Month: April 2025

Medieval Matters TT25, Week 1

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28/04/2025

08:59

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Medieval Matters, News

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Let us begin by toasting the great success that was the Medieval Mystery Plays! I’m sure you will all join me in thanking the great host of people that made the day possible, not least of all the many actors, musicians, directors, and props-people who put on such a spectacle. Particular thanks must go to the organisers – Antonia and Sarah – and, of course, the wonderful Henrike. A full report of the day will be available soon on the OMS blog, so watch this space.

Week One of Trinity term brings a full list of events for you all to enjoy. The full Medieval Studies booklet is available here and always updated on the Oxford Medieval Studies blog – to which you are all invited to contribute! A special call-out to current Oxford Graduate students: please see the opportunities at the end of the booklet for a) the role of Social Media Officer (deadline Friday of week 2 – read the blogpost by our outgoing Social Media Officer Ashley Castelino about what the role entails) and b) for Small Grants (deadline Friday of week 4).

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Graeme Ward (Tübingen) will be speaking on ‘Biography, Textual Authority, and the Transformation of the Carolingian World’.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Helen Appleton (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Salvation and the Land in the Old English Andreas’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. This week is the MMC Social – everyone welcome to meet old friends and make new ones.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Tina Montenegro (Boston College) will be speaking on ‘vategories of Knowledge: from Rhetoric to Theology through Brunetto Latini’s Tresor’

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11.15am in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Theatre. The first week will be a shortish planning meeting. The topic for this term are ‘Alexanderroman’. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 1: Introduction to the relationship between astronomy and astrology from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre.
  • Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Chris Dyer (University of Leicester) will be speaking on ‘Winchcombe Abbey and 2,000 Peasants: Documenting a Crisis, 1340-1381’. Book here.
  • Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Sevket Pamuk (Bogaziçi University) will be speaking on ‘Political Economy and Economic Institutions of the Ottoman Empire in Comparative Perspective’.

Thursday

  • Environmental History Working Group – 12:30 in the Colin Matthew Room, History Faculty. Thomas Laskowski (MPhil Islamic Studies and History) will be speaking on ‘Writing the Environmental History of the Medieval Islamic East’.
  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Beckington Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
  • Henry Bradshaw Lecture – 5pm in the Collier Room (Regent’s Park College). Helen Gittos will be speaking on ‘Christianity Before Conversion: The Archaeology of Liturgy’
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pm in person & online (Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College). Saudamini Siegrist (NYU graduate) will be speaking on ‘Julian of Norwich and Modern Philosophy’. registration details via their website.
  • O’Donnell Lecture – 5pm in Lecture Theatre 2 of the English Faculty. Ronald Hutton (Bristol) will be speaking on ‘The Morrigan Revisited’
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm. Merton College Library Visit. Previous experience of handling medieval manuscripts is desirable. Limited places, write to the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group email by 30/04/2025
  • The Netherhole Martyr – A Dramatic Reading – 6pm at St Edmund Hall. This semi-staged reading of the play by Good Friends for a Lifetime (Maeve Campbell, Minna Jeffery and Lily Levinson) celebrates its recent publication by Strange Region Press. The event is free to attend and no booking is required. The event will begin with drinks at 6pm, followed by a performance in the Crypt that will last until ca. 8pm.

Opportunities

  • CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
  • CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
  • A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
Screenshot of the OMS Beacons page, featuring logos of all major social media apps

Oxford Medieval Social Media: A Retrospective

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21/04/2025

19:32

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blog, opportunities, report

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Ashley Castelino reflects on his time as Social Media Officer for Oxford Medieval Studies

After two and half years with OMS, my tenure as Social Media Officer is finally coming to an end and it’s time for me to pass on the passwords. As I look back over this weird and wonderful time, here are my top tips for anyone thinking about taking on the job after me.

1. Be Adaptable

When the platform formerly known as Twitter changed hands in 2022, it sparked a period of great turmoil in the social media landscape, a landscape that is now forever changing. In our efforts to keep up with these changes, we have ended up with accounts on Twitter/X, Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube, each platform coming with different capabilities, priorities, and audiences. Besides these larger structural changes, you’ll want to try to keep up with and respond to rapidly evolving trends as well – some new (very demure, very mindful), some very very old (ancient Babylonian liver divination??).

2. Be Eager to Learn

Oxford Medieval Studies is home to such an incredibly diverse interdisciplinary academic community and, as Social Media Officer, you get a front-row seat to the most fascinating research across literature, history, art, archaeology, theology, music, and much more. From filming and editing a promotional video to finally setting up a TikTok account, this job has also given me the opportunity to learn so many new skills I never thought I’d have. Be warned though: given the extremely diverse demographics of our audience across different platforms, you might find yourself with the extremely challenging task of deciphering teenage slang…

3. Be Creative

Oxford has always been home to some of the world’s greatest medieval manuscripts, art, architecture, and other treasures. It’s no exaggeration to say that it has now also become a leading centre in medieval performance, not least as host of the Oxford Medieval Mystery Cycle. Whether or not you are yourself an artist or a performer, it’s impossible to not be inspired to find new ways to show off everything this city has to offer!

4. Be Collaborative

This is by no means a solitary job – you will be constantly working with academics and artists, colleges, departments, and libraries, medievalists around the world, and even the odd celebrity frog. Academic social media is a vibrant but perhaps overcrowded space, so it’s always worth finding ways to collaborate with other creators across the university. With a view to your future career, you may even make a few extremely useful contacts along the way.

5. Be Persistent

Social media algorithms are complex beasts and it’s very difficult to predict when a post or a video is going to perform well. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing content out into the ether and hope it helps at least one person learn or laugh. Whether it’s compiling extensive summaries of the termly medieval booklet or nudging colleagues to send you material, persistence is always a key part of the job.

6. Be Passionate!

At the end of the day, this job is whatever you choose to make of it, so all that really matters is that you are passionate about medieval studies and want to share that passion with the world. If you are, I would strongly encourage you to consider applying for this role! Have a look at what we’ve done so far – all our social media accounts can be accessed via our Beacons page – and let us know if you have any ideas to help us grow even further. Find out more about applying for the role at https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/2025/04/21/medieval-matters-week-0-update/.

Medieval Matters Week 0 Update

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21/04/2025

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Around Oxford, events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities

With full term about to begin, I have three exciting developments for you all.

First, a final reminder that the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays take place on the 26 April (this Saturday) from 12 noon at St Edmund Hall. The incredible booklet can be found at the end of this post, which illustrates just how many of our community are involved, and the feast of entertainment available on the day. See you all there!

Second, the first draft of the termly OMS booklet can be found here. If you have submitted an event, please cast a quick eye over the information to ensure that it is correct. If you are yet to submit your events but woul like them to be included, please do so ASAP.

Finally, OMS is seeking a new Social Media Officer. The Social Media Officer is in charge of connecting all of Oxford’s medievalists via the OMS Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts and also occasionally posting on here, the OMS blog. You will be responsible for posting across these platforms to advertise OMS events, opportunities and news. Familiarity with social media advertising is beneficial but not essential: this is an ideal way to gain technical know-how about social media, advertising and marketing that can be used in your academic career and beyond. The post usually comprises an hour or two a week. You can read a retrospective of the current Officer Ashley here. Those interested should reply to this email address before Saturday, where there will be the chance to shadow.

Mysteries2025-Programme-A4Download

‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts

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15/04/2025

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Are you curious about what manuscripts can tell us beyond their texts? Join Digital Scholarship @ Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries for a hands-on workshop using data from manuscript catalogues to explore trends and patterns in medieval manuscript production.

You’ll learn:

  • What kinds of data can be recorded about manuscripts
  • How to interpret and analyse manuscript catalogue entries
  • Ways to identify trends and patterns using simple tools like Excel

You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with manuscripts from the Bodleian’s collections, learning new skills that you can apply in your future studies and research. You’ll also get to contribute to the ongoing development of the manuscript catalogues, with your contributions credited on the Bodleian website.

No technical experience is required, just a basic familiarity with Excel.

Spaces are limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Workshop dates:

  • Thursday of 3rd week (15th May), 1–5pm – undergraduates
  • Thursday of 4th week (22nd May), 1–5pm – undergraduates
  • Thursday of 7th week (12th June), 1–5pm – postgraduates

Please still fill in the form if you are unavailable on these dates, as we may be able to make additional workshops available if there is demand.

Signup deadline: Midday, Friday of 2nd Week (9th May)

Signup using the online form here: https://forms.office.com/e/cHL1Zg7qJU

If you have any questions, please contact Seb Dows-Miller at sebastian.dows-miller@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Apocalypse – the Trailer

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10/04/2025

06:08

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Shaw Worth (MSt. Medieval Studies 2024)

Scripture suggests that the Christian apocalypse will only happen once. OMS, however, has so far seen two in Hilary Term, both in preparation for the Medieval Mystery Plays 2025 on 26 April 2026 (programme here, and more below), with one now available to stream in perpetuity for HistoryHit’s new documentary The Medieval Apocalypse, presented by Dr Eleanor Janega.

A shorter version of the performance for HistoryHit, composed from the outtakes (thanks to Laura McMillen who sent over the edited clip!)

Hopefully the post below can shed some light onto the process of mounting a medieval performance-text, and offer some insight into the dramaturgs hard at work for their performances on the 26th April. We hope if you watch both your appetites for the Plays might be whetted—especially for those hankering for the Judgement-narrative, of which another staging is forthcoming by the MSt English 650–1550 cohort on the 26th!  

Choosing the text

Though Middle English versions of the Last Judgement exist across the gamut of post-Conquest literature (in poetry and prose as well as drama), Henrike Lähnemann chose an excerpt from so-called ‘Towneley’ collection of mystery plays as our performance text since a) there was already a text available from the preparation for the 2019 cycle, b) (more importantly) it starts with the reference to a horn!

our company (Professor Henrike Lähnemann, Dr Andrew Dunning, Timothy Powell, Michael Angerer, Shaw Worth, Monty Powell, and the Revd Andreas Wenzel)

Like most religious medieval English drama, we ultimately know very little about the provenance and assembly of the texts that come together in their unique sixteenth-century witness (San Marino, California, Huntington Library, MS HM 1). Unlike the York and Chester cycles, it’s not clear when, or by whom the plays were commissioned; as I’ll discuss below, they show marks of major internal revision, suggesting their transmission over an extended period. That would fit with our idea of English dramatic cycles taking place around the Feast of Corpus Christi in the summer: on one day, different guilds re-staged episodes from the Bible from Genesis through to Revelation, at least some of the time on mobile wagons in civic centres between which spectators could move.

The cycle takes its name from the prominent Lancashire family in whose library the manuscript containing the plays was held until the nineteenth century; the dialect of the plays themselves, however, suggests a West Yorkshire origin, and has long been associated with Wakefield in the West Riding, though debate around that attribution rages on. The Last Judgement is a particular gem from the Towneley plays insofar as it bears the distinctive nine-line stanza used by one (hypothetically reconstructed) contributor to the cycle usually called the ‘Wakefield Master’, whose naturalism and comedy elevates what are otherwise completely pedestrian reiterations of doctrinal tropes into rich dramas. (For an accessible introduction to the Master’s verbal tricks, check out the London Review of Books’ Medieval LOLs podcast episode on the Second Shepherds’ Play, hosted by Drs Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu — link here! – and watch the play in the 2019 performance).

The story as we cut it is very simple—and I’ll avoid ‘spoilers’ to keep you entertained—but the play sees two souls, Bonus and Malus (Monty Powell and Michael Angerer), called to attest to their earthly deeds before Christ seated in majesty and accompanied by three (non-speaking, but singing) helper-angels (Henrike Lähnemann, Andrew Dunning, Tim Powell), and Jesus’ (me) replies to them both. By Malus he is less than impressed…

Putting the play together

Then came the issue of how to stage it. To call any contemporary performance of Middle English (religious) plays ‘historical reconstructions’ is hard to justify, though the situation varies from text to text. Almost no information regarding the staging of the four major cycles survives (beyond some rather opaque, and certainly guild-manipulated registers from York), to say nothing of the fact that the (Tudor!) witnesses to Middle English cycle drama postdate their first performances in most cases by almost two centuries. The Towneley manuscript more likely emerges from sixteenth-century antiquarianism, in other words, rather than from active use. As a substitute, with Henrike’s help and direction, we used stage directions from fifteenth-century German dramatic records, like those surrounding the Bordesholm Marienklage, which leaves rich prefatory details in Latin of players, costumes, and props down to individual textile-types. As Christ I wore a paper crown and (real) liturgical vestments, provided by Andreas Wenzel from the St Edmund Hall chapel (including the right preparatory prayers); stigmata were ably provided by Alison Ray of the Bodleian, whose Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm (sponsorship pending) lent a rather septic sheen to Christ’s woundys, smeared on Boots own-brand cotton gloves. Malus and Bonus wore academic gowns over black; the angels wore surplices and wings from the St Edmund Hall costume store, along with—long-term OMS fans can be reassured—Henrike’s bannered horn invoked by Malus in the opening lines.

Filming and reperformance

Filming for the HistoryHit documentary took place in January. Following a quick review of the text and a rundown on mid-Yorkshire vowels circa 1450, we set up to film in the extraordinary Romanesque crypt (under the medieval church of St Peter-in-the-East, now in use as the college library; the crypt itself has been largely unaltered since the twelfth century). There we met Eleanor, the HistoryHit camera team, and the English Faculty’s own Professor Laure Ashe, who also features in the documentary as an interviewed expert. Laura, Eleanor, and Alison provided our ‘audience’, providing boos, cheers, and some less-than-pious (and probably more historically accurate) snickers; with some B-roll taken by the team, and coffee enjoyed afterwards, the documentarians vanished away to some of their other treats (if these delights weren’t enough, also see Alison introducing the Douce Apocalypse in the film as well!) 

In Eighth Week we then reperformed the same extract in the Visiting Scholars’ Centre in the Weston for full term’s final Medieval Coffee Morning as a kind of live ‘ad’ for the Mystery Plays.

Performing in the library allowed us the particular treat of presenting one of the Bodleian’s lesser-appreciated treasures, namely the roll containing the pseudo-dramatic Middle English fragment known as the Dux Moraud (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. poet. f. 2). If it is indeed an ‘actor’s roll’, as some critics have been eager to suggest, then this rather slender piece of parchment is a vanishingly rare gateway into the performance culture that flourished in East Anglia in the mid-late fifteenth century, including plays like Wisdom, The Castle of Perseverance, the Digby Mary Magdalene, and the N-Town cycle. Like other extant Anglian plays extant, the Moraud is distinctively racier than other regions of Middle English cycle drama; we won’t tell if you look it up. 

Despite the fact that they feature the same actors using the same text, these two versions of the Towneley Judgementdemonstrate very neatly the huge potential value of experimental reperformance—of music, mime, liturgy, and dance as well as drama—as a means of engaging with medieval media at large. The HistoryHit documentary brings up interesting questions: with the intervention of the camera, the viewer is no longer free to observe different aspects of the performance going on at once; modern English subtitles ‘remediate’ the frequently alliterative Middle English text, dropping another kind of information into the mix; narration, rather like the long German prefaces mentioned above, will set audiences looking to correlate what they’ve previously heard with what they’re seeing. The Weston performance, on the other hand, makes fewer modernization attempts, but prompted a fair few audience questions on what had actually been said! 

All that’s to say that reasons are very few that medievalists shouldn’t find themselves at Teddy Hall on the 26th to watch the Mystery Plays. The day will bring together a huge range of religious drama and promises to alchemize some cross-discipline work as always.

Cast

Jesus (Shaw Worth) – MSt. Medieval Studies
Malus/Evil Soul (Michael Angerer) – DPhil. candidate in Medieval English
Bonus/Good Soul (Monty Powell) – MSt. Modern Languages
Singing Angel (Andrew Dunning) – Curator of Medieval Manuscripts
Trumpet angle (Henrike Lähnemann) – Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics

Text extract from the Towneley Judgement play in the Oxford Text Archive

Malus: Alas I harde that horne / that callys vs to the dome, 3 All that euer were borne / thider behofys theym com. 4 May nathere lande ne se / vs from this dome hide, 5 ffor ferde fayn wold, I fle / bot I must nedys abide; […] 6 Alas, that I was borne! 11 I se now me beforne, 12 That lord with Woundys fyfe; 13 how may I on hym loke, 14 That falsly hym forsoke, 15 When I led synfull lyfe? 16

Jesus: The day is commen of catyfnes, 394 all those to care that ar vncleyn, 395 The day of batell and bitternes, 396 ffull long abiden has it beyn; 397 The day of drede to more and les, 398 of Ioy, of tremlyng, and of teyn. 399 Ilka wight that wikyd is 400 may say, alas this day is seyn! 401 here may ye se my Woundys wide 402 that I suffred for youre mysdede, 403 Thrugh harte, hede, fote, hande and syde, 404 not for my gilte bot for youre nede. […] 405 All this suffred I for thi sake. 432 say, man, What suffred, thou for me? 433 Mi blissid barnes on my right hande, 434 youre dome this day thar ye not drede, […] 435 When I was hungre ye me fed, 442 To slek my thrist ye war full fre; 443 When I was clothles ye me cled, 444 ye Wold, no sorowe on me se; […] 445 Therfor in heuen shall be youre rest, 456 In ioy and blys to beld, me by. 457

Bonus: lord, When had thou so mekill nede? 458 hungre or thrusty, how myght it be? 459 When was oure harte fre the to feede? 460 In prison When myght We the se? 461 When was thou seke, or wantyd wede? 462 To harbowre the when helpid we? 463 When had thou nede of oure fordede? 464 when did we all this dede to the? 465

Jesus: Mi blissid barnes, I shall you say 466 what tyme this dede was to me done; […] 467 My blessed bairns, I shall you say What time this deed was to me done; … ye cursid, catyfs of kames kyn, 474 That neuer me comforthid, in my care, 475 Now I and ye for euer shall twyn, 476 In doyll to dwell for euer mare; […] 477 Catyfs, ye chaste me from youre yate; 483 when ye were set as syres on bynke 484 I stode ther oute wery and Wate, 485 yit none of you Wold, on me thynke, 486 To haue pite on my poore astate; 487 Therfor to hell I shall you synke, […]!

Malus: 488 lorde, when had thou, that all has, 504 hunger or thriste, sen thou god is? 505 When was that thou in prison was? 506 When was thou nakyd or harberles? […] 507 Alas, for doyll this day! 512 alas, that euer I it abode! 513 Now am I dampned for ay, 514 this dome may I not avoyde. 515

Jesus: Mi chosyn childer, commes to me! 524 With me to dwell now shall ye weynde, 525 Ther ioy and blys euer shall be, 526 youre life in lykyng for to leynde! 527 Jesus turns to Malus and sends him out howling ye warid Wightys, from me ye fle, 528 In hell to dwell withoutten ende! 529 Ther shall ye noght bot sorow se, 530 And sit bi sathanas the feynde. 531

Bonus: We loue the, lorde, in alkyn thyng, 613 That for thyne awne has ordand thus, 614 That we may haue now oure dwellyng 615 In heuen blis giffen vnto vs. 616 Therfor full boldly may we syng 617 On oure way as we trus; 618 Make we all myrth and louyng 619 With te deum laudamus.