Month: May 2023

2 Comments on Night Office in 15th-Century Oxford

26/05/2023

21:40

events, liturgy, medieval music, trinity 23

A re-enactment of a forgotten liturgy for St Thomas Becket

When: Tuesday 6 June at 9 pm
Where: New College Chapel

Free entry. All welcome!

The service has been prepared specially by Dr Henry Parkes (University of Nottingham), currently Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow in Music at the Bodleian Library. His research project ‘Music in the Shadows: Staging the Medieval Night Office’ explores the cultural history of Christian night worship through a mixture of archival, performance-led and ethnographic research.

Many Oxford colleges preserve the late evening office of Compline, once sung daily. But in medieval times there was a much more substantial service to follow, known as Nocturns, Vigils, or the Night Office.

New College Choir will enact a short-form Night Office as it might have been known in 15th-century Oxford, to explore how this now- forgotten liturgy worked in performance. In southern England from the late 14th century on, Tuesdays were commonly given over to the veneration of St Thomas Becket. This service recreates a ‘commemorative’ Tuesday Becket office, as precribed in late medieval books of the Sarum Use—many of which survive in Oxford libraries.

For an introduction to the service, watch a presentation of some of the manuscripts in the Bodleian Library

The Pursuit of Musick. The Taverner Consort at 50

23/05/2023

17:22

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Around Oxford, events, publications

trinity 23

When: 1 June 2023, 3-4pm
Where: Taylor Institution Library, Room 2

Andrew Parrott will be in conversation with Henrike Lähnemann on musical life in medieval and early modern Europe. This is a celebration of 50 years of the Taverner Consort and Andrew Parrott’s The Pursuit of Musick: Musical Life in Original Writings & Art c1200–1770, a uniquely colourful compendium of almost everything to do with pre-modern musical life. The lecture will take as its starting point how the examples on music in the everyday life of medieval and early modern Germany can be used as a teaching tool and will also discuss questions of translation of premodern sources. All original source material is open access available on the publication website, e.g. https://www.taverner.org/everyday-life.

With over 60 albums under its wing, the Consort is internationally renowned not only for Parrott’s insights into early music like Taverner, Tallis and Josquin des Prez, but also for award-winning recordings of composers including Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Bach, and unexpected carols. To announce the 50-year milestone, the Consort has made a special two-track recording involving Fretwork and boys from New College choir with a total of some 30 assorted instrumentalists. The tracks are being released on June 16th via Avie Records:
J. S. Bach, ‘O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht’ (BWV 118, version I), c1736/37
Giaches de Wert, ‘Egressus Jesus’ (a7) / Michael Praetorius
Commercial pre-save link for Apple, Spotify, etc. Previous recordings have clocked up over 1,000,000 listens (for his 2018 Bach Magnificat alone).

Followed at 7pm by a reception hosted by Merton College and Benjamin Nicholas on the cherry tree lawn outside the chapel after evensong for informal drinks and chats.
Buy the book: £35.00, 560 pages, ISBN: 978-1-915229-54-0

Privilege to be present at rehearsal for 50 years @TavernerConsort as language coach. @NewCollegeChoir boys doing impressively well! pic.twitter.com/RjryqB5NKa
— Henrike Lähnemann 📯 @HLaehnemann@mastodonapp.uk (@HLaehnemann) May 8, 2023

Provenance Unknown: A New CMTC Lecture Series

by Eugenia Vorobeva

22/05/2023

15:33

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lecture, trinity 23

The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) in the University of Oxford is proud to announce a new lecture series: Provenance: Unknown

The new lecture series on unprovenanced manuscripts/inscriptions seeks to gather a wide range of voices from academics in different fields or disciplines about the methodological pros and cons of working with unprovenanced mss/inscriptions in academic contexts.

The lectures will cover matters such as the legal concerns, ethical concerns, and academic concerns by keeping a strict focus on methodology.

The aim of the lecture series is to work towards a general framework of good academic practice in the field of manuscript cultures.

Our first speaker is Alexander Herman, Director of the Institute of Art and Law. His most recent book is ‘Restitution — The Return of Cultural Artefacts’.

Title: Don’t Turn That Page! The Legal Risks of Dealing in Unprovenanced Manuscripts

Time and place: 30 May, 5.15pm (UK time), Memorial Room, The Queen’s College, Oxford, UK

Abstract:

Researching and curating historical manuscripts is not without its risks, and these include legal risks. Questions arise in the context of dealing in unprovenanced manuscripts, such as when it is not clear when a manuscript left its country of origin nor under what circumstances. Also at issue are manuscripts that have a clear, but controversial provenance, such as those looted during periods of armed conflict or oppression. This talk will discuss the legal risks – if any – of dealing in such material, both from a national and international perspective. It will also raise the separate, but interlinked, question of morality of such activities.

The speaker:

Alexander Herman is the Director of the UK-based Institute of Art and Law. He has written, taught and presented on an array of topics in relation to art, law and cultural property. His writing appears regularly in The Art Newspaper and he has been quoted widely in the press on art law topics (including in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Telegraph, ArtNET, The Globe & Mail and Bloomberg). His work has also been cited in the UK House of Lords and before the US Supreme Court. He trained in both common law and civil law legal systems at McGill University and practised law in Canada. He is Programme Co-Director of the Art, Business and Law LLM which runs as a partnership between the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Art and Law. His latest book is Restitution: The Return of Cultural Artefacts (Lund Humphries, 2021).

Online link will be provided later

…and keep an eye out for further announcements!

Image: Beinecke MS 408, also known as Voynich Manuscript, p.32

Medieval Matters: Week 5

medieval matters, trinity 23

22/05/2023

11:48

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News

Last weekend medievalists from around the world gathered at Oxford to celebrate the life and scholarship of Nigel F. Palmer (1946-2022), Emeritus Professor of German Medieval Literary and Linguistic  Studies . Many thanks to all who came along, gave papers, and organised the wonderful library exhibition. As part of the proceedings, Dr Alan Coates gave a special presentation on Nigel Palmer’s Books in the Bodleian at the Weston medievalists’ coffee morning. If you missed the presentation, you can view this on our blog here and further contributions on the programme of the symposium. Here is some wisdom from Alcuin on the importance of remembering those who teach and inspire us:

numquam eruditionis vestrae […] obliviscimini magistrum
[Never forget the teacher of your wisdom Ep. 34]

We have many wonderful opportunities this week to be taught and to teach wisdom. See below for the full programme:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The OMS Small Grants Application for Trinity Term ’23 is now open! The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford. The activity should take place between the beginning of Trinity term 2023 and end of the summer vacation. The closing date for applications is Friday of Week 5 of Trinity Term (= 26 May); decisions will be made promptly after the closing date. For more details and the application form, click here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 22nd May:

The Byzantine Graduate Seminar will meet at 12:30-14:00 via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Emily Chesley (Princeton University), Collateral Damage: Eastern Women’s Experiences in the Roman-Persian Wars, 4th-6th c. To register, please contact james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.
No Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group this week!
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm at the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Lucy Parker (Wadham) ‘Monks, martyrs, and masculinity: authority and gender in early Islamic Palestine’. The seminar will also be available remotely via Teams. 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 Oxford Interfaith Forum meets online via Zoom at 6pm. Rabbi Joshua Stanton, Director of the Leadership Formation at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and Rabbi of East End Temple in Manhattan, NY, USA, will be leading this session of the Psalms in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group. To register, please click here.

Tuesday 23rd May:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12:00 in Lecture Theatre 2, St Cross Building. This week’s speaker will be Peter Buchanan (University of Cambridge), ‘Medieval Multiversality: Modalities in 14th Century Poetry‘.
The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) at The Queen’s College (Oxford) is hosting a “Work in progress” colloquium at 3.30–5pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College and online via Zoom. The speakers will be Marius Del Core (Pisa/Oxford), ‘Omitti possunt. Evidence for abridgement and athetesis in Plautine manuscripts‘ and Stefano Milonia (Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples), ‘Super and Contra. Conversion and resemantisation of mediaeval French lyric in the Ludus super Anticlaudianum’. Please register here (whether you are planning to attend in person or online).
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College, with tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker will be Julia Schroeder (Lincoln), ‘Bokes Unbrad’: ecclesiastical court records in late medieval England. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar!
The Medieval French Research Seminar will meet at 5pm for drinks, with the presentation starting at 5:15pm, at the Maison Francaise d’Oxford on Norham Road. This week’s speakers will be Micah Mackay and Anna Wilmore, ‘Song? Poem? Both?: The Late Medieval Lyric in Context’. For more information, to be added to the seminar maillist, or for the Teams link to join a seminar remotely, contact helen.swift@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.

Wednesday 24th May:

The Medieval German Seminar will meet at 11:15-12.45pm at St Edmund Hall Old Library. In Trinity Term, we are continuing to discuss Heinrich von Neustadt’s texts, focussing on ‘Von Gottes Zukunft’. We will meet in person in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall. This week we will be discussing the tradition of the 15 signs of the Last Judgement within the text led by Anja Peters and Timothy Powell. Further information and reading recommendations via the teams channel; if you want to be added to that: please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles. This week’s speaker will be Jean-Claude Cheynet (emeritus, Sorbonne Université), ‘Women’s Seals in Byzantium’. You can also join the seminar remotely via Teams, click here.

Thursday 25th May:

Wendy Scase from Birmingham is leading this week’s Piers Plowman in Context discussion group, which meets in the Main Quad Boardroom at Univ from 4:30-5:30. This week’s session will be on Passus XIII of the B-text, which we’ll be discussing in relation to Richard Fitzralph’s Defensio Curatorum, available through this link. Attendees are encouraged to choose a brief section of the Defensio to talk about. All welcome! Email Jacob Ridley (jacob.ridley@univ.ox.ac.uk) with any questions.

Friday 26th May:

The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm on Zoom. To receive the materials and be added to the mailing list, please contact howard.jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk.
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm at the Julia Mann room, St Hilda’s College and online. This term we are reading extracts from Hue de Rotelands’s Protheselaus. Please contact Jane Bliss and/or Stephanie Hathaway to let us know if you can come in person (so we know whom to expect), also to obtain copies of the texts, and for the Zoom invitations.

Fifth week is notorious in Oxford for being the point in the term when everyone feels rather tired and low in spirits. Hopefully the sun is helping to keep everyone’s spirits high: Oxford does look beautiful in the sun! As for the tiredness, Alcuin has a prescription for us all:

fessae mentis acumen levioris lectionis interpositio saepe reficit
[The interposition of lighter reading often restores the sharpness of a tired mind, Ep. 300]

In addition to this advice, I offer that the interposition of Medievalist socialising may also prove restorative: please do come along to our coffee mornings if the sharpness of your mind is in need of some restoration! In the meantime, I wish you all a week of lighter reading and sunshine.

*[Medievalist* *feeling a little flat in Week 5]*
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 36 r.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

OMS Small Grants TT 2023

21/05/2023

19:34

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opportunities

OMS TORCH, opportunities, small grants, trinity 23

The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford.

The activity should take place between the beginning of Trinity term 2023 and end of the summer vacation. The closing date for applications is Friday of Week 5 of Trinity Term = 26 May); decisions will be made promptly after the closing date.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the TORCH Medieval Studies blog. Recipients of awards will also be invited to present on their events at the next Medieval Roadshow.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising. Some administrative and organisational support may be available through TORCH subject to availability.

Applications should be submitted to lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk using the grant application form. Applications submitted in other formats or after the deadline will not be considered.

Informal enquiries may be directed to lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk

The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme is sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

For more medieval matters from Oxford, have a look at the website of the Oxford Medieval Studies TORCH Programme and the OMS blog!

Nigel Palmer’s Books in the Bodleian

2 Comments on Nigel Palmer’s Books in the Bodleian

18/05/2023

21:00

events

blockbooks, incunables, medieval German

A presentation by Dr Alan Coates, Assistant Librarian, Rare Books, Dept. of Special Collections and Subject Librarian, Bibliography & History of the Book on the occasion of the Memorial Colloquium for Nigel Palmer and as part of the Weston Library Medievalists Coffee Mornings. This builds on the work the late Nigel F. Palmer did with the Incunable Catalogue of the Bodleian Library, available as Bod-Inc. He contributed the text of descriptions for the section on blockbooks and wood- and metalcut prints. All digitised incunabula and blockbooks are available on digital.bodleian.

The list of books is as follows:

Missale Cisterciense ([Strasbourg: Johann Reinhard Grüninger], 1487) [from Eberbach]
Shelfmark: Auct. 6Q 2.20 [= Bod-inc. M-245(1)]

Apocalypse [Edition V] [Germany, c.1468/70, impression c.1472] Blockbook
Shelfmark: Auct. M 3.14 [= Bod-inc. BB-3]

Death and the Last Judgement ([England (Syon Abbey?), c.1499])
Woodcut, with Latin typographic text
Shelfmark: MS. Rawlinson D. 403, fol. 3v [= Bod-inc. XYL-19]

St George; St Maurelius ([Italy (Ferrara), c.1520])
Woodcut book cover with Italian inscriptions
Shelfmark: Broxb. 30.13 [= Bod-inc. XYL-23]

Büchlein von den peinen (Strasbourg: Bartholomaeus Kistler, 1506)
Shelfmark: Douce L 189

Büchlein von den peinen (Strasbourg: Bartholomaeus Kistler, 1506)
Shelfmark: Vet. E1 e.217

Bodleian Library Auct. M 3.14 in the digital.bodleian viewer.

Literary, religious and manuscript cultures of the  German-speaking lands:  a  symposium  in memory of Nigel F. Palmer (1946-2022) 

6 Comments on Literary, religious and manuscript cultures of the  German-speaking lands:  a  symposium  in memory of Nigel F. Palmer (1946-2022) 

15/05/2023

14:25

manuscripts, medieval matters, trinity 23

Friday 19 – Saturday 20 May 2023

To celebrate the life and scholarship of Nigel F. Palmer, Professor of  German  Medieval Literary and Linguistic  Studies at the University of Oxford, the academic community honoured his memory with a symposium, which brought together colleagues from around the world. Their presentations spoke to the wide spectrum of Nigel’s intellectual interests, which ranged extensively within the broad scope of the literary and religious history of the German- and Dutch-speaking lands, treating Latin alongside the vernaculars, the early printed book alongside the manuscript, and the court and the city alongside the monastery and the convent.

Friday, 19 May 2023

10:30-11:30 Weston Library, Visiting Scholars Centre

Presentation of incunables and blockbooks linked with Nigel F. Palmer in the Bodleian Library by Alan Coates.

13:00-13:45 Taylor Institution Library. Main Hall

Welcome and introduction. Video by Jeffrey Hamburger in honour of Nigel Palmer

14:00-15:00 Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Racha Kirakosian

Henrike Manuwald, ‘German-language pericopes between retelling, exegesis and prayer: the case of the Begerin Prayer Book’
Martina Backes and Barbara Fleith, Extraordinary or conventional? Überlegungen zu einem ungewöhnlichen Bildmotiv im Begerin-Gebetbuch

14:00-15:30 Weston Library. Horton Room: Chair: Henrike Lähnemann

Erik Kwakkel, ‘The problem of dating medieval manuscripts’. Recording.
Victor Millet and Lorena Pérez Ben, ‘‘Fragmentology’ around Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein’. Recording.

16:00-17:30 Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Almut Suerbaum

Ben Morgan, ‘Critiquing critique: how Erich Fromm’s reading of Meister Eckhart can transform contemporary conceptualisations of human flourishing’
Freimut Löser, ‘Latest news on Nigel Palmer’s Meister Eckhart’
Racha Kirakosian, ‘Philology meets visionary practice’

16:00-17:30 Weston Library: Chair: Martin Kauffmann

Andrew Honey, ‘‘I believe they were fixed in some low places in the Church, Chapell or House’: further investigations into the glue stains of Douce 248, a blockbook Biblia pauperum of c.1465-1470’. Recording.
Geert Warnar, ‘The Roman van Limborch in a European framework’. Recording.
Luise Morawetz, ‘Gregory the Great in Old High German: the newly discovered glosses of MS. Canon. Pat. Lat. 57’.

Saturday, 20 May 2023

A small exhibition of medieval German manuscripts used by Nigel Palmer for teaching Palaeography and History of the Book was on display in the Voltaire Room of the Taylor Institution Library, including the two manuscripts from Erfurt Charterhouse Taylor Institution Library MS. 8° Germ. 1 and MS. 8° Germ. 2 (comment by Balázs Nemes).

10:00-11:30 Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Annette Volfing

Elke Brüggen, ‘Parzival-Lektüren im komplexen Zusammenspiel von Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentierung’
Daniela Mairhofer, ‘Almost lost in transmission: the peculiar case of a Staufer song’
Nikolaus Henkel, ‘Liturgie im Schulunterricht um 1500. Der Osterhymnus ‚Salve festa dies‘ des Venantius Fortunatus und seine deutsche Reimpaarübersetzung’

10:00-11:30 Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Stephen Mossman

Adam Poznański and Reima Välimäki, ‘Petrus Zwicker’s Cum dormirent homines: transmission history and prospects for a critical edition of a popular anti-heretical treatise’
Linus Ubl, ‘Palm(er)ing material culture – medieval German manuscripts in the
National State Library of Israel’
Astrid Breith, ‘Locked away for love – the Vita Wilbirgis inclusae and the manuscript holdings of St. Florian (Upper Austria)’

13:00-14:30 Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Sarah Bowden

Jonas Hermann, ‘What gives? Marquard von Lindau and the ›Buch von geistlicher Armut‹’
Anne Winston-Allen, ‘Sibilla von Bondorf’s art of reform’
Edmund Wareham Wanitzek, ‘Soror in Christo dilectissima: Learning and exchange in the correspondence of Nikolaus Ellenbog and his sister Barbara’

13:00-14:30 Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Elizabeth Andersen

Peter Rückert, ‘Bücher zwischen Kloster und Hof. Neues zur literarischen Topographie in Württemberg’
Monica Brinzei and Giacomo Signore, ‘The rise of ars moriendi at the University of Vienna before the printing press’
Nigel Harris, ‘“Nach dem text und etwen nach dem sin”. Heinrich Haller und das Cordiale de quattuor novissimis des Gerard van Vliederhoven’

15:00-16:30 Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Christine Putzo

Ralph Hanna, ‘On exempla: “Hoc contra malos religiosos”‘
Peter Tóth, ‘The early history of the Meditationes Vitae Christi: quotations and references’
Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘Kollektive Autorschaft und Baukastenprinzip. Geistliche Literatur dominikanischer Provenienz um 1300’

15:00-16:30 Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Lydia Wegener

Sarah Griffin, ‘Unfolding time in a late medieval German concertina-fold almanac (SPKB, Libr. pict. A 92)
Youri Desplenter, ‘Newly discovered interlinear Middle Dutch translation of the Psalms (c. 1300?). Analysis and contextualization within the Middle Dutch and medieval Psalm translations’
Wybren Scheepsma, ‘Laudate dominum in sanctis eius: a Limburg sermon with French roots’

17:00-19:00 Old Library of St Edmund Hall

Exhibition of books related to Nigel F. Palmer

Followed by speeches in honour of Nigel F. Palmer

The Pro Principal of St Edmund Hall, Rob Whittaker. Recording.
A performance of a medieval poem by Ruth Wiederkehr, Monika Studer, Claudia Lingscheid-Andersen and Racha Kirakosian
Words of memory by Eva Schlotheuber and in dialogue by Hans-Jochen Schiewer and Michael Stolz

The event was supported by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, the Meister-Eckhart-Gesellschaft, SSMLL, Oxford Medieval Studies and St Edmund Hall. Here a link to the call of papers; please contact Henrike Lähnemann if you have any comments on the content of this page.

Medieval Matters: Week 4

medieval matters, trinity 23

15/05/2023

11:40

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Around Oxford, News

We are half way through May, and half way through the term! Everything is starting to feel summery in Oxford: the days are getting warmer and the University parks, gardens and meadows are looking beautiful as all of the plants come into flower. Of course, there is also a flowering of knowledge at this time of year, particularly as our MSt students embark upon their dissertations! Here is some wisdom from Alcuin on the subject:

Quid pulchrius sapientiae floribus, quae numquam exhauriuntur?
[What is more beautiful than the flowers of wisdom, which never fade? Ep. 206]

We have a truly rich array of wisdom on display this week. See the full listings below for a veritable bouquet of knowledge!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

A workshop on The Order of St Victor in Medieval Scandinavia will be held at Aula Magna, Stockholm University, 25–26 May 2023. The workshop is open to all interested, subject to availability. Register interest by contacting roger.andersson@su.se. For a full programme and more information, see our blog post here.
The CMTC “Medieval Manuscripts Work in Progress” colloquium will be held on Tuesday 23rd May 2023, 3,30–5,00pm UK time, at Memorial Room, The Queen’s College (and Zoom). The speakers will be Marius Del Core (Pisa/Oxford), ‘Omitti possunt. Evidence for abridgement and athetesis in Plautine manuscripts’ and Stefano Milonia (Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples), ‘Super and Contra. Conversion and resemantisation of mediaeval French lyric in the Ludus super Anticlaudianum’. Registration is mandatory: please register here whether you are planning to attend in person or online.
Announcing a one-day-only exhibition at New College Library entitled Maleficia: Magic, Witchcraft, & Astrology at New College Library. We will be displaying some manuscripts, mostly astrological texts, along with a number of early modern printed books, mostly witchcraft treatises. The exhibition will be on Saturday, 3rd June in New College’s Lecture Room 4 and is open to the public. Contact caitlin.kane@new.ox.ac.uk for queries.
Provenance Unknown: A New CMTC Lecture Series: The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) is proud to announce this new lecture series, on unprovenanced manuscripts/inscriptions. The series seeks to gather a wide range of voices from academics in different fields or disciplines about the methodological pros and cons of working with unprovenanced mss/insciptions in academic contexts. The lectures will cover matters such as the legal concerns, ethical concerns, and academic concerns by keeping a strict focus on methodology. Our first speaker is Alexander Herman, Director of the Institute of Art and Law, on 30 May, 5.15pm (UK time), Memorial Room, The Queen’s College, Oxford, UK
Noblesse Oblige? Conference Programme – Limited Spaces for Attendance: The Noblesse Oblige? conference programme is now finalised and can be found here, and there are limited spaces for other attendees to join us in Oxford between the 25^th and 27^th May. To express interest in attending for one or more days, please email max.lau@worc.ox.ac.uk for further details.
Ervin Bossányi: Stained Glass Art and Linocut Workshop: St Peter’s College is pleased to host a practical art workshop on Friday, 26 May 2023, 2-4pm in the St Peter’s College Chapel as part of a current display exploring the works of Hungarian artist Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975) in the College collections and Chapel stained glass. A guided tour of the display by Dr Alison Ray (College Archivist) will be followed by a linocut workshop led by Dr Eleanor Baker and participants will produce their own linocut designs. Attendance is free, but booking is required as space is limited. Please contact Alison Ray to reserve a place by email: archives@spc.ox.ac.uk. For more details, click here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 15th May:

The Byzantine Graduate Seminar will meet at 12:30-14:00 via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Benjamin Morris (Cardiff University), ‘Against All Men’: The Movement of Military Service in Byzantine and English Treaties, 900-1200 To register, please contact james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group led by Matthew Holford and Andrew Dunning is meeting as usual via Teams from 1-2pm. This term we will read some satirical poetry from a thirteenth-century manuscript, the so-called ‘Bekyngton anthology’ (Bodl. MS. Add. A. 44). Sign up for the mailing list to receive updates and the Teams invite, or contact matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information.
The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ College, 12 Merton St Room 2. This week’s theme is Werewolf romance: William of Palerne. All extremely welcome! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm at the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Susannah Bain (Jesus) ‘Fashioning connectivity: Political communication and history-writing in late thirteenth-century Italy’. The seminar will also be available remotely via Teams. 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 16th May:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12:00 in Lecture Theatre 2, St Cross Building. This week’s speakers will be Annika Ester Maresia (Jesus College, Oxford) ‘‹ᚫ›s to ‹æ›s: Looking at Early Old English Front Vowel Orthography‘ and Bond West (Lincoln College, Oxford), ‘Rhetoric and Style in Old Norse Religious Prose’.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College, with tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker will be Andrew Beever (Corpus), ‘Anglo-Saxon Crescentic Cross Pendants in their Insular and Continental Contexts’. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar!

Wednesday 17th May:

The Medieval German Seminar will not meet at the usual time (11:15-12.45pm at St Edmund Hall Old Library) but rather concentrate all activities on the Nigel Palmer Memorial Symposium (see below Friday and Saturday); if you want to be added to the medieval German mailing list for future dates, please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Old High German Reading Group at 11-12 in 41 Wellington Square, 2nd floor (Henrike Lähnemann’s office). This week’s text will be Wessobrunner Gebet. It will be an opportunity to read and analyse some simpler OHG texts and give people the chance to read the oldest form of German if they’ve not been exposed to it before. It will be very informal, and all are welcome. Led by William Thurlwell william.thurlwell@wolfson.ox.ac.uk – contact him for updates
The Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Network will be hosting a lecture at 1pm at Staircase 5 Lecture Room, Worcester College. The lecture will be given by Professor Charlene Eska, on the topic of ‘Stolen Sheep and Wandering Cows: Reclaiming Lost and Stolen Property in Early Medieval Ireland and Britain‘.
The LGBTQ+ Network Seminar will be held at 2-4.30pm in the Rees Davies Room, History Faculty. Today’s speaker will be Dr Conrad Leyser, ‘Purity and Sodimitic Danger in the Eleventh Century West‘.
The Invisible East Group is hosting a seminar at 3pm in the Spalding Room, FAMES, Pusey Lane. This week’s speaker will be Prof. John Tolan, ‘Tracking the Qur’ān in European Culture‘. More information at this link.
The Old French Reading Group takes place at 4-5pm at St Hilda’s College (meet by the lodge) on Wednesdays of Even Weeks in association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). We welcome readers of Old French of all abilities. For further information, please email alice.hawkins@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk or irina.boeru@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles. This week’s speaker will be Mirela Ivanova (University of Sheffield) & Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University), ‘Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Towards a Critical Historiography’. You can also join the seminar remotely via Teams, click here.

Thursday 18th May:

The Environmental History Group meets at 12-2pm in the Gary Martin Room, History Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Celeste van Gent, “The Materiality of Travel in Late Medieval England”. We try to keep discussions informal, and we encourage anyone at all interested in these kinds of approaches to join our meetings, regardless of research specialism or presumed existing knowledge. For those interested in joining the group, you can join our mailing list by getting in touch with us at environmentalhistoryworkinggroup-owner@maillist.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval Women’s Writing Reading Group meets at 3-4pm at Lincoln College: meet at the lodge. This week’s theme will be Rhetorical strategies: how language is used to generate authority. Please email katherine.smith@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list and get texts in advance, or to find out more.
The Invisible East Group is co-hosting a webinar with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies online at 5pm. The speaker will be Dr Jennifer Jenkins, University of Toronto, ‘Presence and Silence: The Iran Archives in the German Foreign Office‘. Registration and more information at this link.
Sarah Wood from Warwick is leading this week’s Piers Plowman in Context discussion group, which meets in the Butler Room at Univ (please note the change of college room) from 4:30-5:30. This week’s session will be on Passus X of the B-text, which we’ll be discussing in relation to the short contextual passages available through this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ev9EWlfl-WtiZ7AzZyLDWV-G9c53Nc8e?usp=share_link All welcome! Email Jacob Ridley (jacob.ridley@univ.ox.ac.uk) with any questions.
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5.15-6.45pm at St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be Hanna Vorholt, University of York, Ruled Lines and the Making of Manuscript Images. For further information, contact Elena Lichmanova (elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk).
The Oxford Interfaith Forum will host a talk on Mandaeans: A Minority on the Move and their Manuscripts by Prof. James McGrath, online at 6-7pm. For full details and to register, click here.

Friday 19th May:

Literary, religious and manuscript cultures of the German-speaking lands: a symposium in memory of Nigel F. Palmer (1946-2022) will take place. Everybody is welcome for the opening session at 1pm in the Taylor Institution Library, Main Hall. Please note that the sessions later in the Horton Room are for registered participants only.
The Colloquium starts actually at the Medieval Coffee Morning which meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it). Join us for a presentation by Bodleian curators of items that have a special connection to the interests of the late Nigel Palmer or where given by him to the library. It will also be a chance to meet many German medievalists visiting for the colloquium – as well, of course, for coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.

Saturday 20th May:

Literary, religious and manuscript cultures of the German-speaking lands: a symposium in memory of Nigel F. Palmer (1946-2022) continues at the Taylorian. There is a linked pop-up exhibition of books related to Nigel Palmer in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall open 5-6pm.
Dies Latinus et Graecus: ‘Quid antiqui de antiquis censuerint’ will take place from 1pm in the Ship Street Centre, Jesus College. The highlight of the event will be a talk by Professor Eleanor Dickey on the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (ancient textbooks of the Latin language), incorporating a workshop in which participants can try using these learning materials the way they would have been used in antiquity; the talk and workshop will be in Latin, but questions and comments in English will be welcome. To register interest, please fill out this form. Any questions may be directed to nicholas.romanos@worc.ox.ac.uk or aron.szocs@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk.

Of course, the flowers of wisdom are always enjoyable, but they are best when they are shared. Indeed, Alcuin tells us:

Nec illis tuae decorem sapientiae abscondas, sed inriga florentes bonae voluntatis in eis areolas
[Don’t hide the beauty of your wisdom from others, but water the flowers of goodwill in their garden, Ep. 206]

If you would like to share the beauty of your wisdom with others, do come to our Medievalist Coffee Mornings, every Friday at the Weston! You can also ‘water the flowers of goodwill’ there: I’m sure Alcuin would agree that nothing is better for goodwill than a healthy ‘watering’ with free tea and biscuits! Wishing you a week filled with the flowers of wisdom and the flowers of Spring alike!

*[A Medievalist takes a break from the flowers of wisdom to smell the flowers of University Parks]*
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 10v.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Noblesse Oblige? Barons and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia 10th-14th Centuries

1 Comment on Noblesse Oblige? Barons and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia 10th-14th Centuries

15/05/2023

10:36