Medieval Matters: Week 3

It is with very great sadness that I have to pass on the news that Nigel F. Palmer, Emeritus Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies, Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, FBA, died yesterday, Sunday 8 May 2022. Lesley Smith and Henrike Lähnemann write: Nigel Palmer was one of those scholars defining medieval studies. He was everywhere in Oxford – always in the Library, attending seminars, always asking fundamental questions – but he also reached out across the world to colleagues in Germany and far beyond. He was also one of the kindest and most generous friends and colleagues. He treated everyone with the same respect and good humour, whether they be visiting professor, or first-year student. Oxford without Nigel will never be the same. Details of the funeral for family and close friends at the end of the month and plans for a celebration of his academic and personal life for spring next year will be announced later. Tributes and cards for his widow, Sue Palmer, can be sent to St Edmund Hall via mail or Henrike Lähnemann via email.

Please see below for the week’s events:

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 9th May:

• The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar will take place on Zoom at 12.30-2pm. This week’s speaker is Silvio Roggo (Cambridge), ‘Justin II and the Miaphysites‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk. Please note that there is no need to register if you have previously subscribed to the seminar mailing list.
• The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Sign up here for the mailing list to receive details of each week’s sessions: https://web.maillist.ox.ac.uk/ox/info/medieval-latin-ms-reading. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning Tuiija Ainonen for further details.
• The Medieval Commentary Network meets at 4pm at Research Centre, Christ Church (in the thatched barn at the top of Christ Church Meadow, behind the tourist shop). This week’s speaker is Maria Czepiel, ‘From curiosa to criticism: Benito Arias Montano and Encyclopedism in Sixteenth-Century Biblical Commentary‘. Drinks and nibbles will be provided after the lecture.
• The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm at The Wharton Room, All Souls College and online on Teams. This week’s speaker is Julia Crick (KCL), ‘Staffing the Conquest: Mobility, Stasis, and Scribal Work in England, 1066-1100‘. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.

Tuesday 10th May:

• The Oxford Numismatic Society meets at 5pm. This week’s speaker is Dr. Jeremy Piercy – ‘Just a name on a coin: What epigraphy can tell us about labour organisation and social networks in Pre-Conquest England‘. For further information please contact the secretary: giorgia.capra@new.ox.ac.uk.
• The Lyell Lectures From Memory to Written Record: English Liturgical Books and Musical Notations, 900-1150, by Professor Susan Rankin (University of Cambridge) takes place at 5pm in Weston Library Lecture Theatre. This is Lecture 3: St Augustine’s and Christchurch, 950–1091. Registration is essential for attending in person, and booking is for the whole series, for the sake of simplicity. Your booking entitles you to attend as many lectures in the series as you are able. Book here.
• The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Warrington Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers are Harriet Strahl (Oriel), ‘Emotions in the Aftermath of the Wreck of the White Ship‘, and Nia Moseley-Roberts (Jesus), ‘An Immortal Work’: ideas of scribal labour at Witham Charterhouse c. 1200‘.

Wednesday 11th May:

• The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in St Edmund Hall, Old Library. We are going to discuss Seuse’s ‘Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit’, chapter 6 this week. For more information, please email henrike.laehnemann@seh.ox.ac.uk.
• The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles. This week’s speaker is Anca Dan (CNRS, Paris Sciences & Lettres), ‘Kosmokrator: the origins of the iconographic tradition, between East and West‘.
• The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Carl Phelpstead (University of Cardiff), ‘“If you will listen patiently”: conversion, conversation and cosmopolitanism in Old Icelandic sagas of Apostles’ (chaired by Gareth Evans). For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
• The CMTC Festival: Launch of the Journal Manuscript and Text Cultures takes place at 5.15-7pm in Memorial Room, The Queen’s College.
  

Thursday 12th May:

• The Middle High German Reading Group meets at 10am at Somerville College Productivity Room (Margery Fry). This term’s topic is ‘Maeren’. If you have any questions or want to participate, please send an e-mail to melina.schmidt@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
• The Greek and Latin Reading Group meets at 4pm in Harold Wilson Room, Jesus College – meet at Jesus lodge. This week’s text is Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 34-36. Contact John Colley or Jenyth Evans to be added to the mailing list.
• The After Rome and Further East Seminar takes place at Trinity College (Levine Room 5) at 5pm. This week’s speaker is Étienne de la Vaissière (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris), ‘Manichaean Roads‘. Follow the link to the Zoom meeting.
• The Lyell Lectures From Memory to Written Record: English Liturgical Books and Musical Notations, 900-1150, by Professor Susan Rankin (University of Cambridge) takes place at 5pm in Weston Library Lecture Theatre. This is Lecture 4: From Neumes in campo aperto to Neumes on Lines (at Christchurch, Canterbury). Registration is essential for attending in person, and booking is for the whole series, for the sake of simplicity. Your booking entitles you to attend as many lectures in the series as you are able. Book here.
• The Old English Reading Group takes place at 5.30pm. For more information and to receive the text in advance email eugenia.vorobeva@jesus.ox.ac.uk.
• The Oxford University Heraldry Society meets online at 6.30pm. This week’s speaker is David Broomfield, ‘The Heraldry of Eton College‘. To receive the link to attend, please email secretary@oxford-heraldry-org.uk.

Friday 13th May:

• The Medievalist Coffee Morning takes place at 10.30pm in the Visiting Scholars Centre in the Weston Library (access via the Readers Entrance on Museum Road: straight ahead and up two floors!)
• The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5pm in Taylorian Room 2 and on Zoom. This term, Luca Crisma (EPHE, Paris) will lead reading of the Anglo-Norman Letter of Prester John. For texts, joining instructions, and further information, please email Stephanie Hathaway or Jane Bliss.

OPPORTUNITIES:

• Revoicing Medieval Poetry – May-June 2022: Call for participants. Revoicing Medieval Poetry will offer a workshop-conversation space for researchers, artists and practitioners who are engaged in exploring how, why, and to what effects medieval poetry is translated, reused, and resourced in twentieth- and twenty-first-century creative practices. Confirmed speakers include Caroline Bergvall, Vahni Anthony Capildeo, Becca Drake, and Clare A. Lees. We hope you will join us at one or more of our four workshops! Read the full CPF here, and register your interest here.
• The Oxford Trobadors return to the stage on Sunday 5th June, at the Sheldonian Theatre, at 6 pm. Tickets from www.ticketsoxford.com / 01865 305305. £12, £25, £50. Medievalists may like to know that the Oxford Trobadors are returning to the Stage again after the lockdowns. The concert will include performances of several medieval trobadors and trobairitz, including Arnaut Daniel, Peire Vidal, Bernard de Ventadorn, Jaufre Rudel and Marcabru, as well as some modern Occitan songs. The concert has been arranged as a fusion event with leading Bengali musicians in the UK, who perform in a tradition that derives from a trobador-like song tradition very similar to that of the Occitan trobadors. Students: a sponsor has made some complimentary tickets available for registered students in medieval studies. Email denis.noble@balliol.ox.ac.uk if you wish to apply for a complimentary ticket. Include your college and stage of study in your email.
• Registration is now open for the Freedom & Work in Western Europe c.1250-1750 conference, organised by the FORMSofLABOUR project (led by Prof Jane Whittle) and hosted in Exeter on 6-8 July 2022. Full programme and registration here. The conference will explore the historical relation between freedom and work across different forms of labour, cultures, legal systems and time periods. Please send any questions to FORMSofLABOUR@exeter.ac.uk.

Finally, some wisdom from the Old English Dicts of Cato, in honour of Nigel, who was a friend to many on the mailing list:

Help ægðer ge cuðum ge uncuþum þær þu mæge.
[Help both friends and strangers, wherever you can]