejected asceticism and monasticism, practices that had been central to Christian devotion for over a thousand years. That sense of historical continuity, combined with change, was something I hadn’t expected, but it added a rich layer of depth to my understanding of both the ancient and modern world.
Now, I won’t pretend that this paper made me a committed medievalist. But it did teach me something invaluable: that the things we find most intimidating often offer the most growth. The Transformation of the Ancient World pushed me out of my comfort zone, exposed me to ideas I hadn’t considered, and deepened my appreciation for the complexity of history. In the end, what I thought would be a dry, difficult paper became one of the most intellectually stimulating parts of my year. It turns out that being challenged is exactly what I needed—and I’m all the better for it.
