Author: Luisa Ostacchini

Scribal Identity and Agency Conference

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13/12/2021

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We are pleased to announce the programme of the conference that will conclude the seminar series on Scribal Identity and Agency, hosted by the Early Text Cultures research network at the University of Oxford. The event will take place online on Zoom (UK time) on 16 – 17 December 2021 and will include talks on the Late Bronze Age city of Ugarit, ancient Rome, medieval Christianity and Islam, and monastic communities in early modern Ethiopia and Tibet. To receive the link please register here. 

Abstracts can be found here.

PROGRAMME (UK TIME)

DAY 1 (16 December)

4—4.15pm

Introduction & Greetings

Session 1. Urban Scribes in Mediterranean Antiquity: East and West

4.15—4.45pm

Philip Boyes (Cambridge)

Script and Identity in Late Bronze Age Ugarit

4.45—5.15pm

Benjamin Hartmann (Zurich)

Consequences of Literacy: Identity and Agency of Roman scribae

5.15—5.45pm

Joint Q&A

Session 2. (Non-)Marginal Scribal Identities  in the Christian and Islamic Middle Ages

6.15—6.45pm

Elaine Treharne (Stanford)

Networks of Female (?) Scribal Activity, 1100-1250

6.45—7.15pm

Vevian Zaki (Oxford)

To be a Scribe of Christian Arabic Texts: Skills and Challenges

7.15—7.45pm

Joint Q&A

DAY 2 (17 December)

Session 3. Inscribing Religious Communities into the Modern Era

4.45—5.15pm

Brenton Sullivan (Colgate)

Monastic Constitutions and the Dissemination of Administrative Power in Premodern Tibet

5.15—5.45pm

Denis Nosnitsin (Hamburg)

Scribes from Ethiopia (East Tigray): Practices, Profiles, Portraits

5.45—6.15pm

Joint Q&A 

6.15—6.30pm

Break

6.30—7.30pm

Final Roundtable

Everyone is extremely welcome.

Medieval Matters: Week 8

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29/11/2021

15:01

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Somehow, we are already at Week 8, and the end of the term. What a busy and exciting term of medieval events it has been! We are incredibly lucky to have such a large and diverse community here at Oxford: afterall, the Durham Proverbs remind us that:

Nafað ænig mann freonda to fela.
[Nobody can have too many friends.]

Thank you so much to everyone who has organised events, given papers, or turned up to seminars this term: you have made the Oxford Medievalist community richer! Here’s our last week of events for Michaelmas 2021:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Save the date! Our OMS Lectures will take place on 8th February (Lucy Pick: title tbc) and 26th April (Caroline Danforth: Paper, Linen, Silk, and Parchment – Material Fragments from an Extinguished Convent). Full details to come shortly on our blog.
  • Announcing the publication of a new volume of essays co-edited by Laura Varnam (Oxford) and Laura Kalas (Swansea): Encountering The Book of Margery Kempe. The volume is published this month by MUP (and is currently 40% off with the discount code ‘Kempe21’). There will be an online launch with the volume contributors on Thursday 16th December at 5pm on Zoom. We’d be delighted if you wanted to join us! Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-of-encountering-the-book-of-margery-kempe-registration-209741030067

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 29th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is John-Francis Martin (Oxford), ‘Byzantine Catholics (exact title TBC)‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk or visit the eventbrite page.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen to be added to the Teams call.
  • The Medieval Archaeology Seminar meets at 3pm Online via Teams. This week’s speaker is Pieter-Jan Dekkers, ‘Metal-detector finds and Flemish coastal settlement, 600-1100.’
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm on Teams and in the Wharton Room. Attendance at the Wharton Room is by advance booking only as the room has a strict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made at https://medieval-history-seminar.reservio.com. This week’s speaker is John Blair (Oxford), ‘Anglo-Saxon Landholding: the Unimportance of Bookland’.
  • The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.15pm on Teams. Please email Olivia Smith (olivia.smith2@linacre.ox.ac.uk) to be added to the mailing list and Teams group.

Tuesday 30th November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Arash Zeini, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Iranian Studies, FreieUniversität Berlin, ‘Is there a Middle Persian epistolary tradition? A survey‘.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Alchemy and the Philosopher’s Stone’.
  • The Continental Old French Reading Group meets at 3.30pm at St Hilda’s College. Anyone interested in joining should send an email to sebastian.dows-miller@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Zofia Brzozowska (The University of Łódz), ‘The image of an Arab woman in medieval Rusliterature (11th–16th century)‘.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is David Addison (All Souls), ‘Isidore of Seville, the Carolingians, and the idea of the laity‘.
  • The Oxford University Numismatic Society Graduate and ECR Colloquium 2021: “Base Metal Coinage in Antiquity and Beyond” takes place at 5pm on Teams. To receive meeting links and further updates, please email the Secretary at daniel.etches@new.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Meet the Manuscripts Autumn Series takes place at 5.30, online. This week’s speakers will be Micah Mackay, doctoral student in the Publication Before Print Doctoral Centre and Andrew Dunning, R. W. Hunt Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, ‘Correcting Christmas Carols‘. Book online here.
  • The Women, Legends and Texts Talk takes place at 7pm at Jesus College Chapel. This week’s speaker is Laura Saetveit Miles, giving a short informal talk on ‘St. Birgitta of Sweden: late-medieval England’s favorite visionary[?]‘.

Wednesday 1st December:

  • The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in New Powell Room, Somerville College. If you are interested to be added to the mailing list for the seminar, write to Linus Ubl.
  • The Workshop on Manuscript Description and Cataloguing: encoding in TEI xml takes place at 1-2pm in the Weston Weston Library Centre for Digital Scholarship. Places strictly limited: email matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • The Medieval Trade Reading Group meets at 1-2pm in Mertze Tate Room, History Faculty, and Online. To be added to the mailing list and team please email Annabel Hancock.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm on Google Meet, followed by drinks at 7pm at Corpus Christi College. This week’s speaker is Elisabetta Neri (Liège), ‘Glass in transition (4th-12th c.). Production, trade and networks in southern Italy’. This week’s seminar is in collaboration with the Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speakers will be Rachel Burns (CLASP, Oxford), ‘Psalms and Psychogeography in the Old English Solomon and Saturn’, and Anthony Harris (CLASP, Oxford), ‘Science and Literature – a Marriage of Ideas: “The Sun in the South” Revisited’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Thursday 2nd December:

  • The Middle High German Reading Group meets at 9-10.30am on Zoom. This week’s topic is ‘Der Renner: Ziegenschwank (Hugo von Trimberg) ‘. If you have any questions or want to participate, please send an e-mail to melina.schmidt@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Archives de l’Athos reading group meets at 3-4pm at Campion Hall. All interested in Byzantine history, non-Latin diplomatics, Greek palaeography or diplomatic edition are welcome. Contact marek.jankowiak@history.ox.ac.uk or olivier.delouis@campion.ox.ac.uk to sign up and receive the texts in advance.
  • The Imaging Belief Seminar meets at 4pm on Zoom. The speakers will be Prof Boaz Huss, ‘“Martyr of the Word”: Imagining Abraham Abulafia in Modern Literature, Arts and Popular Culture’. and Prof Annette Volfing, ‘Misdirected Visions: Doubt and Confusion in the Middle High German Sister Books’. Further information on Oxford Talks.The seminar will take place on Zoom. For the link, please email either rey.conquer@pmb.ox.ac.uk or mary.boyle@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk. 
  • The Greek and Latin Reading Group meets at 4pm in St Edmund Hall. Room TBC: contact John Colley or Jenyth Evans to be added to the mailing list. This week’s text will be Homer, Iliad, 19.303-39.
  • The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music takes place at 5-6.45pm on Zoom. If you are planning to attend, please register online. This week’s speaker is Brianne Dolce (Fitzjames Research Fellow in Music, Merton College, Oxford), ‘The Confraternity of Jongleurs and Bourgeois of Arras: A Reappraisal‘. The Discussants are Catherine A. Bradley (University of Oslo) and Barbara Haggh-Huglo (University of Maryland, College Park).
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm on Zoom. For Zoom link, contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Michael Cronin (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Minority journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene‘.
  • The North Sea Crossings Virtual Panel takes place at 5pm, online. The discussion will be streamed on this page and on the YouTube channel.  

Friday 3rd December:

  • Pre-Modern Conversations meets at 11am-12pm on Teams. For more information and to be added the the PMC Teams Channel, email lena.vosding AT mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.



OPPORTUNITIES:


Finally, some more wisdom on friendship from the Durham Proverbs:

Freond deah feor ge neah; byð near nyttra.
A friend is useful, whether far or near (near is better though).

I interpret this to mean: let’s make the most of the closeness of our friends and colleagues before we all scatter after the end of term!

A Medievalist enjoying a colleague’s research paper (complete with flashy powerpoint presentation!)
Merton College, MS 249, f. 10v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#LeunCocs

CFP: Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages VIII, Experiencing Space

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29/11/2021

14:10

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Tampere, August 17-19, 2022

The focus of the Passages conference series lies on society and the history of everyday life. This time we are concentrating on the social construction and experiences of space, aiming to understand how it affected social frameworks, built communities and shaped individual lives. The “Spatial Turn” has directed scholars’ interest towards the interconnection between communities, individuals and space, but larger comparisons between eras and cultures are still mainly missing. We aim to approach space as an analytical tool, “experience” offering a novel conceptual method for the study in this field.

We are interested in everyday interactions within and between communities, groups and individuals and their relations with the environment. How did people negotiate the borders between built and “wild” environments, urban and rural space, the public and the private, the secular and the sacred? How were ideas, ideologies and identities reflected in the built environment and how were they shaped by space and perceptions of it? How did bodily practices and emotions create spaces, and how did space shape rituals and produce emotions? What was the role of sensory perceptions when living in and moving through space? How was space imagined and how did spaces, landscapes, buildings and monuments occupy a place in the private and public imagination? How were space and memories/narrations interconnected: how were spatial experiences inscribed in the preserved sources? In which ways did the political and legal, but equally religious spheres play a role in the formation of social spaces? We invite papers that focus on social topography, the lived experience of space, the normative and legal construction of space, the sensory perceptions of spatiality, and participation in constructing and regulating spaces.

We aim at a broad coverage not only chronologically but also geographically and disciplinarily (all branches of Classical, Byzantine and Medieval Studies). Most preferable are those contributions that have a comparative and/or interdisciplinary viewpoint or focusing on a longue durée perspective. We particularly welcome papers, which have a sensitive approach to social differences: gender, status, health, and ethnicity.

***

If interested, please submit an abstract of 300-400 words (setting out thesis and conclusions) and a short biography (50-100 words) for a twenty-minute paper together with your contact details (with academic affiliation, address and e-mail) https://www.lyyti.fi/reg/passages2022cfp. The deadline for abstracts is January 31, 2022 and the notification of paper acceptance will be made in March 2022. Conference papers may be presented in major scientific languages, together with an English summary or translation, if the language of the presentation is not English. The sessions are formed on thematic coherence of the papers and on comparison between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, thus session proposals focusing on one period only will not be accepted. If the Covid-19 situation so requires, the conference has the option of participation via Zoom.

The registration fee is 130 € (post-graduate students: 60 €), online participation for presenters 50 €. For further information, please contact conference secretary saku.pihko@tuni.fi. The registration opens in April 2022.

The conference is organized by Trivium – Tampere Centre for Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences/Tampere University) in collaboration with the ERC project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition (SpaceLaw.fi, University of Helsinki). This conference has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 771874).

Medieval Matters: Week 7

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22/11/2021

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It’s not even December yet, but the Oxford Christmas lights are now twinkling away on High Street and in colleges, Christmas trees have started to pop up in restaurants, and Oxmas is just around the corner. For those people starting to panic about buying gifts, here’s some wisdom for you from the Old English Maxims I:

Maþþum oþres weorð,
gold mon sceal gifan.
[One treasure deserves another; gold should be given away.]

We have a veritable wealth of medieval treasures for you this week, and it is my great delight to ‘give away’ their schedule to you, so that you might enjoy them:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Upcoming conference and exhibition on Anglo-Dutch Relations: As part of the Leverhulme project The Literary Heritage of Anglo-Dutch Relations 1050-1600, by Ad Putter (Bristol) and Elizabeth Van Houts (Cambridge), there will be a hybrid conference in the Bodleian Library (6-8 January) to accompany an exhibition of manuscripts and early printed books (3 December 2021 – April 2022) on the same subject. There is also a livestream panel discussion to mark the opening of the exhibition on 2 December at 5PM, online.


EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 22nd November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Callan Meynell (Oxford), ‘Roman? Greek? Byzantine? Some thoughts on the trial of Maximus the Confessor and Roman identity‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk or visit the eventbrite page.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen to be added to the Teams call.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm on Teams and in the Wharton Room. Attendance at the Wharton Room is by advance booking only as the room has a strict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made at https://medieval-history-seminar.reservio.com. This week’s speaker is Rebecca Darley (Leeds) ‘The Diffusion of Governmentality in the Western Indian Ocean, c. 300-800 CE’.

Tuesday 23rd November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Arietta Papaconstantinou, Associate Professor, Department of Classics, Reading University, ‘Letters from Early Islamic Egypt‘.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Invoking Rituals’.
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Florentina Badalanova-Geller (Royal Anthropological Institute), ‘Ascending to the DivineScriptorium (The Concept of Heavenly Writings in the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch)‘.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Benjamin Thompson (Somerville), ‘Open or Closed? Late Medieval Monasteries and their Visitations‘.
  • The Medieval French Research Seminar meets at 5pm at Maison française d’Oxford. This week’s speaker is Dr Joseph Mason (New College, Oxford), ‘Sound, Music and Violence in the Old French Pastourelle’.
  • The Oxford Numismatic Society meets at 5pm on Teams. This week’s speaker will be Dr. Anna Blomley (New College, University of Oxford), ‘Between Magnesia and Macedon: The Bronze Coinages of Eastern Mount Ossa (Thessaly)‘. To receive meeting links and further updates, please email the Secretary at daniel.etches@new.ox.ac.uk.

Wednesday 24th November:

  • The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in New Powell Room, Somerville College. If you are interested to be added to the mailing list for the seminar, write to Linus Ubl.
  • The British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference takes place online at 1-5:30pm. Register for the conference here.
  • The Workshop on Manuscript Description and Cataloguing: Physical description and provenance takes place at 1-2pm in the Weston Library Horton Room. Places strictly limited: email matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm on Google Meet, followed by drinks at 7pm at Corpus Christi College. This week’s speakers are Luke Lavan (Kent), ‘Everyday life beyond Symeon the Fool‘, Geoffrey Greatrex (Ottawa), ‘From Constantinople and its hinterland to Theophanes and Procopius‘, and Vincenzo Ruggieri (Pontificio Istituto Orientale), title tbc.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Carl Kears (King’s College, London), ‘MS Junius 11: A Poetic Manuscript’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Thursday 25th November:

  • The Middle High German Reading Group meets at 9-10.30am on Zoom. This week’s topic is Die Suche nach dem glücklichen Ehepaar (Heinrich Kaufringer). If you have any questions or want to participate, please send an e-mail to melina.schmidt@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • The British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference takes place online at 1-5:30pm. Register for the conference here.
  • The Archives de l’Athos reading group meets at 3-4pm at Corpus Christi College. All interested in Byzantine history, non-Latin diplomatics, Greek palaeography or diplomatic edition are welcome. Contact marek.jankowiak@history.ox.ac.uk or olivier.delouis@campion.ox.ac.uk to sign up and receive the texts in advance.
  • The Greek and Latin Reading Group meets at 4pm in St Edmund Hall. Room TBC: contact John Colley or Jenyth Evans to be added to the mailing list. This week’s text will be Seneca, Apocolocyntosis 10-11.
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5.15pm on Teams. For Teams link, contact David Willis. This week’s speaker is Deborah Hayden (Maynooth), ‘Cryptography, linguistic origin legends and medical education in medieval Ireland‘.
  • The Old English Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm. For more information and to be added to the mailing list please email Eugenia Vorobeva.

Friday 26th November:

  • The Seminar in the History of the Book takes place at 5pm in the TS Eliot Lecture Theatre, Merton College. The speaker is Dr Daniel Sawyer, Merton College, ‘Manuscript Fragments and Manuscript Concepts‘.
  • The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5pm on Zoom. For texts, joining instructions, and further information, please email Stephanie Hathaway or Jane Bliss.

Saturday 27th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is ‘A crate of bones & gristle’: Welsh cadaver tombs & the art of the macabre’ with Professor Madeleine Gray. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • Call for Papers: Speculum Themed Issue: “Race, Race-Thinking, and Identity in the Global Middle Ages”: We invite proposals for full-length essays (8,000-11,000 words) that interrogate race, race-thinking, and identity in the Middle Ages. The themed issue on race, race-thinking, and identity and the articles selected for it will be in keeping with Speculum’s purview as stated in the Guidelines for Submission: “preference is ordinarily given to articles of interest to readers in more than one discipline and beyond the specialty in question. Articles taking a more global approach to medieval studies are also welcomed, particularly when the topic engages with one or more of the core areas of study outlined above. Submissions with appeal to a broad cross-section of medievalists are highly encouraged.” Proposals should be no more than 500 words in length and should be submitted by email to cord.whitaker@wellesley.edu with SPECULUM PROPOSAL in the subject line by 31 January 2022. The authors of selected proposals will be notified by 28 February 2022. Completed essays will be expected by 1 December 2022.
  • Call for Papers: 16th GRACEH conference in European History. If you are a graduate student, please consider submitting an abstract to the 16th Annual Graduate Conference in European History (hopefully in-person at Oxford, 11-13 April 2022). The theme for this year is ‘Nature’, and the deadline for the submission of abstract is the 15th of December. Please find the link here (https://graceh2022.wordpress.com/blog/), along with the CFP.


Finally, some more Old English wisdom regarding gift-giving:

Gyfu gumena byþ gleng and herenys,
wraþu and wyrþscype.
Gift-giving amonst men is a glory an honour, support and worthiness.

In other words: not only is it lovely to give gifts to people, doing so will bring you some honour too!

A medievalist finds the perfect gift for a colleague who likes to wear scarves
Merton College, MS 249, f. 4r.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Cerf

Call for Papers: Speculum Themed Issue: “Race, Race-Thinking, and Identity in the Global Middle Ages”

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22/11/2021

11:18

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Editors:

François-Xavier Fauvelle, Collège de France

Nahir Otaño Gracia, University of New Mexico

Cord J. Whitaker, Wellesley College

For far too long, scholarly consensus held that race and racism were mainly Enlightenment innovations, datable to no earlier than the seventeenth century. As long ago as the early twentieth century, some scholars pushed race’s origins to the sixteenth or even fifteenth centuries, but these scholars were few and far between. The Middle Ages and, with them, medieval studies were set off as a time and discipline innocent of race and racism. This remained generally true until the advent of critical medieval race studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Now, in 2021, special issues in major journals and no less than six full-length scholarly monographs have treated the imbrications of race with medieval art, literature, religion, and even the periodizing concept of the Middle Ages itself. Many more studies in medieval literature, history, art, religion, and culture have been conceptually informed by race, as have many studies in the modern perceptions and deployments of the Middle Ages. Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies calls for proposals for a themed issue, to be published as one of Speculum’s four quarterly issues, to recognize the intellectual value of the study of race to a comprehensive understanding of the Middle Ages.

We invite proposals for full-length essays (8,000-11,000 words) that interrogate race, race-thinking, and identity in the Middle Ages. For example, essays might consider the roles of race-making and racialization in the Islamic world; how race and identity, together with religion, was negotiated and navigated in border regions such as al-Andalus, Sicily or the Levant (between Latin Christendom and Islam), the Sahara and the Sahel region (between the Islamic world and Subsaharan Africa); how the dynamics of race-thinking informed relations between Latin and Greek Christendom and Islam or the Mongol Empire, or between the Muslim/Islamicate world and Christian, Jewish, Hinduist, and traditional-religious societies within it or beyond its reaches; how race intersected with the dynamics of trade and connectivity, religious affiliation and conversion, slavery and emancipation, peace and war. Essays may also take on the roles of race, race-thinking, and identity in the geography and periodization of the Middle Ages: Are historical moments that are quintessential to the history of race also relevant to medieval-and-modern periodizations? Essays may also consider how and why race, race-thinking, and identity have shaped modern concepts, uses, and scholarship of the Middle Ages.

The editors are open to essays that interrogate race, race-thinking, and identity in the Middle Ages by asking these and other deeply probing questions. Additionally, we are especially interested in essays that consider the globality of the medieval world: those that examine the networked interrelations and interdependences of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. In addition to scholarship in history and literature, we invite proposals using the tools and methods of anthropology, archaeology, art history, book history, historical linguistics, religious studies, sociology, and other fields germane to the studies of race, identity, and the Middle Ages.

The themed issue on race, race-thinking, and identity and the articles selected for it will be in keeping with Speculum’s purview as stated in the Guidelines for Submission: “preference is ordinarily given to articles of interest to readers in more than one discipline and beyond the specialty in question. Articles taking a more global approach to medieval studies are also welcomed, particularly when the topic engages with one or more of the core areas of study outlined above. Submissions with appeal to a broad cross-section of medievalists are highly encouraged.”

Proposals should be no more than 500 words in length and should be submitted by email to cord.whitaker@wellesley.edu with SPECULUM PROPOSAL in the subject line by 31 January 2022. The authors of selected proposals will be notified by 28 February 2022. Completed essays will be expected by 1 December 2022.

Conference and Exhibition on Medieval to Early Modern Anglo-Dutch Relations

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22/11/2021

11:06

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CONFERENCE: The Literature and History of Anglo-Dutch Relations, Medieval to Early Modern

 6 January 2022, 1.00 PM – 8 January 2022, 6.00 PM
 Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Contacts between English and Dutch speakers had a profound impact on the literary landscape and book culture of England and the Low Countries. This conference crosses conventional chronological, linguistic, geographical and disciplinary boundaries to explore the cultural history of relations between English and Dutch speakers, from the Norman Conquest through to the Reformation. Bringing together literary scholars and historians, it aims to join up evidence of literary exchange with new insights into the experiences of migration, conflict, political alliances, and trade that made this literary exchange possible. The conference will reinvigorate traditional approaches to literary influence by contextualising it in the historical conditions that brought speakers of Dutch and English into contact with each other and by taking into account the range of languages (Dutch, English, French, and Latin) in which their communications and literary production in manuscript and early print took shape over this period.

In-person attendance: £35.00

Online attendance: £0.00

Registration required

Full event information

EXHIBITION: North Sea Crossings: Anglo-Dutch Books and the Adventures of Reynard the Fox

3 December 2021–18 April 2022
The Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

North Sea Crossings, a new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, will trace the long history of Anglo-Dutch relations. Focusing on the period from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, items from the Bodleian Libraries’ collections will illustrate the ways in which these exchanges have shaped literature, book production and institutions such as the Bodleian itself, on either side of the North Sea, inviting visitors to reflect on the way this cultural exchange still impacts British and Dutch societies today.

Free admission, no booking required.

The book accompanying the exhibition, by Sjoerd Levelt and Ad Putter, is now available.

A modern retelling of Reynard the Foxby Anne Louise Avery, based on William Caxton’s 1481 English translation of the Middle Dutch, is also available.

EXHIBITION OPENING EVENT: North Sea Crossings virtual panel

2 December 2021, 5-6.30PM
Online

Join us for a livestream panel discussion to mark the opening of our winter exhibition ​North Sea Crossings: Anglo-Dutch Books and the Adventures of Reynard the Fox. The exhibition tells the story of Anglo-Dutch exchanges through beautiful medieval manuscripts, early prints, maps, animal stories and other treasures from the Bodleian’s collections.

Join our panel discussion which celebrates a special relationship which has lasted over 900 years. Watch our expert panel explore the historical as well as the broader context of Anglo-Dutch relations in politics, art, literature, and modern life.

The discussion will be streamed on this page and on our YouTube channel.

Medieval Matters: Week 6

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15/11/2021

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Week 6 is here, which means that we are more than half-way through the term. Where did all of that time go? As we are all busy with our seminars, research, admissions, deadlines and teaching commitments, a little piece of advice from the Durham Proverbs:

Betere byþ oft feðre þonne oferfeðre.
It is better to be often loaded than overloaded.

For those looking to often-load their calendar, we have a smorgasbord of delights this week, from a workshop on Medieval and Biblical models of gender and sexuality to a lecture on Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscripts! This week’s events are listed below:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Online Conference: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, 24–25 November 2021. The British Archaeological Association are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. This postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas. Register for the conference here.


EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 15th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Nicola Ernst (Exeter), ‘The Athanasian Emperors: Reconsidering Orthodox and Heretical Emperors in the 340s‘. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk or visit the eventbrite page.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. Contact Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning or Tuija Ainonen to be added to the Teams call.
  • The Continental Old French Reading Group meets at 3pm at St Hilda’s College. Anyone interested in joining should send an email to sebastian.dows-miller@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval Archaeology Seminar meets at 3pm at Institute of Archaeology Lecture Room and Online via Teams. This week’s speaker is David Petts, ‘Recent work on the early medieval monastery at Lindisfarne‘.   Please note: Attendance at the Lecture Room is by advance booking only as the room has astrict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made here.
  • The East of Byzantium Lecture (Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture) takes place at 5pm on Zoom. The speaker will be Sören Stark, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, ‘Eternal ‘Silk Road’? The Rise of Sogdiana during the 3rd–4th Centuries A.D‘. As per last week’s email, advance registration is required. Registration closes at 2pm on November 15, 2021. Register here: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm on Teams and in the Wharton Room. Attendance at the Wharton Room is by advance booking only as the room has a strict Covid-19 capacity limit. Bookings can be made at https://medieval-history-seminar.reservio.com. This week’s speaker is Janet Burton (UWTSD Lampeter), ‘Cistercian? How Cistercian? The Example of late medieval Wales’.
  • The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.15pm on Teams. Please email Olivia Smith (olivia.smith2@linacre.ox.ac.uk) to be added to the mailing list and Teams group.

Tuesday 16th November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Ofir Haim, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mandel Scholion Research Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ‘Judeo-Persian Correspondence from Buyid and Ghaznavid Territories (10th-11th Centuries)‘.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘The Green Man and Other Creatures’
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Nicholas Mayhew (University of Oxford), ‘Reinterpreting Russian Orthodox Canons Against Homosexuality‘.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Roy Flechner (UCD), ‘The moral economy of burying your dead: some early medieval attitudes towards burial and memorializing‘.
  • The Oxford Numismatic Society meets at 5pm on Teams. This week’s speaker will be Chris Howgego (Heberden Coin Room / Wolfson College, University of Oxford), ‘Alexandria and Rome: The Special Relationship?‘. To receive meeting links and further updates, please email the Secretary at daniel.etches@new.ox.ac.uk.
  • Bibitura Dantis Oxonensis meets at 6pm at The Anchor. Today’s text will be Purgatorio 2. For enquiries, please email Lachlan Hughes.

Wednesday 17th November:

  • The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15-12.45 in New Powell Room, Somerville College. If you are interested to be added to the mailing list for the seminar, write to Linus Ubl.
  • The Workshop on Manuscript Description and Cataloguing: Types and levels of description; describing textual content and decoration takes place at 1-2pm in the Weston Library Horton Room. Places strictly limited: email matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
  • The Medieval Trade Reading Group meets at 1-2pm in Mertze Tate Room, History Faculty, and Online. To be added to the mailing list and team please email Annabel Hancock.
  • The CMTC Lecture, ‘Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture’ meets at 5pm on Zoom. The speaker will be Alessandro Bausi (African/Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg). This paper aims at providing non-Ethiopianists with an overview of the development of textual studies in Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture thanks to some new research trends from the last few years. Attendance is free of charge, but sign-up is mandatory: you can sign-up here. We will send a Zoom link to all participants on Monday 15th November. If you cannot access Google Forms please sign up by sending an email to gabriele.rota@queens.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speakers will be Colleen Curran (CLASP, Oxford), ‘The Manuscripts of Alcuin’s Carmina’, and Patricia O Connor (CLASP, Oxford), ‘Drawing the Reader’s Attention: Dryhthelm’s Vision of the Otherworld and the Archangel St Michael in CCCC, MS 41’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm on Google Meet, followed by drinks at 7pm at Corpus Christi College. This week’s speaker is Luisa Andriollo (Pisa), ‘Writing and reading anti-Islamic polemics in Byzantium: the ‘Conversation of the monk Euthymios with a Saracen philosopher’ (12th c.)‘.

Thursday 18th November:

  • The Middle High German Reading Group meets at 9-10.30am on Zoom. This week’s topic is ‘Tristan (Gottfried von Straßburg)’. If you have any questions or want to participate, please send an e-mail to melina.schmidt@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Archives de l’Athos reading group meets at 3-4pm at Corpus Christi College. All interested in Byzantine history, non-Latin diplomatics, Greek palaeography or diplomatic edition are welcome. Contact marek.jankowiak@history.ox.ac.uk or olivier.delouis@campion.ox.ac.uk to sign up and receive the texts in advance.
  • The Greek and Latin Reading Group meets at 4pm in St Edmund Hall. Room TBC: contact John Colley or Jenyth Evans to be added to the mailing list. This week’s text will be Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.37-39.
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm on Zoom. For Zoom link, contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Eirian Alwen Jones, ‘‘Tua Gloddaith, tŷ gwleddoedd’: Tomos Mostyn, Ysgwïer, a’r traddodiad barddol‘.

Friday 19th November:

  • Pre-Modern Conversations meets at 11am-12pm on Teams. For more information and to be added the the PMC Teams Channel, email lena.vosding AT mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
  • The ‘Body, Gender, Purity, and Sexual Pleasure: Biblical and Medieval Models’ Workshop takes place at 1-2.30pm at Saint John’s College, New Seminar Room. This workshop brings together expertise from the early, central, and late Middle Ages (respectively, Conrad Leyser, Neta Bodner, and Alice Raw), in conversation with Laura Quick’s expertise in the Hebrew Bible. Participants are invited to read with us to question how the body was treated, even used, as a vehicle for “correct” piety in ways that both differ and intersect across the Middle Ages. Spaces are limited to 30 participants; please sign up here.
  • A public celebration of Oxford Castle at 950 years takes place at 6-10pm. all welcome! For the first time, town and gown come together to tell a shared and diverse history of inclusion and exclusion of Oxford’s Castle, with a stunning projection onto the Castle and socially-distanced interactive games. This event is free, but participants should register in advance via Eventbrite.

Saturday 20th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is  ‘Beneath the ledgerstone: Vaults and their contents’ : A lecture by Dr Julian Litten on the contents of burial vaults. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • Call for Papers: New Visions of Julian of Norwich: Somerville College, Oxford, 15th and 16th July 2022. This international hybrid conference will be the first academic event to focus solely on Julian’s writing, life, contexts, and influence long after her death. We invite papers from any or multiple disciplines and deploying a wide range of methodologies, focusing on all aspects of Julian’s writing, life, contexts, or afterlife. We especially encourage proposals from graduate students and early-career researchers. Please submit abstracts (up to 300 words) for a 15-minute paper or 10-minute round table contribution, accompanied by a short biography, to julianofnorwichconference@gmail.com by 1 February 2022.
  • Call for Papers: CCASNC 2022, ‘Marvels and Miracles’. The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is an annual interdisciplinary graduate conference encompassing all aspects of the British Isles, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. A selection of the papers will be published in the departmental journal Quaestio Insularis. This year’s theme will be ‘Marvels and Miracles’. We invite graduate students and recent graduates to submit abstracts of 250 words for papers no longer than 20 minutes to ccasnc@gmail.com by the 1st of December 2021.
  • Calling all those interested in manuscripts! The ‘Handschriftenportal’, a database-in-the-making for all manuscripts held in German libraries, is asking for volunteers to test their beta version of the platform. It is crucial that this information is also going to be accessible for an Anglophone audience, so it will be hugely helpful if you were willing (and it should be fun) to do a think-aloud zoom exploration of the amazingly rich collection of metadata, catalogue information and images, giving feedback on usability (and English terminology!). All information here.


And finally, some advice for anyone feeling more oferfeðre than oft feðre at this stage of the term:

Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.
That thing passed; so will this.

In other words: hold on in there!

A manuscript illumination of an ibex eating something that has been trimmed away
A medievalist, feeling somewhat oferfeðre, attempts to hide from an oncoming deadline
Merton College, MS 249, f. 10v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Ibex

Call for Papers: New Visions of Julian of Norwich

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15/11/2021

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Somerville College, Oxford, 15th and 16th July 2022
Organisers: Antje Chan (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Godelinde Gertrude Perk (Somerville, Oxford), Raphaela Rohrhofer (Somerville, Oxford), Alicia Smith (English Faculty, Oxford).


In May 1373, Julian of Norwich (c.1343‒ after 1416) received a series of visions that engage with the mysteries of the divine-human relationship, inspiring the composition of A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and, decades later, its revision, A Revelation of Love, now recognised as one of the most important texts in the medieval contemplative tradition and Middle English literature. Both have attracted numerous interpretations as visionary as Julian’s work itself, focusing on the significance of anchoritic enclosure, the radical originality of her vernacular theology, the historical and codicological context, as well as potential textual influences. Recent scholarship has explored Julian’s role in the global Middle Ages, her treatment of health, and her ecological poetics. Her texts have also sparked investigations of the role of materiality and provocative encounters between Julian and queer and trans theory.

This international hybrid conference will be the first academic event to focus solely on Julian’s writing, life, contexts, and influence long after her death. It seeks to consider the plurality of approaches towards her work’s interpretation and forge novel pathways of discussing the anchoress both in her own context and in the many scholarly and popular guises of her cultural afterlife. Aimed at established and early-career researchers alike, this interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars from various disciplines to map out new and emerging dimensions in Julian scholarship. It will interrogate received assumptions and re-evaluate traditional disciplinary methodologies.

In addition to academic work on Julian’s writing, this conference also seeks to reach out of academe in responding to pastoral and contemplative engagement with her texts, particularly in the light of the pandemic. Two roundtables will bring lived religious practices and critical responses into dialogue. Creative explorations will also help invigorate Julian studies. We look forward to hosting Cindy Oswin’s one-woman play “Cell” about the anchorite as an older woman, and to showing a recording of the 2021 Oxford reconstruction of the medieval rite of enclosure held at St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley.


 The opening lecture will be given by Professor Nicholas Watson (Harvard) with responses from Professor Laura Saetveit Miles (Bergen) and Professor Barry Windeatt (Cambridge). Professor Liz Herbert McAvoy (Swansea) will close the conference.

We invite papers from any or multiple disciplines and deploying a wide range of methodologies, focusing on all aspects of Julian’s writing, life, contexts, or afterlife. We especially encourage proposals from graduate students and early-career researchers.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:

  • Emerging approaches to Julian’s texts
  • Illness, health, and disability  
  • Visual and material culture     
  • Queer, genderqueer, and trans theory approaches                                                                   
  • Julian’s wider intellectual and cultural contexts; e.g., Revelation and Vision in the movements of church reform across Europe during and after the western schism, or against the backdrop of continental vernacular literature                                
  • Interdisciplinary approaches to Julian
  • Julian and apocalypse                                                                          
  • Vision and Revelation as literary landmarks in medieval and post-medieval literature
  • Conversations with well and lesser-known vernacular visionaries and theologians in the British Isles, on the Continent, and beyond                                                                          
  • The history of emotions                                                               
  • Life-writing                                                                 
  • Creative engagement with Vision and Revelation: poetic, dramatic, visual arts    
  • Ecological concerns and themes                                                                                      
  • Issues of materiality, space, and embodiment in Vision and Revelation        

We also welcome proposals for contributions to the two roundtables. Potential topics include:

  • Retrieving Julian’s writings to renew contemplative and spiritual practices                        
  • Vision and Revelation and the pandemic moment       
  • Julian as a voice for the voiceless
  • Julian beyond the academy: contemplative practices, popular imagery, political uses

Please submit abstracts (up to 300 words) for a 15-minute paper or 10-minute round table contribution, accompanied by a short biography, to julianofnorwichconference@gmail.com by 1 February 2022.

In light of the pandemic, this conference will be a hybrid event combining in-person and online papers. We plan to stream the in-person papers live where possible for online attendees.

Reduced registration will be offered for postgraduate students and unwaged delegates. In addition, some travel bursaries for postgrads and unwaged delegates may be available.

This conference is part of “Women Making Memories: Liturgy and the Remembering Female Body in Medieval Holy Women’s Texts”, Dr Perk’s MSCA-IF project at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 842443.
 
 




Online Conference: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, 24–25 November 2021

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09/11/2021

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The British Archaeological Association are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. This postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.
Register for the conference here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtd-2urzMtGtII4nZmnWgWYGx7g9uBG886

Conference programme

Wednesday 24th November 2021

1:00–1:10 pm (GMT) — Welcome

Space, Place, and Language in Medieval Architecture

1:10–2:30 pm (GMT)

Paro Tomar (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Mosque Building By Artisanal Communities in Western India – Thirteenth to Seventeenth Centuries C.E

Alfie Robinson (University of York)

‘Like, or Better’: Building Contracts and Late-Medieval Perceptions of Quality in Architecture

Michele Guida Conte (Independent Scholar)

Liturgical spaces in Vicentine churches between the 13th and the 15th centuries

2:30–2:45 pm (GMT) — Break

Marginalised Communities

2:45–3.45 pm (GMT)

Aitor Boada-Benito (Complutense University, Madrid)

Natural landscape and Christian communities in the Sasanian Empire: How martyrs and environment developed a religious identity

Sophie Johnson (University of Bristol)

Marginalised in medieval Europe: the underrepresentation of women artists in the history of medieval art

3:45–4:00 pm (GMT) — Break

Materiality and Devotion

4:00–5:20 pm (GMT)

Emily Fu (University of Edinburgh)

Real Presences: Late Medieval Wood Sculpted Crucifixions

Soyoung Joo (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Flaying and Identity c.1500: Skin as Text, Surface, and Clothing

Andy Earnshaw (Oxford University)

Her Final Gift: Revealing Cultural Memory and Emotion in a 12th Century Jet Cross from St John’s Priory, Pontefract

5:20 pm (GMT) — End

Thursday 25th November 2021

1:00–1:10 pm (GMT) — Welcome back

Materiality, Memory, and Identity

1:10–2:10 pm (GMT)

Dr Ellora Bennett (Independent Scholar)

One will die young’: Juvenile weapon burials and processing loss in early medieval England

Dr Julia Faiers (University of St Andrews)

Bishop Louis d’Amboise and the invisible tomb: constructing piety in Albi cathedral

2:10–2:20 pm (GMT) — Break

Iconography and Devotion

2:20–3.20 pm (GMT)

Wiktoria Muryn (University of Glasgow)

Holy (Mis)conceptions: Late Medieval Depictions of the Visitation Featuring the Occupied Womb and their Female Monastic Audience

Daria Melnikov (Queen’s University)

The Guthlac Roll: Artwork and Model Book, circa 1200–1300

3:20–3:30 pm (GMT) — Break

The Building and the City

3:30–4:30 pm (GMT)

Francesca Rognoni & Filippo Gemelli (IUAV – University of Venice and Università degli studi di Pavia)

The Use of Westbau in Medieval Architecture in Central Italy: new data for the façade of Ascoli Cathedral

Dr Rafia Khan (Nirma University, Ahmedabad)

Monument and Monumentality in the Medieval Islamic City: Perspectives from the City and Province of Chanderi

4:30pm (GMT) — Closing remarks

Find out more here.

CFP: CCASNC 2022 ‘Marvels and Miracles’

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09/11/2021

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We are pleased to announce that the call for papers for CCASNC 2022 is now open. The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is an annual interdisciplinary graduate conference encompassing all aspects of the British Isles, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. A selection of the papers will be published in the departmental journal Quaestio Insularis.

This year’s theme will be ‘Marvels and Miracles’’. Our keynote speaker will be Professor Alison Finlay, from Birkbeck University of London. We invite graduate students and recent graduates to submit abstracts of 250 words for papers no longer than 20 minutes to ccasnc@gmail.com by the 1st of December 2021.

The conference will be held on the 5th of February 2022, and it will be a hybrid conference, with the in-person component pending conditions at the time. Further details, including registration details, will be forthcoming. We hope the theme will inspire a wide range of interpretations and discussions. Potential papers could discuss wonders in many spheres: from hagiographical miracles and supernatural marvels to wonders in natural science. It could also include things that seem more marvellous to the modern reader and scholar than to a medieval audience, or to the absence of the marvellous or miraculous where it might be expected. We would like to encourage potential speakers to be as imaginative as they like with the theme.