Author: Henrike Lähnemann

Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Fellow at St Edmund Hall, and Co-Director of Oxford Medieval Studies.

Krasis: Object-centred symposia at the Ashmolean

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20/02/2025

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Krasis is a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme, which began life at the Ashmolean in 2017, devised by classicist (and historian of ancient Boeotia) Dr Sam Gartland and Teaching Curator Dr Jim Harris. In 2018, the programme won a University of Oxford Humanities Division Teaching Excellence Award. Hilary term 2025 was its 22nd iteration.

Each term Krasis gathers eight early career researchers from the University of Oxford (the Ashmolean Junior Teaching Fellows or AJTFs) and 16 current Oxford undergraduates and taught-postgraduates (the Krasis Scholars) for a series of object-centred symposia, devised and delivered by the Teaching Fellows, who each address a shared theme from the standpoint of their own discipline and their own research.

For the Krasis Scholars, the programme offers first-hand insight into what an academic pathway might look like, and provides a rare opportunity to learn directly from researchers and to contribute to the conversation from within their degree specialism. For the AJTFs, it offers a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue and a ready, able team of students and colleagues to explore creative, imaginative approaches to collaborative, collections-based teaching. For all participants, it offers the chance to engage with the peerless collections of the Ashmolean at first hand.

Over the past seven years, Krasis has seen series on Power, the Body, Absence, Presence, Performance, Devotion, Imitation, Voices in Conflict, Movement/Transition, Play, Danger, Identity, Constraint, Opening, Becoming, Belonging, Re-Use, Work, Dialogue, Container, Wealth, Intersections, and Ruptures. We have used objects ranging from kimonos, musical scores and Tibetan musical instruments to Renaissance bronzes, newspaper advertisements, palaeolithic hand-axes and ancient Egyptian magic wands.

Most recently, we have used images loaned to the Ashmolean by the Terra Foundation for American Art to anchor each symposium, with Teaching Fellows connecting outwards from them to explore, for example, Chinese jade, the anthropology of obesity, economic aspiration in the French Revolution, witchcraft and common wealth in early modern Europe, and gift-giving in pre-Christian Sweden, in symposia involving four thousand years of objects from Egypt, China, Japan, Europe and ancient West Asia.

Krasis Teaching Fellows and Scholars have come from Classics, English, History, Economics, Fine Art, Chemistry, Archaeology, Anthropology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Russian, Japanese Studies, German, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Politics, French, Portuguese, History of Art, Arabic, Physics, Statistics, Islamic Studies, Development Studies, Geography, Music, South Asian Studies, Philosophy, Linguistics, Theology, Women’s Studies, Experimental Psychology and Law, and from almost every college of the University.

The growing number of former Scholars returning as Teaching Fellows testifies to the impact of Krasis on its participants. If you’d like to take part, please fill out the application form and return it to krasis@ashmus.ox.ac.uk by 5pm on Friday of 8th week, 14th March.

Four afternoons to change your way of thinking. Forever.

Krasis Information and application form TT 2025Download

CMTC presents — “Work in Progress” Colloquium

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13/02/2025

06:42

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The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures’ Hilary Term ‘Work-in-Progress’ colloquium – Tuesday 18th February (5.15-6.45pm, the Memorial Room at Queen’s) 

The CMTC is delighted to be hosting the following speakers: 

Dr Riccardo Montalto (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II): From manuscripts to history: The reconstruction of the Greek manuscript library of Achilles Statius (1524-1581)

Achilles Statius was a Portuguese humanist active in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century. Committed to editorial and propaganda activities and, in particular, in the edition of the texts of the Fathers of the Greek Church, Statius set up one of the largest private libraries in Renaissance Rome, peculiar for its size and intellectual value. Starting from the material data detectable from the manuscripts, compared with the data available from different sources – primarily historical, archival and library science – the research aims to reconstruct a part of Achilles Statius’s library and to identify some methods and working practices of the late Renaissance humanists.

Holly Dempster-Edwards (University of Liverpool): Emotions, Gender and Crusading in Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Prose Epics and Chronicles

This paper will give an overview of my PhD thesis, which examines the social function of emotions at the fifteenth-century court of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419-1467). My methodology is based on that of the historian Barbara Rosenwein, whose concept of ‘emotional communities’ has been highly influential within Medieval Studies. My study is based on emotion words in three Burgundian mises en prose Les Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemaine by David Aubert, La Belle Hélène de Constantinople by Jehan Wauquelin, and Mabrien (attrib. Aubert). I have built on Rosenwein’s framework by employing quantitative analysis of the gendered and ‘racial-religious’ distribution of emotions within each text, alongside qualitative textual analysis and examination of text-image relations. This paper demonstrates how emotions have a social function within this specific emotional community of Burgundian knights and would-be crusaders in response to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and how these texts function as literary propaganda which presents itself as didactic; in so doing they attempt to achieve their more subtle aim of maintaining emotion norms within the context of Burgundian chivalric masculinity, hoping to persuade Philip’s courtiers to go on crusade with him in response to the defeat of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.

From the archive

Tuesday the 13th of February 2024, 5.15–6.45pm UK time Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures

Memorial Room, The Queen’s College    

1. A. D’Angelo (Rome ‘Sapienza’), ‘Catullan marginalia in the 16th century: the books of Piero Vettori’. 

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich preserves three printed editions of Catullus’ Liber with marginal notes by Piero Vettori (1499-1585). This important scholar edited dozens of Classical authors, but never published anything on Catullus: thus, these books are the main extant evidence of his work on this poet. The notes contain variant readings, original conjectures and loci similes, and they offer new insights on Vettori’s philological method and his library. Through these marginalia, I will try to point out Vettori’s main interests in Catullus’ poetry and the sources he used for his Catullan studies.

2. Marlene Schilling (Oxford), ‘A special form of devotion – personifications of time in late medieval prayer books from Northern Germany’.  

Addressing liturgical holidays, for example welcoming Mr Easterday, is a particular characteristic of late medieval vernacular prayer-books from North German female convents. They highlight a distinct form of poetics, because describing and interacting with specific points in time – personifying them – allows an intercommunication with the divine that conveys a certain form of agency to the speaker. In this paper, we explore the particular type of prayer-books these personifications are found in, talk about their material indicators within the text, and think about the special role of the prayer-books from the Cistercian convent Medingen within this distinct manuscript landscape.

CfP: SELIM 35

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09/02/2025

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The 35th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM 35) will be hosted by the Department of English at the University of Málaga, 24th-26th September 2025. There is a long-standing link of SELIM to Oxford since offer Bruce Mitchell Award for early-career scholars which honours the memory of Dr Bruce Michell (1920–2010), a distinguished scholar of Old English, his long-enduring contribution to the field of medieval English language and literature and active involvement with the Society’s activities and journal in their early decades.

As in previous SELIM conferences, SELIM 35 will have four thematic panels accepting proposals on any topic related to any aspect of linguistic and literary research on Old and Middle English:

PanelPanel coordinatorContact
Old English Literature and CultureFrancisco Rozano-Garcíafrozg@unileon.es
Old English Language and LinguisticsEsaúl Ruiz Narbonaernarbona@us.es
Middle English Literature and CultureAndoni Cossio Garridoandoni.cossio@ehu.eus 
Middle English Language and LinguisticsMarta Pacheco Francomartapacheco@uma.es

Scholars interested in offering 20-minute presentations (followed by a 10-minute discussion) must send a 300-word abstract (excluding references) in electronic format (please use this MSWord template) to the panel coordinator before 30 March 2025. Acceptance of proposals will be confirmed by 15 April 2025. References should comply with the latest APA format (7th edition). Should you have any doubts regarding panel adscription, please send your proposal to the Organising Committee at selim35@uma.es.

Important dates
Proposal submission: 30 March 2025
Notification of acceptance: 15 April 2025
Registration (early bird): 16 April – 15 June 2025
Registration (regular): 16 June – 12 September 2025
Conference dates: 24 – 26 September 2025

For further information please contact the organizing committee at selim35@uma.es.

The Epiphanytide Mysteries

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15/01/2025

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A performance of a medieval mystery play cycle, with a reconstruction of the no longer extant wedding at Cana episode. Directed by Philipp Quinn and Elliott Clark.

When: Saturday, 25 January 2025, 2pm
Where: Pusey House, Oxford

Philipp writes: We at Pusey House welcome all and sundry to join us as we continue our Epiphanytide celebrations with carefully selected mystery plays. The event is not ticketed. The runtime should be roughly an hour. We very much look forward to seeing you there!

Pusey House put on mystery plays for the first time in 2023. In that first performance, we sought to portray the Bible’s broad “narrative,” with the Creation, the Fall, the Passion, and the Final Judgement as our highlights. This time, in connection with the Epiphany Season, we’ve chosen to emphasize the Magi, Jesus’ baptism, and the Wedding at Cana. In prioritizing that theme, we’ve had to be more eclectic in our sources this year. Whereas our first performance was based largely on the York cycle, our current plays are drawn from both the Chester and York cycles. Our plays also an original, the Wedding at Cana, since the Wedding is not found in the Chester cycle and has not survived (apart from a line-and-a-half fragment) in the York cycle.

OMS Small Grants Now Open!

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09/01/2025

15:50

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opportunities

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

The scheme has a rolling deadline. Closing date for applications: Friday of Week 4 each term for activities taking place during that or the following term. An additional deadline for summer activities and Michaelmas Term is last Friday of July.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250 and can either be for expenses or for administrative and organisational support such as publicity, filming or zoom hosting. They can also be used to support staging a play for the Medieval Mystery Cycle, e.g. for buying props or material for costumes. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the Oxford Medieval Studies blog and will be invited to present on their award at an OMS event.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising.

Applications should be submitted to Prof. Lesley Smith  using the word grant application form. Informal enquiries may also be directed to Lesley. The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme money is administered by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the money will be paid out via their expenses system.

Medieval Afterlives Season Workshop

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04/12/2024

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Date: Tuesday 21 January, 13.00-14.00, with lunch provided from 12.30
Location: Colin Matthews Room, Radcliffe Humanities (and online via MS Teams)

As part of the preparations for annual ‘Cultural Seasons’ in the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, this is an invitation to brainstorm ideas for a Cultural Programme Season on Medieval Afterlives. From Oxford Medieval Studies, Prof. Marion Turner (English), Prof. Henrike Lähnemann (MML), Prof. Nancy Thebaut (History), and Prof. Elizabeth Eva Leach (Music) are already collaborating with the Cultural Programme on possible opportunities for the season and John Fulljames, Director of Oxford University’s Humanities Cultural Programme, is keen now to extend an invitation to others to join the conversation to explore and test the potential for the season and bring together researchers who could be involved in shaping and delivering it.
The focus of the season will be on contemporary creativity, while also centring Oxford’s extraordinary medieval resources where appropriate – our manuscripts, instruments, objects, architecture, and spaces. This season might engage with novelists, poets, musicians, graphic artists, puppeteers, playwrights, actors, composers, designers, children’s book writers, textile workers, cartoonists, computer game programmers, AI technology, and more.
We would like the season to be ambitious and international while also engaging grass-roots, local communities, especially schools and young people. It will be wide-ranging, inclusive, accessible, innovative, and fun. We also want to be open about the dark side of medieval appropriations in recent years, especially by the far right (see the previous TORCH OMS workshop on Medieval Studies and the Far Right), and to examine and counter these narratives. While we want to bring in high-profile writers and artists, we also want to celebrate the creativity of everyone, including students. The season would be likely to take place circa 2028.
One overarching question might be whether this kind of contemporary creativity is an end in itself, or a gateway to the medieval past. Please come along to this initial group meeting for all interested parties, which will be structured around the question: What has medieval research to do with contemporary creativity?

If you have something you would like to share or discuss in advance, please feel free to reach out to the researchers who are already involved or the Cultural Programme via Justine Shaw. Please RSVP to: Cultural Programmes with ‘Medieval Afterlives Workshop’ (culturalprogramme@humanities.ox.ac.uk) in the subject line by 7 January 2025.

Image: ‘Serenade to Chaucer’, a pop-up version of Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s Tale’ by Paul Johnson, runner-up of the Redesigning the Medieval Book competition by the Bodleian Library.

Medieval Mystery Cycle 2025 Update

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12/11/2024

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We are advertising for a Head of Performance and announcing a speed dating / workshop meeting!

1. Medieval Mystery Plays Meeting of the Minds Workshop

Friday 29 November 2024 (Week 7), 5–6.30pm, at St Edmund Hall, Doctorow Hall

Join this speed dating workshop for matching up actors, directors, musicians, texts, and props for the upcoming Medieval Mystery Cycle on 26 April 2025! Whether you are interested but still unsure how to put together a play, which play to choose, or how to act, all are welcome! The focus of the workshop will be on how to produce a medieval play script in an accessible version (of up to 20 minutes), but there will also be an opportunity to match actors and directors and to discuss any other practical questions you might have on site at St Edmund Hall – and to enjoy tea and cake!

Meanwhile, we’re still looking for groups to join the Medieval Mystery Cycle: have a look at the original blog post!

Let us know if you’re interested in joining by emailing Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors. Also contact us if you are a graduate student or postdoc interested in this opportunity:

2. Head of Performance sought for Medieval Mystery Plays

Are you interested in pulling the strings for a successful run of the 2025 performance of the Medieval Mystery Plays? We are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and, above all, well-organised graduate student or postdoc to

  • liaise with the directors, volunteers, and groups taking part
  • plan the logistics of the performance
  • run the operations on the actual performance date
  • coordinate the publicity
  • write and / or edit the programme
  • facilitate the documentation
  • head the stewarding team

There will be a reward of £300 plus the opportunity of networking closely across the medievalist and performance people of Oxford and beyond. Please apply by Monday, 25 November 2025, with a short statement of interest and your CV by emailing Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors.

Book at Lunchtime: The Life of Nuns

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10/11/2024

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Wednesday 13 November, 12.30pm lunch. 1pm-2pm discussion. Book your place here. Join Henrike Lähnemann, Lyndal Roper, and Nancy Thebaut to discuss The Life of Nuns: Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents by Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber, open access available via Cambridge: Open Book Publishers as html, pdf, and audiobook: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0397
For a 20% discout on paper copies, use the code LONHL_24

Reading this remarkable volume left me with the distinct impression that medieval monasticism was far earthier, and less subject to the kind of dualistic tensions we tend to associate with asceticism, perhaps because the life of nuns was at that time a social norm, something wholly reflective of its period, rather than a counter-cultural choice or radical defiance of other orthodoxies. These tough yet pious women, while silenced by time and neglected by research, undoubtedly had and were aware of their status and influence within the broader human and divine scheme of things (Catherine Coldstream, author of Cloistered: My Years as a Nun)

From Henrike Lähnemann’s Medingen Manuscripts Blog a short account of the genesis of the book:

Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents

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.

Read here more about reactions to the book.

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