Category: Around Oxford

Get Ready for the Medieval Mystery Cycle

by

02/03/2025

09:00

Comments Off on Get Ready for the Medieval Mystery Cycle

Around Oxford, events, opportunities

,

When? 26 April 2025, 12noon-5.30pm. Where? St Edmund Hall, Queen’s Lane, OX1 4AR
Preparatory Meeting: 13 March 2025, 5-6.30pm, St Edmund Hall (ask at the Lodge for directions to Henrike’s office)

The days are getting longer, the sun has come out for three days in a row (!), and the flowers in Teddy Hall are starting to blossom. That can only mean one thing: the Medieval Mystery Cycle is approaching!

Less than two months from now, on 26 April, between 12 noon­ and 5.30 PM, the Front Quad and churchyard of St Edmund Hall will be transformed into Paradise, Golgatha, Hell, and much more, as a selection of groups from all walks of academic life will perform a collection of twenty-minute-long medieval plays based on different Biblical stories. No tickets or registrations are required — just drop in and out of Teddy Hall.

We will start at noon with ringing the chapel bell for the Creation and Adam and Eve. Leaving Paradise and exiled to Earth, we will then see the Flood and Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac. From those Old Testament stories, we will move to the New Testament, and physically from the Front Quad to Teddy Hall’s unique graveyard. There, we will witness the Annunciation and Nativity, before seeing adult Jesus in action at the Wedding at Cana. The Crucifixion (featuring a purpose-built cross!), Mary’s Lament, Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins, Mary Magdalene, and Resurrection will take us through Easter. Finally, the Last Judgement will conclude this day of medieval storytelling.

As always, the selection of plays and languages will be fantastically diverse, taking us from Hans Sachs’s German to Marguerite de Navarre’s French, from Hroswita of Gandersheim’s Latin to the Middle English of the Digby Mary Magdalene. Other plays will be performed in Modern English, including the world premiere of the Wedding at Cana, based on only 1.5 surviving lines in the York cycle. But worry not: all plays will be introduced by a Modern English prologue, so no language skills are required to follow along. And of course, the language of theatre is universal …

Curious? Intrigued? We are holding a meeting for all creatives and those who’d like to be one at Teddy Hall on Thursday of 8th Week (13th March), 5 PM. This will be a great opportunity to meet some of the other people involved, chat to the organisers, have a look at the performance spaces, and discuss any open questions.

Alternatively, email Sarah Ware (sarah.ware@merton.ox.ac.uk) and Antonia Anstatt (antonia.anstatt@merton.ox.ac.uk) if you have any questions or are looking for a way to get involved. In the meantime, watch this space and be on the lookout for updates to our website for the 2025 cycle, which we will update periodically as our thespians prepare to take centre stage — or, in this case, quad!

The Oxford Anglo-Norman Reading Group

by

28/02/2025

14:10

Comments Off on The Oxford Anglo-Norman Reading Group

Around Oxford, opportunities

The group continues to meet in hybrid format at Harris Manchester College (see photo!). We study the literature of the Anglo-Norman world (the insular French of the Middle Ages) in four collaborative sessions per term, presenting and translating texts chosen according to members’ needs or suggestions. The range of material is inclusive: romance, chronicle, saints’ life, religious material, letters, legal texts… When possible, we invite a guest speaker, or (for example) the editor of a work in progress. We believe our extra-curricular group has been an important addition to medieval studies in Oxford for at least 20 years. We welcome all comers, primarily graduate students but also numerous others, whether they know any French or Old French or not; we welcome all readers in any medieval language, literature, history, hagiography, music… Recent texts have included the Anglo-Norman life of St Godric, presented by Margaret Coombe, and an Apocalypse edited and translated (with our help) by Antje Carroll. Michael Angerer presented part of his thesis as an introduction to reading the Voyage of Brendan.

As an amusing change, we recently read a translation of a short modern story into Anglo-Norman, that I had been commissioned to make. The group `peer-reviewed’ my work, offering suggestions and improvements. It was as valuable in terms of language and vocabulary, and for the study of genre, as reading the real thing!

The group is run by me, an independent scholar in Anglo-Norman studies. I studied with Tony Hunt and have many years’ experience of teaching and publication. An average meeting varies from 4 to 12 people in person, depending on a busy Oxford term, and our hybrid format allows scholars from farther afield, who bring the number up to perhaps 20. We take it in turns to read the text aloud, never mind the pronunciation, and then help one another with translation and commentary. Each text is presented with an introduction, questions are explored and discussion is encouraged. It’s our mixture of serious scholarship and fun (not to mention the refreshments: thank you, OMS) that has kept the group going for so long.

Jane Bliss (jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org)

Job: Professor in Latin Palaeography

by

27/02/2025

07:05

Comments Off on Job: Professor in Latin Palaeography

Around Oxford, opportunities

The Faculty of History and Wadham College are seeking an outstanding palaeographer to join the team of medieval historians. Medieval History is exceptionally strong in Oxford with a large and lively community of taught graduates, doctoral students and postdoctoral early career researchers.  The collegiate university is home to the largest university-based collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.

This post is an exciting and demanding opportunity for a proven scholar and talented teacher whose research and teaching specialism is in the history of Latin manuscripts (codices, documents, fragments thereof) within the disciplinary context of medieval history.  Beyond a specialism in scripts used for writing medieval Latin, there are no chronological or geographical preferences, and the successful candidate will be responsible for graduate teaching across the entire span of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages including book and documentary traditions. The person appointed will conduct research of the highest quality suitable for submission to REF within the broad parameters of the discipline of medieval history, will seek external grant funding for manuscript-related projects and will participate in the public engagement and knowledge dissemination activities of the Bodleian Libraries and the colleges of the University.

The appointee will be expected to play a full part in the academic life of the Faculty of History and Wadham College and will work closely with colleagues in other faculties within the Humanities Division. The University of Oxford uses the grade of associate professor for most of its senior academic appointments. Associate professors are eligible for consideration through regular recognition of distinction exercises for award of the title of full professor.

We welcome applications from candidates at all post-doctoral career stages, including at professorial level. We are committed to creating a diverse academic workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We particularly encourage applications from women (approximately 40% of Faculty posts are held by female academics), people with disabilities and Black, Asian, and minority ethnic candidates.

The appointee will be a member of the Faculty of History and a non-tutorial fellow of Wadham College. The post is tenable from 1 October 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 19th March 2025. Presentations and interviews are expected to take place in Oxford late April/Early May.

Queries about the post should be addressed to the Chair of the History Faculty Board, Professor Martin Conway  or the Chichele Professor of Medieval History, Professor Julia Smith. All enquiries will be treated in strict confidence; they will not form part of the selection decision.

Pay Scale : Associate Professor Grade 36S: £55,755 to £74,867 per annum plus additional benefits and allowances as detailed in the job description. Further particulars: AP in Medieval Latin Manuscript Studies FP-FINAL.pdf

Apply Now

Volunteering at Iffley Church

by

25/02/2025

18:09

Comments Off on Volunteering at Iffley Church

Around Oxford, events, opportunities

Invitation to a tea party with LIVING STONES on SATURDAY 15 MARCH 3.00-4.30 in the Church Hall, Church Way, Iffley OX4 4EG.
Come along and find out about LIVING STONES. Meet the Living Stones volunteers. Join in: Living Stones is looking for volunteers of any age, background or beliefs

Living Stones is the heritage and educational arm of St Mary’s, the church at the heart of Iffley village, Rose Hill and Donnington. Volunteers welcome visitors to the church. They also run activities, events and talks on its history and architecture. They will start welcoming visitors to the church on Sunday afternoons on Palm Sunday, 13 April. They also have three events planned:

SATURDAY 10 MAY 10.00-4.30 – Drawing Iffley Church, day-school with artist Micah Hayns.

SATURDAY 17 MAY 11.00-7.15 – Day of chant in celebration of St Dunstan, patron saint of bellringers and music. The day ends with a special service in the church sung to music composed by St Dunstan and first written down in the 12th century.

SUNDAY 7 SEPTEMBER – Patronal Festival for St Mary the Virgin, picnic and family fun.

Krasis: Object-centred symposia at the Ashmolean

by

20/02/2025

14:37

Comments Off on Krasis: Object-centred symposia at the Ashmolean

Around Oxford, opportunities

Krasis is a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme, which began life at the Ashmolean in 2017, devised by classicist (and historian of ancient Boeotia) Dr Sam Gartland and Teaching Curator Dr Jim Harris. In 2018, the programme won a University of Oxford Humanities Division Teaching Excellence Award. Hilary term 2025 was its 22nd iteration.

Each term Krasis gathers eight early career researchers from the University of Oxford (the Ashmolean Junior Teaching Fellows or AJTFs) and 16 current Oxford undergraduates and taught-postgraduates (the Krasis Scholars) for a series of object-centred symposia, devised and delivered by the Teaching Fellows, who each address a shared theme from the standpoint of their own discipline and their own research.

For the Krasis Scholars, the programme offers first-hand insight into what an academic pathway might look like, and provides a rare opportunity to learn directly from researchers and to contribute to the conversation from within their degree specialism. For the AJTFs, it offers a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue and a ready, able team of students and colleagues to explore creative, imaginative approaches to collaborative, collections-based teaching. For all participants, it offers the chance to engage with the peerless collections of the Ashmolean at first hand.

Over the past seven years, Krasis has seen series on Power, the Body, Absence, Presence, Performance, Devotion, Imitation, Voices in Conflict, Movement/Transition, Play, Danger, Identity, Constraint, Opening, Becoming, Belonging, Re-Use, Work, Dialogue, Container, Wealth, Intersections, and Ruptures. We have used objects ranging from kimonos, musical scores and Tibetan musical instruments to Renaissance bronzes, newspaper advertisements, palaeolithic hand-axes and ancient Egyptian magic wands.

Most recently, we have used images loaned to the Ashmolean by the Terra Foundation for American Art to anchor each symposium, with Teaching Fellows connecting outwards from them to explore, for example, Chinese jade, the anthropology of obesity, economic aspiration in the French Revolution, witchcraft and common wealth in early modern Europe, and gift-giving in pre-Christian Sweden, in symposia involving four thousand years of objects from Egypt, China, Japan, Europe and ancient West Asia.

Krasis Teaching Fellows and Scholars have come from Classics, English, History, Economics, Fine Art, Chemistry, Archaeology, Anthropology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Russian, Japanese Studies, German, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Politics, French, Portuguese, History of Art, Arabic, Physics, Statistics, Islamic Studies, Development Studies, Geography, Music, South Asian Studies, Philosophy, Linguistics, Theology, Women’s Studies, Experimental Psychology and Law, and from almost every college of the University.

The growing number of former Scholars returning as Teaching Fellows testifies to the impact of Krasis on its participants. If you’d like to take part, please fill out the application form and return it to krasis@ashmus.ox.ac.uk by 5pm on Friday of 8th week, 14th March.

Four afternoons to change your way of thinking. Forever.

Krasis Information and application form TT 2025Download

CMTC presents — “Work in Progress” Colloquium

by

13/02/2025

06:42

1 Comment on CMTC presents — “Work in Progress” Colloquium

Around Oxford, events

The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures’ Hilary Term ‘Work-in-Progress’ colloquium – Tuesday 18th February (5.15-6.45pm, the Memorial Room at Queen’s) 

The CMTC is delighted to be hosting the following speakers: 

Dr Riccardo Montalto (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II): From manuscripts to history: The reconstruction of the Greek manuscript library of Achilles Statius (1524-1581)

Achilles Statius was a Portuguese humanist active in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century. Committed to editorial and propaganda activities and, in particular, in the edition of the texts of the Fathers of the Greek Church, Statius set up one of the largest private libraries in Renaissance Rome, peculiar for its size and intellectual value. Starting from the material data detectable from the manuscripts, compared with the data available from different sources – primarily historical, archival and library science – the research aims to reconstruct a part of Achilles Statius’s library and to identify some methods and working practices of the late Renaissance humanists.

Holly Dempster-Edwards (University of Liverpool): Emotions, Gender and Crusading in Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Prose Epics and Chronicles

This paper will give an overview of my PhD thesis, which examines the social function of emotions at the fifteenth-century court of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419-1467). My methodology is based on that of the historian Barbara Rosenwein, whose concept of ‘emotional communities’ has been highly influential within Medieval Studies. My study is based on emotion words in three Burgundian mises en prose Les Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemaine by David Aubert, La Belle Hélène de Constantinople by Jehan Wauquelin, and Mabrien (attrib. Aubert). I have built on Rosenwein’s framework by employing quantitative analysis of the gendered and ‘racial-religious’ distribution of emotions within each text, alongside qualitative textual analysis and examination of text-image relations. This paper demonstrates how emotions have a social function within this specific emotional community of Burgundian knights and would-be crusaders in response to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and how these texts function as literary propaganda which presents itself as didactic; in so doing they attempt to achieve their more subtle aim of maintaining emotion norms within the context of Burgundian chivalric masculinity, hoping to persuade Philip’s courtiers to go on crusade with him in response to the defeat of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.

From the archive

Tuesday the 13th of February 2024, 5.15–6.45pm UK time Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures

Memorial Room, The Queen’s College    

1. A. D’Angelo (Rome ‘Sapienza’), ‘Catullan marginalia in the 16th century: the books of Piero Vettori’. 

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich preserves three printed editions of Catullus’ Liber with marginal notes by Piero Vettori (1499-1585). This important scholar edited dozens of Classical authors, but never published anything on Catullus: thus, these books are the main extant evidence of his work on this poet. The notes contain variant readings, original conjectures and loci similes, and they offer new insights on Vettori’s philological method and his library. Through these marginalia, I will try to point out Vettori’s main interests in Catullus’ poetry and the sources he used for his Catullan studies.

2. Marlene Schilling (Oxford), ‘A special form of devotion – personifications of time in late medieval prayer books from Northern Germany’.  

Addressing liturgical holidays, for example welcoming Mr Easterday, is a particular characteristic of late medieval vernacular prayer-books from North German female convents. They highlight a distinct form of poetics, because describing and interacting with specific points in time – personifying them – allows an intercommunication with the divine that conveys a certain form of agency to the speaker. In this paper, we explore the particular type of prayer-books these personifications are found in, talk about their material indicators within the text, and think about the special role of the prayer-books from the Cistercian convent Medingen within this distinct manuscript landscape.

The Sorrowful Virgin: Medieval and Early Modern Devotion

by

16/01/2025

11:32

Comments Off on The Sorrowful Virgin: Medieval and Early Modern Devotion

Around Oxford, events

,

In association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), and the Centre for Early Modern Studies

Where: St Hugh’s MGA Lecture Room

When: 24th March 2025

We have limited spaces for in-person participants but online participation will also be possible for the papers. Please email anna.wilmore@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk by 14th March to register for in-person or online attendance. 

9-9:15am – Welcome

9:15-10:15am – Panel 1: Textual and Visual Devotion

Susanne de Jong (Leiden): Praying with Compassion: The Devotion of Mary’s Sorrows in Middle Dutch Books of Hours

Fiammetta Campagnoli (Sorbonne): A “Devotional Mirror”: Following Mary’s Footsteps through Her Sorrow and Meditations

10:15-10:35am – Coffee Break – sponsored by CEMS

10:35-11:35am – Panel 2: Sacred and Secular

Joana Balsa de Pinho (Lisbon): Piety and welfare: the Sorrowful Virgin in the context of the Portuguese Confraternities of Mercy

Serena Cuomo (Santiago de Compostela): Mother of all mothers – Affective Piety and Maternal Grief in the Roman de Troie

11:35am-12:35pm – Panel 3: Emotion and Trauma

Costas Gavriel (Oxford): ‘You know my pain’: Trauma, Self-Narrative and Marian Devotion in the Memorias of Leonor López de Córdoba

Ana Vitoria Lopes (Sao Paulo): Crying Women in Devotional Panels: A Study through the Lens of the History of Emotions (online)

12:35-1:55pm – Lunch break in town (reconvene outside the Weston at 13:55)

2-3pm – Manuscript workshop at the Weston Library

3-3:45pm – Return to St Hugh’s, with coffee break on arrival, sponsored by OMS

3:45-5pm – Montgomery Powell (Oxford): Myn kynt unde ok myn god: Sorrowful Participation in the Bordesholmer Marienklage, followed by performance and discussion of Marian laments

5pm-6pm  – Keynote by Prof. Lesley Twomey (Northumbria): The Sorrows of the Virgin Mary at the Foot of the Cross in vernacular Vitae Christi in Medieval France, England and Spain.

6pm-6:45pm – Drinks reception

The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin from The Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, approx 1525-35, Simon Benning, Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig IX 19 (83.ML.115), fol. 251v

The Epiphanytide Mysteries

by

15/01/2025

21:57

Comments Off on The Epiphanytide Mysteries

Around Oxford

, ,

A performance of a medieval mystery play cycle, with a reconstruction of the no longer extant wedding at Cana episode. Directed by Philipp Quinn and Elliott Clark.

When: Saturday, 25 January 2025, 2pm
Where: Pusey House, Oxford

Philipp writes: We at Pusey House welcome all and sundry to join us as we continue our Epiphanytide celebrations with carefully selected mystery plays. The event is not ticketed. The runtime should be roughly an hour. We very much look forward to seeing you there!

Pusey House put on mystery plays for the first time in 2023. In that first performance, we sought to portray the Bible’s broad “narrative,” with the Creation, the Fall, the Passion, and the Final Judgement as our highlights. This time, in connection with the Epiphany Season, we’ve chosen to emphasize the Magi, Jesus’ baptism, and the Wedding at Cana. In prioritizing that theme, we’ve had to be more eclectic in our sources this year. Whereas our first performance was based largely on the York cycle, our current plays are drawn from both the Chester and York cycles. Our plays also an original, the Wedding at Cana, since the Wedding is not found in the Chester cycle and has not survived (apart from a line-and-a-half fragment) in the York cycle.

Philip Flacke sitting on a bench reading a pamphlet next to a statue of Lichtenberg

10 Rules for Oxford You’d Regret Not Knowing

by

16/12/2024

16:22

Comments Off on 10 Rules for Oxford You’d Regret Not Knowing

Around Oxford, blog, Uncategorized

, ,

Is this your first term in Oxford or have you been here for years? Are you visiting? Or perhaps planning on applying for our Medieval Studies programme?

Philip Flacke completed an internship in Oxford in Trinity 2024, and he’s prepared an important list of 10 rules for Oxford you’d regret not knowing:

  1. Read (oh and watch TV)
  2. Pack lightly
  3. Don’t be afraid
  4. Learn to tie a bow tie – or don’t
  5. Embrace performance
  6. Remain sceptical
  7. Go to church
  8. Work with objects
  9. Don’t forget when it’s time for ice cream
  10. The library is not for talking

Learn more about these rules from Philip’s original post at https://historyofthebook.mml.ox.ac.uk/10-rules-for-an-oxford-internship-youd-regret-not-knowing/…

…or just watch him act them out for you below!

@oxfordmedievalstudies

Philip Flacke stars in… “10 rules for @University of Oxford you’d regret not knowing” Filmed by @Henrike Lähnemann #oxford #oxforduniversity #performance #church #icecream #library #medieval #medievaltiktok #göttingen

♬ Charlie Chaplin Music – Piano Amor

This video was filmed by Henrike Lähnemann in the courtyard of the old university library in Göttingen, next to the statue of the philosopher and scientist and aphorist Lichtenberg and adjacent to the repurposed Paulinerkirche. Fun fact: Göttingen had close links to Oxford as founded by one of the King Georges of England and Hanover!