Month: September 2024

Palaeography Offers in Michaelmas 24

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30/09/2024

07:47

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There are a number of palaeography offers available for anybody interested in Oxford happening in Michaelmas 2024, coordinated by Dr Laure Miolo, Lyell Career Development Fellow in Latin Palaeography and Dilts Fellow at Lincoln College, historian of late medieval Europe, specialising in manuscript studies and history of early libraries with a special focus on scientific books and practices. Contact her for  any of the below under laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.

Header Image: Lincoln College/EL/OAS/D1

  1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Mo 10.30-12
  2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives, Fr 2-3pm
  3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Tue 2-3.30pm

1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group

This group is open to anyone with an interest in Old French, Middle French and Anglo-Norman manuscripts. We study and read manuscripts from the 12th century to the 16th century with a special focus on palaeography. We meet every Monday between 10.30am-12pm in the Weston Library. 

If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please write to Laure Miolo.

Oxford, St John’s College MS 164, fol. 1r

2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives

Every Friday 2-3pm from week 2, Seminar Room 1, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX

Following the focus on medieval documents from Lincoln College last year, the seminar will now also include documents from Magdalen College in collaboration with Richard Allen (Magdalen College’s archivist). Both Colleges holds an outstanding collection of archives predating the Colleges’ respective foundations. A part of those documents relates to several parishes of Oxford, such as All Saints, St Michael’s at the Northgate and others. 

This weekly one-hour seminar aims to investigate these unpublished documents, mostly deeds, dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that bear witness to everyday life in Oxford at the time. Anyone interested in analysing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. Working in pairs on a self-selected source, the research will entail the examination of the record’s external characteristics (such as writing surface, layout, marks of use) as well as transcription, translation, and identification of locations and individuals mentioned in the records to establish a context. Special importance will be given to the seals attached to these documents. 

As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo

3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group

(advanced beginner, intermediate and advanced levels)

For those wishing to develop, deepen or maintain their skills in Latin palaeography, we meet every Tuesday between 2pm and 3.30pm in the Weston Library (Horton Room or Visiting Scholars Centre). We explore a wide range of medieval manuscripts and documents from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The session includes analysis of different scripts, abbreviations and codicological features. Practice is the key to developing palaeographical skills and becoming more comfortable with different scripts, including the more cursive and abbreviated ones. The aim of this group is to teach the basic elements of each script and abbreviation in order to help in the direct reading and analysis of the manuscripts. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 562, fol. 1r

Crafting the Book: A One-Day Workshop

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25/09/2024

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Date: Friday, 22 November 2024

‘Crafting the Book’ is a one-day workshop aimed at current Oxford University students with an academic interest in the history of the book and material culture of medieval manuscripts and early printed texts, including their production, decoration, and provenance through signs of ownership. They will engage with historic materials and develop a deeper understanding of contemporary artistic and reader practices through taking part in hands-on activities with craft methods.

Lunchtime Lecture: Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre at the Weston Library, 1-2pm (BOOK HERE)

Talks by expert speakers Sara Charles and Eleanor Baker with focus on their wide-ranging research on medieval illumination, calligraphy, and early printing techniques. Sara is currently a PhD student at the Institute of English Studies studying manuscript production in the Latin Christian world, and has a forthcoming trade history book, The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, August 2024). Eleanor is currently the English Subject Lead for the University of Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year, with a forthcoming trade history book, Book Curses (Bodleian Publishing, November 2024).

Practical Workshops: Bodleian Bibliographical Press, times TBA (Booking required, links will be shared closer to the date)

Sara Charles is leading a practical session on making and writing with iron gall ink as well as painting on parchment. Eleanor Baker is leading a separate session on creating book curses with early printing techniques.

Please contact event organiser Alison Ray (St Peter’s College Archivist) with any questions.

‘Crafting the Book’ is generously supported by the Oxford Medieval Studies Small Grant Scheme.

Call for Podcast Proposals

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25/09/2024

16:04

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The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series (see the website here // Twitter: @Podcast_MMA_MAA) welcomes proposals for single episodes to be featured in its fourth season. After three successful seasons, The Multicultural Middle Ages (MMA) will return for its fourth in 2025. Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, MMA is an anthology-style podcast that welcomes the global turn in Medieval Studies. This podcast series is a platform from which to continue ongoing conversations and generate new and exciting avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize its diversity. We seek to highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages. This is a space from which to speak to fellow medievalists and, more importantly, the wider public to inform our audience about the multicultural reality of the medieval period and the plurality of voices that comprise the fields of medieval studies. We invite proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines, including graduate students, for single podcast episodes aimed at fellow medievalists and the wider public.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Innovative methodological and disciplinary approaches to the Middle Ages
  • The future of Medieval Studies
  • Research on the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic Middle Ages
  • Discussions of recent scholarship
  • Archival discoveries
  • Academic activism and responses to misappropriations of the Middle Ages
  • Pedagogical approaches
  • Medievalisms
  • Medieval culture in contemporary political discourse

Cultural heritage and approaches to curating exhibitions of the Middle Ages

Possible formats may include narrative expositions, interviews, textual analysis, visual analysis, oral performances, and panel discussions. No previous experience with podcasting is required. The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA has hosted several podcasting workshops, which are now available on the MAA YouTube channel. If accepted, an MMA team member will support you through the episode development process and post-production. If you would like our technical assistance to realize your episode, such as facilitating an interview, helping record the episode, or taking care of the audio editing, please make a note of it in your proposal. Your application should include a brief description (500 words) of your proposed episode, noting the following: the chosen topic and its relevance; the plan for adapting the topic to a podcast medium (we encourage 40-50 min. episodes, but also welcome proposals for shorter or longer episodes); and the episode format (interview, narrative, etc.) with an overview of its structure a description of the support you’ll need (if any) from the MMA production team. This information is not binding but will help the committee assess the potential of the project. Please include the name and CV of each author. Submit your proposals and any questions to mmapodcast1@gmail.com and to Loren Lee (lel7qsf@virginia.edu) by October 11, 2024.

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series Production Team, Will Beattie | wbeattie@nd.edu, Jonathan Correa Reyes | jonatcr@clemson.edu, Loren Lee | lel7qsf@virginia.edu, Reed O’Mara | rao44@case.edu, Logan Quigley | quigleylogan@gmail.com, Website: https://multiculturalmiddleages.com/, X: @Podcast_MMA_MAA, Instagram: @MulticulturalMiddleAgesPod

Introduction to Archival Research

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25/09/2024

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From Domesday Book to the Leveson Enquiry, our historical records offer students a myriad of untapped research opportunities across a wide range of time periods and disciplines. With so many options, however, getting started in the archives can be a daunting prospect. Many students have questions which they are too afraid to ask. How will I know where to go? What do I need to bring with me? How do I find records for my research? How do I order documents? Do I need to use gloves? How can I be sure I’m not wasting my time?

To demystify the research process The National Archives has developed a programme of Archival Skills Training, providing students with the key skills and knowledge needed to undertake academic research using the archives.

This introduction day will explain how to get started with archival research, the importance of knowing the history and structure of a collection to navigate the records, and how to make the most of your time on site.

We will be running this one-day on-site training session on October 1 (BOOK HERE) and December 3 (BOOK HERE), with more sessions in the new year.

Thank you, and we look forward to welcoming you to The National Archives!
All the best,
Kath

Dr Kathryn Maude Team Leader, Medieval Specialists
T: 02083925369 | W: nationalarchives.gov.uk
Twitter: @krmaude @UkNatArchives |Pronouns: she/her
The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, TW9 4DU

header image: A page of Domesday Book for Oxford, cf. the National Archives guide to the Domesday Book

Medieval Visual Culture Seminar

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25/09/2024

11:26

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St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building 1.2
Thursdays 5 pm. All welcome

Thursday, November 7, 5-6:30 pm
Elena Lichmanova, DPhil student, University of Oxford “Religious Storytelling and the Rise of Marginalia”

Thursday, November 21, 5-6:30 pm
Alixe Bovey, Professor and Dean, Deputy Director, & Head of Research, The Courtauld Institute of Art “Visual Storytelling in 14th-century London: Subtexts, Pretexts, Contexts”

Thursday, December 5, 5-6:30 pm
Ben Tilghman, Associate Professor of Art History, Washington College (Maryland, USA) & Visiting Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh “What Art Does When It’s Doing Nothing: Stillness, Perdurance, and Agency in Medieval Art”

Questions? Contact Nancy Thebaut, Associate Professor, History of Art & Fellow, St Catherine’s College

Header image: Smithfield Decretals, Toulouse (?), c. 1300; London, c. 1340. London, British Library, Royal 10 E IV, fol. 4v. Image courtesy of Alixe Bovey

Nancy Thebaut is Associate Professor of the History of Art & Tutorial Fellow, St Catherine’s College. She writes for the Medieval Booklet:

Hello! I’m delighted to be joining the Oxford Medieval Studies community. I grew up in Florida and earned my postgrad degrees at the Courtauld, Ecole du Louvre, and University of Chicago (PhD). I have been living for the past few years in upstate New York, where I was Assistant Professor at Skidmore College, and I just completed a year-long sabbatical at the center for medieval studies (CESCM) at the University of Poitiers. My research and teaching cover a wide range of time and object-types, but I am especially interested in manuscript illuminations and ivory relief carvings.

Detail of the cover of Paris BnF Latin 9390, 9th c., Metz

I’m currently at work on two projects. The first is an exhibition that I am co-curating with Melanie Holcomb at The Cloisters (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY) on love, sex, and gender in the late Middle Ages and that will open in October 2025. The second is a book, entitled Lessons in Looking: Difficult Images of Christ, ca. 850-1050. It considers a selection of narrative images in liturgical manuscripts from northern Europe that depict moments at which seeing Christ is at stake, often at moments when his body is partially obscured or visually absent. In both projects, I’m invested in the agency of images, or how they actively shape how we look, think, and understand ourselves in relation to others.

I’ll be teaching a variety of medieval art history courses, in which I look forward to centering Oxford’s incredible medieval collections and sites.  I’ll also be convening the Medieval Visual Culture Seminar. We have an exciting line-up for the 2024-2025 academic year, and I hope you’ll attend!

Introducing the new OMS Comms officer

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23/09/2024

12:24

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Greetings friends, old and new.

My name is Tristan Alphey, and I am the new OMS comms officer for the coming year. I’ll be popping up in your inboxes throughout the year with all sorts of opportunities and events, and so I want to take this quick chance to briefly introduce myself and my research.

My research explores the social implications of nicknaming in pre-Conquest and early Norman England. I look at the themes, number, and distribution of nicknames in an attempt to understand what motivated people to give and repeat names, and whether we can begin to unpick some of the social systems that lay behind these names. My approach draws on a body of scholarship known as socio-onomastics, increasingly popular among linguists and anthropologists, that sees names as playing an active role in shaping the ways people interact with each other.

We find these nicknames all over the place: in Domesday Book, within witness-lists of charters, in manumissions, in confraternity books, (very occasionally) in poetry. Some of these English nicknames are simple observations: two late 7th century missionaries are given the nicknames ‘Black’ and ‘White’ for their hair colour. Others are openly pejorative: one Domesday subtenant is named, simply, ‘Bad Neighbour’. Yet others are downright unintelligible: if anyone can offer me a convincing interpretation for the nickname of Alric ‘Winter Milk’, I am all ears…

Elsewhere in Oxford I run the Medieval Misuse reading group, which explores the ways in which the medieval past has been misused by modern political parties and extremist groups. We hope to bring this back in the coming term, so keep your eyes peeled.

I look forward to getting to know you all better, and meeting many of you in person – feel free to email me with any specific questions. I’m always keen to convert other medievalists to the thrills of onomastics, particularly socio-onomastics, so do please reach out if you’d ever like to discuss names. Until then, enjoy this week’s downpour of rain and I will see you all in first week.

header image: Cnut and Emma as they appear in the liber vitae of New Minster: BL, Stowe, MS. 944, fol. 6 (https://imagesonline.bl.uk/asset/524)

The Barmakids – The Bridge between Islamic and Indic Worlds

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23/09/2024

11:42

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Tuesday, 24 Sept, 11am  in the MBI El Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, Oxford

You are cordially invited to the 2nd Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series delivered, in hybrid format, by William Dalrymple. Please register here to receive the Zoom link for those joining online: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-barmakids-a-bridge-between-islamic-and-indic-worlds-tickets-1012691907757. The opening statements will be offered by Profs Matthew Weait, Director of Continuing Education, and Arezou Azad, Director of the Invisible East Programme.

There will also be a workshop on Friday, 27 Sept. Limited seating, reservation required

The Speaker

William Dalrymple, All Souls Visiting Fellow 2023-2024, is the author of the Wolfson Prize-winning “White Mughals”, “The Last Mughal”, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning “Return of a King”. “The Anarchy” was short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal, the Tata Book of the Year and the Historical Writers Association Award, was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.

William Dalrymple is the author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning “Return of a King”. “The Anarchy” was short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal, the Tata Book of the Year and the Historical Writers Association Award, was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.

The Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series

The series connects individual stories to larger questions on the history and contemporary issues of the Middle East. The series aims to recognise and promote, in particular, microhistories, oral and documentary history, and fieldwork analysis. The series honours the life and work of Reza Hosseini (1960-2003) who last served as Humanitarian Officer in Iraq. The series was launched on the 20th anniversary of the attack on the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 which killed Reza and 21 colleagues.

This is a hybrid event. Please register here.

Come Collect!

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21/09/2024

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An invitation from the Bodleian Libraries team: How do we relax? A lot of us like collecting things and enjoying our collections. They might be books, they might be records, they might be photographs… they can be anything!

Thursday 26 September, 6–8pm | Blackwell Hall, Weston Library

As a library, the Bodleian has enjoyed collecting for over 400 years and we want to foster that joy in others. Join us 6–8pm on Thursday 26 September in Blackwell Hall at the Weston Library to have a drink and celebrate collecting.

By all means just hang out with fellow collectors, but we encourage you to:

  • bring a treasured book, document, or vinyl record for an expert opinion
  • bring an old camera, or a photo or slide we may be able to scan
  • bring ephemera we might add to our collection (posters, flyers, event tickets… especially if they’re homemade).

You can also enjoy:

  • printing a memento on our historic press
  • having a go at making a mini zine
  • viewing some of the Bodleian’s special collections
  • meeting members of the student Bibliophile society and seeing what they collect
  • learning about how you can get more involved with the Bodleian.

Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/e/n63FFwAZCD – we look forward to seeing you soon! 

This is open to all university members, please spread the word.

Amelia Wray (she/her), Administrator, Special Collections, The Weston Library | Bodleian Libraries, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG, E: amelia.wray@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Dutch Rhetoricians’ Play: Man’s Desire and Fleeting Beauty

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21/09/2024

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On Sunday 29 September 2024 (6pm and 8pm) the Chapel of New College, Oxford, offers the rare opportunity to see Man’s Desire and Fleeting Beauty, a short Dutch comedy. 

The play was written for a dramatic competition in Gouda in 1546 by a Leiden Chamber of Rhetoric, and this performance may only be the second time the play has ever been staged. You are all invited to come and find out whether Man’s Desire can win Fleeting Beauty’s affections and what role Fashion and Custom play in this amorous quest. 

The play is co-produced by Charlotte Steenbrugge (University of Sheffield) and Elisabeth Dutton (Université de Fribourg). Admission is free.

Sheep Liver Divination for US Election

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20/09/2024

13:32

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Explanation of the result of the inspection of a sheep liver in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall. Dr Selena Wisnom (Leicester) researches ancient Mesopotamian divination, and asks the question: Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US election?

You can watch the inspection in this video:

Inspection of the sheep’s liver in the kitchen of The Queen’s College, Oxford
Explanation of the results in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall, Oxford

and you can watch the alternative Babylonian reading in this video:

Alternative reading of the result

Disclaimer: the extispicy is for entertainment and research purposes only!

Dr Wisnom held a Junior Research Fellowship in Manuscripts and Text Cultures at The Queen’s College, Oxford from 2016-2020 and is currently Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East at the University of Leicester.