Author: Luisa Ostacchini

Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at Queen’s: “Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture”

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09/11/2021

12:13

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Please join us for an online talk hosted by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at The Queen’s College in the University of Oxford. Our centre promotes inter-disciplinary discussion among scholars and students interested in manuscripts and material culture in the premodern world. So your participation is most welcome regardless of your field of specialty. 

We are meeting on Zoom on Wednesday 17th November at 5,00-7,00pm (UK time). 

Alessandro Bausi (African/Ethiopian Studies, University of Hamburg) 

“Christian Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscript culture” 

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. These trends—based on the new manuscript evidence that has been collected and analysed by digitisation and cataloguing projects over several decades—have now started impacting mainstream studies, particularly on late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and have contributed to reconfiguring the civilisation of Aksum and of its later mediaeval incarnations within a much wider context. Ultimately, these findings provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of preservation, recovery, and loss in the later Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition. 

Here is a link to the sign-up form. Attendance is free of charge but sign-up is mandatory. We will send a Zoom link to all participants on Monday next week (15th November). If you cannot access Google Forms please sign up by sending an email to gabriele.rota@queens.ox.ac.uk.  

Medieval Matters: Week 5

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08/11/2021

12:54

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The Old English Maxims II tells us that ‘winter byð cealdost’ (‘winter is coldest’) and I’m sure we’re all feeling the chill. It is my civic duty as an Italian to remind you to wrap up warmly to avoid a colpo d’aria, and my academic duty as an Old English scholar to inform you that winter is officially here! In fact, the Old English Menologium (Metrical Calendar) informs us in no uncertain terms that November 7th is the start of the coldest season:

Syþþan wintres dæg wide gangeð
on syx nihtum, sigelbeortne genimð
hærfest mid herige hrimes and snawes

[Six nights after that (i.e. November 1st, the feast of All Saints) Winter’s Day comes far and wide, and seizes sun-bright autumn with an army of ice and snow]

Whilst it might be cold outside, we can all take shelter in the warmth of a medieval seminar, or indeed, in our own homes, joining in online! Here is this week’s selection to keep the cold and the dark at bay:


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • On Monday, November 15, 2021 at 5pm the East of Byzantium Lecture (Maray Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture) will take place 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.’ Advance registration is required. Registration closes at 2pm on November 15, 2021. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/


EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 8th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Jessica Varsallona (Birmingham), ‘Michael VIII Palaiologos and the southern shore of Constantinople‘. 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 in the Institute of Archaeology, Seminar Room (limited places must be booked) and on Teams. This week’s speaker is Helen Gittos (Oxford), ‘Sutton Hoo & Syria: The Anglo-Saxons who served in the Byzantine Army?’.
  • 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 Len Scales (Durham), ‘The Holy Roman Empire: Global Histories 800-1519′.

Tuesday 9th November:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Adam Flowers, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, ‘The Qur’an, Early Arabic Letters, and P.Utah.Ar.120′
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Supernatural Natural Sites’.
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Iulia Nitescu (Universityof Bucharest/New Europe College), ‘Let Your Brother be to youlike a Heathen and a Tax Collector’: Fashioning an OrthodoxDynastic Identity during the Reign of Ivan III of Moscow.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Ian Forrest (Oriel), ‘Fragments of a feminist history of the late medieval clergy‘.
  • The Medieval French Research Seminar meets at 5pm at Maison française d’Oxford. This week’s speaker is Prof. Catherine Croizy-Naquet (Université Paris III), ‘Les Historiens et la langue’.

Wednesday 10th 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 TORCH Book at Lunchtime talk this week is on The Oxford Handbook of Dante, edited by Professor Manuele Gragnolati, Professor Elena Lombardi and Professor Francesca Southerden. The talk takes place at 1-2pm, and you can watch live online.
  • The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music takes place at 4.30-6.45pm on Zoom. If you are planning to attend, please register online. This week’s speaker is Paweł Gancarczyk (Associate Professor, Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), ‘Music in a vanished kingdom: traces of fifteenth-century polyphony in the Teutonic Order State in Prussia‘. The discussants are Lenka Hlávková (Charles University, Prague) and Reinhard Strohm (University of Oxford).
  • 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 Theodora Antonopoulou (Athens), ‘Preaching in the Second Iconoclasm. The homilies of Joseph of Thessalonica’, and Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus), ‘People and Power in Hagia Sophia (532-1204)‘
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Sarah McNamer (Georgetown), ‘A New Setting for the Pearl Poet’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Thursday 11th November:

Friday 12th November:

  • 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 13th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is ‘Death in the Churchyard: Skeletons, skulls and bones on slate tombstones with Elizabeth Blood’. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.
  • ‘Serata Dantesca’: Performances in Celebration of Dante will take place at 7.30pm at Holywell Music Room, Holywell Street, Oxford. A programme of music, poetry and dance presented in the Holywell Music Room, featuring performers who are almost all Oxford-based teachers, researchers and students. In addition to Italian and English readings and some older choral and solo musical compositions, new translations and settings have been specially commissioned for this commemorative occasion marking the 700th anniversary of the death of the great Italian poet. For tickets, please visit the Eventbrite page.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • SCRIPTO at St Gall 2022: Medieval Writing Culture (V to XV c.): The Abbey Library of Saint Gall and the Chair for Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg organize their third Summer School Medieval Writing Culture (V to XV century), which will be held from 16 till 20 May 2022. This SCRIPTO Summer School Saint Gall (SSSS) offers an introduction to history, morphology and cultural impact of western script. The application deadline is 1 March 2022. Those applicants accepted to the course will be charged 475€/500CHF (Accommodation included). It may be possible to receive a scholarship – if you are interested in a scholarship, send – an application for it together with your regular application. Further information (including the application form) may be obtained online: www.scripto.mittellatein.phil.fau.de.


Finally, some more wintery Old English wisdom from Bede:

he on þa tid þe he inne bið ne bið hrinen mid þy storme þæs wintres
[He during the time that he is inside will not be touched by winter’s storm]

I interpret this advice to mean: when it’s cold and dark outside, go to seminars! There might even be warming drinks afterwards…

A Medievalist wrapped up warmly in his winter coat but laments that he forgot his gloves and now has cold hands… Merton College, MS 249, f. 3v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Dorcon

Environmental History Working Group

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08/11/2021

11:33

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We are organising a couple of informal meetings this term for those interested in studying the past in ways that recognise the interactions and interconnectedness of animals, plants, humans, other beings, and the environment. This will be a space to talk about exciting developments in our field, interdisciplinary conversations, and new ideas and approaches. Discussion will be informal, and we encourage anyone at all interested in these kinds of approaches to come along, regardless of research specialism or presumed existing knowledge. Undergraduates are also welcome, particularly if they are considering a dissertation or further study in this area.

The first meeting will take place at 12.30-2.00pm on 11th November at St Catherine’s College, in Seminar Room 2.2. If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch with susannah.bain@history.ox.ac.uk and huw.jones@history.ox.ac.uk.

Workshop: Body, Gender, Purity, and Sexual Pleasure: Biblical and Medieval Models

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03/11/2021

19:55

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Friday November 19th 13.00-14.30 

Location: St John’s College, New Seminar Room

In medieval Europe, Jews and Christians put some of the same cultural resources (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) to different uses. Stereotypes abound here: Judaism is seen to be preoccupied with ritual pollution, Christianity with moral purity; Judaism is anxious about food, but celebrates marital sex. Christianity has fewer food laws, but many more anxieties about sexual activity—and about the body as a potential source of sin. All of these dichotomic assumptions invite renewed critical scrutiny—especially in a comparative framework—and a re-consideration of the biblical directives both cultures were grappling with.  

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: https://forms.gle/n6nvcCC4Us9C7R398

Medieval Matters: Week 4

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01/11/2021

10:31

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We are now half-way through the term, and all the way through October! With the hour change last weekend the days are now feeling quite dark and chilly. For anyone feeling cold and tired this week, here is some Old English wisdom from the Battle of Maldon:

Mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
The mind must be greater as our strength diminishes.

Luckily for us Oxford Medievalists, we have plenty of opportunities to make our minds greater if we are feeling a little diminished of strength! This week’s offerings are listed below.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 1st November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Thomas R. Langley (Cambridge), ‘Julian, Constantinople, and the Role of Civic Patriotism in the Fourth Century’. 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 Sophie Ambler (Lancaster), ‘The Battle of Evesham (1265): Dark Trophies, the War of the Welsh Marches, and the Cult of Simon de Montfort’.
  • 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 2nd November:

  • The CMTC Postgraduate Lunchtime Colloquium meets at 12:30-2pm on Zoom. Attendance is free of charge, but sign-up is mandatory: you can sign-up here. The speakers this week will be Sarah Bridge (Mediaeval & Modern Languages, St Hilda’s College, Oxford), ‘The Role of Manuscripts in Creating the Author-Figure. William Herebert and Nicole Bozon in BL Add. 46919’ and Vittorio Danovi (Classics, Lincoln College, Oxford) ‘Servius or Servius auctus? Corrections ope codicum in Kassel, Universitätsbibliothek, 2° Ms. Poet. et Roman. 6”’.
  • The event Albrecht Pfister and the earliest printed books in German from Bamberg takes place at 2.30pm online on Zoom (Meeting Code: SBB#22 / Meeting-ID: 960 499 6049). This event comprises a virtual tour of Pfister copies in Bamberg, Berlin, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, John Rylands Library Manchester, Oxford and Princeton.
  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Meia Walravens, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, University of Antwerp, ‘Letters from the Bahmani Sultanate (ca. 1450-1480)’.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Samhain’
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Timur Khajdarov (Kazan Federal University), ‘The Black Death and its consequences for the Jochi ulus and the successor states (The Tatar Khanates, Moscowand the Grand Duchy of Lithuania)‘
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Virginia Bainbridge (University of Exeter), ‘The Brothers of Syon Abbey: patterns of vocation from the Syon Martiloge and other records c. 1415-1539’.
  • The OCTET Lectures: An Introduction to Digital Scholarly Editing meets at 5pm at Jesus College Ship Street Centre. To book your place on this workshop, please email DigitalHub@jesus.ox.ac.uk . Please let the organisers know if you require assistance with mobility and if you have any dietary requirements or food allergies.
  • The Oxford Numismatic Society Seminar meets at 5pm online via Teams. This week’s speaker is Dr. Peter van Alfen (American Numismatic Society): ‘Payment, Profit, or Prestige? The Political Economy of Achaemenid Royal Coin Production’. To receive meeting links and further updates, please email the Secretary at daniel.etches@new.ox.ac.uk.

Wednesday 3rd 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 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 Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Ciaran Arthur (NUI Galway), ‘Ideas on Language and Biblical Heritage in Early Medieval Insular Thought’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 7pm at Corpus Christi College for drinks. (Please note that there is no speaker this week).

Thursday 4th November:

  • 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 Sappho, Fragments 1 and 31.
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm on Zoom. For Zoom link, contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Ken Dark (University of Reading), ‘Royal burial in fifth- to seventh-century western Britain and Ireland’.
  • The Oxford University Heraldry Society meets at 6.15pm. This week’s speaker is Jeremy Hodgkinson FSA, ‘The Heraldry on British Fire backs‘. For Zoom links, please email Priscilla Frost (secretary@oxford-heraldry.org.uk)

Friday 5th 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.

Saturday 6th November:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s talk is ‘Grounds for Grave Concern’: Helen Frisby & Stuart Prior on Gravedigging. Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • The Medieval Mystery Plays are now recruiting! Would you like to take part in a medieval dramatic experiment? Directors, actors, costume and prop makers and musicians wanted! Click here to find out more.


I leave you this week with a reminder to make sure that all of your watches are set to the correct time following the time-change this weekend. Afterall, as the Old English Boethius tells us:

Eall þæt mon untiidlice onginð, næfð hit no æltæwyne ende.
Nothing that one begins at the wrong time will have a good end.

A manuscript illumination of a night heron
Panic as a medievalist realises that he forgot to set his watch back this weekend and has consequently arrived to the seminar an hour early
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/#Nicticorax

CFP: Adapting Violence in/from Classic Texts

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26/10/2021

10:58

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A 2-day online workshop to be held 24–25 March 2022, organised by Amy Brown (University of Bern) and Lucy Fleming (University of Oxford). This interdisciplinary event brings together specialists in literature, retelling, and feminist practice to consider how adaptations address various forms of violence in and from their canonical source-texts. Sources and adaptations examined may be in any language, though the workshop will be conducted primarily in English. Please submit proposals for 20-minute conference papers and/or text workshops online or via adaptingviolence@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is 15 December 2021; we welcome papers from faculty members as well as postgraduates and early-career researchers. The workshop is supported by the University of Bern Fund for Promotion of Young Researchers. Attendance is free.

Plenary Sessions:

  • Urvashi Chakravarty (University of Toronto), Keynote Speaker
  • Maria Sachiko Cecire (Bard College), Plenary Respondent
  • Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (University of Houston), Author Talk
  • Round Table on violence in adaptations (TBA)

Proposal Portal:

Due by 15 Dec 2021. For proposals we ask for a title, a 200 word abstract, and for ‘Text explorations’ an excerpt or description of the media you’ll share. Please submit online through our proposal portal – but if you have any problems, email us ( adaptingviolence@gmail.com ). Do note that the responses cannot be saved to return to later – you’ll want to draft your abstract somewhere else and paste it in.

Rationale:

Jyotika Virdi (2006) described the feminist creator seeking to represent rape in film as caught between a ‘rock and a hard place’’—that is, between the ethical call to represent oppressive reality, and the risk that representing violence may perpetuate harm. Similar concerns underlie the representation—in film, literary retellings, and other forms of adaptation—of racial violence, homophobia and transpohbia, and graphic physical violence, all of which are common in works held in high esteem for their literary and/or cultural value. Violence in these ‘classic’ works thus becomes a flashpoint for social, political, and creative tensions. In response, adaptations may reify violence in these texts, or critique it; they may represent violence in the name of fidelity, or seek to reclaim the text. Both adaptors and scholars must grapple with difficult questions: When is violence in adaptation important or useful? When is it negligent or even harmful? What uses does violence serve when adapting culturally prestigious texts, and how is these texts’ very prestige linked to the violence they contain?  

This two-day, online workshop will bring together specialists in the contemporary adaptation of ‘classic texts’ and adaptation as a premodern cultural practice to consider what concerns shape the reception and re-visioning of violence. We will explore the stakes involved in adaptation, and the uses and abuses of violence in adapting texts of high cultural value.  

We define ‘violence’ broadly, including both physical violence and social oppressions, and are interested in considering adaptation strategies across and in reaction to different axes of power, including but not limited to race, gender, and sexuality. In this workshop we seek to bring together scholars working on adaptations (any period) of ‘high status cultural texts’, where the source texts predate 1865. Those texts religious, mythological, artistic and historical source-texts as well as literary forms, and adaptations may be in widely varying media. These source-texts need not derive from any particular language, region, or literary tradition; rather, we aim to feature studies from a wide range of cultural contexts and time periods, to approach our central questions from many varied perspectives. In asking what it means to (re-)write violence, potential papers could address:  

  • Case studies grappling with the ethics of rewritten violence; 
  • Applying a lens of feminist theory, queer studies, violence studies, trauma studies or other interdisciplinary modes to ‘classic’ texts; 
  • Retellings or adaptations that challenge contemporary/contemporaneous ideas of violence; 
  • Retellings for particular or unusual audiences or readerships;  
  • The canonization of works containing violence;  
  • How adaptations and retellings relate to ‘real-world’ violence; 
  • The act of adaptation as a form of violence; 
  • Rewritings of violence that are radical, liberating, and even empowering acts. 

Workshop Format:

This workshop will be entirely online, with both synchronous and asynchronous participation options possible. Given the nature of global online conferences we anticipate that many participants will alternate between synchronous and asynchronous participation depending on their location, work and/or family commitments, accessibility needs, and other considerations. Some material will be uploaded and professionally captioned in advance; plenary sessions will be recorded, professionally captioned, and uploaded after the fact. Still other sessions will be unrecorded.

Further Information:

For full details, please visit the workshop website.

Medieval Matters: Week 3

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25/10/2021

07:27

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Spooky happenings to report this week – not only is it, terrifyingly, Week 3 already, but we are also approaching Allhallowtide, with Sunday being All Saints’ Eve / Halloween! For this scariest of weeks, some seasonal wisdom regarding hand-standing, head-walking witches from the Old English Durham Proverbs:

Ne swa þeah treowde þeah þu teala eode, cwæþ se þe geseah hægtessan æfter heafde geongan.
[“I wouldn’t trust you even if you walked properly!” said he who saw a witch walking on her head]

We have many wonderful events this week. In particular, may I draw your attention to the Church Monuments Society Lecture Series, which kicks off this Sunday 31st with a lecture by Dr Roger Bowdler, talking about charnel depictions on tombs. Spooky indeed! But don’t be afraid: we also have plenty of less scary medievalist treats to enjoy this week, all laid out below for your perusal.


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 25th October:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12.15-2pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Sofia Simões Coelho (Oxford) ‘Holy Fools in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Rus’. 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 Stephen Spencer (KCL) ‘Rewriting History: The Evolution and Impact of Ralph of Coggeshall’s Account of the Third Crusade‘

Tuesday 26th October:

  • The Islamicate Manuscripts and Texts Reading Colloquium 2021 meets at 3pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Jamie O’Connell, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, ‘Zoroastrian Calendar Controversies in the 17th and 18th centuries: Passages from the Persian Rivāyats and Related Texts’.
  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3.30pm in Magdalen College, Old Law Library. This week’s topic is ‘Ghosts and Revenants’.
  • The Early Slavonic Webinar meets at 5pm on Zoom. This week’s speaker is Neven Isailović (The Institute of History Belgrade), ‘Identity and Identificationin Late Medieval Western Balkans‘.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in Old Dining Hall, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speaker is Sumner Braund (Bodleian Library), ‘Martyred Princesses? Sanctity and monastic reform in 10thc. English nunneries‘
  • The Medieval French Research Seminar meets at 5pm at Maison française d’Oxford. This week’s speaker is Dr Henry Ravenhall (University of Cambridge), ‘Feeling Medieval French Literature: Touch, Experience, Materiality’.

Wednesday 27th October:

  • 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 Oxford Numismatic Society Seminar meets at 5pm in the Outreach Room at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. This week’s speaker is Dr. Martin Allen (Fitzwilliam Museum / Wolfson College, University of Cambridge): ‘Finding the Past: EMC and Early Medieval Coin Finds‘.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, Faculty of English. This week’s speaker will be Kathleen Kennedy (Bristol), ‘On Killdeer and Codicology: The Provenance of the Corpus Troilus’. For further information, contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 7pm at Corpus Christi College for drinks. (Please note that there is no speaker this week).

Thursday 28th October:

  • 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 Virgil, Eclogue 4.4-52, 60-4.
  • The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music meets at 4.30pm on Zoom, with the presentation beginning at 5pm. If you are planning to attend, please register using this form: https://forms.gle/rL36rACrSEmuH4UC6. Those who have registered will receive an email with the Zoom invitation, instructions for joining the call, and further materials for the seminar. This week’s speaker is Margot Fassler (Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music and Liturgy, University of Notre Dame; Tangeman Professor of Music History Emerita, Yale University), ‘The Restoration of Anima in Hildegard of Bingen’s Sung Play the Ordo Virtutum‘, and the discussants are Alison Altstatt (University of Northern Iowa) and Barbara Newman (Northwestern University).
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the History of the Book Room, English Faculty and on Teams. For Teams link, contact David Willis. This week’s speaker is Georgia Henley (Saint Anselm College), ‘Reading Geoffrey of Monmouth in south Wales and the Marches‘.
  • 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 29th October:

  • The MedievalWiki: Training Workshop and Social Editing Session takes place at 1.30-3.30pm on Zoom. This workshop is for brand new and experienced Wikipedia editors who are interested in improving Wikipedia according to the aims of MedievalWiki, which is specifically dedicated to making and editing articles with citations to medieval scholars whose work is indebted to or develops feminist, queer, and critical race studies methods and theories. The event is free, but booking is required: please sign up here.
  • The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5pm on Zoom. For texts, joining instructions, and further information, please email Stephanie Hathaway or Jane Bliss.
  • The Reformation Pamphlets Launch will take place at 5pm with a Presentation of the pamphlets at the Weston Library, Horton Room, followed, at 6:15pm, by Reformation Evensong in St Edmund Hall Chapel. Anybody welcome to without the need to book!

Sunday 31st October:

  • The Church Monuments Society Lecture Series: Whose Dead in Vaulted Arches Lie kicks off at 5pm on Zoom with macabre tombs expert, Dr Roger Bowdler, talking about grisly depictions of charnel on tombs! This series of five lectures will cover macabre monuments, death depictions in churchyards, what lies in burial vaults, inside the world of gravedigging and curious cadaver effigies and macabre art…! Attendance is free, but places must be booked via Eventbrite.



OPPORTUNITIES:

  • The Oxford Medieval Society is looking for people to join their committee! If you would like to get involved in organising medieval-centric events (from friendly community-building events to talks with high profile speakers) please register your interest with eleanor.baker@sjc.ox.ac.uk. No prior experience on committees is required.
  • The Faculty of English Language and Literature at Oxford University, in association with Pembroke College, is seeking to appoint a fixed-term Lecturer in English Language. For full details, please see here. Applications, which should include a CV and supporting statement, should be made online via the link above by 12 noon on Monday 8 November 2021.


Finally, some more Halloween-themed Old English wisdom from the Durham Proverbs:

Ne sceal man to ær forht ne to ær fægen.
[One should not be too soon fearful nor too soon joyful]


In other words, do not rejoice too quickly at treats, nor be over-fearful of tricks! That said, I hope that your week contains more treats than tricks!

A manuscript illumination of monkeys acting like humans
Medievalists examine and commend a colleague’s Halloween costume: Merton College, MS 249, f. 7v.
View image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Singe

Symposium: English Perceptions of the Material Text 1300-1600

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24/10/2021

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A free, three day online symposium organised by Dr J.R. Mattison and Eleanor Baker, 9th-11th December 2021.

To register, please follow this link and fill in your details:

https://forms.gle/VZFr1qRuw1Xem7z47

If you have any questions, please contact

medieval.text.perceptions@gmail.com 

Follow us @TextMedieval

 

PROGRAMME:

Thursday 9th December:

Making Material Texts                      

8:00am (PCT)/ 10.00am (CDT)/ 4:00pm (GMT)/ 5.00pm (CET)

Making Manuscripts in the Twenty-First Century: Filling the Gaps in Medieval Recipes

Sara Charles (Institute of English Studies, University of London)

Imagining Medieval Colours: Blue Colour Terms in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.9.3

Maryann Pierse (Independent Scholar)

Sheepskins and the Law in Early Modern London

Lily Freeman-Jones (Queen Mary, University of London)

*

  Devotion and Material Texts 

  9:15am (PCT)/ 11:15am (CDT)/ 5:15pm (GMT)/ 6:15pm (CET)

  Lomen to tilde wið þe heorte’: Utility and the Idea of the Book in Ancrene Wisse

  Nia Moseley-Roberts (Jesus College, University of Oxford)

  ‘The fourtenth lefe of thys register’: Channelling Devotional Power at Syon Abbey 

  Julia King (University of Bergen)

  William Caxton and the Creation of Fifteenth-Century English Devotional Canon

  Elizabeth Perry (Texas A&M University)

*

  Authors and Material Texts 

  10:30am (PCT)/ 12:30pm (CDT)/ 6:30pm (GMT)/ 7:30pm  (CET)

  Ovid’s ‘Best Line’: Medieval Responses to the Heroides

  Rebecca Menmuir (Queen Mary, University of London)

  Passing the Buke in Late Medieval Dream Poetry: The Case of Gavin   Douglas’s Palice of Honour

  Laurie Atkinson (Durham University)

  The Imagery of Writing in the First Plantagenet Court

  Joyce Coleman (University of Oklahoma)

Friday 10th December:

Buying, Selling, and Owning Material Texts

8:00am (PCT)/ 10.00am (CDT)/ 4:00pm (GMT)/ 5.00pm (CET)

Second-hand Books

Hannah Ryley (Balliol College, University of Oxford)

Shifting Perceptions of the Library in Late Medieval Durham

J.D. Sargan (Durham University)

 Buying and Selling Books Around St Paul’s Cathedral: ‘Be Dishonest, and tell Lies’

  Benjamin King-Cox (Independent Scholar)

*

  Displaying Material Texts

  9:15am (PCT)/ 11:15am (CDT)/ 5:15pm (GMT)/ 6:15pm (CET)

  “I labour upon a Cobwebbe”: Writing on Display in Early Modern England

  Grace Murray (University of York)

  Taking Stock: William Caxton’s Manuscripts and the Idea of English Readership

  Lindsey Jones (Texas A&M University)

  The Material Forms of Lydgate’s Testament

  Niall Summers (Trinity College, University of Oxford)

Saturday 11th December:

Material Texts in Flux             

8:00am (PCT)/ 10.00am (CDT)/ 4:00pm (GMT)/ 5.00pm (CET)

 ‘Bind this to her’: The Use of Material Texts in English Childbirth, 1400-1540

Róisín Donohoe (University of Cambridge)

‘And som all ther eynke sched,/And som ther bokes rent’: Ripping, Tearing, and Splitting in the Comic Tale Jack and his Stepdame

Hannah Bower (University of Cambridge)

Chaos Under Control: Introduction to the Problematics of the Expression of Chaos in Medieval Manuscripts from England

 Adrienn Orosz (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)

*

  Imagining Material Texts

  9:15am (PCT)/ 11:15am (CDT)/ 5:15pm (GMT)/ 6:15pm (CET)

  The Unequal Powers of Speech and Text: English Charms, 1350-1500

  Katherine Storm Hindley (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

  Material Evidence, Immaterial Intentions 

  Daniel Wakelin (University of Oxford)

  Imagining the Forbidden Reader

  Alexandra Da Costa (University of Cambridge)

MedievalWiki: Training Workshop and Social Editing Session

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24/10/2021

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Fri, October 29, 2021

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM British Summer Time

Online: via Zoom
FREE booking required https://www.eventbrite.com/e/medievalwiki-meet-up-tickets-182576600527

This workshop is for brand new and experienced Wikipedia editors who are interested in improving Wikipedia according to the aims of MedievalWiki (on which, see below). Lucy Moore (York) and Fran Allfrey (KCL) will be hosting.

We will gather on Zoom and introduce newcomers to the MedievalWiki project and how to get started. This will be a relaxed and informal workshop, designed to build the confidence of new and new-ish editors and to provide a social space for more experienced editors.

Everyone is welcome! Medievalists and non-medievalists, researchers, and students. If you can’t make the whole two hours, feel free to drop in just for the first or the second hour (let us know when you book when you plan to stop by).

What is MedievalWiki?

MedievalWiki is a project to improve the quality of medieval articles on Wikipedia (and related projects including Wikimedia and Wikidata). The project is specifically dedicated to making and editing articles with citations to medieval scholars whose work is indebted to or develops feminist, queer, and critical race studies methods and theories. Making and editing biographical pages for Black medievalists and medievalists of colour, women and non-binary and queer medieval scholars, and artists whose work remakes the medieval is firmly within the MedievalWiki remit.

You can read more about the MedievalWiki project here https://medievalwomenwiki.wordpress.com/

Please send any questions to Dr Fran Allfrey francesca.allfrey@kcl.ac.uk

Call for Papers: Reshaping the World: Utopias, Ideals and Aspirations in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

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20/10/2021

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24th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society

25th—26th February 2022, in Oxford and Online

‘There is nothing better than imagining other worlds – he said – to forget the
painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn’t yet realized
that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one’.

– Umberto Eco, Baudolino

It is the creative power of imagination that Baudolino described to a fictionalised Niketas Choniates in this dialogue from Eco’s homonymous novel (2000). The creation of idealised imaginary worlds has the power to change the past, the present and the future. When imagination is directed towards more worldly goals, it becomes aspiration and such aspiration can influence policies of reform. When imagination is unrestrained, utopias are born.

The Oxford University Byzantine Society’s twenty-fourth International Graduate Conference seeks to explore the impact utopias, ideals and aspirations had in changing the course of history and, therefore, how imagined or alternative realities shaped the Late Antique and Byzantine world(s), broadly understood.  

Our conference provides a forum for postgraduate and early-career scholars to reflect on this theme through a variety of cultural media and (inter)disciplinary approaches. In doing so, we hope to facilitate the interaction and engagement of historians, philologists, archaeologists, art historians, theologians and specialists in material culture. To that end, we encourage submissions encompassing, but not limited to, the following themes: 

  • Theological and/or philosophical usage of utopias in the depictions of the ideal society, of the afterlife, or to serve a particular worldview; 
  • Political, administrative, martial, economic and religious reforms as embodiments of aspirations or ideals;  
  • Allegory as both a literary and philosophical tool that endowed texts with new and original meanings; 
  • The ‘Byzantine novel’ and utopias: sceneries, characters and endings; 
  • ‘Chivalry’ in Byzantium as a form of utopia, for example in works such as Digenis Akritis; 
  • Language purism as a form of utopia; 
  • Encomia, hagiography and historiography used to cater to and curate idealised images; 
  • Numismatics, for example the depiction of harmonious imperial families on coinage in defiance of ‘reality’; 
  • Gift-giving and exchange of luxury goods to communicate ideals or aspirations; 
  • The performance of ceremony and ritual to suggest the continuity, legitimacy and permanence of imperial power; 
  • The ideal city in various artistic media, for example frescos and manuscript illuminations; 
  • Utopian ideas conveyed through material objects like seals or epigraphs; 
  • Utopia and manuscript culture, for example the ‘perfect book’, illuminations of utopia/dystopia, and ‘idealised’ writing styles; and, 
  • Byzantium as a utopia in the post-1453 imagination.  

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short academic biography in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society by Friday 19th November 2021 at byzantine.society@gmail.com. Papers should be twenty minutes in length and may be delivered in English or French. As with previous conferences, selected papers will be published in an edited volume, chosen and reviewed by specialists from the University of Oxford. Speakers wishing to have their papers considered for publication should aim to be as close to the theme as possible in their abstract and paper. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.  

To read the full text of the call for papers, please visit the OUBS website here.

The conference will have a hybrid format, taking place both in Oxford and online. Accepted speakers are strongly encouraged to participate in person, but livestreamed papers are also warmly welcomed.