Year: 2021

Conference and Exhibition on Medieval to Early Modern Anglo-Dutch Relations

by

22/11/2021

11:06

1 Comment on Conference and Exhibition on Medieval to Early Modern Anglo-Dutch Relations

Around Oxford, events

, ,

CONFERENCE: The Literature and History of Anglo-Dutch Relations, Medieval to Early Modern

 6 January 2022, 1.00 PM – 8 January 2022, 6.00 PM
 Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Contacts between English and Dutch speakers had a profound impact on the literary landscape and book culture of England and the Low Countries. This conference crosses conventional chronological, linguistic, geographical and disciplinary boundaries to explore the cultural history of relations between English and Dutch speakers, from the Norman Conquest through to the Reformation. Bringing together literary scholars and historians, it aims to join up evidence of literary exchange with new insights into the experiences of migration, conflict, political alliances, and trade that made this literary exchange possible. The conference will reinvigorate traditional approaches to literary influence by contextualising it in the historical conditions that brought speakers of Dutch and English into contact with each other and by taking into account the range of languages (Dutch, English, French, and Latin) in which their communications and literary production in manuscript and early print took shape over this period.

In-person attendance: £35.00

Online attendance: £0.00

Registration required

Full event information

EXHIBITION: North Sea Crossings: Anglo-Dutch Books and the Adventures of Reynard the Fox

3 December 2021–18 April 2022
The Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

North Sea Crossings, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, will trace the long history of Anglo-Dutch relations. Focusing on the period from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, items from the Bodleian Libraries’ collections will illustrate the ways in which these exchanges have shaped literature, book production and institutions such as the Bodleian itself, on either side of the North Sea, inviting visitors to reflect on the way this cultural exchange still impacts British and Dutch societies today.

Free admission, no booking required.

The book accompanying the exhibition, by Sjoerd Levelt and Ad Putter, is now available.

A modern retelling of Reynard the Foxby Anne Louise Avery, based on William Caxton’s 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch, is also available.

EXHIBITION OPENING EVENT: North Sea Crossings virtual panel

2 December 2021, 5-6.30PM
Online

Join us for a livestream panel discussion to mark the opening of our winter exhibition ​North Sea Crossings: Anglo-Dutch Books and the Adventures of Reynard the Fox. The exhibition tells the story of Anglo-Dutch exchanges through beautiful medieval manuscripts, early prints, maps, animal stories and other treasures from the Bodleian’s collections.

Join our panel discussion which celebrates a special relationship which has lasted over 900 years. Watch our expert panel explore the historical as well as the broader context of Anglo-Dutch relations in politics, art, literature, and modern life.

The discussion will be streamed on this page and on our YouTube channel.

Medieval Matters: Week 6

by

15/11/2021

12:06

Comments Off on Medieval Matters: Week 6

News

,

Week 6 is here, which means that we are more than half-way through the term. Where did all of that time go? As we are all busy with our seminars, research, admissions, deadlines and teaching commitments, a little piece of advice from the Durham Proverbs:

Betere byþ oft feðre þonne oferfeðre.
It is better to be often loaded than overloaded.

For those looking to often-load their calendar, we have a smorgasbord of delights this week, from a workshop on Medieval and Biblical models of gender and sexuality to a lecture on Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscripts! This week’s events are listed below:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Online Conference: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, 24–25 November 2021. The British Archaeological Association are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. This postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas. Register for the conference here.


EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 15th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Nicola Ernst (Exeter), ‘The Athanasian Emperors: Reconsidering Orthodox and Heretical Emperors in the 340s‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk or visit the eventbrite page.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen to be added to the Teams call.
  • The Continental Old French Reading Group meets at 3pm at St Hilda’s College. Anyone interested in joining should send an email to sebastian.dows-miller@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval Archaeology Seminar meets at 3pm at Institute of Archaeology Lecture Room and Online via Teams. This week’s speaker is David Petts, ‘Recent work on the early medieval monastery at Lindisfarne‘.   Please note: Attendance at the Lecture Room is by advance booking only as the room has astrict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made here.
  • The East of Byzantium Lecture (Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture) takes place at 5pm on Zoom. The speaker will be Sören Stark, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, ‘Eternal ‘Silk Road’? The Rise of Sogdiana during the 3rd–4th Centuries A.D‘. As per last week’s email, advance registration is required. Registration closes at 2pm on November 15, 2021. Register here: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm on Teams and in the Wharton Room. Attendance at the Wharton Room is by advance booking only as the room has a strict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made at https://medieval-history-seminar.reservio.com. This week’s speaker is Janet Burton (UWTSD Lampeter), ‘Cistercian? How Cistercian? The Example of late medieval Wales’.
  • The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.15pm on Teams. Please email Olivia Smith (olivia.smith2@linacre.ox.ac.uk) to be added to the mailing list and Teams group.

Tuesday 16th November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Ofir Haim, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mandel Scholion Research Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ‘Judeo-Persian Correspondence from Buyid and Ghaznavid Territories (10th-11th Centuries)‘.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘The Green Man and Other Creatures’
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Nicholas Mayhew (University of Oxford), ‘Reinterpreting Russian Orthodox Canons Against Homosexuality‘.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Roy Flechner (UCD), ‘The moral economy of burying your dead: some early medieval attitudes towards burial and memorializing‘.
  • The Oxford Numismatic Society meets at 5pm on Teams. This week’s speaker will be Chris Howgego (Heberden Coin Room / Wolfson College, University of Oxford), ‘Alexandria and Rome: The Special Relationship?‘. To receive meeting links and further updates, please email the Secretary at daniel.etches@new.ox.ac.uk.
  • Bibitura Dantis Oxonensis meets at 6pm at The Anchor. Today’s text will be Purgatorio 2. For enquiries, please email Lachlan Hughes.

Wednesday 17th November:

  • The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in New Powell Room, Somerville College. If you are interested to be added to the mailing list for the seminar, write to Linus Ubl.
  • The Workshop on Manuscript Description and Cataloguing: Types and levels of description; describing textual content and decoration takes place at 1-2pm in the Weston Library Horton Room. Places strictly limited: email matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • The Medieval Trade Reading Group meets at 1-2pm in Mertze Tate Room, History Faculty, and Online. To be added to the mailing list and team please email Annabel Hancock.
  • The CMTC Lecture, ‘Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture’ meets at 5pm on Zoom. The speaker will be Alessandro Bausi (African/Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg). This paper aims at providing non-Ethiopianists with an overview of the development of textual studies in Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture thanks to some new research trends from the last few years. Attendance is free of charge, but sign-up is mandatory: you can sign-up here. We will send a Zoom link to all participants on Monday 15th November. If you cannot access Google Forms please sign up by sending an email to gabriele.rota@queens.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speakers will be Colleen Curran (CLASP, Oxford), ‘The Manuscripts of Alcuin’s Carmina’, and Patricia O Connor (CLASP, Oxford), ‘Drawing the Reader’s Attention: Dryhthelm’s Vision of the Otherworld and the Archangel St Michael in CCCC, MS 41’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm on Google Meet, followed by drinks at 7pm at Corpus Christi College. This week’s speaker is Luisa Andriollo (Pisa), ‘Writing and reading anti-Islamic polemics in Byzantium: the ‘Conversation of the monk Euthymios with a Saracen philosopher’ (12th c.)‘.

Thursday 18th November:

  • The Middle High German Reading Group meets at 9-10.30am on Zoom. This week’s topic is ‘Tristan (Gottfried von Straßburg)’. If you have any questions or want to participate, please send an e-mail to melina.schmidt@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Archives de l’Athos reading group meets at 3-4pm at Corpus Christi College. All interested in Byzantine history, non-Latin diplomatics, Greek palaeography or diplomatic edition are welcome. Contact marek.jankowiak@history.ox.ac.uk or olivier.delouis@campion.ox.ac.uk to sign up and receive the texts in advance.
  • The Greek and Latin Reading Group meets at 4pm in St Edmund Hall. Room TBC: contact John Colley or Jenyth Evans to be added to the mailing list. This week’s text will be Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.37-39.
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm on Zoom. For Zoom link, contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Eirian Alwen Jones, ‘‘Tua Gloddaith, tŷ gwleddoedd’: Tomos Mostyn, Ysgwïer, a’r traddodiad barddol‘.

Friday 19th November:

  • Pre-Modern Conversations meets at 11am-12pm on Teams. For more information and to be added the the PMC Teams Channel, email lena.vosding AT mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
  • The ‘Body, Gender, Purity, and Sexual Pleasure: Biblical and Medieval Models’ Workshop takes place at 1-2.30pm at Saint John’s College, New Seminar Room. This workshop brings together expertise from the early, central, and late Middle Ages (respectively, Conrad Leyser, Neta Bodner, and Alice Raw), in conversation with Laura Quick’s expertise in the Hebrew Bible. Participants are invited to read with us to question how the body was treated, even used, as a vehicle for “correct” piety in ways that both differ and intersect across the Middle Ages. Spaces are limited to 30 participants; please sign up here.
  • A public celebration of Oxford Castle at 950 years takes place at 6-10pm. all welcome! For the first time, town and gown come together to tell a shared and diverse history of inclusion and exclusion of Oxford’s Castle, with a stunning projection onto the Castle and socially-distanced interactive games. This event is free, but participants should register in advance via Eventbrite.

Saturday 20th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is  ‘Beneath the ledgerstone: Vaults and their contents’ : A lecture by Dr Julian Litten on the contents of burial vaults. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • Call for Papers: New Visions of Julian of Norwich: Somerville College, Oxford, 15th and 16th July 2022. This international hybrid conference will be the first academic event to focus solely on Julian’s writing, life, contexts, and influence long after her death. We invite papers from any or multiple disciplines and deploying a wide range of methodologies, focusing on all aspects of Julian’s writing, life, contexts, or afterlife. We especially encourage proposals from graduate students and early-career researchers. Please submit abstracts (up to 300 words) for a 15-minute paper or 10-minute round table contribution, accompanied by a short biography, to julianofnorwichconference@gmail.com by 1 February 2022.
  • Call for Papers: CCASNC 2022, ‘Marvels and Miracles’. The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is an annual interdisciplinary graduate conference encompassing all aspects of the British Isles, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. A selection of the papers will be published in the departmental journal Quaestio Insularis. This year’s theme will be ‘Marvels and Miracles’. We invite graduate students and recent graduates to submit abstracts of 250 words for papers no longer than 20 minutes to ccasnc@gmail.com by the 1st of December 2021.
  • Calling all those interested in manuscripts! The ‘Handschriftenportal’, a database-in-the-making for all manuscripts held in German libraries, is asking for volunteers to test their beta version of the platform. It is crucial that this information is also going to be accessible for an Anglophone audience, so it will be hugely helpful if you were willing (and it should be fun) to do a think-aloud zoom exploration of the amazingly rich collection of metadata, catalogue information and images, giving feedback on usability (and English terminology!). All information here.


And finally, some advice for anyone feeling more oferfeðre than oft feðre at this stage of the term:

Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.
That thing passed; so will this.

In other words: hold on in there!

A manuscript illumination of an ibex eating something that has been trimmed away
A medievalist, feeling somewhat oferfeðre, attempts to hide from an oncoming deadline
Merton College, MS 249, f. 10v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Ibex

Call for Papers: New Visions of Julian of Norwich

by

15/11/2021

10:48

4 Comments on Call for Papers: New Visions of Julian of Norwich

Around Oxford, events, opportunities

, ,

Somerville College, Oxford, 15th and 16th July 2022
Organisers: Antje Chan (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Godelinde Gertrude Perk (Somerville, Oxford), Raphaela Rohrhofer (Somerville, Oxford), Alicia Smith (English Faculty, Oxford).


In May 1373, Julian of Norwich (c.1343‒ after 1416) received a series of visions that engage with the mysteries of the divine-human relationship, inspiring the composition of A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and, decades later, its revision, A Revelation of Love, now recognised as one of the most important texts in the medieval contemplative tradition and Middle English literature. Both have attracted numerous interpretations as visionary as Julian’s work itself, focusing on the significance of anchoritic enclosure, the radical originality of her vernacular theology, the historical and codicological context, as well as potential textual influences. Recent scholarship has explored Julian’s role in the global Middle Ages, her treatment of health, and her ecological poetics. Her texts have also sparked investigations of the role of materiality and provocative encounters between Julian and queer and trans theory.

This international hybrid conference will be the first academic event to focus solely on Julian’s writing, life, contexts, and influence long after her death. It seeks to consider the plurality of approaches towards her work’s interpretation and forge novel pathways of discussing the anchoress both in her own context and in the many scholarly and popular guises of her cultural afterlife. Aimed at established and early-career researchers alike, this interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars from various disciplines to map out new and emerging dimensions in Julian scholarship. It will interrogate received assumptions and re-evaluate traditional disciplinary methodologies.

In addition to academic work on Julian’s writing, this conference also seeks to reach out of academe in responding to pastoral and contemplative engagement with her texts, particularly in the light of the pandemic. Two roundtables will bring lived religious practices and critical responses into dialogue. Creative explorations will also help invigorate Julian studies. We look forward to hosting Cindy Oswin’s one-woman play “Cell” about the anchorite as an older woman, and to showing a recording of the 2021 Oxford reconstruction of the medieval rite of enclosure held at St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley.


 The opening lecture will be given by Professor Nicholas Watson (Harvard) with responses from Professor Laura Saetveit Miles (Bergen) and Professor Barry Windeatt (Cambridge). Professor Liz Herbert McAvoy (Swansea) will close the conference.

We invite papers from any or multiple disciplines and deploying a wide range of methodologies, focusing on all aspects of Julian’s writing, life, contexts, or afterlife. We especially encourage proposals from graduate students and early-career researchers.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:

  • Emerging approaches to Julian’s texts
  • Illness, health, and disability  
  • Visual and material culture     
  • Queer, genderqueer, and trans theory approaches                                                                   
  • Julian’s wider intellectual and cultural contexts; e.g., Revelation and Vision in the movements of church reform across Europe during and after the western schism, or against the backdrop of continental vernacular literature                                
  • Interdisciplinary approaches to Julian
  • Julian and apocalypse                                                                          
  • Vision and Revelation as literary landmarks in medieval and post-medieval literature
  • Conversations with well and lesser-known vernacular visionaries and theologians in the British Isles, on the Continent, and beyond                                                                          
  • The history of emotions                                                               
  • Life-writing                                                                 
  • Creative engagement with Vision and Revelation: poetic, dramatic, visual arts    
  • Ecological concerns and themes                                                                                      
  • Issues of materiality, space, and embodiment in Vision and Revelation        

We also welcome proposals for contributions to the two roundtables. Potential topics include:

  • Retrieving Julian’s writings to renew contemplative and spiritual practices                        
  • Vision and Revelation and the pandemic moment       
  • Julian as a voice for the voiceless
  • Julian beyond the academy: contemplative practices, popular imagery, political uses

Please submit abstracts (up to 300 words) for a 15-minute paper or 10-minute round table contribution, accompanied by a short biography, to julianofnorwichconference@gmail.com by 1 February 2022.

In light of the pandemic, this conference will be a hybrid event combining in-person and online papers. We plan to stream the in-person papers live where possible for online attendees.

Reduced registration will be offered for postgraduate students and unwaged delegates. In addition, some travel bursaries for postgrads and unwaged delegates may be available.

This conference is part of “Women Making Memories: Liturgy and the Remembering Female Body in Medieval Holy Women’s Texts”, Dr Perk’s MSCA-IF project at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 842443.
 
 




Online Conference: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, 24–25 November 2021

by

09/11/2021

17:57

1 Comment on Online Conference: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, 24–25 November 2021

events

, , ,

The British Archaeological Association are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. This postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.
Register for the conference here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtd-2urzMtGtII4nZmnWgWYGx7g9uBG886

Conference programme

Wednesday 24th November 2021

1:00–1:10 pm (GMT) — Welcome

Space, Place, and Language in Medieval Architecture

1:10–2:30 pm (GMT)

Paro Tomar (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Mosque Building By Artisanal Communities in Western India – Thirteenth to Seventeenth Centuries C.E

Alfie Robinson (University of York)

‘Like, or Better’: Building Contracts and Late-Medieval Perceptions of Quality in Architecture

Michele Guida Conte (Independent Scholar)

Liturgical spaces in Vicentine churches between the 13th and the 15th centuries

2:30–2:45 pm (GMT) — Break

Marginalised Communities

2:45–3.45 pm (GMT)

Aitor Boada-Benito (Complutense University, Madrid)

Natural landscape and Christian communities in the Sasanian Empire: How martyrs and environment developed a religious identity

Sophie Johnson (University of Bristol)

Marginalised in medieval Europe: the underrepresentation of women artists in the history of medieval art

3:45–4:00 pm (GMT) — Break

Materiality and Devotion

4:00–5:20 pm (GMT)

Emily Fu (University of Edinburgh)

Real Presences: Late Medieval Wood Sculpted Crucifixions

Soyoung Joo (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Flaying and Identity c.1500: Skin as Text, Surface, and Clothing

Andy Earnshaw (Oxford University)

Her Final Gift: Revealing Cultural Memory and Emotion in a 12th Century Jet Cross from St John’s Priory, Pontefract

5:20 pm (GMT) — End

Thursday 25th November 2021

1:00–1:10 pm (GMT) — Welcome back

Materiality, Memory, and Identity

1:10–2:10 pm (GMT)

Dr Ellora Bennett (Independent Scholar)

One will die young’: Juvenile weapon burials and processing loss in early medieval England

Dr Julia Faiers (University of St Andrews)

Bishop Louis d’Amboise and the invisible tomb: constructing piety in Albi cathedral

2:10–2:20 pm (GMT) — Break

Iconography and Devotion

2:20–3.20 pm (GMT)

Wiktoria Muryn (University of Glasgow)

Holy (Mis)conceptions: Late Medieval Depictions of the Visitation Featuring the Occupied Womb and their Female Monastic Audience

Daria Melnikov (Queen’s University)

The Guthlac Roll: Artwork and Model Book, circa 1200–1300

3:20–3:30 pm (GMT) — Break

The Building and the City

3:30–4:30 pm (GMT)

Francesca Rognoni & Filippo Gemelli (IUAV – University of Venice and Università degli studi di Pavia)

The Use of Westbau in Medieval Architecture in Central Italy: new data for the façade of Ascoli Cathedral

Dr Rafia Khan (Nirma University, Ahmedabad)

Monument and Monumentality in the Medieval Islamic City: Perspectives from the City and Province of Chanderi

4:30pm (GMT) — Closing remarks

Find out more here.

CFP: CCASNC 2022 ‘Marvels and Miracles’

by

09/11/2021

13:00

Comments Off on CFP: CCASNC 2022 ‘Marvels and Miracles’

opportunities

,

We are pleased to announce that the call for papers for CCASNC 2022 is now open. The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is an annual interdisciplinary graduate conference encompassing all aspects of the British Isles, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. A selection of the papers will be published in the departmental journal Quaestio Insularis.

This year’s theme will be ‘Marvels and Miracles’’. Our keynote speaker will be Professor Alison Finlay, from Birkbeck University of London. We invite graduate students and recent graduates to submit abstracts of 250 words for papers no longer than 20 minutes to ccasnc@gmail.com by the 1st of December 2021.

The conference will be held on the 5th of February 2022, and it will be a hybrid conference, with the in-person component pending conditions at the time. Further details, including registration details, will be forthcoming. We hope the theme will inspire a wide range of interpretations and discussions. Potential papers could discuss wonders in many spheres: from hagiographical miracles and supernatural marvels to wonders in natural science. It could also include things that seem more marvellous to the modern reader and scholar than to a medieval audience, or to the absence of the marvellous or miraculous where it might be expected. We would like to encourage potential speakers to be as imaginative as they like with the theme. 

Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at Queen’s: “Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture”

by

09/11/2021

12:13

1 Comment on Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at Queen’s: “Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture”

events

, , ,


Please join us for an online talk hosted by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at The Queen’s College in the University of Oxford. Our centre promotes inter-disciplinary discussion among scholars and students interested in manuscripts and material culture in the premodern world. So your participation is most welcome regardless of your field of specialty. 

We are meeting on Zoom on Wednesday 17th November at 5,00-7,00pm (UK time). 

Alessandro Bausi (African/Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg) 

“Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture” 

This paper aims at providing non-Ethiopianists with an overview of the development of textual studies in Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture thanks to some new research trends from the last few years. These trends—based on the new manuscript evidence that has been collected and analysed by digitisation and cataloguing projects over several decades—have now started impacting mainstream studies, particularly on late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and have contributed to reconfiguring the civilisation of Aksum and of its later mediaeval incarnations within a much wider context. Ultimately, these findings provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of preservation, recovery, and loss in the later Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition. 

Here is a link to the sign-up form. Attendance is free of charge but sign-up is mandatory. We will send a Zoom link to all participants on Monday next week (15th November). If you cannot access Google Forms please sign up by sending an email to gabriele.rota@queens.ox.ac.uk.  

Medieval Matters: Week 5

by

08/11/2021

12:54

Comments Off on Medieval Matters: Week 5

News

,

The Old English Maxims II tells us that ‘winter byð cealdost’ (‘winter is coldest’) and I’m sure we’re all feeling the chill. It is my civic duty as an Italian to remind you to wrap up warmly to avoid a colpo d’aria, and my academic duty as an Old English scholar to inform you that winter is officially here! In fact, the Old English Menologium (Metrical Calendar) informs us in no uncertain terms that November 7th is the start of the coldest season:

Syþþan wintres dæg wide gangeð
on syx nihtum, sigelbeortne genimð
hærfest mid herige hrimes and snawes

[Six nights after that (i.e. November 1st, the feast of All Saints) Winter’s Day comes far and wide, and seizes sun-bright autumn with an army of ice and snow]

Whilst it might be cold outside, we can all take shelter in the warmth of a medieval seminar, or indeed, in our own homes, joining in online! Here is this week’s selection to keep the cold and the dark at bay:


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • On Monday, November 15, 2021 at 5pm the East of Byzantium Lecture (Maray Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture) will take place on Zoom. The speaker will be Sören Stark, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, ‘Eternal ‘Silk Road’? The Rise of Sogdiana during the 3rd–4th Centuries A.D.’ Advance registration is required. Registration closes at 2pm on November 15, 2021. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/


EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 8th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Jessica Varsallona (Birmingham), ‘Michael VIII Palaiologos and the southern shore of Constantinople‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk or visit the eventbrite page.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen to be added to the Teams call.
  • The Medieval Archaeology Seminar meets at 3pm in the Institute of Archaeology, Seminar Room (limited places must be booked) and on Teams. This week’s speaker is Helen Gittos (Oxford), ‘Sutton Hoo & Syria: The Anglo-Saxons who served in the Byzantine Army?’.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm on Teams and in the Wharton Room. Attendance at the Wharton Room is by advance booking only as the room has a strict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made at https://medieval-history-seminar.reservio.com. This week’s speaker is Len Scales (Durham), ‘The Holy Roman Empire: Global Histories 800-1519′.

Tuesday 9th November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Adam Flowers, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, ‘The Qur’an, Early Arabic Letters, and P.Utah.Ar.120′
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Supernatural Natural Sites’.
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Iulia Nitescu (Universityof Bucharest/New Europe College), ‘Let Your Brother be to youlike a Heathen and a Tax Collector’: Fashioning an OrthodoxDynastic Identity during the Reign of Ivan III of Moscow.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Ian Forrest (Oriel), ‘Fragments of a feminist history of the late medieval clergy‘.
  • The Medieval French Research Seminar meets at 5pm at Maison française d’Oxford. This week’s speaker is Prof. Catherine Croizy-Naquet (Université Paris III), ‘Les Historiens et la langue’.

Wednesday 10th November:

  • The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in New Powell Room, Somerville College. If you are interested to be added to the mailing list for the seminar, write to Linus Ubl.
  • The TORCH Book at Lunchtime talk this week is on The Oxford Handbook of Dante, edited by Professor Manuele Gragnolati, Professor Elena Lombardi and Professor Francesca Southerden. The talk takes place at 1-2pm, and you can watch live online.
  • The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music takes place at 4.30-6.45pm on Zoom. If you are planning to attend, please register online. This week’s speaker is Paweł Gancarczyk (Associate Professor, Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), ‘Music in a vanished kingdom: traces of fifteenth-century polyphony in the Teutonic Order State in Prussia‘. The discussants are Lenka Hlávková (Charles University, Prague) and Reinhard Strohm (University of Oxford).
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm on Google Meet, followed by drinks at 7pm at Corpus Christi College. This week’s speakers are Theodora Antonopoulou (Athens), ‘Preaching in the Second Iconoclasm. The homilies of Joseph of Thessalonica’, and Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus), ‘People and Power in Hagia Sophia (532-1204)‘
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Sarah McNamer (Georgetown), ‘A New Setting for the Pearl Poet’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Thursday 11th November:

Friday 12th November:

  • The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5pm on Zoom. For texts, joining instructions, and further information, please email Stephanie Hathaway or Jane Bliss.

Saturday 13th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is ‘Death in the Churchyard: Skeletons, skulls and bones on slate tombstones with Elizabeth Blood’. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.
  • ‘Serata Dantesca’: Performances in Celebration of Dante will take place at 7.30pm at Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street, Oxford. A programme of music, poetry and dance presented in the Holywell Music Room, featuring performers who are almost all Oxford-based teachers, researchers and students. In addition to Italian and English readings and some older choral and solo musical compositions, new translations and settings have been specially commissioned for this commemorative occasion marking the 700th anniversary of the death of the great Italian poet. For tickets, please visit the Eventbrite page.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • SCRIPTO at St Gall 2022: Medieval Writing Culture (V to XV c.): The Abbey Library of Saint Gall and the Chair for Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg organize their third Summer School Medieval Writing Culture (V to XV century), which will be held from 16 till 20 May 2022. This SCRIPTO Summer School Saint Gall (SSSS) offers an introduction to history, morphology and cultural impact of western script. The application deadline is 1 March 2022. Those applicants accepted to the course will be charged 475€/500CHF (Accommodation included). It may be possible to receive a scholarship – if you are interested in a scholarship, send – an application for it together with your regular application. Further information (including the application form) may be obtained online: www.scripto.mittellatein.phil.fau.de.


Finally, some more wintery Old English wisdom from Bede:

he on þa tid þe he inne bið ne bið hrinen mid þy storme þæs wintres
[He during the time that he is inside will not be touched by winter’s storm]

I interpret this advice to mean: when it’s cold and dark outside, go to seminars! There might even be warming drinks afterwards…

A Medievalist wrapped up warmly in his winter coat but laments that he forgot his gloves and now has cold hands… Merton College, MS 249, f. 3v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Dorcon

Environmental History Working Group

by

08/11/2021

11:33

1 Comment on Environmental History Working Group

Around Oxford, events

,


We are organising a couple of informal meetings this term for those interested in studying the past in ways that recognise the interactions and interconnectedness of animals, plants, humans, other beings, and the environment. This will be a space to talk about exciting developments in our field, interdisciplinary conversations, and new ideas and approaches. Discussion will be informal, and we encourage anyone at all interested in these kinds of approaches to come along, regardless of research specialism or presumed existing knowledge. Undergraduates are also welcome, particularly if they are considering a dissertation or further study in this area.

The first meeting will take place at 12.30-2.00pm on 11th November at St Catherine’s College, in Seminar Room 2.2. If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch with susannah.bain@history.ox.ac.uk and huw.jones@history.ox.ac.uk.

Workshop: Body, Gender, Purity, and Sexual Pleasure: Biblical and Medieval Models

by

03/11/2021

19:55

1 Comment on Workshop: Body, Gender, Purity, and Sexual Pleasure: Biblical and Medieval Models

Around Oxford, events

, ,

Friday November 19th 13.00-14.30 

Location: St John’s College, New Seminar Room

In medieval Europe, Jews and Christians put some of the same cultural resources (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) to different uses. Stereotypes abound here: Judaism is seen to be preoccupied with ritual pollution, Christianity with moral purity; Judaism is anxious about food, but celebrates marital sex. Christianity has fewer food laws, but many more anxieties about sexual activity—and about the body as a potential source of sin. All of these dichotomic assumptions invite renewed critical scrutiny—especially in a comparative framework—and a re-consideration of the biblical directives both cultures were grappling with.  

This workshop brings together expertise from the early, central, and late Middle Ages (respectively, Conrad Leyser, Neta Bodner, and Alice Raw), in conversation with Laura Quick’s expertise in the Hebrew Bible. Participants are invited to read with us to question how the body was treated, even used, as a vehicle for “correct” piety in ways that both differ and intersect across the Middle Ages. 

Spaces are limited to 30 participants; please sign up here: https://forms.gle/n6nvcCC4Us9C7R398

(11 Nov 2021) Syon’s Abbesses, women’s leadership and book networks in fifteenth-centurry England

by

03/11/2021

19:50

1 Comment on (11 Nov 2021) Syon’s Abbesses, women’s leadership and book networks in fifteenth-centurry England

events

When? – Thursday, 11 November 2021 at 5:15 pm (BTS)

Where? – T.S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College

This event will also be streamed via ZOOM; for the link please contact sarah.cusk@lincoln.ox.ac.uk

Syon Abbey is well known for its extensive libraries and its close relationships with London printers and late-medieval nobility. Julia King argues that the Syon Abbesses played a much more active role in the development of Syon’s social and bibliographical networks than has been previously allowed, telling a story of women’s agency and leadership at England’s only Birgittine monastery.