Please see below the details for the History of Liturgy Seminar taking place this coming Monday (17th Nov) at 17.30, both in person at Balliol College and online.
Author: Tristan Alphey
Tony Hunt Obituary
Oxford Medieval Studies is saddened to hear of the death last week of Tony Hunt (1944-2025), Faculty Lecturer in Medieval French and Fellow of St Peter’s College (1990-2009).
Tony’s contributions to Anglo-Norman and Medieval French research were prolific and ground-breaking, recognised by Fellowship of the British Academy in 1999; he was decorated Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques in 2009. A brilliant scholar with a razor-sharp intellect he was also a generous and much valued tutor, supervisor, mentor, and colleague. A pillar of the Anglo-Norman studies community, he was President of the Anglo-Norman Texts Society from 2011 until his death; his editions of texts ranged remarkably, from chess treatises and the teaching and learning of Latin in England to medicine and botany.
ANTS website Tony Hunt (1944-2025) | Anglo-Norman Text Society
Medieval Matter MT 25, Week 5
A medieval event a day keeps the blues away – meet week 5 head-on with another set of seminars and events! As always, you can find a complete copy of the Oxford Medieval Studies Booklet here. Any last-minuted changes will be updated in the weekly blogpost and in the calendar, both accessible via https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/.
This week, on the 13th and 14th of November, the Crafting Documents project, alongside the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, is hosting the ‘Heritage Science and Manuscript Conference‘. Registration is free, and the full programme of events is available here.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Italian Research Seminar – 1:00, Taylorian Room 2. Ryan Pepin will be speaking on ‘‘Dietro la memoria non può ire’: Copyists’ Slips in the Textual Tradition of the Commedia‘.
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Tom Johnson (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Inscription Economy in Fifteenth-Century England’.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar AND Medieval French Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. Juluan Mattison (U of Georgia) will be speaking on ‘What is an English book? French Scribes, Scripts and Texts in England’
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Nancy Thebaut (Catz) will be speaking on ‘Gender, Nature, and the Limits of Art: A Close Reading of ‘Two Riddles of the Queen of Sheba’, a Late Medieval Tapestry at the Met Cloisters‘.
- Old Norse Research Seminar – 5:00, New Seminar Room, St. John’s College. Caz Batten (Pennsylvania) will be speaking on ‘Unmaking a Man: The Contested Bodies of the Völundr Legend’. Drinks to follow.
- Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15, location TBC, contact Hattie Carter
Wednesday
- John Lydgate Book Club – 11:00, Smoking Room (Lincoln College).
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar on the Constance Chronicle – 11:15, Somerville College.
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Marlena Whiting (Groningen) will be speaking on ‘Hodology, Wayfinding, and Geographical Knowledge in Late Antique Pilgrimage Accounts’
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Environmental History Working Group – 12:30, Room 20.421 in the Schwarzman Centre. Ryan Mealiffe will be speaking on ‘What are White Storks (Ciconia ciconica) Doing in High and Late Miedieval Calendars’?
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, hybrid. Simon Rodway (Aberystwyth) will be speaking on ‘Gwlithod Blewog a Mygydau Barddol: Golwg Newydd ar Garchariad Aneirin yn y Tŷ Deyerin’
- Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St. Catherine’s College. Carly Boxer (Bucknell University) will be speaking on ‘Abstract Figures and Bodily Change: Giving Form to Unseen Things in Late Medieval England’
- Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Elina Hamilton, Peter Lefferts and Elzbieta Witkowska-Zaremba will be speaking on ‘Theinred of Dover (fl. c. 1300): A New Context for him in Fourteenth-Century Music Theory’
- Compline in the Crypt – 9:30pm, St Edmund Hall.
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group: Library Visit (Merton) – 5:00. Sign-up required.
Saturday
- Workshop and Vespers for St Edmund. -14:00, St Edmund Hall Chapel. Open to all, no singing experience required. For registration, follow this link.
Opportunities
- Call for readers: For a Multilingual Medieval Compline in the Crypt on 20 Nov, 9.30pm, Henrike Lähnemann is looking for versions of the Our Father in as many medieval languages as possible. Old High German, Middle High German, Old English, and Middle English have been assigned but any further languages are welcome! Contact her if you have a version and are willing to read it.
- CfP: Shaping the Word – the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts in the Early Medieval West. Deadline 17th Nov 2025.
- Colloquium: ‘Journals, Past, Present and Future’, hosted by The Review of English Studies. More info and registration here.
- Register before 30 November for Ars Inquirendi – Querying the Pre-Modern in the Age of Large Multimodal Models
- Register for MEMRN Winter Conference 2025 13-16 November via Eventbrite HERE.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
- CfP: Locational Lives: Medieval Experience in Town and Country. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Character Groupings in Classical and Medieval Art and Literature at the University. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- Mortimer History Society Essay Prize. Deadline: 15th February 2026.
Colloquium: Journals, Past, Present and Future
Friday 28 November 2025
The Old Library, All Souls College, Oxford
On the 100th birthday of Review of English Studies, this colloquium will reflect on the role of it and other journals in literary studies in the past and today.
All are welcome. To help with catering, please register your intention to attend with Professor Daniel Wakelin, daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk.
· 2.00, welcome remarks, Professor Colin Burrow (Oxford)
· 2.15–3.15, on the history of Review of English Studies, Professor Stefan Collini (Cambridge)
· 3.15–3.45, tea
· 3.45–5.15, on journals today: on Review of English Studies, Professor Juliette Atkinson (UCL); on Textual Practice, Professor Peter Boxall (Oxford); on Essays in Criticism, Professor Seamus Perry (Oxford)
· 5.15, a drinks reception to toast the birthday of Review of English Studies
Mortimer History Society Essay Prize Prize
The aim of the MHS Essay Prize is to promote and encourage scholarly research and popular interest in the history of the medieval Mortimer family of Wigmore and its cadet branches, including those of Chirk and Chelmarsh, and the family’s impact on the history and culture of the British Isles. Or the history, geopolitics, topography, laws, economy, society and culture of medieval borderlands, including comparative studies, between 1066 and 1542. Success will garner financial prizes, the opportunity for peer-reviewed publication, membership of the MHS and speaking opportunities. The closing date for entries is 15th February 2026.
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group
Weeks 1-4, 7-8 Thursdays 10:00-11:00 am
Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, Oxford OX1 2HG and online via Zoom: see link below.
Convenors: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger and Joseph O’Hara This reading group is an opportunity to practise reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. No advance preparation is required and all skill levels are welcome!
This year we will look at documents and manuscript excerpts from a broad range of the many genres found in medieval Hebrew texts, including scientific, literary, and legal. We will consider their palaeography, language, and historical context, and learn practical skills for reading unfamiliar handwriting, dealing with damaged texts, and interpreting dates and unusual vocabulary.
There will be coffee, tea and cake from 11am in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person.
In Week 5, there will be no reading group but please join the Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts and History group which will meet in person from 9am to 5pm on Thursday, 13 November.
Please note that in Week 6 (20 November) the reading group will not meet, either in person nor on line. The reading group will resume in Week 7 (27 November).
In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_Cx7LY20T-S0NxNwYgGBGQ
Medieval Matter MT25, Week 4
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3.00, Institute of Archaeology, Lecture Room. Wyatt Wilcox will be speaking on ‘Isolated Barrows in Early Medieval England: A Spatial Analysis’
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Anna Chrysostomides (Queen Mary, University of London) will be speaking on “Non-Binary Gender in Abbasid Baghdad: Reality vs. Fiction”
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. Kathy Lavezzo (U of Iowa) will be speaking on ‘The Darker Side of the Middle Ages’.
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Clare Whitton (Blackfriars) will be speaking on ‘Resurrecting a Patron Saint: The Feast of San Gennaro in 14th century Naples’
Wednesday
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Somerville College. The topic for this term is Ulrich von Richental, Chronik des Konzils zu Konstanz (1414-1438).
- Centre for Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Welcome Lunch – 12.30, Balliol College
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Erin Thomas Dailey (Leicester) will be speaking on ‘Why Did the Byzantine Empire Forbid SlaveOwners from Making Eunuchs of their Slaves? Castration, Masculinity, and Identity in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’
Thursday
- Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10:00, Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute and online.
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Chronicling the Self: including extracts from the memoirs of Lady Nijo and Leonor López de Córdoba
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, online. Lloyd Bowen (Cardiff) will be speaking on ‘London Puritan networks and the publication of the 1630 Welsh Bible’
- David Patterson Lecture – 6:00, Clarendon Institute, Walton St. Dr Emily Rose (Academic Visitor, OCHJS) will be speaking on “A Bleeding Corpse, A Grim Grimm Fairy Tale with Early Modern Shivers: The Dubious Margaret of Pforzheim (1267?), A Singular Female Blood Libel”. In order to participate in this lecture via Zoom, please register at this link.
- Latin Compline in the Crypt – 9:30pm, in the crypt below St-Peter-in-the-East, St Edmund Hall
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Oxford University Heraldry Society Lecture – 4:30, Harris Seminar Room of Oriel College. Professor Yorick Gomez Gane will be speaking on “The Italian Language in British Heraldry,” followed by a drinks reception.
Opportunities
- CfP: Locational Lives: Medieval Experience in Town and Country. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Character Groupings in Classical and Medieval Art and Literature at the University. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Shaping the Word- the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts inthe Early Medieval West. Deadline 17th Nov 2025.
- MEMRN Winter Conference 2025 signups open.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
CfP: Shaping the Word- the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts inthe Early Medieval West
Durham University, 2–5 July 2026
In the second half of the first millennium, the Christian scriptures were produced,
circulated, and put to use in a diverse range of forms and contexts. A manuscript may
accommodate a single biblical text (the psalter, a gospel, the Apocalypse), a collection
of texts (the Hexateuch, the fourfold gospel), or, rarely, a complete “New Testament” or
“Bible” in the familiar modern sense. The distinctiveness of a manuscript is determined
by its content and textual aFiliation, its palaeographical and codicological
characteristics, and its paratextual features – from illustrations of biblical narratives,
author portraits, and illuminated lettering to canon tables, capitula, prefatory materials,
and glosses. Once in circulation, a manuscript’s contexts of use may include liturgical
reading and preaching, meditation and mission, education and scholarship, gift-giving
and display. DiFerent uses correspond to diFerent users with distinct and perhaps
conflicting priorities and goals. Production and use(s) may occur at the same site or at
far distant times and places.
This conference aims to explore topics related to both the physical presentation and the
use of scriptural manuscripts produced in the Early Medieval period (c. 500–1000 CE).
We welcome paper proposals from scholars working in all areas of this field, including
PhD students. Whatever the specific topic, priority may be given to papers that also
relate it to the wider focus of the conference on both “form” (or “production”) and “use”.
We hope to be able to cover presenters’ full conference costs with the exception of
travel.
Titles and Abstracts of proposed papers should be submitted to Lauren Randall
(lauren.m.randall@durham.ac.uk), copied to Francis Watson
(francis.watson@durham.ac.uk), no later than Monday 17 November. Abstracts should
not exceed 150 words. Our current draft schedule can accommodate up to fourteen 45
minute sessions, with a maximum of 25 minutes for the presentation in order to allow
substantial time for discussion. There will also be several keynote papers or
presentations. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this event!
For information, the context of this event is our sub-project “Text, Format, and Reader”,
focused primarily on Codex Amiatinus and funded by the Glasgow-based “Paratexts
Seeking Understanding” project (Templeton Religion Trust). We are grateful to our
Glasgow colleagues for their support.
Francis Watson (Prof)
Lauren Randall (PhD student)
CfP: Character Groupings in Classical and Medieval Art and Literature at the University
