Welcome to week 2! Please find below all of the medieval events across Oxford in the coming week.
The wonderful team behind the medieval mystery plays that took place at the beginning of this term have put together a full report of the event, which includes a number of amazing photos. A video of last week’s performance of The Netherhold Martyr is now available here.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Amanda Power (St Catherine’s College Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Salvation, alienation and sacrifice zones from medieval to modern thought’.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Raphaela Rohrhofer (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Nothing Matters: The Contemplative Poetics of Nought in Julian of Norwich and Beyond’.
- The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
- Centre for Early Medieval Britian and Ireland Seminar ‘Sacrilizing the Everyday’ – 4pm in the Rees Davies (History Faculty).
- Medieval Church and Culture – tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Shaw Worth (Magdalen) will be speaking on ‘‘Bien est avoiré sur vous le langage’: practising allegory between text and image in three manuscripts of Alain Chartier’s Livre d’Espérance, 1450–1470’. Sophie Boehler (St Hugh’s) will be speaking on ‘Seeress to Abbess: women’s evolving dreams, visions and prophecies during the Icelandic conversion period’.
Wednesday
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar – NB In second week, the seminar will not take place. Instead there will be a workshop on Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, the first female German Poet Laureate, in St Edmund Hall, starting at 10am. If you are interested to participate, 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 2: The daily rotation of the celestial sphere (primum mobile) [1/2].
- Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
- Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Christophe Jaffrelot (Kings College London) will be speaking on ‘Beyond Castes and Regions: The Socio-Economic Decline of Muslims in Contemporary India’.
- Merton College History of the Book Group Lecture – 5pm, Mure Room (Merton College). Professor Orietta Da Rold (Professor of Medieval Literature and Manuscript Studies, University of Cambridge) will be speaking on “The many crafts of paper”. Attendees will have the opportunity to view medieval works on paper from the Merton Library and Archives. The talk will be followed by refreshments. All are welcome, and we would appreciate an RSVP to julia.walworth@merton.ox.ac.uk
Thursday
- 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.
- The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Richard Piran McClary (University of York) will be speaking on ‘Lajvardina: A Re-evaluation of Distinctive Ilkhanid and Golden Horde Overglaze Painted Wares’.
Friday
- Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Upcoming
- Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
- Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
- Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
- The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.
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