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A Conference on the Medieval Unread & Unreadable THE DARKNESS OF THE MEDIEVAL ARCHIVES, the shadows of the library stacks: too vast for countless lifetimes of scholarship to exhaust? And yet, in our internet era, the accelerating machine-processing of centuries of collected medieval materials and data is yielding ever more detailed, extensive maps of the archive’s… Read more: Dark Archives

Report by Leonie Erbenich, Visiting Graduate Student in Modern Languages, on a workshop with Giles Bergel for the History of the Book students in Modern Languages 2025. Cf. the History of the Book blog on the workshops in 2024 ‘Seeing Materiality through a Computer’s Eyes‘ and 2023 ‘Digital Tools for Image Matching‘ How Archivists can… Read more: The Secret Geometry Behind Words

Friday, 28 November, 5-6.30pmRoom 2 of the Taylor Institution Library The launch will feature a dramatised reading of the text and a display of the Taylorian holdings of German Peasants’ War pamphlets, followed by drinks. The new edition comprises a historical and bibliographic introduction as well as the edition, translation, and facsimile. Sneak preview of the… Read more: Launch of Peseants’ War Pamphlet

Week 7, and the prospects of the vac creeps ever closer! Two particular items of note this week. First, there is no Medieval History Seminar this week. Second, Prof. Roberta Mazza’s lecture for the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures has been postponed until next term. If you are looking for an alternative manuscript fix:… Read more: Medieval Matter MT25, Week 7

We invite expressions of interest to participate in a new series of online workshops examining how saints and holy people are represented outside the classic form of the single-text hagiography, what Thomas J. Heffernan calls the ‘sacred biography’. This group aims to bring together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture,… Read more: CfP: Saints Outside Hagiography

Call for Papers 1: You Are On Native Land:  Understanding Medieval Studies in Turtle Island The EDID Committee of the CSM/SCM invites papers on Indigeneity and the medieval. It has been over a decade since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released their report and 94 Calls to Action. Academia was called to decolonize, reconcile, and Indigenize… Read more: CfP – Canadian Society of Medievalists panels

The ERC Advanced Grant AGRELITA Project n° 101018777, “The reception of ancient Greece in pre-modern French literature and illustrations of manuscripts and printed books (1320-1550): how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities”, directed by Prof. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas (Principal Investigator), opens guest researchers residences. This call for applications is open to anyone, of French… Read more: AGRELITA, Université de Caen Normandie – call for applications “Visiting researchers” 2026

We are pleased to trial a new format, once or twice a term, in which readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have! The sort of questions you might… Read more: Medieval MSS Support Group at the Weston Library

This week’s session of the History of the Book seminar at the Taylor Institution delved into the intersection of traditional manuscript study and digital encoding. Building on the introduction by Emma Huber, the session opened with an engaging overview of how XML’s TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standard provides a framework for scholars to represent texts… Read more: XML: A Hands-On Dive into Digital Humanities

An extra large offering of medieval events for sixth week, and a particularly busy Monday! 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/. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Opportunities

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.

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… Read more: Tony Hunt Obituary

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… Read more: Medieval Matter MT 25, Week 5

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… Read more: Colloquium: Journals, Past, Present and Future

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,… Read more: Mortimer History Society Essay Prize Prize

As part of the Italian Research Seminar, Ryan Pepin will speak on ‘Dietro la memoria non può ire’: Copyists’ Slips in the Textual Tradition of the Commedia. Time and Place: Monday, November 10th (5th week), Taylorian, Room 2, 1-2:30 PM Abstract: The enormous textual tradition of Dante’s Commedia – over 600 complete manuscripts – is a mine of… Read more: Copyists’ Slip in Dante

Saturday 15 November 2-7pm. An immersive afternoon of Renaissance music-making with ensemble In spiritu humilitatis, period instruments and the Choir of St Edmund Hall, ending in a performance of Vespers for St Edmund

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… Read more: Medieval Hebrew Reading Group

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Opportunities

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 mayaccommodate a single biblical text (the psalter, a gospel, the Apocalypse), a collectionof texts (the Hexateuch, the fourfold gospel), or, rarely, a complete… Read more: CfP: Shaping the Word- the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts inthe Early Medieval West

“OH, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice […] – Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) Going back to Germany after my two-week adventure in Oxford, I, just like Alice, felt as if waking up from a magical dream. It is not an overstatement to say that the city has bewitched me and, trust me,… Read more: Two Weeks in Wonderland

Week 3 is upon us – please find below the weekly offering of events, groups, and opportunities. 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/. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Opportunities

New directions in the study of written artefacts from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages.Organised by the Crafting Documents project (AHRC-DFG) and co-sponsored by the Centre for Manuscripts and Text Cultures, University of Oxford.13-14 NOVEMBER 2025, SHULMAN AUDITORIUM. THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORDRegister for free here 9:30 Arrival and registration (coffee and tea available… Read more: Heritage Science and Manuscripts Conference: Programme