During the Medievalist Coffee Morning on Friday, 21 June 2024, Henrike Lähnemann launched her new book The Life of Nuns. Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers 2024, open access: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0397 To purchase a paper copy with a 20% discount, use the code LONHL_24 at checkout
Medingen O1: Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturg. f. 4: Prayer book: Easter (end 15th to early 16th cent.), fol. 174v: the community of nuns; fol. 288r: Music notation
Medingen O2: Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturg. e. 18: Manual for the Medingen Provost (1472/1479), fol. 36v/37r: liturgical drawings; fol. 47vb: Harrowing of Hell initial
Medingen O4: Bodleian Library, MS. Don. e. 248: Psalter by Margarete Hopes (early 16th cent.), fol. 173r: Harrowing of Hell; fol. 196r: Resurrection
Rule of St Clare: Bodleian Library, MS. Lyell 68, 1457
Following this, there was a presentation by Stacie Vos (Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellow in Women’s History) talk about Women doing medieval studies in the early 20th century. Stacie reflected on the legacies of several early-20th-century women medievalists who pursued academic and extra-academic careers. She started the group ‘Enclosure’ which January 2021 to February 2024 was hosted at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages under enclosure.mml.ox.ac.uk, now archived at the Bodleian Library Web Archive.
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It all started with a mistake: ‘Der Spiegel’, a widely read news magazine in Germany, ran a double-spread article on the big research project which Eva Schlotheuber and I direct, the edition of 1.200 letters from the Benedictine convent Lüne in North Germany. In the interview for it, we had talked about how important education by the nuns was for the ‘Lehrkinder’, children educated at the convent. The girls would come into the community, aged 7 to 9, and then get a thorough grounding in a wide range of discipline such as music, as pictured in the scene from a text book from Kloster Ebstorf.
Teaching Music in the Convents (Ebstorf, Klosterarchiv V 3, 15th century, fols 200v–201r)
Der Spiegel’ turned our phrase of ‘Lehrkinder’ into ‘die Kinder der Nonnen’ (the children of the nuns) – hinting at sex and scandal behind convent walls (in 2/2020 ‘So colourful was the life of nuns in the Middle Ages’).
This sparked further media interest and the Ullstein publishing house approached us because it had piqued their interest. When we explained that the attention-grabbing headline about “the nuns had children” was based on a misunderstanding, they were slightly disappointed – but then offered us the opportunity to set the record straight. And, arguably, what we could offer was much more exciting: the colourful and detailed accounts of lively, intellectual, strategic, argumentative, powerful women, shaping religion and politics of their times, looking after the girls (despite or even because they were their spiritual and not biological daughters!), negotiating business deals, writing, painting, composing and influencing the way we live today through their books, songs, and art.
‘The Life of Nuns’ tries to capture the richness of the life of these medieval nuns by incorporating as much primary source material as possible. Each of the big topics – such as Education, Music, and yes: Love and Friendship – starts with an account taken from the diary of a nun who lived at the end of the 15th century in the convent St Crucis in Braunschweig. The anonymous author covers the high feasts – celebrating the entry of new nuns, welcoming illustrious visitors – and the everyday mundane events – lice, Lebkuchen (gingerbread), laundry. And we end every of our chapters with the presentation of a significant art work from the convents: the impressive wall paintings done in the 14th century by “three nuns all called Gertrud” in Wienhausen, the largest medieval world map in Ebstorf (30 goatskins sewn together), tapestries, statues, stained glass, the oldest spectacles in the world (fallen through the floorboard cracks in the nuns’ choir) – an embarrassment of riches from a world that few people even know existed. That is particularly true for an Anglophone audience since so much of the evidence is lost due mainly to the dissolution of the monasteries but also a repurposing of surviving architecture and treasures. Compare Kloster Wienhausen and Godstow Abbey: in Wienhausen we have got the full set of monastic buildings, cloisters, huge grain stores, cells, corridors, imposing Gothic nuns choir and more – and everything that furnished it: stained glass, wall paintings, sculptures, down to the different set of dresses for the statues.
The Cistercian Convent of Wienhausen from the South: Magazine (left) and Nuns’ Choir. Photograph: Henrike Lähnemann
Filming at the ruins of one Godstow Abbey near Oxford
In Godstow, on the other hand, we can sense the dimensions of its former power by looking at the impressively long surrounding wall of enclosure and glimpse some of its stylish beauty from the ruined chapel at the back – the rest is only possible to reconstruct from scant archival evidence. Looking at the German counterparts, who shapeshifted through the Reformation, transforming into Protestant female communities who still look after the rich tapestry of medieval life, offers the chance to rectify this in part – and encounter the Life of Nuns at their fullest, mystical, worldly, polyphonous and very much relevant still today.
The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024 will be held on 18th June 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library both in person (presenters/attendees) and online (attendees).
Tuesday 18 June 2024, 9am – 5pm Online and In-person, Room 2, Taylor Institution Library, Saint Giles’, Oxford OX1 3NA Free but registration required Register here for in-person attendance – Sold out Register here to join the conference online Online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.
The aim of this conference is to explore the concept of exchange, whether it be textual or material, to, for and between women in the global Middle Ages. As a research group based upon the concept of exchanging ideas, we wish to explore medieval women’s own networks of exchange and transmission, and the influence of this upon both the literature and culture of the period as well as the present day.
We are delighted to present the programme for the day:
9:00-9:30 Registration 9:30-9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks 9:45-11:15 Session 1 “Scholarly Networks” Katrin Janz-Wenig (SUB Hamburg) & Lenka Panušková (The Czech Academy of Sciences) | Communication Strategies Through Change: Translations, Compilations and Ekphrasis Ved Prabha Sharma (Independent Researcher) | Women Scholars and Knowledge Exchange in Medieval Indian shāstrārth Tradition Tatiana Barkovskiy (University of Cambridge) | A Beguinian Learning Network, or How to Approach ‘Medieval Women Mystics’ as Philosophers 11:15-11:45 Break with Refreshments 11:45-13:15 Session 2 “Relationships With and Between Women” Costas Gavriel (University of Oxford) | Gaining the Queen’s Confidence: The Relationship Between Leonor López de Córdoba and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile Lucia Akard (University of Oxford) | Talking About Rape and Exchanging Knowledge in Medieval Dijon Meg Greenough (Independent Researcher) | The Wilton Matrix: Mothering in Goscelin of Saint Betin’s Liber Confortatorius 13:15-14:30 Lunch Break Exploring the Taylorian’s Treasures, with Professor Henrike Lähnemann (University of Oxford) 14:30-15:45 Keynote Address Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey) | Medieval Women Writers: Troubling a Feminist History of British Women’s Writing 15:45-16:15 Break with Refreshments 16:15-17:45 Session 3 “Nuns’ Words” Francesca Maria Villani (University of Bari) | Eloise’s Psalmody: Body and Voice Through the Epistles Jane Bliss (Independent Researcher) | The Nun Changes her Library Book Hilary Pearson (Independent Researcher) | Teresa de Cartagena’s Models of Female Authority 17:45 Closing Remarks 18:00 End of Conference
The research group and the conference are generously funded by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and their “Critical-Thinking Communities” Initiative.
It feels like only yesterday that I was welcoming you all to Oxford for the academic year, and yet here we are at the very end of Trinity Term. It has been such a fantastic and busy year, and it’s hard to believe that it’s almost over. Here is some wisdom on endings, specially for the occasion, taken from the Epistolae project:
vespere autem hora diei ultima terminatur. [The final hour of the day is concluded in the evening.] A letter (1156-57) from Osbert of Clare to Adelidis of Barking
I take this to mean that though the end of teaching term is in sight, there are still some hours of ‘evening’ left! You will find below a whole range of delights for this last week of full term.
This of course means that today’s email is the last proper Medieval Matters Newsletter of the academic year. In honour of this occasion, today’s guest blog is not written by a guest at all, but by me. This has been my third year as the OMS Comms Officer, and I was asked to reflect on some of the work that I do in this role and my twinned role as the Academic Mentor for the Interdisciplinary MSt in Medieval Studies. I of course answer pressing questions such as “when do you choose the manuscript images” and “what do Medievalists do in August?”, but in many ways this is less a report on the work that I do and more a celebration of some of the fantastic things Oxford’s medievalists have been up to this year. You can read the post here.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Medieval Mystery Cycle is coming back! Mark your diaries for 26 April 2025! There will be small grants available for student groups putting on plays.
Double thanks are due to St Edmund Hall: the College has agreed to host both the plays (including catering!) AND this blog. This means that – after a time when we had to ration images due to server space problems – we can now illustrate posts to our hearts content. Please do consider writing a blog post for us – on your research, an upcoming event or a new publication. Write to Luisa or Henrike to be set up as an author on the blog.
Living Stones has two events coming up very soon: On Saturday 29 June artists Sally Levell and Phil Whiting are leading a day-school in drawing at Iffley Church. This is a very popular annual event and spaces are limited. See https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/events for details and tickets. Tickets are only available online, and the closing date for bookings is 17 June. On Saturday 13 July the second of our three ’12th-Century’ days includes a participatory workshop on manuscript illumination along with a talk about how the builders of Iffley Church saw themselves as inheritors of Rome. Tickets can be booked online and at the door. An appetite-whetter can be found on https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/past-events/f/oxford-in-1160-scholars-and-pilgrims-at-st-frideswide%E2%80%99s-priory where you can listen to the thrilling talks given by Andrew Dunning and Anne Bailey on Oxford in 1160: Scholars and Pilgrims at St Frideswide’s Priory.
EVENTS THIS WEEK:
Monday 10th June:
The Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series meets at 5pm in the Summer Common Room, Magdalen College. This week’s speaker will be John Holmes (University of Birmingham), Riddles in the Grass: the characterisation and narrative value of landscape over the fields of Rohan. For more information, please see https://tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Old Library, All Souls College and on 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). Alternatively, you can use this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker will be Katherine Jansen (Catholic University of America) ‘The Relics of Rome’.
Tuesday 11th June:
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers will be A Book Launch: New Zealand Medievalism: reframing the medieval, edited by Anna Czarnowus and Janet Wilson (Routledge). Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
Wednesday 12th June:
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11.15am in Oriel College King Edward Street 7 (Annette Volfing’s office; press the intercom buzzer to be let in). This week will be a project presentation by Mary Boyle.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
Thursday 13th June:
The All Souls Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Science meets at 2-3.30pm in the Hovenden Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Zoe Screti (Harris Manchester College, Oxford), Alchemy during the English Reformation: The Troubled Times of Thomas Charnock.
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm online. Please contact Howard Jones Howard.Jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk to request the handouts and to be added to the list. This week will be on the Old Saxon Hêliand (Bradley leading).
The Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research Annual lecture will take place at 5pm at Danson Room, Trinity College. This year’s speaker will be Peter Sarris (University of Cambridge) – ‘Justinian: Between East and West’.
At 9.30pm, the St Edmund Consort sings Latin Compline at candlelight in the Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (the library church of St Edmund Hall, Queen’s Lane). No registration is needed but please be advised that the space is only accessible via uneven steps and dimly lit, and only a limited number of people can be accommodated on a first-come-first-served basis.
Friday 14th June:
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.
OPPORTUNITIES:
CAT – Conversations Across Time. Preview 11am, Premiere 3:20pm, second performance Saturday 16 June 3:20pm. After a successful run in June 2023, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed a second art-piece which links medieval theatre, women in science, and Quantum future. Free tickets for the performances moving from the Ashmolean to a second secret hidden location are available via the website https://www.citizensai.com/
Waddesdon Internship Scheme: In 2023 Waddesdon launched Waddesdon Pathways, a brand-new, year-long internship programme. They are now looking for our second cohort to start in September 2024. Please find out more information about this, including how to apply here.
There will be a brief final email next week with some events and opportunities to look forward to over the summer, and some guidance on how to stay in contact if you are leaving. Please do send me anything you would like disseminated! But for now, I give you some fitting words from the Epistolae project, for those who hate goodbyes and endings as much as I do:
quin immo vere dilectionis ligatura reliquum nodetur in aevum [May the bond of our true affection be knit ever more closely for all time.] A letter (c. 732) from Lioba, abbess of Tauberbischofsheim
In other words: stay in touch! Whether you are leaving Oxford for the summer or for the long-term, the community is always here to welcome you back with open arms.
It is an honour and a priveledge to have been your herald for yet another year, and to guide you through the busy schedule of the Oxford academic term. Thank you so much for everything you have done this year: to everyone who has organised an event or seminar; given a paper; attended any number of reading groups or events; brought opportunities and CFPs to my attention; or turned up at the coffee mornings. Oxford’s medieval community is unbelievably special, and it is always such a joy to be a part of it. Long may it prosper!
[The busy, bustling, flourishing world of Medieval Studies at Oxford!] St John’s College MS. 61, f. 59 v. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian
A Year in the Life of the OMS Communications Officer and MSt Academic Mentor
As we come to the end of the teaching year and Medieval Matters shuts down for the summer, I was asked to reflect on the year’s happenings, and on some of the work that I do in my role as Communications Officer and my twinned role as the Academic Mentor for the Interdisciplinary MSt in Medieval Studies. As such, I’ve compiled a “menologium” of sorts, highlighting the goings on that have happened across the year. This has been my third year in post since I joined the team in 2021, and it’s been such a delight to see Oxford’s medieval community go from strength to strength during that time. In some ways, then, this report is less about my own work, and more about the strength of the community: which I have been honoured and privileged to witness first hand as your medieval herald and mentor!
JULY
July is the month of beginnings! This might seem odd: Trinity Term is traditionally an end-point for the academic year! But July is the point at which we at OMS are planning forward for the year ahead, and so marks the beginning of the OMS calendar. This is the time of year when we begin planning the Medieval Mystery Plays, thinking about which speakers we will invite and which events we want to host in the year ahead. It’s a very exciting time of year! In 2023, we were planning our OMS lectures and also asking for submissions for the Impact Report.
AUGUST
August is a time for harvesting… submissions for the Impact Report, that is! We had such a lot to celebrate, from book launches to new seminars and reading groups. I am always struck by the phenomenal range of our medieval offerings at Oxford, but collecting all of the information together really emphasised the wealth of languages, approaches and disciplines that we have here.
I was also busy ‘harvesting’ CFPs for a special summer CFP booklet. We had 20 pages of CFPs for Leeds IMC, New Chaucer Society, and Kalamazoo panels hosted by Oxford Medievalists: such an astounding range of submissions that they barely fit in a pdf! We had everything from Alfredian Voices to Medievalisms in Times of Crisis: Reception, Adaptation, and Remediation; from “Authentic” Translation?’ to Medieval Onomastics: Crisis or Stasis?
SEPTEMBER
September is the month of preparation! This is the month when I am busy assembling the Medieval Booklet for the term ahead. Of extreme importance, of course, is selecting which manuscript will illuminate the weekly newsletter. This year I opted to highlight one of the offerings at St John’s College, where I am currently appointed. The newly digitised MS 61 bestiary is both delightful to look at and a real testament to the ongoing work of our library and collections staff in making medieval resources more easily available. Special thanks to Sophie Bacchus-Waterman for giving as a sneak peek behind the curtain of archival work in her blog post for us! When choosing images for the emails, I am looking both for entertaining pictures and for those that might be particularly suited to points in the year, and collecting a folder of them for later use. Some of the images are chosen far in advance (like this week 1 image of a Medievalist with their copy of the booklet), whilst others take my fancy on a weekly basis.
Regular recipients of Medieval Matters will know that another important collection is the wisdom quotations. This year I decided to highlight the work of the Epistolae project, based at Columbia University, which catalogues letters to and from medieval women. Featuring quotations from these letters was intended not only to link Oxford’s medievalists to an exciting resource outside of Oxford, but also to provide an inspirational and aspirational model for interdisciplinary, boundary-pushing, open-access and digital humanities work.
September is also the time when we look ahead to our incoming MSt cohort, so we were putting together welcome events and looking ahead to the start of term! An important September task is updating our mailing list: making sure that incoming students and academics are included, and that those leaving us for pastures new have passed on their new details.
OCTOBER
October is the month of welcomes. For the MSt this year this took the shape of the traditional introductory tea, co-run with Prof. Elena Lombardi, the convener of the MSt. It’s so exciting to get to meet all of Oxford’s newest Medieval researchers, and I am always struck by the fantastic range of interests and the sheer passion for the medieval that our MSt students have. On the OMS side, we had a Medievalists’ welcome party co-run with the Medieval Church and Culture graduate seminar: it was lovely to see lots of you there, both old colleagues and new ones! This is also a time of year when my email inbox is particularly busy, as I am fielding questions from both the OMS and MSt side of things in order to make sure that everyone can find their way around the Oxford system. I’m so honoured to be many peoples’ first port of call for discovering the amazing range of medieval happenings at Oxford, and to be able to welcome everyone in our Week 1 Medieval Matters email!
A big part of my October job is making and distributing the term’s medieval booklet, and preparing the newsletter templates This is a big job, and I’ve been extremely grateful for the support of our Graduate Assistant, Eugenia Vorobeva, who has taken on the huge and important task of adding all of the upcoming events to our Google Calendar, to keep everyone informed and up to date.
NOVEMBER
November is a month of social activity. A big part of what we do at OMS is sharing Oxford’s research and community with the wider world. In this I’ve been ably assisted by Ashley Castelino, our Social Media Officer, who has done stellar work on our socials. Some stats for you: our social media following is steadily growing as always, with (at last count) 6396 followers on Twitter/X, 1531 on Facebook, 858 on Instagram, 577 on Mastodon, 202 on Threads, 320 on TikTok, and 80 on our new LinkedIn page. Our most popular video on TikTok so far has been a primer on medieval heralds by Emma-Catherine Wilson with over 2800 views. We also had some very pleasing numbers on the youtube channel. In particular the two live presentations of books / manuscripts from the study day on Homer and the Nibelungenlied have each drawn over 1,500 views by now! The subscriber base also has grown considerably to 427 subscribers. with 17.383 viewings between them.
There is so much going on at Oxford socially that it’s hard to keep up: any medievalist is spoilt for choice! Having reviewed the booklets from the last year, I count regular events working on at least nine languages:
English
German
French
Latin
Anglo-Norman
Norse
Celtic
Old Occitan
Medieval Hebrew
And a huge range of approaches, including:
Queer and Trans Medievalisms
Visual Culture
Environmental History
Digital Editions
Music
Women’s Writing
The fact that I am guaranteed to have overlooked at least two or three regular languages and could only provide a selection of our range of approaches is testament to the richness of our medieval community. But with so much going on, it’s very hard to keep track!
This is where my job as herald comes in. I usually prepare the outlines for each week’s newsletter at the beginning of term, but there are last minute additions, changes, or cancellations every week. So my Monday morning task every week is to sort through my emails to find anything that needs to be added or altered in the draft blog. I am often alerted for example, to new opportunities, or events that have been newly organised; to seminars changing their paper titles or rooms; or just to a good old fashioned cancellation! When I have made all of the changes, the post then passes to my colleague Henrike Lähnemann for review before finally making its way to your inbox. Any medievalist knows that no text would be complete without a set of errata, addenda or corrigenda, so of course I monitor my emails throughout Monday afternoon in order to send out any last minute changes in as few additional emails as possible. It’s busy work, but after three years in post it has become more streamlined, and it’s lovely to come into my office on Monday mornings and know exactly what I’m working on first!
DECEMBER
December is the month of holidays: a time of celebrating and community. Though the days were dark and cold, luckily we had lots to keep our spirits high! In particular we benefited from the medievalists coffee mornings and from the fantastic opening of the Chaucer: Here and Now exhibition!
This is also a time when many of our MSt students are looking at PhD / DPhil programmes. One of my main roles in December as an Academic Mentor is to support students in preparing doctoral applications. I was delighted to host a number of our students for tea at my college to discuss their progress and their career plans – the future of our field looks very bright indeed!
JANUARY
January is the month of new things. In 2023-24, we saw the establishment of several new and exciting additions to OMS. In particular we welcomed the new Dante Reading group, which successfully secured OMS small-grants funding, and convened by one of our very own MSt students, Charlie West. We were also exciting to welcome a new research group, The Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group (OMMG), a collective of eight of our postgraduate students and early-career researchers who bonded in Oxford over their passion for medieval manuscripts. We also welcomed a new TORCH funded network, Poetry in the Medieval World, lead by Ugo Mondini, Jennifer Guest, Dirk Meyer, Jim Mallinson and Ida Toth. All of these new groups show that even though we often work with dead languages or the distant past, the study of the middle ages is very much alive at Oxford, with new voices and approaches joining the conversation every year!
January is also, of course, the month of our Hilary Term Medieval Booklet, so I am busy assembling that – making sure that everyone’s submissions are received and that they are formatted with our standard font size, layout etc. and are passed on to Eugenia and Ashley to disseminate across our socials and our Google calendar.
March is the month of the OMS Hilary Term lecture! This year we were thrilled to host the distinguished historian of medicine, Peregrine Horden for a talk on ‘Healthy Crusading in the Age of Frederick II: The Puzzle of Adam of Cremona’. We were very fortunate to host this in the Chapel of Harris Manchester – a perfect medievalism space! Thank you so much to everyone who came along, and to Peregrine for such a fantastic talk.
This is also the month when we at OMS try to have a steering group meeting to work out plans for the future: in particular on connections outside of Oxford, and thinking about new events we can run. We were also making plans for our Trinity Term provision.
APRIL
April (with his shoures soote) is the month of new life and of piercing ‘the droghte of March … to the roote’, so a perfect time to celebrate our newest medievalists!
In April all of our MSt students are hard at work producing their dissertations, and every year those on the Medieval Studies MSt present their work at the Medieval Church and Culture Seminar. This year we had a fantastic range of papers, from ‘The Old English and Old Norse ‘Joshua’: translation and readership in context’ to ‘Envisioning Division: marginal medallions in medieval Judaic and Islamic manuscripts’ to ‘Cruising Hell: seeing and writing Dante’s sodomites’. I am always so inspired by the range of approaches and the interdisciplinarity coming out of this MSt programme.
April also marks the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, which this year took the theme of Signs and Scripts. For a write-up of the conference and its goings-on, and to be inspired by the newest generation of medievalists, do read Ashley Castelino’s review blog post.
April is the month of the Trinity Term Medieval Booklet, so at this time of year I am once again collecting submissions, formatting them, and getting ready to share them with our community across all channels!
This year we were also busy plotting ways to improve our blog and newsletter, resulting in the move of our WordPress server on May 16th to enable us to host plenty more medieval blog posts and images. Behind the scenes OMS was struggling with server space, meaning a rationing of images and reduction in the number of blog posts we could host. Luckily we have been saved by St Edmund Hall, who have so kindly agreed to host this blog and allow it to continue in all of its manuscript-illuminated glory. Floreat Aula!
JUNE
June heralds the end of a busy medievalist year! As seminars and reading groups start to wind down for the summer, the Medieval Matters Newsletter starts to look shorter and shorter. Our MSt students are all busy finalising their dissertations, so I rarely get to see them, but it’s always a delight to hear how they are getting on. As the end of the academic year, June is a time for goodbyes, as visiting academics and graduate students depart. Thus, my final work of the year is to remind everyone to stay in touch: once an Oxford Medievalist, always an Oxford Medievalist!
Call for Actors, Directors, Costume Makers, and Musicians!
Would you like to take part in a medieval dramatic experiment? Directors, actors, costume makers and musicians wanted!
The next cycle is going to take place on 26 April 2025 at St Edmund Hall
These plays were a very popular form of drama in the Middle Ages – with different groups performing short plays telling stories from the Bible. To take part in the next performance, contact Antonia Anstatt and Sarah Ware, Co-Heads of Performance, or email Professor Henrike Lähnemann, Fellow at St Edmund Hall Fellow and Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics, and Professor Lesley Smith, Fellow and Tutor in Politics and Senior Tutor at Harris Manchester College, Co-Directors of the Oxford Medieval Studies Programme at TORCH, under the address medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk.
Putting a halt to in-person events, face-to-face conversations unmediated by a digital screen, and forcing people around the world to re-think how the interacted with each other, COVID-19 also placed a stranglehold on much academic dialogue and conferences experiences. One of the victims of the pandemic era was the Cambridge, Oxford, and London Symposium on Old Norse, Old English, and Latin (COLSONOEL). The last COLSONOEL was due to take place in St. John’s College, University of Oxford in May 2020 but which was sadly cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.
In 2024 a new committee at the University of Oxford, headed by Natasha Bradley, and comprising of Ashley Castelino, Simon Heller, and Mary Catherine O’Connor, took up the reins to bring this symposium back to life. In the spirit of its return to the world of conferences and academic discourse, the theme of COLSONOEL 2024 was ‘Rebirth, Renewal, Renaissance’. This symposium for post-graduate students and early career researchers was set up as a supportive and welcoming academic environment for presenters to test new ideas and to share their research. And it is in this vein, that COLSONOEL began again and hopes to continue for many years to come.
COLSONOEL 2024 kicked off on a wet and dismal Friday 3rd May in St Hilda’s College in the Garden Room Suite, which transformed into an exciting day of papers and conversations. Exquisite views stretching over Oxford with its dreaming spires rising to the rain-sodden heavens framed the speakers and their presentations at St Hilda’s as we welcomed ten speakers from Oxford, Cambridge, and Birkbeck.
Considering the question of reception and intertextual relationships in the first session, David Bond West opened COLSONOEL with his paper on ‘Rhetorical Storytelling in Bergr Sokkason’s Mikjáls saga’. Moving from Old Norse to Old English, Mingwei Lu examined the relationships between psalms and elegies in the paper ‘“Hu lange wilt þu, Drihten” – A Comparison of Religious Revival in the Old English Psalms and the Old English Elegies’. Leaping forward to the modern era, Emily Dixon asked what it meant to think through soil and landscapes in her paper ‘Rebirth through soil: The earth of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Beowulf and The Wanderer’.
Following this line of movement to earth-centred evidence and thinking about what can be uncovered through archaeology, Katie Beard opened the second session with her investigation into amulets, ‘Armaments as Amulets in Old Norse in Old Norse Literature and Archaeology’. Daisy Bonsall worked through the theme of the conference in thinking about the multiple uses and re-purposing of textiles in Anglo-Saxon England in ‘A Case for Regifting: Reusing Textiles to Create and Renew Connections in Anglo-Saxon England’.
The inter-relationship of life and death and the possibility of comparing through these ontological concerns took centre stage in session three as Alexia Kirov discussed images and themes of birth and death in ‘Re: birth and death – from (pre-)cradle to grave in Early English Literature’. What are the appropriate responses to the death of king and what is the emotional performance a poet may engage in when his king dies? Molly Bovett looked at some of these questions and more in ‘The Death of the King in Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds’. Staying in the realm of Old Norse literature but migrating from the historical world of medieval Norway and Iceland to the world of the mythological texts, Kendra Nydam closed the third session with her paper ‘Thrice-burnt, Thrice-born: Revisiting the Fateful Role of Gullveig in Norse Mythology’.
How different medieval historians and societies think about and write about the past formed a key concern of the concluding papers in the fourth and last session of the day. In ‘Reviving the Gothic Past and justifying a Swedish present in the Festum patronorum regni Suecie’ Adrián Rodríguez turned attention to historiographical concerns in fifteenth-century Sweden. Moving one last time from Scandinavia back to medieval England, Emily Clarke gave the closing paper ‘Reforming the Past: History and Antiquarianism in the English Benedictine Reform’.
An intellectually curious atmosphere and friendly environment created a fertile and productive day of discussions in the form of question-and-answer sessions after the papers as well as more informal conversations in the tea breaks and lunch. The COLSONOEL Committee would like to thank everyone who attended this year’s symposium. We would also like to extend a special thanks to our sponsors, Oxford Medieval Studies and TORCH, who made COLSONOEL 2024 possible. We look forward to the return of COLSONOEL 2025.
Free books for medievalists! Professor Richard Sharpe (1954–2020) was Professor of Diplomatic in the University and one of the country’s foremost medievalists, whose research ranged from the early Irish church to Anglo-Norman royal acts to the transmission of medieval Latin texts and medieval books and libraries. He was also a large presence in the History Faculty and much involved in graduate tuition. Books from Professor Sharpe’s library are now being offered gratis to local medievalists. A great encourager of others, he would have been delighted to know that his books could be helping the next generation. For more information, please contact Elizabeth Champion to reserve books and arrange collection.
Title
Author/Editor
A Culture of Translation: British and Irish Scholarship in the Gennadius Library (1740-1840): 13
Lynda Mulvin
Acts of Giving
Wendy Davies
Anglo-Norman England 1066-1166
Marjorie Chibnall
Annuaire de l’nstitut Michel Villey – 2011 Vol 3
Olivier Beaud, Denis Baranger
Antiquaries Journal
Antiquaries Journal Vol. LXIX Part II
Antiquaries Journal Vol. LXX Part I AND ii
Archaeologia 1991
Canon Law, Careers and Conquest
Jorg Peltzer
Carolingian Essays
Andrew W. Mellon
Charles the Bald
Janet Nelson
Concise Dictionary of National Biography
Copistia Bologna (1265-1270)
Giovanna Murano
Du Burca Rare Books Catalogues 132, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, and ‘Irishwomen, Children, Education’
Ducal Brittany 1364-1399
Michael Jones
Early Medieval Italy
Chris Wickham
Early Medieval Spain, 2nd ed
Roger Collins
Feudalism
François Louis Ganshof
Folia CaesarAugustana I
Gaelic Literature Surveyed
Aodh de Blacam
Hereditas Monasteriorum Vols. 1-8
Hermanthena No. 194 Summer 2013
Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society
Patrick Wormald
Il Libro e il Testo Atti del Convegno
Il registro di Andrea Sapiti
Barbara Bombi
Im Umkreis von Anselm
Bernd Goebel
Imperial Lives and Letters of the Eleventh Century
Mommsen and Morrison
Introducing the Old Testament
Coggins
Ireland and the Culture of Early Medieval Europe
L. Bieler
John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning
William Poole
Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vols. 156-172
Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vols. 1990-99
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 35 Part 1
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 40 Part 1
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 41 Part 1
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 41 Part 2
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 43 Part 2
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 44 Part 1
Journal of Theological Studies New Series Vol. 45 Part 2
King David: A Biography
Steven L McKenzie
La France Cistercienne
Armelle Bonis
La Vie Religieuse en France au Moyen Age
B. Merdrignac
Lawfinders and Lawmakers
Helen Cam
Les Origines de la Bretagne
Leon Fleuriot
Leviticus as Literature
Mary Douglas
Lexicography: An emerging international profession
Robert F. Ilson
Magna Commoditas: A istory of Leiden University Library 1575-2005
C. Berkvens-Stevelinck
Medieval French Bridges
Marjorie Nice Boyer
Montaillou, Village Occitan
Le Roy Ladurie
Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis
Jaarboek Voor
North Country Bishop; A Biography of William Nicholson
Francis Godwin James
Northern History vols. 1966-1995
Northern History, June 1964 February 1969, June 1969
Oxford University Calendar 1999-2000
Oxford University Calendar 2000-2001
Oxford University Calendar 2005-2006
Parliament and Politics in the Age of Churchill and Attlee: The Headlam diaries 1935-51
Stuart Ball
Patrology Vol. IV
Angelo di Berardino
Place Names of Northern Ireland, County Antrim I, Vol 4
Place Names of Northern Ireland, County Down I Vol 1
Place Names of Northern Ireland, County Down II Vol 2
Place Names of Northern Ireland, County Down IV, Vol 6
Pope John XXII and his Franciscan Cardinal
Patrick Nold
Proceedings of the British Academi, Bibiographical Memoirs of Fellows Vols. I-XVIII
Proceedings of the British Academy Lectures & Memoirs 1988-2000
Projets de Croisade
Jaques Paviot
Province and Empire
Julia Smith
Religion and Power
Douglas Edwards
Royal Historical Society Centenary Guide 1868-1968
Scaliger’s Oriental Legacy in Leiden 1609-2009
Sean, nua agus síoraíocht : Féilscríbhinn in ómós do Dháithí Ó hÓgáin
Ríonach Uí Ógáin
Small Worlds
Wendy Davies
Society of Antiquaries of London Annual Report 1990-91
Studies on the Life and Legend of St Patrick
L. Bieler
Sussex Archaelogical Collections Vol. 126
The Antiquaries Journal 1991-2019
The Antiquaries Journal Index 61-70
The Barbarian West 400-1000
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill
The Christianisation of Latin Metre
Seppo Heikkinen
The Dublin Scuffle
John Dunton
The End of Ancient Christianity
R. A. Markus
The English Historical Review No. 323
The gate of horn: a study of the religious conceptions of the stone age, and their influence upon European thought
Gertrude Rachel Levy
The Irish Contribution to European Scholastic Though
McEvoy and Dunne
The Irish Matryoshka: A History of Irish Monks in Medieval Europe
Harkins/OhEarcain
The Kingship and Landscape of Tara
Edel Bhreathnac
The Letters of Pierre de Cros
Williman
The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751
Ian Wood
The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe
Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre
The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History Vols I and II
I don’t quite understand how it’s come around so quickly, but here we are in Week 7. For those who need a bit of a boost at this late stage in the term, some wisdom on the joys of (medieval) texts, taken from the Epistolae project:
In nullis nobis desit doctrina legendi, Lectio sit nobis et liber omne quod est. [Let us not miss reading’s lesson in any [languages]; Let everything there is be a book and a text for us.] A poem from Baudri to Constance of Le Ronceray
As Oxford medievalists we are of course extremely lucky to be surrounded by so many opportunities to read and encounter literatures in various medieval languages. But we are also a highly interdisciplinary community, and this week we have a whole host of delights, including Eclipse prediction, Byzantine dining, 19th century manuscript scrapbooks, and an exhibition on medieval monsters!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024 will be held on 18th June 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library both in person (presenters/attendees) and online (attendees). Free but registration required. All info, including the link to registration, can be found here: https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/medieval-womens-writing-research-group-conference-2024-exchanging-words
A workshop on Reconsidering Contrafacts: Practices of Contrafacture in Monophonic Song (1150–1550) will take place on 20th June, 10am-7pm. Looking at different repertories of monophonic song between 1150 and 1550, the aim of this workshop is to explore different approaches to the widespread spectrum of practices and concepts of contrafacture: composing new texts for pre-existing melodies. If you want to attend or if you have questions, please email Philip Wetzler. To read more and see the schedule, please click here.
Oxford Translation Day 2024: Saturday, June 15, 2024, St Anne’s College. Every June, St Anne’s College runs Oxford Translation Day, a celebration of literary translation consisting of a vibrant range of workshops and talks. The day culminates in the award of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance. It was founded by Lord Weidenfeld and is funded by New College, The Queen’s College, and St Anne’s College. The full programme is available on the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre website, here: https://occt.web.ox.ac.uk/oxford-translation-day-2024. All Oxford Translation Day events are free, but require registration. Please register via the Eventbrite links provided on the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre website. https://occt.web.ox.ac.uk/oxford-translation-day-2024
EVENTS THIS WEEK:
Monday 3rd June:
The Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series meets at 5pm in the T. S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College. This week’s speaker will be Michael G.R. Tolkien (Poet and Critic), “A grandson’s reflections on J.R.R. Tolkien. For more information, please see https://tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Old Library, All Souls College and on 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). Alternatively, you can use this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker will be Peregrine Horden (All Souls, Oxford) ‘A room with a view: Chichele’s college’.
Tuesday 4th June:
The Mythical and Monstrous exhibition takes place from 12 noon–4pm, Lecture Room 6, New College, Oxford. Hunt for weird and wonderful beasts in items from our fabulous special collections, from dragons and unicorns, to centaurs, blemmyes, and merpeople. Among the wide variety of items on display will be a beautiful thirteenth-century Psalter, a fantastic fourteenth-century apocalypse manuscript, a famous fifteenth-century chronicle, and a spectacular sixteenth-century astronomical text. The exhibition is free and open to all. Signs will be in place to direct visitors to the exhibition from the Porters’ Lodge, located halfway down Holywell Street. If you have any questions, please email library@new.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval French Seminar meets at 5pm at the Maison Francaise. Drinks will be served from 5pm; the presentations will start at 5:15pm. All are welcome! This week’s speaker will be Jonathan Morton (Tulane University), ‘Integuments, Astral Magic, and Robots: Virgil and Medieval Technologies of Literature‘.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers will be Charlie West (Regent’s), Cruising Hell: seeing and writing Dante’s sodomites and Fergus Bovill (Merton), Cut and Paste: the album of illuminated manuscript cuttings in the 19thc. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
Wednesday 5th June:
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11.15am in Oriel College King Edward Street 7 (Annette Volfing’s office; press the intercom buzzer to be let in). The topic for this term is Konrad von Würzburg: ‘Der Schwanritter’; this week we will discuss ‘human-animal interaction’Kampf & Körper’ with Julia Lorenz presenting. Open access edition here. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
Thursday 6th June:
The All Souls Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Science meets at 2-3.30pm in the Hovenden Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Laure Miolo (Lincoln College, University of Oxford), Eclipse Prediction in Late Fifteenth-century England: the Case of Lewis Caerleon.
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5pm at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building. All welcome! This week’s speaker will be Lara Frentrop, University of Heidelberg, ‘Objects of Desire: The Byzantine Art of Dining as Social and Romantic Agents‘.
Friday 7th June:
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 Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group (OMMG) meets at 5pm in the Sir Howard Stringer Room, Merton College. Antonia Della Fratte, University of Padua will speak on Gustav F. Waagen Tours of Britain: Describing Illuminated MSS in Oxford.
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group will meets at 5-6.30pm. Please note that this final session of the will be Zoom ONLY, as our convenor is unable to attend for our final meeting of the academic year. We shall continue reading from Mandeville, and will also discuss plans for next term. If you wish to join us and are not already on our mailing-list, please contact Stephanie Hathaway or Jane Bliss to be sent the link.
OPPORTUNITIES:
Free books for medievalists! Professor Richard Sharpe (1954–2020) was Professor of Diplomatic in the University and one of the country’s foremost medievalists, whose research ranged from the early Irish church to Anglo-Norman royal acts to the transmission of medieval Latin texts and medieval books and libraries. He was also a large presence in the History Faculty and much involved in graduate tuition. Books from Professor Sharpe’s library are now being offered gratis to local medievalists – please see the list here. A great encourager of others, he would have been delighted to know that his books could be helping the next generation. For more information, please contact Elizabeth Champion to reserve books and arrange collection.
CFP: Unlocking the Exeter Book – New Perspectives: Paper proposals are invited for a conference to be held at The University of Oxford, on 16–17 April 2025. The Exeter Book or Exeter Anthology is a cornerstone of Old English poetry. From saints’ lives to wisdom poetry, lyrics and laments to riddles and prayers, this fascinating juxtaposition of genres, styles and themes invites constant re-reading and re-evaluation. The conference will bring together established scholars and new voices to bring fresh insights to this rich and enigmatic manuscript. Please send abstracts of no more than 150 words to Rachel Burns and Francis Leneghan by 1st August 2024
Finally, some more wisdom from the Epistolae Project, and from Baudri, on the joys of reading:
quaevis mundi littera nos doceat [Every literature of the world teaches us.] A poem from Baudri to Constance of Le Ronceray
I of course take this broadly, in the spirit of this week’s first wisdom quotation, to mean that every facet of medieval studies teaches us! I wish you a week of productive reading, teaching and learning.
[A Medievalist who “missed reading’s lesson“ in Latin is now a little puzzled…] St John’s College MS. 61, f. 10 r. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian
Practices of Contrafacture in Monophonic Song (1150–1550)
When: 20 June 2024 (week 9), 10am-7pm Where: Committee Room, Faculty of Music Convenor: Philip Wetzler
Looking at different repertories of monophonic song between 1150 and 1550, the aim of this workshop is to explore different approaches to the widespread spectrum of practices and concepts of contrafacture: composing new texts for pre-existing melodies. The fact of a song being a contrafact will not be taken as a result but as a starting point for further inquiries. In this workshop we will encounter similarities, analogies, and differences between different regions, languages, genres, and times between 1150 and 1550, looking at Trouvère, Sangspruch and Minnesang, religious song (geistliches Lied), Meistersinger and puy societies.
The schedule will be split into two parts: the first half is reserved for presentations of individual papers with a following discussion, in the second half we will collectively examine and interpret further selected case studies. Anybody interested is welcome to attend the presentations and take part in the discussions. If you want to attend or if you have questions, please email Philip Wetzler.
The workshop is generously funded by the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst e.V.
Preliminary schedule with provisional titles
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee/Tea
10:30-11:00 Introduction
11:00 – 11:45 Joseph Mason, Satire, allusion, erasure: approaches to contrafacture in trouvère songs of war
11:45 – 12:30 Philip Wetzler, From Contrafact to Practices of Contrafacture: Middle High German Sangspruch and Practices of Contrafacture
12:30 – 13:30 Light Lunch Break
13:30 – 14:15 Anna Wilmore, Ludic Lyrics: Play and Piety in Marian Contrafact
14:15 – 15:00 Agnes Rugel, “geistlich lieder, doch in weltlichen weysen”. How practices of contrafacture structure the landscape of religious songbooks in late medieval Germanspeaking areas
15:00 – 15:30 Tea/Coffee Break
15:30 – 17:00 Collective Discussion of Case Studies
17:00 – 17:30 Tea/Coffee Break
17:30 – 18:30/19:00 Collective Discussion of Case Studies
19:00 Dinner (self-paying)
Image from the Hohenfurt Songbook (Hohenfurter Liederbuch), fol. 65r, Hohenfurt / Vyssí Brod (Bohemia), Stiftsbibliothek Ms. 8b
CAT is back! After a successful run in June 2023, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed a second art-piece ‘Conversations Across Time’. Free tickets for the performances moving from the Ashmolean to a second secret hidden location are available via the website https://www.citizensai.com/
Dates: June 15th (preview at 11am – 1:20pm) | June 15th | June 16th
Schedule: 15:20 Meet on the steps at the Ashmolean Museum 15:30 Prequel 16:00 Departure for Scene Two 16:15 Scene II is in a Quantum Anomaly [hidden location] 17:40 End | Conversation to Follow
Players: Giovanni De Felice, Sirui Ning and, Juliette Imbert, PDK, Costi Levy, Directors:PDK and Costi Levy Composer: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
From the announcement in 2023: What do horses, medievalists, black hole orbits, boardrooms, and quantum computers have in common? Inspired by the Medieval Mystery Plays, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed an art-piece ‘Conversations Across Time’ which links medieval theatre, women in science, and Quantum future.
