Author: Luisa Ostacchini

20/11/2023

14:52

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Call for Papers

cfp, events

St John’s College, Oxford, 5^th-7^th September 2024

Proposals are now invited for The Fifteenth Century Conference 2024. This annual meeting brings together established scholars and new researchers in the field, acting as a showcase for current research and a forum for encouraging new directions of enquiry. We invite proposals for research papers on any subject relating to the history of the long fifteenth century in the British Isles, Ireland, or in the French territories of the English monarchy. Proposals on all kinds of history are welcome, as are interdisciplinary ones.

Papers should be 40-45 minutes in length, to be followed by 15-20 minutes of questions and discussion. They should therefore be based on original research and be suitable for working up for submission to The Fifteenth Century, an edited series closely associated with the Conference. (Please note: there is no obligation to publish and submissions to this series undergo a separate peer-review process. For details see: https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-fifteenth-century/)

Proposals from postgraduates at the later stages of doctoral work and from early-career researchers are particularly encouraged. All speakers will be expected to deliver their papers in person and to pay the standard registration and other fees. This cost-sharing helps to make the conference as affordable as possible for everyone. However, there are two £250 bursaries for postgraduate speakers at the conference offered by the Richard III Society.

Please send proposals for papers to Laura Flannigan (laura.flannigan@sjc.ox.ac.uk) and Rowena Archer (rowena.archer@history.ox.ac.uk) by 31 January 2024. Proposals should include a title and an abstract of the paper totalling no more than 300 words, outlining the research basis, methodology, and significance for the field. Please also provide a short biography including any institutional affiliations and, in the case of postgraduate students, the name of your PhD supervisor. All proposals will be reviewed by the Fifteenth Century Conference advisory board.

Medieval Matters: Week 6

13/11/2023

11:04

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The academic year is now well underway, and I am sure that everyone is feeling extremely busy. The days are getting very dark and cold, and at this point in term things can feel rather overwhelming. Here is some solidarity from the Epistolae project to remind us that even the greatest minds in history sometimes struggled to find their motivation and energy:

Sed utinam tantum mihi sapientia et potestas quae competit suppeterent
[If only enough wisdom and vigour as I need would come to me]
A letter (1102-03) from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury to Matilda of Scotland

I’m afraid that bringing sufficient amounts of wisdom and vigour to you all lies outside of my remit as communications officer, but I can offer you a wonderful schedule, full of exciting papers and lectures, that are sure to inspire plenty of thought, and reinvigorate you during these cold, dark days. Please see below for the full round-up.

This week’s blog spot, by Luise Morawetz, explores times when manuscripts hold much more information than meets the eye, and grants a fascinating insight into the use of digital tools in manuscript work on the ARCHiOx project (ARCHiOx: research and development in imaging). In her blog post, Luise explains her use of the Selene scanner to investigate two puzzling glosses to the last words of bishop Cassius of Narnia in Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 429: ‘[…] braht’ and ‘upbraht’. To find out what these puzzling additions might have meant, learn about what they tell us about manuscript usage, and to see MS Laur Misc. 429 in ways you have never seen it before, visit Luise’s blog post here.

Please note the change in arrangements for this week’s Medieval Church and Culture Seminar: normal format to resume next week. Please also note that this week’s Medieval Archeology Seminar is cancelled due to illness.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Save the Date: Oxford Old English Work-in-Progress (WOOPIE) will meet at 5.15pm in St Cross Room, St Cross College on Thursday 29th February 2024, for a talk by Prof. Daniel Anlezark, (University of Sydney): ‘The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the eighth century’. The talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 13th November:

The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts over the year. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites.
Queer and Trans Medievalisms: A Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ. All extremely welcome! This week’s discussion will centre Queer adaptations. (Alex Myers’ The Story of Silence (2020) with Le roman de silence (13^th c)). To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email Rowan Wilson.
The Medieval Archeology Seminar is cancelled due to illness.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Liesbeth van Houts (Emmanuel, Cambridge) ‘Towards a New Biography of Empress Matilda: what can be known about the women around her?‘. The seminar will also be available via Teams: the Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, it can be accessed via this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.
The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm. We’ll be translating a range of exciting Old Norse texts! To join the mailing list, email Ashley Castelino.

Tuesday 14th November:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12.15 in Lecture Theatre 2. Today’s speaker will be Helen Fulton (University of Bristol), ‘Urban Humanism and Chaucer’s House of Fame’’. There will be a sandwich lunch provided afterwards. All welcome!

Wednesday 15th November:

The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15, at Somerville College. In Michaelmas Term, we are going to discuss the forthcoming study edition by Christine Putzo of Konrad Fleck’s ‘Flore und Blancheflur’. This week Patrick Leuenberger will talk on christians and heathens. Further information and reading recommendations via the teams channel; if you want to be added to that: please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Invisible East Group meets at 4-6pm in Basement Teaching Room 1, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty, for a talk by Dr Rocco Rante (Louvre Museum, Paris): The Dynamics of Human Occupation during the First Millennium CE in Khorasan.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at The Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies 66 St Giles and online via Microsoft Teams by clicking here. This week’s speaker will be Mike Humphries (Oxford University), ‘Punitive Mutilation in Byzantine Law: The case of nose amputation in Byzantium and beyond’.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.30pm at The Bodleian Library Printing Press. This week is a special session on the printint press, and numbers are limited to a maximum of 12; please email Sumner Braund (sumner.braund@hsm.ox.ac.uk) to take part.
Dante Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm in St Anne’s College, Seminar Room 11. The group is open to those with or without a knowledge of Italian, the reading being sent out in the original and in translation. Refreshments, both alcoholic and otherwise, will be provided! To register or ask any any questions, please email charles.west@regents.ox.ac.uk

Thursday 16th November:

The Medieval Hebrew Reading Group meets at 10-11am in Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, and online via Zoom. In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here. This reading group is an opportunity to practice reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. All skill levels are welcome! There will be coffee, tea and cake afterwards in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person. For further information, please email Joseph Ohara.
The Environmental History Working Group meets at 12.30-2pm, in the History Faculty, Gerry Marton Room. This week’s speaker will be Jennifer Oliver, “Mineral Matters: Materials, Making, and Early Modern French Literature”. For further information, please contact Ryan Mealiffe.
The Centre for Gender, Identity, and Subjectivity (CGIS) meets at 1pm in the Merze Tate room of the History Faculty. Professor Hannah Skoda (St John’s) will be speaking on ‘Gendering nostalgia: fourteenth-century longing for the good old days‘. (Please note that this is different from the term card which states that Hannah is speaking on 23rd).
The Digital Editions Community of Practice Group meets at 1-2pm in the Taylor Institution Library Room 2. Each session will include a brief talk, followed by an opportunity for discussion. Hot water, tea, coffee, milk and biscuits will be provided. Please feel free to bring your own lunch (and a mug for the hot drinks!). This week’s speaker will be T.J. Reed, Thomas Mann.
The Medieval Women’s Writing Reading Group meets at 3-4pm in Lincoln College Lower Lecture Room. This week’s reading will be The Epistole of Catherine of Siena. Please email Katherine Smith to be added to the mailing list and get texts in advance, or to find out more.
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be Liz James (University of Sussex), ‘The Remembrance of God’: Theologising Wall Mosaics’. For queries, contact Elena Lichmanova (elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk).
The Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts reading group will meet at 5-6pm, online via Zoom This week will be led by Dr Lisa Agaiby, Academic Dean at St Athanasius College, and Senior Lecturer in Coptic Studies at the University of Divinity, Australia. Dr Agaiby will be speaking on ‘The Manuscript Project at the Coptic Monastery of St Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea, Egypt‘. To register, please click here.
The Celtic Seminar meets at 5.15pm, online via Teams. Please contact david.willis@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk if you need a link to join online. This week’s speaker will be Myriah Williams (Berkeley), ‘Beginnings and endings: Moli Duw yn Nechrau a Diwedd and Cyntefin Ceinaf Amser’.
The WOOPIE (Oxford Old English Work in Progress) Seminar will meeet at 5.30pm in the Ian Skipper Room, St Cross College. This term’s speaker will be Simon Heller (University of Oxford), ‘Reclaiming Beowulf in the United States, from Nixon to Reagan’. All welcome! If you would like to attend, please contact francis.leneghan@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Friday 17th November:

The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
The Byzantine Text Seminar meets at Ioannou Centre, Outreach Room, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. We are reading passages from Medieval Greek historians. Intermediate knowledge of Greek is required.
The Lectures in Byzantine Literature take place in the Ioannou Centre, Seminar Room, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. We are speaking about Byzantine education. No knowledge of Greek is required.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives meets at 2-3pm, Seminar Room 2, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX. Anyone interested in analyzing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact via email: Lindsay McCormack and Laure Miolo

OPPORTUNITIES:

Job advert: Departmental Lecturer in Medieval History: This is an opportunity to join our thriving History community and gain valuable teaching experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Although this is primarily a teaching role, you will also engage in advanced study and conduct independent research and play an active role in the interdisciplinary College community. The post is intended to fill a gap in our teaching coverage while Dr Benjamin Thompson is on leave following secondment as Associate Head of the Humanities Division. You will be based between the Faculty of History, George St, and Somerville College, Woodstock Road, Oxford. The deadline for applications is 12.00 noon on Monday 27th November 2023. Only applications submitted online through the University e-recruitment system and received before noon Monday 27th November 2023 can be considered. Committed to equality and valuing diversity. For full details, please click here.
Postdoc or PhD Opportunity: Historian (postdoc or Ph.D. candidate) or Latinist wanted in DISSINET (https://dissinet.cz/), an ERC-funded digital project on medieval inquisition and dissidence based in Brno, Czech Republic. Specific knowledge of the field or digital methods not needed, we only need Latin and a computer-friendly mindset. Deadline for applications: 4 December 2023. Expected start: 1 February 2024 (negotiable). Expected duration: 31 August 2026 Find out more: https://www.muni.cz/en/about-us/careers/vacancies/76846
Call for Applications for 2024-2025 Predoctoral Research Residencies at the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”: a collaboration between the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the Amici di Capodimonte, and Franklin University Switzerland. We would be grateful if you would share the Call with colleagues and potentially interested PhD students in the earlier stages of the dissertation. We welcome applications from doctoral students in art and architectural history (as well as archaeology, history, musicology, cultural heritage, the digital humanities, and related fields) who work on periods from antiquity to the present and who will make meaningful use of research materials in Naples and southern Italy. full details.

Finally, here is some wisdom from the Epistolae project to remind us all that struggling to meet deadlines was a medieval problem too:

peccatis meis indulgere habes, quia propter instantes labores et itinera continua adhuc perfecte conscriptum, quod rogasti, non habeam
[you must excuse my remissness, for I have been prevented by pressure of work and by my continual travels from completing the book you ask for.]
A letter (before 738) from Boniface to Bugga

For everyone struggling to meet deadlines, or trying to carve out some research time in the middle of a busy teaching term: I wish you a week of productive and successful research!

*[A medievalist is chased down by the two greatest enemies of research: Pressure of Work and Teaching Obligation]*
St John’s College MS. 61, f. 12 v.
By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Medieval Matters: Week 5

06/11/2023

13:48

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This week is, of course, the dreaded fifth week: the most notorious week of the Oxford term. The days are getting darker, workloads are building, and at this point in term many people may be feeling a little frazzled! If you feel in need of some cheering up, we have a stellar roundup of delights to offer you this week, starting with this week’s blogpost, by Ryan Mealiffe, on pigs and piggy banks. Have you ever wondered “who made the first piggy banks?”, or “how global is the piggy bank?”. For answers to these questions and many, many more, accompanied by an abundance of delightful images of rotund, puffy-cheeked pigs and piggy banks (many of which are held at Oxford’s own Ashmolean museum), check out Ryan’s blog post here. It’s sure to both raise a smile and give you new insight into global environmental history!

All of this is to say that despite this being Oxford’s most infamous week of the term, there is plenty of joy within our community to smile about! In the words of Clare of Assisi, from the Epistolae project:

Quis ergo de tantis mirandis gaudiis dicat me non gaudere?
[Who, then, would tell me not to rejoice about such great and marvellous joys?]
A letter (1238) from Clare of Assisi to Agnes of Prague

For a full list of this week’s great and marvellous joys, please see below:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

David Wiles (Emeritus Professor of Drama, University of Exeter) is looking for participants in a production of the pseudo-Senecan Octavia put together for the annual conference of the Classical Association in Warwick on March 24^th. You may have seen his previous productions in the garden of St Edmund Hall – last year, Mary Magdalene Play from the Carmina Burana. He will be exploring the exuberant rhetorical language of the 1561 translation. Rehearsing in Oxford on Monday evenings in the Hilary term. If interested, please contact d.wiles@exeter.ac.uk.
Medieval Archaeology Seminar: Change of Line-up The talk originally planned for the 27^th Nov. has been moved forward to 20^th November, and a new talk slotted in on the 27th. The new schedule is as follows: Wk 7 (20 Nov.) Elisabeth Lorans, University of Tours, Transformation of Roman capital cities in Gaul between the 4th and 10th centuries; Wk 8 (27 Nov). Sarah Semple, Durham University, People and place in the early medieval kingdom of Northumbria. New fieldwork.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 6th November:

The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts over the year. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites.
Queer and Trans Medievalisms: A Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ. All extremely welcome! This week’s discussion will centre Queer anachronisms (Robert Glück’s Margery Kempe (1994) with The Book of Margery Kempe (early 15^th c)). To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Alison Ray (St Peter’s College and Bodleian Library) ‘The Pecia System and the Medieval Oxford Book Trade‘. The seminar will also be available via Teams: the Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, it can be accessed via this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.

Tuesday 7th November:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12.15 in Lecture Theatre 2. Today’s speakers will be Sigrid Koerner (Jesus College), Christ’s Burial on the Late Medieval Stage and Shelley Williams (Jesus College), “Hevenysh Revoluciouns”: The Complaint of Mars in motion. There will be a sandwich lunch provided afterwards. All welcome!
The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures: Work in Progress Seminar meets at 3.30pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. This term’s speakers will be Anthony Ellis (University of Bern): ‘Greek’ in the Medieval Latin manuscripts of Josephus: reconstructing the philological workings of a late antique translator, and Sara de Martin (Oxford): Reassessing the transmission of Strato com. fr. 1 K. A.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker is Andrew Honey (Bodleian Library Conservation) ‘Binding, if remarkable’: approaches to cataloguing medieval bookbindings at the Bodleian Library‘. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar!
The Medieval French Research Seminar will meet at the Maison Francaise d’Oxford on Norham Road. Drinks will be available from 5pm; presentations start at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker will be Luke Sunderland (Durham) ‘They travel together like knights”: Social Animals in Medieval French Encyclopaedias’. All are welcome! For more information or to be added to the seminar maillist, please contact helen.swift@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

Wednesday 8th November:

The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15, at Somerville College. In Michaelmas Term, we are going to discuss the forthcoming study edition by Christine Putzo of Konrad Fleck’s ‘Flore und Blancheflur’. Further information and reading recommendations via the teams channel; if you want to be added to that: please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield (michael.stansfield@new.ox.ac.uk) for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at The Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies 66 St Giles and online via Microsoft Teams by clicking here. This week’s speakers will be Georgi Parpulov (Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities), and Dimitris Skrekas (University of London/Oxford University), Positions of Considerable Emolument: Cataloguing Greek Manuscripts in Oxford.
Columbia University Seminar on Religion & Writing will take place on zoom on 5-7pm GMT. Our own Andrew Dunning, R.W. Hunt Curator of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian, will discuss the origins of the twelfth-century cult of St. Frideswide. Please register by filling out this form TODAY. If you have any questions, please write to Heidi Hansen.
Dante Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm in St Anne’s College, Seminar Room 11. The group is open to those with or without a knowledge of Italian, the reading being sent out in the original and in translation. Refreshments, both alcoholic and otherwise, will be provided! To register or ask any any questions, please email charles.west@regents.ox.ac.uk

Thursday 9th November:

The Medieval Hebrew Reading Group meets at 10-11am in Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, and online via Zoom. In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here. This reading group is an opportunity to practice reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. All skill levels are welcome! There will be coffee, tea and cake afterwards in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person. For further information, please email joseph.ohara@ames.ox.ac.uk.
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm, online via Zoom. Please contact Howard Jones Howard.Jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk to request the handouts and to be added to the list. This week’s reading will be The Old English Riming Poem (Morgan leading).
The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar meets at 5-6.30pm at Lincoln College, Lower Lecture Room. This week’s speaker is Mary Hitchman, Wolfson College, Tracing Women’s Correspondence in Late Antiquity. Please email katherine.smith@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list or to find out more.
The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm, online via Zoom. Please contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk for the link. This week CAWCS and the National Library of Wales present an evening of talks, readings and performances to mark the tercentenary of Richard Price, Llangeinor – one of Wales’s most radical and influential thinkers.
The Old Occitan Literature Workshop meets at 5-6pm at St Hugh’s College, 74 Woodstock Road, Office A4. The topic of this week’s meeting will be Sad! Songs for Disappointed Men (Raimbaut D’Aurenga (1147-173), Vida, “Ar resplan la flors enversa”; Peirol (1188-1222) — Vida, “Per dan que d’amor mi veigna”). To sign up, or for any other queries, email Kate Travers.
‘No Jew Shall Have a Freehold’: The Prohibition on Landholding in the Statutum de Judeis of King Henry III (1271): As part of the David Patterson lecture series at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (OCHJS), Emily Rose will be speaking about English legislation from the time of King Henry III at 6pm in the Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street and online. Zoom link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUodO-sqjguHd2NE68XBpwenTwyfBQ2O7dg.

Friday 10th November:

The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
The Byzantine Text Seminar meets at Ioannou Centre, Outreach Room, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. We are reading passages from Medieval Greek historians. Intermediate knowledge of Greek is required.
The Lectures in Byzantine Literature take place in the Ioannou Centre, Seminar Room, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. We are speaking about Byzantine education. No knowledge of Greek is required.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives meets at 2-3pm, Seminar Room 2, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX. Anyone interested in analyzing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact Lindsay McCormack and Laure Miolo via email: lindsay.mccormack@lincoln.ox.ac.uk and laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm, in the Julia Mann Room, St Hilda’s College, and Zoom. Please let us know if you would like to attend, either in person or on Zoom; reminders including the Zoom link will be sent to those who have expressed interest. To register interest, or for more information, please contact Jane Bliss jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org and/or Stephanie stephanie.hathaway@gmail.com.

OPPORTUNITIES:

CFP: Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2024: ‘Signs and Scripts.’ The conference will be held in person on the 8^th and 9^th of April, 2024. We invite proposals relating to all aspects of the broad topic ‘Signs and Scripts’ in the medieval world. Submissions are welcome from all disciplinary perspectives, whether historical, literary, archaeological, linguistic, or interdisciplinary. Please send abstracts of 250 words to oxgradconf@gmail.com by 17th December, 2023. For full details, please see the Call for Papers.
Call for SSD EDI Associates 2023/24: We are seeking individuals from across the Division with a passionate commitment to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion, to join us as EDI Associates this year. We are seeking members of academic, research, or professional services staff, and DPhil students – each EDI Associate will receive a grant of up to £1,000 to be used towards their own research, training and development. Each EDI Associate would need to be able to commit approximately 35-40 hours over Hilary and Trinity terms, with the approval of their line manager/supervisor – but precise timings will be flexible, and can fit around EDI Associates’ other commitments. Please complete an Expression of Interest form by 24th November 2023. For further details, and EOI form, see: 2023/24 Call for EDI Associates | Social Sciences Division (ox.ac.uk)
Funded PhD Opportunity: The University of Cambridge and British Library are inviting applicants to propose a topic within the broader field of ‘Reading and Writing in Medieval Women’s Religious Communities’. The start date would be early October 2024, and the application deadline is 4 January 2024. This would be a wonderful chance for a student to work intensively with the BL’s collections—so if you know any prospective students who might be interested, please do pass this notice along! Here’s the full notice, with both intellectual and practical details: https://www.oocdtp.ac.uk/reading-and-writing-medieval-womens-religious-communities

Finally, here is some wisdom from the Epistolae project for this most notorious of Oxford weeks:

Tristitiae quippe nebulis quibus obvolvebar expulsis, verborum vestrorum me rivulus, tamquam novae lucis radius, perlustravit
[after the clouds of sadness in which I was wrapped were driven away, the stream of your words broke through to me like a ray of new light]
A letter (1104) from Matilda of Scotland, queen of the English to Anselm

I hope that the words of medievalist colleagues and the stream of seminars and reading group activity break through any clouds of sadness which you may be feeling this week!

*[A Medievalist catches the fifth week blues…]*
St John’s College MS. 61, f. 46 v.
By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Medieval Matters: Week 4

30/10/2023

11:51

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This week marks All Hallows’ Eve! As if this wasn’t scary enough, we are now half way through term – what a frightening thought! If you are feeling terrified by all of the things you told yourself you would have achieved by this stage of the year, here is a snippet of eleventh-century solidarity from the Epistolae project:

Conscientia mea terret me peius omni larua omnique imagine
[My conscience terrifies me worse than any ghost or apparition!]
A letter (April 1062) from Agnes of Poitiers, empress

In more serious news, this is a frightening time for Oxford’s Medieval Meadows. The UK has lost 97% of its meadows since World War II. This week’s blog post is written by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, and addresses the threat posed to Hinksey meadow. Hinksey Meadow is first on record in a grant by Henry I to Abingdon Abbey 1102 x 1110, and it’s still there, in West Oxford in walking distance of Oxford Railway Station, one of the rarest, most species-rich meadows in Britain. But this wonderful meadow is under threat. To read about the importance of this medieval site, and what we can do to help save it, please read Jocelyn Wogan-Browne’s blog post here.

It may be Halloween this week, but you will find only treats in this week’s line up: see below!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Columbia University Seminar on Religion & Writing will take place on zoom on Wednesday, 8 Nov, 5-7pm GMT. Our own Andrew Dunning, R.W. Hunt Curator of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian, will discuss the origins of the twelfth-century cult of St. Frideswide. Please register by filling out this form before November 7th. If you have any questions or concerns, please write to Heidi Hansen.
The 50th anniversary Tolkien Lecture Series: Although there is an online booking system that now states that all these lectures are full, there have been many no-shows at these seminars and the organizers have said that anyone can come along now (without booking) and there should be room to fit everyone in. For those who cannot make it (due to teaching commitments, lectures, tutorials etc.), the talks will be recorded on a case-by-case basis (depending on the permission of each speaker). If there are any questions about this, contact Stuart Lee. For full details, please see here.
Church Monuments Society Spring online lectures 2022: ‘The Stories Monuments Tell’: The Church Monuments Society is for everyone who is interested in the art of commemoration – early incised stones, medieval effigies, ledgerstones, brasses, modern gravestones. The Society was founded in 1979 to encourage the appreciation, study and conservation of church monuments both in the UK and abroad. The Spring series of online lectures will be on the topic of ‘The Stories Monuments Tell’. All lectures will take place via Zoom, and begin at 5pm GMT. For full information, please see our blog here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 30th October:

The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts over the year. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites.
Early-Printed Books from Ukraine: Treasures from the Bodleian will take place at 1-2pm, in Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library. This public talk is programmed in partnership with the Oxford University Ukrainian Society. A selection of the Bodleian’s holdings of early-printed books from Ukraine, including the oldest Ukrainian book, the Apostolos of 1574. All welcome, and entry is free, but booking is required. To book a place, visit: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/oct23/early-printed-books-ukraine.
Queer and Trans Medievalisms: A Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ. All extremely welcome! This week’s discussion will centre Transing knighthood (kari edwards’ dôNrm’-lä-püsl (2017) with the trial of Joan of Arc (1431)). To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email Rowan Wilson.
The Medieval Archeology Seminar meets at 3pm at the Institute of Archaeology, Lecture Room. This week’s speakers will be Rory Naismith & Jane Kershaw, ‘The provenance of silver in north-west European coinage (c. 660–820)‘.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Meia Walravens (Trinity), ‘Networked Diplomacy: the Bahmani Sultanate in the Islamic world (ca. 1475),. The seminar will also be available via Teams: the Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, it can be accessed via this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.
The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm. We’ll be translating a range of exciting Old Norse texts! To join the mailing list, email Ashley Castelino.

Tuesday 31st October:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12.15 in Lecture Theatre 2. This week’s speaker will be Rachel A. Burns (Hertford), ‘Hidden Things: A Biblical Context for the Exeter Book Riddles’. There will be a sandwich lunch provided afterwards. All welcome!
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker is Stephen Johnston (History of Science Museum), ‘Working and Reworking the Astrolabe: astronomy and astrology as material culture‘. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar!

Wednesday 1st November:

The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15, at Somerville College to discuss the forthcoming study edition by Christine Putzo of Konrad Fleck’s ‘Flore und Blancheflur’. This week Julia Lorenz and Tim Powell will talk on ‘Mai & Beaflur’. Further information and reading recommendations via the teams channel; if you want to be added to that: please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at The Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies 66 St Giles and online via Microsoft Teams by clicking here. This week’s speaker will be Michael Hanaghan (Australian Catholic University) ‘Future Perfect? The Ontology of the Future in Sidonius’ Imperial Panegyrics’.
Dante Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm in St Anne’s College, Seminar Room 11. The group is open to those with or without a knowledge of Italian, the reading being sent out in the original and in translation. Refreshments, both alcoholic and otherwise, will be provided! To register or ask any any questions, please email charles.west@regents.ox.ac.uk

Thursday 2nd November:

The Medieval Hebrew Reading Group meets at 10-11am in Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, and online via Zoom. In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here. This reading group is an opportunity to practice reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. All skill levels are welcome! There will be coffee, tea and cake afterwards in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person. For further information, please email Joseph Ohara.
The Environmental History Working Group meets at 12.30-2pm, in the History Faculty, Gerry Marton Room. This week’s speaker will be Aryaman Gupta, “Ecology and nonhuman agency between ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ and Chernobyl”. For further information, please contact Ryan Mealiffe.
The Digital Editions Community of Practice Group meets at 1-2pm in the Taylor Institution Library Main Hall Each session will include a brief talk, followed by an opportunity for discussion. Hot water, tea, coffee, milk and biscuits will be provided. Please feel free to bring your own lunch (and a mug for the hot drinks!). This week’s speakers will be Lena Vosding and Karen Wenzel on Using Transkribus.
The Medieval Women’s Writing Reading Group meets at 3-4pm in Lincoln College Lower Lecture Room. This week’s reading will be Royal Networks and Letters in late medieval Iberia. Please email Katherine Smith to be added to the mailing list and get texts in advance, or to find out more.
The Merton History of the Book Group meets at 5pm in Merton College, T. S. Eliot Lecture Theatre. This term’s lecture will be by Professor Sarah McNamer, Georgetown University, on ‘A Book for a Boy? A New Look at the Bodley Alexander’. The talk will be followed by refreshments. All are welcome, but please RSVP to Julia Walworth.
The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music meets at 5-7pm, online via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Jane Bernstein (Tufts University): ‘Music Printing in Rome during the Long Sixteenth Century’. The discussants will be Bonnie J. Blackburn (Oxford) and Noel O’Regan (University of Edinburgh). If you are planning to attend a seminar this term, please register using this form. For each seminar, those who have registered will receive an email with the Zoom invitation and any further materials a couple of days before the seminar. If you have questions, please just send an email to all.souls.music.seminars@gmail.com.
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5pm in St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be John Munns (Cambridge University), ‘Topographical Realism in Winchester’s Holy Sepulchre’. For queries, contact Elena Lichmanova.
The Celtic Seminar meets at 5.15pm, in the History of the Book Room, English Faculty, and online via Teams. Please contact David Willis if you need a link to join online. This week’s speaker will be Stuart Dunmore (Edinburgh), ‘Language acquisition motivations and identity orientations among Scottish Gaelic diasporas in Nova Scotia and New England’.

Friday 3rd November:

The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
The Byzantine Text Seminar meets at Ioannou Centre, Outreach Room, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. We are reading passages from Medieval Greek historians. Intermediate knowledge of Greek is required.
The Lectures in Byzantine Literature take place in the Ioannou Centre, Seminar Room, 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. We are speaking about Byzantine education. No knowledge of Greek is required.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives meets at 2-3pm, Seminar Room 2, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX. Anyone interested in analyzing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact Lindsay McCormack and Laure Miolo via email: lindsay.mccormack@lincoln.ox.ac.uk and laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk

OPPORTUNITIES:

UCL Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MARS) is now accepting applications for their MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies for the academic year 2024-5.
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies invites applications for up to two Research Fellowships open to post-doctoral candidates in any area of the arts, humanities or social sciences which contribute to a more informed understanding of the Islamic world – its history, economy, politics, culture and contemporary life. Link to full job description

If, despite all of these treats, this week still seems frightening, here is more advice from Agnes of Poitiers, from the Epistolae project. After discussing the terror of her conscience, she writes:

Ideo fugio per sanctorum loca, quaerens latibulum a facie timoris huius
[So I flee to the places of the saints, seeking a hiding place from the face of this fear.]
A letter (April 1062) from Agnes of Poitiers, empress

I take this to mean that fleeing to the places of medieval community is always a good remedy for the anxieties of research! I hope that your week is filled with exciting research discoveries, that you encounter more treats than tricks, and that the delights of medieval events help to chase the terror away!

*[Scary costume ideas: A Medievalist Flattened by Fifth Week]*
St John’s College MS. 61, f. 50 r.
By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series

1 Comment on Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series

30/10/2023

10:26

Around Oxford, events

The last three talks will be of special interest to medieval graduates working in Old English (or Old Norse): Grace Khuri (Nov. 8) will look at compound personal names starting with Ælf- (‘Elf’) that Tolkien encountered in his set texts as an undergraduate (c. 1913-1915) and how these contributed to building (what Tolkien himself later called) his ‘Elf-centric’ mythology for The Book of Lost Tales (c. 1917-1919) — the earliest version of what would later become The Silmarillion (1977), the epic, mythic-legendary prehistory of Middle-earth. The following week is Dr. Laura Varnam’s lecture on ‘Tolkien and Beowulf’ (Nov. 15), and the last lecture of the term will be given by Dr. Simon Horobin on ‘Tolkien the Philologist’ (Nov. 22).

Although there is an online booking system that now states that all these lectures are full, there have been many no-shows at these seminars and the organizers have said that anyone can come along now (without booking) and there should be room to fit everyone in. For those who cannot make it (due to teaching commitments, lectures, tutorials etc.), the talks will be recorded on a case-by-case basis (depending on the permission of each speaker). If there are any questions about this, contact Dr. Stuart Lee at stuart.lee@ell.ox.ac.uk.

Medieval Matters: Week 3

23/10/2023

11:22

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medieval matters, mt23

Term is now well and truly underway! We have already enjoyed so many excellent seminar papers, social opportunities, and special exhibitions and events. Such a lot of work goes into organising and taking part in these things, and so here is a quote from the Epistolae project that sums up our gratitude for your contributions to our medievalist community here at Oxford, from all at OMS:

Celsitudini vestrae gratias agere volo, sed condignas meritis eius scribere non valeo.
[I wish to give thanks to your highness but I cannot find words to write worthy of your merit.]
A letter (1104) from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury to Matilda of Tuscany

I would like to extend a particularly huge thanks to all of the special collections staff around the university for all of the hard work you do. Our blog post for the week is from Sophie Bacchus-Waterman, special collections photographer at St John’s College. Sophie has most recently been responsible for photographing MS 61, the manuscript from which all of this year’s newsletter illustrations are taken. Her blog highlights the incredible strength of special collections work at Oxford, and the amount of wonderful manuscript holdings that are being made available to a wider audience.To peep behind the curtain of special collections and learn about the processes, difficulties, and joys of manuscript digitisation, please do read Sophie’s blog here!

For all of the weekly listings, please see below:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The WOOPIE (Oxford Old English Work in Progress) Seminar will meet on Thursday 16th November at 5.30pm in the Ian Skipper Room, St Cross College. This term’s speaker will be Simon Heller (University of Oxford), ‘Reclaiming Beowulf in the United States, from Nixon to Reagan’. All welcome! If you would like to attend, please contact francis.leneghan@ell.ox.ac.uk.
‘Messing about with Manuscripts’: R.A.B. Mynors and Balliol’s Medieval Library: This exhibition is inspired by the work of Balliol Fellow Roger Mynors, whose 1963 catalogue listing and describing the College’s celebrated manuscript collection has provided a gateway to the medieval world for generations of scholars. Most of Balliol’s medieval books have been together in the College, read and used by academics and thinkers at Balliol since the Middle Ages. This exhibition in the College’s St Cross Church brings together for the first time the history of the collection with the processes and the people involved in uncovering it, and in doing so, hopes to build upon Mynors’ work in opening up the collection to an even wider audience. Public openings will take place on Thursday 2 November, 11am-4pm, Monday 20 November, 11am-4pm, and Saturday 2 December, 11am-4pm. The library catalogue is available digitally here.
New Seminar Series: Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives: Fridays 2-3pm, Seminar Room 2, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX. Lincoln College, founded in 1427, holds an outstanding collection of archives. Anyone interested in analyzing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. Working in pairs on a self-selected source, the research will entail the examination of the record’s external characteristics (such as writing surface, layout, marks of use) as well as transcription, translation, and identification of locations and individuals mentioned in the records to establish a context. Special importance will be given to the seals attached to these documents. As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact Lindsay McCormack and Laure Miolo via email: lindsay.mccormack@lincoln.ox.ac.uk and laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk
Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Network Fieldtrip to see the 40th Brixworth Lecture (Helen Gittos: Christianity before Conversion) at Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire. If you would like to join us to climb the tower of the grandest surviving Anglo-Saxon church and meet graduate students from Leicester and Cambridge, please send your name and phone number to Bobby Klapper: robert.klapper@spc.ox.ac.uk. Limited places owing to minibus space. First come, first served. Transport free. Tickets £8 from brixworthchurchfriends@brixworth.com [You may be able to reclaim this from your college]. For more details, click here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 23rd October:

The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts over the year. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Matthew Kempshall (Wadham) on ‘Dante’s Political Theology‘. The seminar will also be available via Teams: the Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, it can be accessed via this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.

Tuesday 24th October:

The Medieval English Research Seminar will meet at 12.15 in The Weston Library Lecture Theatre and S T Lee Gallery. Today’s speaker will be Nicholas Perkins, ‘Gifts and Books’ (talk and exhibition). All welcome!
The Gentlewoman from Reedham: Re-encountering Margaret Paston through her letters, in the 21st century: at 2pm-3.30pm in the Buttery at Wolfson College, OCLW Visiting Scholar Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey) joins us to discuss her upcoming imaginative biography of Margaret Paston. Register here: https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/diane-watt
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker is Elisabeth Lorans (Univ. de Tours and All Souls), ‘Marmoutier (Tours), a late Roman and early medieval monastery in the Loire valley (4th-11th centuries)’. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar!

Wednesday 25th October:

The Medieval German Seminar meets at 11.15, at Somerville College. In Michaelmas Term, we are going to discuss the forthcoming study edition by Christine Putzo of Konrad Fleck’s ‘Flore und Blancheflur’, led this week by Malena Ratzke; if you want to be added to the seminar’s teams chat please email Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield (michael.stansfield@new.ox.ac.uk) for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at The Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies 66 St Giles and online via Microsoft Teams by clicking here. This week’s speakers will be Miranda Williams, Tim Penn and Ine Jacobs (Oxford University) ‘More than “the last monument of Byzantine rule in Cyrenaica”. Taucheira in Late Antiquity‘.
The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures: Michaelmas Term Lecture meets at 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. This term’s speakers will be Prof. Mary Carruthers (NYU and St Hilda’s, Oxford): Understanding Solid Figures in Early Medieval Manuscripts: how Rhetoric and Geometry interact.
Dante Reading Group meets at 5.30-7pm in St Anne’s College, Seminar Room 11. The group is open to those with or without a knowledge of Italian, the reading being sent out in the original and in translation. Refreshments, both alcoholic and otherwise, will be provided! To register or ask any any questions, please email charles.west@regents.ox.ac.uk
A service of Compline in the Norman crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East, the library of St Edmund Hall, at 9:30pm.

Thursday 26th October:

The Medieval Hebrew Reading Group meets at 10-11am in Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, and online via Zoom. In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here. This reading group is an opportunity to practice reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. All skill levels are welcome! There will be coffee, tea and cake afterwards in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person. For further information, please email joseph.ohara@ames.ox.ac.uk.
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm, online via Zoom. Please contact Howard Jones Howard.Jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk to request the handouts and to be added to the list. This week’s reading will be MHG Parzival extracts (Joshua Booth leading).
The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar meets at 5-6.30pm at Lincoln College, Oakeshott Room. This week’s speaker is Dr Lena Vosding, Linacre College, The Lüne Letters: Late Medieval Female Correspondence. Please email katherine.smith@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list or to find out more.
The Celtic Seminar meets at 5pm, online via Zoom. Please contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk for the link. This week’s speaker will be Chantal Kobel (DIAS), ‘Secret writing and abstruse language in medieval Irish lawyers’ books’.
The Old Occitan Literature Workshop meets at 5-6pm at St Hugh’s College, 74 Woodstock Road, Office A4. The topic of this week’s meeting will be The Dawn Song: Just Five Minutes More (Giraut de Bornelh (1162-1199): Vida, “Reis glorios”, “Per solhatz revelhar”; Anon., “En un vergier sotz fuella d’albespi”). To sign up, or for any other queries, email Kate Travers: katherine.travers@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk.

Friday 27th October:

The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives meets at 2-3pm, Seminar Room 2, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX. Anyone interested in analyzing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact Lindsay McCormack and Laure Miolo via email: lindsay.mccormack@lincoln.ox.ac.uk and laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk
Note: The Taylor Editions Book Launch: Monk-Calf and Nuns on the Run originally planned for this day has been postponed to 1 December, 3-4pm.
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm, in the Julia Mann Room, St Hilda’s College, and Zoom. Please let us know if you would like to attend, either in person or on Zoom; reminders including the Zoom link will be sent to those who have expressed interest. To register interest, or for more information, please contact Jane Bliss jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org and/or Stephanie stephanie.hathaway@gmail.com.

Saturday 28th October:

The 40th Brixworth Lecture takes place at 5pm (with tea in the village hall from 3.30pm) at Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire. This year’s lecture is given by Helen Gittos (Oxford), ‘Christianity before Conversion‘. Tickets from brixworthchurchfriends@brixworth.com.

OPPORTUNITIES:

CFP: Conflicts, Connections and Communities in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: 23 November 2023 [Australian Central Daylight Time] Online via Microsoft Teams. We invite scholars from various disciplines and different career stages to submit proposals for 20-minute papers (to be presented in English) relating in some way to themes of conflict, connection, and/or community in the ASC and their wider context. Please send paper proposals, including a title, 150–200-word abstract, and short biography, to Dr James Kane (james.kane@flinders.edu.au) and A/Prof. Erin Sebo (erin.sebo@flinders.edu.au). For full details, please see here.

Finally, here are some good wishes from the Epistolae project as we go into Week 3:

Apponantur cum gratia et salute recentes hodie tibi deliciae
[May fresh delights with greeting and gratitude be delivered to you today]
A letter (1156-57) from Osbert of Clare to Adelidis of Barking

Of course, the great Oxford Medievalist dilemma is that there is such an abundance of delight to choose from, and this newsletter delivers to you today perhaps too many delights for a single medievalist to enjoy! I wish you luck in selecting which seminars and reading groups from our wonderful line-up, and wish you a week of fresh delight, greeting and gratitude!

*[A Medievalist nervously eyes up the overabundance of possible seminars and tries to decide which to attend]*
St John’s College MS. 61, f. 21 r.
By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Network Fieldtrip

1 Comment on Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Network Fieldtrip

23/10/2023

11:13

events, opportunities

events

Saturday 28 October 2023

40^th Brixworth Lecture

Helen Gittos

Christianity before Conversion

Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire

1pm Meet outside Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street

2.30/ 3pm Meet Brixworth church with Jo Storey, Rory Naismith and students from the universities of Leicester and Cambridge

3.30pm Tea in the Village Hall

5pm Lecture

7pm Dinner in Coach & Horses, Brixworth

8.30pm Leave Brixworth

If you would like to join us to climb the tower of the grandest surviving Anglo-Saxon church and meet graduate students from Leicester and Cambridge, please send your name and phone number to Bobby Klapper: robert.klapper@spc.ox.ac.uk. Limited places available owing to minibus space. First come, first served.

Transport free. Tickets £8 from brixworthchurchfriends@brixworth.com [You may be able to reclaim this from your college]

CFP: Conflicts, Connections and Communities in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Call for Papers, opportunities

20/10/2023

16:37

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cfp, michaelmas 23

23 November 2023 [Australian Central Daylight Time]
Online via Microsoft Teams

Keynote speakers: Prof. Daniel Anlezark (University of Sydney) and Dr Courtnay Konshuh (University of Calgary)

The complex series of interrelated Old English annals known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (ASC) constitutes one of the richest surviving examples of historical writing from early medieval England. Compiled in several extant manuscripts at different centres of monastic, episcopal, and royal activity, these annals shed crucial light on changing dynamics of power, on important cultural developments, on linguistic evolution, and on the crystallisation of communal identities in England between the late ninth and mid-twelfth centuries. In recent decades, increased linguistic, palaeographical, historical, and literary scrutiny of the annals has laid secure foundations for fine-grained work on the ASC as cultural artefacts that were reworked, redeployed, and reinterpreted in many different contexts throughout the middle ages (and beyond).
This online symposium, hosted by researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, seeks to build on this scholarship by foregrounding new approaches to the ASC. In particular, we invite scholars from various disciplines and different career stages to submit proposals for 20-minute papers (to be presented in English) relating in some way to themes of conflict, connection, and/or community in the ASC and their wider context.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Representations of war and/or violence in the ASC
Discrepancies within and/or between separate versions of the ASC
Cross-cultural encounters and interactions in the ASC
Relationships between manuscripts of the ASC and related texts
Representations of particular communities and/or their relationships in the ASC
The creation and use of copies of the ASC within specific communities in early medieval England
The dissemination of the ASC and related texts

Please send paper proposals, including a title, 150–200-word abstract, and short biography, to Dr James Kane (james.kane@flinders.edu.au) and A/Prof. Erin Sebo (erin.sebo@flinders.edu.au).

Medieval Matters: Week 2

16/10/2023

11:22

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