June 2022 – Oxford Medieval Studies

Early Text Cultures Workshop: Translating Cultures in Contact

by Early Text Cultures

30/06/2022

14:59

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Dear all,

The Early Text Cultures research network at the University of Oxford is pleased to announce the programme of the workshop Translating Cultures in Contact, which will conclude the seminar series on Textual Cultures in Contact. The event will take place online on Zoom, on Tuesday 5th July, from 9:00 to 16:00 BST (UK time).

The event will explore dynamics of textual and cultural translation in Hellenistic Egypt, the medieval Latin, Greek and Arabic worlds, and Tibet and Mongolia. Please find the programme below; abstracts can be found on our website.

To receive the Zoom link for the event, please register here.

9:00–9.10 Welcome and Opening Remarks

Domenico Giordani, UCL / University of Oxford

9:10–10:20 SESSION I: BYZANTINE TRANSLATIONS OF LATIN

CHAIR: Domenico Giordani, UCL / University of Oxford

1. On the boundaries of philology and history of science: the Greek translation of the Semita Recta

Flavio Bevacqua, Università degli Studi di Padova

2. Translating Saint Jerome into Greek: the Life of Hilarion (BHL 3879)

Anna Lampadaridi, Paris, CNRS (UMR 5189 HiSoMA)

10:20–11:30 FIRST BREAK

11:30–12:30 SESSION II: HELLENISING ANCIENT EGYPT

CHAIR: Jordan Miller, University of Oxford

3. Textual and Historical Observations on Inscribed Foundation Plaques of Hellenistic Egypt

Efstathia Dionysopoulou, Université de Lyon II

4. Untranslatability and the Case of Ptolemaic Priestly Decrees

Giulia Tonon, University of Liverpool

12:30–13:30 LUNCH BREAK

13:30–14:40 SESSION III: TRANSLATING FOUNDATIONAL FIGURES

CHAIR: Natasha Downs, University of Edinburgh

5. Tibetan Buddhism and the Cult of Chinggis Khan

Dotno Pount, University of Pennsylvania

6. Greco-Arabic, Beyond Translation: Homer by the Rivers of Babylon

Teddy Fassberg, Tel Aviv University

14:40–15:00 THIRD BREAK

15:00–16:00 SESSION IV: FINAL ROUNDTABLE

CHAIR: Flaminia Pischedda, University of Oxford

If you have any questions, please get in touch with us by replying to this email. Please do feel free to forward this email to anyone who may be interested.

We look forward to seeing you there!

All best wishes,
ETC Board

Call for Papers: Early Book Society

by Luisa Ostacchini

22/06/2022

15:02

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Early Book Society
University of Limerick
11^th-15^th July 2023

Meaning, Memory, and the Making of Culture: Manuscripts and Books, 1350–1550

The 18th biennial conference of the Early Book Society will be hosted by Carrie Griffin and Eleanor Giraud at the University of Limerick from 11^th to 14^th July 2023, with an excursion on 15^th July. Confirmed keynote speakers include John Thompson, Emeritus Professor, Queen’s University Belfast, and Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director, Medieval Academy of America. Planned activities include an early music concert and hands-on use of the university’s printing press. Please mark your calendars.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers, themed panels (three papers and a chair), roundtables, and 5-minute lightning papers (ideal for work-in-progress updates). Scholars at all levels, including graduate students and early career researchers, are cordially invited to participate.

Papers can consider any of the following, with an emphasis on physical aspects of the manuscript or book:

Manuscripts and books as memorial artifacts
Manuscripts and books as shapers of literary or historical culture
Study of a specific manuscript or book that memorializes a family (or promotes a dynasty)
Women makers or owners
Readers or networks of readers
Makers of manuscripts and books
Manuscripts and books commissioned as memorials for persons or events
Sammelbände, collected volumes, and early libraries

We are also particularly interested in hearing about Irish collections and books with Irish connections.

Abstracts (up to 250 words for papers, 500 words for panels, or 100 words for lightning papers) should be sent to earlybooksociety2023@ul.ie by 1^st December 2022.

Any preliminary queries should be addressed to: earlybooksociety2023@ul.ie. Further information will be posted at www.earlybooksociety.com and www.ebslimerick2023.wordpress.com in due course.

Call for Papers: Christian Political Cultures in Late Antiquity

by Luisa Ostacchini

22/06/2022

14:57

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University of Liverpool

Wednesday 21^st-Thursday 22^nd June 2023

Deadline for Proposals: 30 June 2022, to robin.whelan@liverpool.ac.uk

We invite papers for a conference (and planned edited volume) on Christian Political Cultures in Late Antiquity. The remarkably homogeneous ways of thinking about Christian political authority across the Roman world in late antiquity (c. 250-700 CE)—so carefully reconstructed in classic mid-20^th century accounts—mask the immense diversity of the social and institutional contexts in which those ideas mattered. The character of Christian governance could look very different to an official placed at the centre of power as against an ordinary Christian standing in the nave of an urban basilica, a civic grandee sitting in the plush seats of a provincial town council, or an ascetic keeping vigil in a remote monastic cell. In fact, widely divergent visions of what the divine sanctioning of earthly rule meant in practice are visible even across the many different (and sometimes competing) institutions of late ancient states.

This workshop and subsequent volume will build off an increasing tendency to investigate Christian political thought ‘in action’ and root it in the lived experience of governance in the late ancient world. Taking inspiration from recent work on the centrality of social relationships and identities to Roman political thought (esp. notions of gender, family and freedom/unfreedom), it will also seek to develop a more plural notion of Christian political discourse which moves beyond the narrowly constitutional analysis of the relationship between emperors and bishops (or ‘church’ and ‘state’). Above all, the volume will seek to consider the ways in which distinctive Christian political cultures shaped (and were shaped by) specific institutions, environments, and communities, and were made meaningful through concrete interactions between the late ancient people who inhabited them.

We particularly invite papers on:

1. Distinctive forms of Christian thought or practice (and, indeed, thinking about the importance or otherwise of Christian thought and practice):

within particular political institutions and configurations in specific times and places. (e.g. imperial or royal palaces, official bureaux, army units, governor’s residences, town councils, elite households, villages, estates and peasant communities etc)
amongst the members of those political institutions (e.g. under/around particular empresses/queens, generals, or governors, or amongst chamberlains, soldiers, or office staffs)
amongst non-Christians serving within, or subject to, those political institutions and configurations

2. Distinctive forms of thought and practice regarding politics and governance within particular Christian communities, institutions and settings (e.g. church factions, episcopal sees, monasteries, ascetic communities)

3. The interplay of these divergent institutional and communal assumptions as seen in particular events, episodes or moments of conflict (e.g. petitions to court, legal and doctrinal disputes, urban riots)

This conference is designed as a pre-publication workshop for a planned edited volume on Christian Political Cultures in Late Antiquity. Participants will be expected to submit their papers in advance for pre-circulation, read the other papers in advance of the workshop, and be willing to act as the designated respondent for another paper. Each paper will receive a dedicated session with a short presentation from the author, a response, and a general Q&A session/discussion. The deadline to submit draft essays for the edited volume will be 31 July 2024.

The primary format of this conference is in person at the University of Liverpool, but remote participation will be possible for those unable to make it to Liverpool for whatever reason. For those who can travel, we will fund accommodation and meals in Liverpool. We will also be able to pay for UK and international travel for those who need it, although, given the increased costs of travel since the original funding application, we may ask those with access to institutional research funding to pursue support from those sources to help to contribute to those costs.

The deadline for proposals is 30 June 2022. Please send a title and an abstract (no longer than 500 words) to robin.whelan@liverpool.ac.uk. If you have questions, do not hesitate to get in touch with one of the organisers.

Organisers

Dr Richard Flower (r.flower@exeter.ac.uk)

Dr Meaghan McEvoy (meaghan.mcevoy@mq.edu.au)

Dr Robin Whelan (robin.whelan@liverpool.ac.uk)

Medievalist Events at Oxford Festival of the Arts

by Luisa Ostacchini

22/06/2022

14:14

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The Art of Illumination: makers and users of medieval manuscripts

Prof Michelle Brown, Patricia Lovett MBE, Dr Andrew Dunning

June 25, Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, 2pm – 4.30pm

“It is the brilliance of yellow gold set off by jewel colours that makes so many mediaeval manuscripts so eye-catching.”

Join us for fascinating insight with our festival triumvirate of experts on illuminated manuscripts. Fresh from her involvement in the British Library’s journey from East to West through the dazzling beauty of fifty spectacular manuscripts across cultures for their exhibition
‘Gold’, world-renowned scribe and illuminator, Patricia Lovett MBE will talk about the origin and use of pigments and the mediaeval craft processes that enabled these luminous manuscripts to ‘catch the light’. Professor Emerita of Medieval MS Studies (SAS, University of London) and former Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, Michelle Brown will discuss these wonders from an historical perspective, using the manuscripts as windows into the lives of those who made and used them, and into the age in which they were made. This evening of medieval wonder is made whole by the display on manuscripts curated by Dr Andrew Dunning, R.W. Hunt Curator of Medieval Manuscripts; Supernumerary Fellow in Book History (Jesus College), who will speak to the manuscripts.

This event was curated to coincide with Sensational Books – a Bodleian Libraries exhibition at ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library.

Details & Booking for THE ART OF ILLUMINATION.

Illuminated Manuscript Workshop with Patricia Lovett MBE

June 26, Magdalen College School Studio, 10am – 5pm

Patricia Lovett MBE is a world-renowned scribe and illuminator who has taught and lectured at many prestigious institutions in the UK and abroad.

This is your chance to join the Festival Glitterati! Spend a day illuminating with real gold leaf and painting an animal from a medieval bestiary (book of beasts). You will be able to choose your own animal to copy from a small selection and be shown how to prepare calfskin vellum for painting, how to apply gold leaf and the sequence of medieval painting for miniatures using a fine Kolinsky sable brush. You will go home with your illumination on vellum ready to frame.

Since this workshop is one which will have a focus on one-to-one instruction, it is restricted to 16 people. We suggest early booking. Anyone taking part in this workshop will need to be contacted by Patricia in advance of the session, so please be aware that email and/or other contact will be required.

Details & Booking for ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP.

Professor Robert Bartlett: The Middle Ages and the Movies

June 27, Festival Marquee, 8pm

‘This book will entertain and intrigue historians and film buffs alike. In a wide-ranging critical study of the creative process that tackles head-on the exchange between historical fact and artistic licence, Robert Bartlett shows how twentieth-century cinema’s variously imagined Middle Ages speak as much to modern sensibilities as to any reconstructed past.’ – Professor Christopher Tyerman

How was Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose translated from page to screen? Why is Monty Python and the Holy Grail funny? And how was Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky shaped by the Stalinist tyranny under which it was filmed? These, and many more questions will be answered tonight by eminent historian Robert Bartlett, who takes a fresh, cogent look at how our view of medieval history has been shaped by eight significant films of the twentieth century: from the concoction of sex and nationalism in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, to Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece Siegfried; the art-house classic The Seventh Seal to Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and the epic historical drama El Cid.

Robert Bartlett is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Mediaeval History Emeritus at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His many books include the Wolfson Prize-winning The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (1994), and he has written and presented three television series for the BBC, Inside the Medieval Mind, The Normans and The Plantagenets.

Details & Booking for ROBERT BARTLETT.

Treasures from Around the World at New College Library

July 2, 11am-4pm, Lecture Room 4, New College

More manuscripts survive from the medieval library of New College than from that of any other Oxford or Cambridge college. Today, New College Library holds what is probably the finest collection of medieval manuscripts of any of the Oxford colleges, also holding more incunabula (15th-century European imprints) than any other undergraduate college at Oxford. The Library’s collections of rare and early printed books are likewise spectacular.

View some of the Library’s fabulous manuscript and rare book treasures from around the world. Our world tour starts from 13th-century Catte Street, Oxford with one of the world’s great illuminated manuscripts (now housed just a few hundred metres away from where it was first created), and it takes in gorgeous and resplendent manuscripts and printed books from China to Constantinople, by means of Arabic, Armenian, Belgian, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Syrian treasures, which date from the 11th century onwards.

Details & Booking for TREASURES FROM NEW COLLEGE. Entrance is free

British Society of Master Glass Painters

Centenary Touring Exhibition

The Chapter House, Christ Church Cathedral (throughout the festival)

Coming to Oxford from the cathedrals of Ely, Winchester, Wells and Worcester, this touring exhibition of stained glass panels celebrates the centenary of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. Over 90 artists from across the UK and overseas contributed to the exhibition. The tour highlights 60 of these panels that celebrate the unique art of glass. The works have been created using both traditional and modern glass techniques, demonstrating the extraordinary range of stained glass currently practiced.

The artists explore a variety of subjects such as the environment and the beauty of nature. The exhibition portrays an understanding of the concerns of glass artists a hundred years after the society was established to help stained glass remain relevant today. Displayed in the Chapter House of Christ Church Cathedral, this exhibition will also give the visitor the chance to explore the Romanesque doorway and interior.

Founded in 1921, the British Society of Master Glass Painters is the UK’s leading organisation
devoted exclusively to the art and craft of stained glass. In collaboration with Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

Dr Janina Ramirez in discussion with Peter Frankopan

July 5, 7.30pm, Festival Marquee, Magdalen College School, Oxford

We look forward to a stimulating and lively conversation between two brilliant Oxford historians; Dr Janina Ramirez, cultural historian, broadcaster and author, whose passion for communicating ideas about the past is always conveyed with an infectious enthusiasm, as exemplified in her brand new book FEMINA: A New History of the Middle Ages Through the Women Written Out of It; and the acclaimed historian Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History and Director of the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University, who is particularly interested in ‘exchanges and connections between regions and peoples’. Peter’s seminal book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, (Dazzling – The Guardian; Phenomenal – Die Welt) was an international bestseller, topping the non-fiction charts all around the world, followed by The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World, a ‘masterly mapping out of a new world order’ (Evening Standard).

Join us tonight to see the medieval world with fresh eyes and discover why the remarkable women ‘rediscovered’ in Janina’s Femina were removed from our collective memories. This book is a ground-breaking reappraisal of medieval history revealing why women were struck from our historical narrative, and restoring them to their rightful positions as the power-players who shaped the world we live in today.

Details & Booking for DR JANINA RAMIREZ IN DISCUSSION WITH PETER FRANCOPAN.

John Leighfield: Atlases and Maps

July 6, 5pm-7pm, Magdalen College School Studio

Join John Leighfield CBE, for his highly illustrated talk about how the maps of Oxford have developed from the 16th century until the present. Highly respected for his knowledge of the maps of the county and city of Oxford, John has had a passion for maps since his schooldays and has built a marvellous collection, some of which will be on display after the talk.

Details & Booking for ATLASES AND MAPS.

Conference: ‘New Visions of Julian of Norwich’

by Luisa Ostacchini

22/06/2022

14:11

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15-16 July 2022, Somerville College & Online

in association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Organisers: Antje Elisa Chan (Lincoln College, Oxford), Godelinde Gertrude Perk (Somerville, Oxford), Raphaela Rohrhofer (Somerville, Oxford), Alicia Smith (English Faculty, Oxford)

This international hybrid conference, held in Somerville College (Oxford) on 15th and 16th July, is the first academic event to focus solely on Julian’s writing, life, contexts, and influence long after her death. Offering thought-provoking panels and roundtables on a range of topics, from anchoritic transformations of the mundane to critical race studies, it maps out new and emerging dimensions in Julian scholarship.

The Somerville College choir will perform anthems based on Julian’s writing; a new play by writer-director Cindy Oswin, exploring the effect of age on the anchorite, will premiere at the conference. 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 particularly encourage graduate students and early-career researchers to attend; lower fees are offered for graduate students, unwaged and low-waged attendees.

To register: https://bit.ly/3vTAu5y

More info: https://visionsofjulian.mml.ox.ac.uk/

Thursday 14th July

18:00-19:00 In-Person Welcoming Performance

New Music for a New Vision
by Dr. Alison Daniell (University of Southampton), Louise Stewart (Multitude of Voyces), and members of Somerville College Choir, dir. Will Dawes

Friday 15^th July

09:15 Opening session

Keynote speaker – Nicholas Watson

Julian of Norwich: Witness and Recension

Respondents – Laura Saetveit Miles, Barry Windeatt

11:30 Panel 1

TRANSFIGURING THE MUNDANE
Chair: Elizabeth Robertson

Gillian Adler
Julian of Norwich and Medieval Traversals of Time

Raphaela Rohrhofer
Julian of Norwich on Love and Nothingness

Laura Kalas
Producing Passioun: Reading Pain Generatively in the Revelations of Love

Jo Koster
The Custom of Our Prayer: Establishing the Context of Julian’s Anchoritic Discourse

14:00 Panel 2

MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL
Chair: Annie Sutherland

Fred Morgan
“But I saw not synne”

Anna-Nadine Pike
“dereworthy blod”, Meditation and Performance in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and British Library, MS Egerton 1821

Melissa Tu
“These words seyd our Lord”: Virtual Voices in Julian’s Text

Victoria Yuskaitis
Julian of Norwich’s Cell: The Role Archaeology Plays in Strengthening Authenticity and Impact

16:00 Roundtable 1a (at Pusey House)

CREATIVE ENGAGEMENTS WITH JULIAN
Moderator: Antje E. Chan

Max Brumberg-Kraus and Jennifer Awes-Freeman
“Visions of Divine Love”: A Poetic and Visual Response to Julian’s Revelations

Caroline Golum
Creative Engagement with Revelations of Divine Love as Transcendental Cinema

Laura Varnam
Voices in Dialogue: Meeting Julian through Margery in Contemporary Creative Adaptations

16:00 Roundtable 1b (at Pusey House)

JULIAN IN THE COVID ERA
Moderator: Hannah Lucas

Gill Butterworth
An Icon for Such a Time as This: A Pre-UK First Lockdown Anticipatory Consideration of Julian of Norwich and Pandemic Themes

Margaret Healy-Varley
Reading Julian for Resilience

Richard Norton
Julian of Norwich, The Church and Covid-19: A Scholarly and Pastoral Response

17:30 Roundtable 2a (at Pusey House)

PREMODERN CRITICAL RACE STUDIES AND JULIAN OF NORWICH
Moderator: Mishtooni Bose

A conversation between:

Michelle M. Sauer

Dorothy Kim

Bailey Ludwig

Kyle Moore

17:30 Roundtable 2b (at Pusey House)

JULIAN AND MODERN CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES
Moderator: Godelinde Gertrude Perk

Carla MacKinnon
When a Woman Sits Alone: A Creative Project Inspired by Julian of Norwich

Emma Pennington
Doorway to Silence: An Analysis of the Use of Julian’s Text by Contemplative Prayer Groups Today

Claire Foster-Gilbert
Contemplating Cancer Cells: A Personal Account of Julian’s Companionship Enduring and Writing about Two and a Half Years of Treatment for Myeloma

Saturday 16^th July

09:00 Panel 3

MODERN RESPONSES TO JULIAN
Chair: Alicia Smith

Laura De Gaspari
Divine Motherhood in Julian of Norwich and Spiritual Maternity in Edith Stein

Heather Glover
Beholding as Interpretive Strategy: Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and Christina Rossetti’s The Face of the Deep

Simon Horobin
“A dangerous book”: C.S. Lewis on the Revelations of Julian of Norwich

Nancy Bradley Warren
Julian of Norwich: New Visions of Her Lives and Afterlives

11:00 Panel 4

TEXTUAL INTERVENTIONS
Chair: Laura Saetveit Miles

Samira Lindstedt
Towards a Grammar of Revelation: Editing and Translating Julian’s Revelations

Fumiko Yoshikawa
What Do Scribal Corrections Show in Paris, BNF, Fonds Anglais MS 40?

Brenna Duperron
Editing Community in the Works of Julian of Norwich

13:30 Panel 5

BEYOND THE ANCHORHOLD
Chair: Nicholas Watson

Alexis Becker
Behovely Work

Laurence Bond
“With alle the faith of haly kyrke”: Social Meaning and Dissent in the Writings of Julian of Norwich

David Palko
Moving Beyond Economics with Julian of Norwich

Chase Padusniak
Julian and the Politics of Norwich

15:30 Panel 6

WORKING ON / WITH JULIAN
Chair: Ayoush Lazikani

Juliana Dresvina
Julian of Norwich’s Shewings: A Medieval Failure, An Early Modern Success

Daniel Fishley
The Weakness of A Revelation: Julian of Norwich, John Caputo, and the Questioning Event of Theology

Hannah Lucas
The Good Enough Mystic: Toward a Practical Theory of Julian Scholarship

Melaney Poli
How We got “Saint Julian”: A Short History in Images

17:15 Respondent

Liz Herbert McAvoy

18:15-19:30 Play
A darkly humorous play written and performed by Cindy Oswin
‘Cell’ examines the enclosed life of Julian of Norwich into old age.

20:00-21:30 Closing Dinner

The 2022 Medium Ævum Annual Lecture

by Alison Ray

22/06/2022

13:42

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The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature are pleased to announce the 2022 Medium Ævum Annual Lecture will be taking place on Saturday, 2 July (4:30-6pm BST):

Dr Ryan Perry (University of Kent) will deliver the annual lecture on ‘Middle English Books of Devotion and Liturgical Privatisation in Fifteenth-century England’, as part of the ‘Pfaff at 50’ conference at the University of Nottingham marking 50 years since the publication of Richard W. Pfaff’s ground-breaking New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England.

Dr Perry’s lecture will examine several devotional texts (such as pseudo-Bonaventure’s Meditationes vitae Christi and its English redaction by Nicholas Love) alongside manuscript assemblages to investigate how vernacular religious materials were put in service of individualised or household reading programmes. Such programmes might imitate the rhythms of the official liturgy or alternatively be understood in some respects as quasi-liturgies, reflecting improvised devotional regimens and structures of pious observance.

Registration details for in-person and online attendance are available at the following link: https://pfaff50.wordpress.com/keynote/

Call to Action: Medieval Mystery Cycle 2023

by Henrike Lähnemann

20/06/2022

10:28

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Following the successful Medieval Mystery Cycle 2.0, plans are underway for the third iteration of what has fast become an Oxford tradition. Please reserve the date of 22 April 2023 (Saturday before Trinity Term) and spread the word! We are looking for actors, directors, musicians, prop makers, and above all a graduate convenor who will take on the mantle of Eleanor Baker in masterminding the operation. Have a look at seh.ox.ac.uk/mystery-cycle for getting a sense of the scope and watching the plays performed in 2019 and 2022.

Please send expressions of interest for the Graduate Convenor by 30 June 2022 to Co-Directors Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith under medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk

CfP: Oxford Medieval Commentary Network: Second Conference, 29 September 2022

by Cosima Gillhammer

18/06/2022

12:16

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Proposals are invited for the second conference organised by the Oxford Medieval Commentary Network, following the successful launch of the Network last year. The one-day conference will take place at Christ Church, Oxford on 29 September 2022.

The Oxford Medieval Commentary Network is a multi-disciplinary network for research and discussion of medieval commentary culture and its long afterlife. OMCN aims to bring together research on traditional forms of commentary as well as research on commentaries in a broader sense, including interpretations of texts through visual art, performance, music, and drama. OMCN seeks to establish a conversation between scholars from a range of disciplines working on different languages and geographical areas. This includes the medieval period and post-medieval responses to the commentary tradition. The longer-term objective for OMCN is to become a nexus of research and discussion of medieval commentary culture and its expression in various textual and artistic forms. The network is open to everyone with an interest in these topics.

Proposals are invited for presentations of 15 minutes on all aspects of the medieval commentary tradition and its post-medieval responses. Topics can include, but are not limited to, biblical interpretation, commentaries on classical texts, forms of commentary, textual criticism, interplay between Latin and the vernacular, etc. Please submit your title and abstract (150-200 words) by 31 July 2022 via this form. If you wish to attend without giving a paper, please sign up via the same form, by 31 August 2022. The workshop is free for all participants and will include a sandwich lunch and wine reception.

For further information, see www.medievalcommentary.network, or contact Dr Cosima Gillhammer, cosima.gillhammer [at] chch.ox.ac.uk.

Coffee Morning with Professor William Chester Jordan

by Henrike Lähnemann

15/06/2022

17:58

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The Faculty of History and Oxford Medieval Studies are pleased to invite you to an informal meet and greet coffee morning with William Chester Jordan (Professor of Medieval History,
Princeton University) on the occasion of his reception of an honorary degree of the University of Oxford.
When? Thursday 23rd June, 10.30am-12 noon
Where? The garden of Harris Manchester College (Mansfield Road), or in the Warrington
Room in the case of rain.
Coffee and croissants will be provided.
For catering purposes, please register your attendance if possible:
https://forms.gle/AkvPUsX2Ur1hbgTU7

Bill Jordan gave the 2021 Oxford Medieval Studies keynote lecture “A Thirteenth-Century Polymath Considers the Jews” – watch it here:

Oxford Medieval Studies lecture 2021

Medieval Matters: Week 8

by Luisa Ostacchini

13/06/2022

12:11

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Somehow we are now at the final week of the academic year! It seems to have flown by – it feels like only yesterday that I met many of you at the Michaelmas Term Medieval Roadshow. This year we’ve enjoyed the return of in-person seminars, covering topics from late Byzantine Arabic and Persian poetry to St Birgitta of Sweden; a whole range of OMS events ranging from special lectures by Caroline Danforth and Lucy Pick to the Medieval Mystery Plays; and a whole host of exciting events and conferences. A very short but very appropriate piece of wisdom today, taken from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

Wurðe ðe god se ende
[May the end be good]

To ensure that this term has a good end, here is the roundup of events that you can enjoy:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Release of Oxford Research in English Issue 13: Masks. The committee for Oxford Research in English (ORE), the journal of the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford, is pleased to announce the release of its latest issue! This issue has been slightly delayed from Autumn 2021, but we are happy to announce it is now fully published. Its theme was ‘Masks’, and the committee were excited to have so many submissions of such high quality. Please find a copy available for download or online reading at this link.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 13th June:

The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar will take place on Zoom at 12.30-2pm. This week’s speaker is Stephanie Forrest (Cambridge), Byzantine-Armenian Doctrinal Discourse in the Period of the Early Islamic Conquests, c. 630-720. 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: Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen for further details.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm at the Wharton Room, All Souls College and online on Teams. This week’s speaker is Alice Taylor (KCL), ‘The Problem of Politics in C12 Europe’. 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.
The Forgotten Christianities Seminar meets at 5pm online. Booking is essential so that you receive the link for the seminar: please click here. This week’s speakers are Dr Peter Miller (Iowa), ‘Learning Ascesis in Three Steps: Training Novices in the Reform Monastic Tradition of the Church of the East‘ and David Gyllenhaal (Princeton), ‘The Rebuke Homily: Collective Trauma and the Christianization of the Syriac Speaking Peasantry‘.

Tuesday 14th June:

The Oxford Numismatic Society meets at 5pm. This week is the McKenzie Lecture. For further information please contact the secretary: giorgia.capra@new.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Warrington Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Ian McDole (Keble), ‘Bruno of Toul or Leo IX? Progressing from bishop to pope‘.

Wednesday 15th June:

The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in St Edmund Hall in the Principal’s Drawing Room for a presentation by Linus Möllenbrink on his project of Reading Practices. For more information, please email henrike.laehnemann@seh.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval Trade Reading Group meets at 1pm in the Mertze Tate room of the History Faculty and online. Anyone interested in any element of medieval trade and its study are very welcome to join, from any department. To be added to the mailing list and team please email Annabel Hancock at annabel.hancock@history.ox.ac.uk.
The Iberian History Seminar takes place at 4.30pm at Rector’s Drawing Room, Exeter College. Today’s speaker will be Rosa Vidal Doval – ‘Tracing the Medieval Genealogies of ‘Limpieza de Sangre’.
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 Ugo Mondini (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) – ‘John Mauropous: verse, structure, and poetry book‘.
The LIPS: Manuscript Studies Lecture takes place at 5pm at The Senate Room, First Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. The speaker will be Sonja Drimmer (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), on “Witness/Copy/Record: Towards an Expansive Manuscript Studies“.

Thursday 16th June:

Choral Eucharist for Corpus Christi takes place at 12pm at St Edmund Hall. This lunchtime service in the Crypt of St Peter’s-in-the-East celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi, instituted in the late Middle Ages to give thanks for the gift of Holy Communion. A consort will sing John Taverner’s Mean Mass for five voices and William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. The service will conclude with a procession from the Crypt to the Chapel and with final Benediction hymns there.
The After Rome and Further East Seminar takes place Online. This week’s speaker is Barbara Roggema (CERES), ‘The Abbasid translation movement on the move: Qusta ibn Luqa’s refutation of the inimitability of the Qur’an and his move to Armenia’. Zoom meeting link.

Friday 17th June:

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!). This week, Andrew Dunning and Henrike Lähnemann will present the Bavarian prayerbook manuscript left by Nigel Palmer to the Bodleian Library (which used to have the shelfmark Utopia Armarium codicum bibliophilorum Cod. 1!).

OPPORTUNITIES:

Call for papers: Thematic issue “Memory and truthfulness in narratives of conflicts: England and France in the Middle Ages” We invite submissions of articles, translations and reviews. For more information, reach us at fernando.p.santos@unesp.br or Academia.edu (https://unesp.academia.edu/FernandoSantos). Don’t forget to have a look at Brathair (Journal of Celtic and Germanic Studies) (ISSN: 1519-9053) website: https://ppg.revistas.uema.br/…/bra…/announcement/view/72. Call for papers postponed until July, 30th.
Job Opening: Editorial Assistant for Studies in Late Antiquity. Studies in Late Antiquity (SLA) is a journal that provides a forum for scholarly research on global Late Antiquity (150 – 750 CE). This field-leading, international journal is published quarterly by University of California Press and is currently operated at Princeton University. We seek an editorial assistant for SLA who will oversee editorial management of the day-to-day operations of the journal. To apply, click: <https://main-princeton.icims.com/jobs/14999/editorial-assistant/job> To learn more about the journal, click: <https://online.ucpress.edu/sla>.

Finally, some timely wisdom from Beowulf about endings:

Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan
worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote
domes ær deaþe.
[Each of us must await the end of life in this world; let him who can achieve glory before death.]

I interpret this to mean that, though term will inevitably end on Friday, we can nonetheless achieve medievalist glory in the meantime by enjoying seminars and events and catching up with our colleagues before we all go our separate ways for the summer! I’ll be back briefly next week with some final announcements / exciting opportunities happening over the summer, but for now, I wish you an enjoyable and ‘glorious’ last week of term.