Category: Around Oxford

The History of Bartholomew Chapel

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11/05/2026

12:28

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Celebrating 900 years of prayer, care and pilgrimage at Bartlemas Chapel

A historic Oxford chapel is marking 900 years of history with a year-long programme of events celebrating its legacy of prayer, care and welcome. This follows on from the workshop with Ian Forrest, read the report: Searching for History

The celebrations at Bartlemas Chapel in 2026 will tell the story of a place that has served pilgrims, the sick and those on the margins since it was founded in 1126 during the reign of Henry I. 

The chapel began life as part of a medieval hospital for people with leprosy. Today the chapel is in the parish of St Mary and St John Church Oxford and remains a place of quiet prayer and reflection on the edge of the city. 

Organisers say the Bartlemas 900th anniversary is about more than marking an ancient date. 

Revd Martha Grace Weatherill, Vicar of the parish, said:

“At heart, the anniversary is about telling the story of this extraordinary place well. Bartlemas has been a place of prayer, pilgrimage, healing and welcome for centuries. The celebrations are an opportunity to help people understand why it still matters today.” 

The life of Bartlemas 

One spring morning, a young boy spies the dreaming spires of Oxford through the mists from the top of Shotover. Descending the hill, hoping to find a welcome and the opportunity to study, he is caught up in a strange procession of young men singing madrigals and brought to a small chapel on the edge of the city. So begins Elizabeth Goudge’s fine novel of Tudor Oxford, Towers in the Mist, beloved of generations of children. The chapel is, of course, Bartlemas Chapel, and young Faithful has, unbeknownst to him, stumbled across the traditional May morning procession of the scholars of New College to sing for the brethren of the attached hospital and the lepers who crowd around the windows outside. 

This tradition of May morning singing died out in the early modern period, until in 2009. The choristers of New College revived it once again, walking to Bartlemas chapel on Ascension Day in 2009 to sing once more.  

Although the hospital has long since gone (it was badly damaged in the Civil War), the chapel remains a place of prayer and music. Evensong continues to be sung monthly, as well as a celebration of the feast of St Bartholomew every August and an Advent Carol Service. The most recent celebration in 2025 was made even more atmospheric by a fuse blowing at the beginning of the service, leaving the organist and choir to sing in almost complete darkness. 

A year of art, music and history 

The celebration programme begins in May with several events linked to the Oxford Festival of the Arts and Oxford Artweeks. 

On 10 May, the Voice Trio performed Feather on the Breath of God at the chapel. The performance celebrates the music and spirituality of the medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen, whose writings and compositions continue to inspire audiences today. 

Later in the month, the chapel will host a Bartlemas 900 exhibition as part of Oxford Artweeks (16–25 May). The exhibition will feature photography and reflections from a new book by Martin Stott exploring the chapel’s architecture, landscape and spiritual significance. 

Visitors will also have the chance to delve deeper into the site’s story at a public talk on 23 May at St Mary and St John’s Church, exploring the history of the chapel and the medieval leper hospital that once stood there. 

Music will return to the chapel on 24 May with an intimate concert during Artweeks. On 31 May the chapel will host May Song, a celebration of medieval music, poetry and readings about Oxfordshire in spring. The event will feature the Comper Singers alongside actor Anna Tolputt and poet Kate Wakeling. 

A place of pilgrimage 

The liturgical focus of the anniversary year will be on 24 August, the feast day of St Bartholomew. A special patronal festival service will gather parishioners, pilgrims and visitors to mark the chapel’s nine centuries of worship. 

Later in the year, the chapel will open its doors to a wider audience during Oxford Open Doors, inviting people who may not yet know Bartlemas to explore the site. 

Discovering Bartlemas today 

Photographer, writer, and sustainability campaigner Martin Stott has worked with the church on a new photographic book to offer readers a way to encounter Bartlemas through image and story. In the book he traces the site’s medieval origins and reflecting on its continuing spiritual resonance. 

Organisers hope the anniversary will help more people discover the chapel and reflect on how ancient places still speak into modern life. 

Martha said:

“We would love people who have never heard of Bartlemas to discover it. It’s a place where history, prayer and quiet hospitality have come together for centuries — and where that story continues today.” 

Visitors are encouraged to attend an event, explore the chapel during Artweeks or Oxford Open Doors, or simply make time to pause and reflect in this ancient place of prayer. 

Bartlemas 900th anniversary programme of events 

All at Bartlemas Chapel unless otherwise listed. 

  • Feather on the breath of God, Voice Trio, Bartlemas Chapel 10 May, 4pm 
  • Bartlemas 900 Exhibition 16–25 May, 12-6pm 
  • Talk: The History of Bartlemas Chapel and the Leper Hospital, May 23, 6.30pm at St Mary & John’s Church with Martin Stott 
  • Concert, 24 May 6.30pm  
  • May Song 31 May 4-5pm 
  • 24 August St Bartholomew’s Day Service  
  • Oxford Open Doors, throughout September 

For an up to date list, visit https://cowleystjohn.co.uk/bartlemas-chapel-900-years-anniversary 

When? Wed 13 May 2026, 7:30pm
Where? OXFORD: Florence Park Community Centre (info)

This follows on from the workshop with Ian Forrest, read the report: Searching for History

An event of the history of a local medieval site posted by the Florence Park Community Centre – FPCC. 900 Years of Sanctuary & Compassion in East Oxford. Martin Stott marks the anniversary of Bartlemas, a hidden treasure. Presented by: Florence Park Talks

On the 900th anniversary of the founding of the leper hospital at Bartlemas in east Oxford, Martin Stott charts its origins, turbulent history, its focus on the outcasts, dispossessed, and refugees of the times, and the healing, care, refuge and sanctuary it offered. He traces its impact on east Oxford over 900 years, drawing out the threads of these traditions, re-made and celebrated in the neighbourhood today. Also known as St Bartholomew’s Chapel, it is older than any other Grade 1 listed building across the city. A hidden treasure.  Starting as a leper hospital, recent archeological investigations have shed light on a wide fascinating history. You will be enthralled.

Martin Stott is a photographer and local historian. His photobook Bartlemas: Oxford’s hidden sanctuary is just out and will be available for sale on the evening.

https://wegottickets.com/f/18091

Feminaminals

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08/05/2026

12:05

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Call for papers Representations of Women and/as Animals in Literature, Arts, and Other Media

University of Oxford, Oriel College, 14-16 April 2027
Keynote speakers: Prof Chloë Taylor (University of Alberta) and Dr Kaori Nagai (University of Kent)
Roundtable with Queer Kinship Network led by Prof Charlotte Ross (University of Oxford)
Organising committee: Dr Fanny Clemente (University of Oxford), Dr Greta Colombani (independent scholar), Dr Cécile Bishop (University of Oxford)

FEMINANIMALS is a three-day international conference investigating representations of women as non-human animals and of the relationship between women and non-human animals in literature, arts, and other media across languages, from medieval to contemporary times. The last decades have witnessed an explosion of theoretical discourses directed towards a critique of humanism and a re-evaluation of humans’ interactions with the non-human world and wider ecosystem. Since the 1970s such a focus has found a privileged expression in ecofeminist theories, which have started to interrogate and deconstruct the history-long, negatively connoted association of women with non-human animals and to denounce the fundamental links between the oppression of women and that of non- human nature simultaneously perpetrated by the patriarchal system. From the ecofeminist manifestos of the 1990s (Gaard 1993, Gruen 1993, Plumwood 1993, Adams and Donovan 1995), the field of inquiry examing the deleterious intersections of anthropocentric and androcentric attitudes has been prolifically expanded and enriched by a notable array of theoretical standpoints adopting diverse disciplinary perspectives and an increasingly intersectional approach, that is, bringing to the fore of the analysis other categories of oppression that ought to be necessarily considered alongside gender and species, such as race, sexuality, class, physical abilities. Recent contributions to the field include Alaimo and Hekman 2008, Decka 2012, Adams and Gruen 2014, Gaard 2017, Vakoch and Mickey 2017, Braidotti 2022, and Taylor 2024. Theoretical discourses on the intersected nature of different systems of oppressions have been productively applied to the study of literature and other arts. Some of the above-mentioned works already include references to or analysis of literary and artistic sources (Taylor 2024); other contributions directly postulate, for instance, the benefits of intertwining ecofeminism and literary criticism (Gaard and Murphy 1998, Vakoch and Mickey 2019, and Vakoch 2023). Increasingly moving away from a privileged Anglo-American-centred perspective, moreover, scholarship is embracing more comprehensive assessments of literary and artistic portrays of nature, non-human animals, and humans’ relationship with them. Following in the footsteps of such recent contributions, dialoguing with different theoretical approaches and exploring different media, FEMINANIMALS seeks to enrich and foster ongoing discussions around the connections and intersections between our changing constructions of womanhood and animality by looking at representations of women as non-human animals and of the relationship between women and non-human animals, from medieval to contemporary times, assessing the significance and implications of those representations against the backdrop of diverse historical and cultural contexts. Across time and space, literature, arts, and other media have been pervaded by portrayals of women as/and animals, from the moralistic, religiously informed intertwining of gender and species in medieval bestiaries, exempla such as the cuento XXXV “La mujer brava” in Don Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor or works like Boccaccio’s Il Corbaccio (ca. 1365) describing women as an “animale imperfetto” to the countless retellings and translations of the legend of the half-human half-snake Melusine in widely circulating texts like Jean d’Arras’s Mélusine (ca. 1393) and its adaptations in the following centuries, from the woman-animal erotic unions and shapeshifting in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century supernatural tales Liaozhai zhiyi by Pu Songling to the numerous poems dedicated to wild, exploited, or domesticated animals by Romantic and Victorian women authors such as Anna Letitita Barbauld’s “A Mouse’s Petition” (1773) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “To Flush, My Dog” (1843), from Odette’s transformation into a swan in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake (1877) to visual depictions of woman-animal entanglements like Oskar Kokoschka’s painting Mädchenakt auf galoppierendem Schimmel in Weiherlandschaft (1905) and the surrealist works of Leonora Carrington who herself identified as a “female human animal”. The manifold associations between women and non-human animals continue to be prominent in recent times, enriched by new media and perspectives, with meaningful examples including Clarice Lispector’s novel A paixão segundo G.H (1964) centring on the unsettling encounter of the female protagonist with a cockroach, Marie Darrieussecq’s satirical tale of a woman’s metamorphosis into a female pig in Truismes (1996), the Africanfuturist speculative fiction of Nnedi Okorafor who endows the heroine of Who Fears Death (2010) with the magical ability to turn into a vulture and dedicated her novella Binti (2015) to a jellyfish, and the central place that the porous borders between women and animals occupy in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s cinema, particularly in Attenberg (2010) and her short film The Capsule (2012). What can these pervasive representations of women as/and animals in different cultures and historical periods tell us about the complexities and intersections of shifting notions of gender and species, the fraught line between humanity and animality, and the entwined practices of domination and othering to which women and animals have been subjected? How can we look at such a variety of literary and artistic sources with the benefit of decades of theoretical perspectives that have tackled the historical, philosophical, social, cultural, and political implications of the multifaceted association of women and non-human animals? In what crucial ways can an interdisciplinary, comparative, and temporally wide approach help us think about and rethink this fundamental pairing today, as we continue to navigate, experience, suffer, and/or reclaim it against the backdrop of a dramatic environmental crisis, a deterioration of our relationship with nature and other living creatures, and a new rising tide of sexism that is infiltrating the virtual and real-life world? The conference aims to foster new conversations around these questions by inviting scholars to examine representations of women as/and animals across languages and cultures, from medieval times to the present day. We encourage proposals considering works belonging to different media and genres, focusing on canonical as well as non-canonical authors and artists, and dialoguing with diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, such as human-animal studies, posthumanist studies, new materialism studies, ecofeminist studies, animal studies, critical animal studies, animality studies, gender studies, critical race and postcolonial studies, queer studies, psychoanalytic and post-structural studies, affect theory, and other relevant fields of inquiry.

Papers may explore topics including, but not limited to:

  • women-animals metamorphoses
  • women-animals hybrids
  • women, animals, and the body
  • women, animals, and sexuality
  • women, animals, and gender
  • women, animals, and race
  • women, animals, and class
  • women, animals, and motherhood
  • metaphors of women as animals
  • women, animals, and language
  • kinship between women and animals
  • women, animals, and ethics and aesthetics of care
  • women, animals, and the environmental crisis
  • women, animals, and science
  • women, animals, and spirituality
  • women, animals, and folklore
  • women writers/artists and animals
  • trans women and animals
  • women, animals, and the male gaze

The conference is part of a wider project including a cultural programme of public events that will take place at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in April 2027 and will consist in:

  • a writers roundtable with authors Naomi Booth, Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ, Helen Jukes, and Helen Macdonald;
  • a screening of H is for Hawk (2025) preceded by conversation with director Philippa Lowthorpe.

More information on the cultural programme, confirmed dates, and how to register will follow. All conference participants are very welcome to extend their stay in Oxford to attend the events. Please note that the conference will take place in person in Oxford with no possibility for hybrid participation. There will be no conference fee. All presentations should be in English and last no longer than 20 minutes. Proposals, including title, abstract (250 words max), and short bio (150 words max), must be submitted via email in a single Word document to Dr Fanny Clemente and Dr Greta Colombani by 15 July 2026. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 30 July 2026. Please feel free to contact the organisers Dr Fanny Clemente and Dr Greta Colombani at any point for inquiries and further information. 

Image: The siren from the Merton Bestiary https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Serena

Workshop on Late Medieval German Drama

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30/04/2026

10:53

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Report by Carlos Rodríguez Otero and Monty Powell

On Saturday 2 May 2026, a group comprising medievalists, musicians, musicologists, liturgists and art historians met in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library for a workshop on Medieval German Drama, organised by Henrike Lähnemann, Carlos Rodríguez Otero, Monty Powell and Sharang Sharma. The event centred on an ongoing project to publish the late Peter Macardle’s reconstruction of the liturgical music in the late-medieval Frankfurt Passion Play (Die liturgischen Gesänge der Frankfurter Dirigierrolle und des Frankfurter Passionsspiels, under contract with Open Book Publishers), more specifically focusing on scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene, arguably the play’s most interesting and multifaceted character.

The play, which we know to have been performed from the early fourteenth century onwards if not earlier, included Latin chants to punctuate the drama, imbuing the Middle High German text with strong liturgical resonances. The surviving sources, however, preserve only the play’s text (principally, the Frankfurt Passion Play of 1493 and other regional versions) and condensed performance instructions (i.e. the mid-fourteenth century Frankfurt Director’s Roll). Only a small fragment of what was once a complete version survives, with both text and music intact.

Play Manuscripts

As Henrike Lähnemann mentioned in her introduction, Macardle had painstakingly obtained scans and photocopies of the play’s approximately 120 liturgical chants for a full reconstruction with text and music, building on his 2007 edition of the St Gall Passion Play. Central to Macardle’s approach was the importance of working from local liturgical sources, the sonic components of Christian liturgy in the Medieval West being significantly contingent on local traditions. Fortunately, a significant collection of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century chant books written in and for the Bartolomäusstift in Frankfurt survives, where the play originated in mid-fourteenth century. (It would also have been performed immediately outside this former Augustinian collegiate church, the cathedral of the city, in the town square.) Having been entrusted with the manuscript for its posthumous publication, Henrike Lähnemann brought Carlos Rodriguez Otero, Monty Powell and Sharang Sharma into the project to assist with the transcription of the play’s chants, as found by Macardle in these local sources, as well as to situate Macardle’s work among the subsequent research on medieval German passion plays.

The music for the Frankfurt Passion Play, as recorded in the Director’s Roll, primarily consists of chants from the Office and the Mass, which, as Carlos Rodríguez Otero explained, Macardle located in graduals, antiphoners and a sequentiary belonging to the Bartolomäusstift (apart from a later gradual, nevertheless from the Archdiocese of Mainz), now kept in the Frankfurt Universitätsbibliothek. These sources, written in a late gothic musical script known as ‘Hufnagel’ (nails for horse shoes) notation, preserve the chants as they would likely have been known to the play’s late fifteenth-century audience. As Carlos and Sharang Sharma—the two musicologists on the team—learned, this notation has its own quirks, which has prompted fruitful discussions with several members of the musicological community. The most pressing for the purposes of publication was the presence of quilismas (or quilismata), symbols of unclear and contested meaning which appear in these late sources in unexpected ways, requiring a decision regarding their transcription.

From the presentation of the musical sources, adapted from a workshop day Cambridge 25 April 2026 on Liturgical Chant

Sharang Sharma, who specialises in digital resources for medieval chant research, discussed the new tools that developed since Macardle ceased work on this project in 2013, which have formed an indispensable component of the project. He began by explaining the team’s choice of musical font with which to engrave the musical transcriptions, Volpiano, a typeface that converts music into alphanumeric strings, enabling comparison between chants and large-scale analysis. Its compatibility with Microsoft Word, xml or any other text-based software, the ability to search for specific musical passages, and its Open Source ethos made it the ideal choice. Closely related to this is the Cantus Database, a central body of regional chant databases that include melodies and chants for the Mass and Office, which includes 7,000 manuscripts, 660,000 chants, and integrates the Corpus antiphonalium officii (CAO) numbering system, which identifies office texts and was used by Macardle to catalogue the play’s chants. As well as allowing us to look specifically at German sources that have been indexed, and even typeset with Volpiano, Cantus provides a platform with which to share our own transcriptions later on.

When this became clear, the team wrote to Margot Fassler, whose helpful advice guided the project and, fortuitously, led to her eventual presence at the workshop as an honoured guest and speaker. As well as the issue of quilisma, which traces its origins to the beginning of the chant tradition in German-speaking lands (in sources such as the Hartker Antiphoner from c. 1000), there is also the question of recitation chants, such as gospel tones and passion tones, indicated in the text by verbs such as ‘clamare’, which requires engagement with other plays from the Hessian Passion Play tradition (Alsfeld, Heidelberg, Fritzlar, Friedberg, Trier, etc.), consultation of modern chant sources, and indeed an element of reconstruction.

List of musical sources used for reconstructing the musical chant, all Frankfurt University Library

  • Sequentiary (Frankfurter Sequentiar): Ms. Barth. 49 (Bartholomäusstift, mid-15th cent.)
  • Anti­pho­ners: Ms. Lat. qu. 48 (Bartholomäusstift, mid-15th cent.) and Ms. Barth. 94 (Bartholomäusstift, mid-15th cent.)Frankfurt UB lat. qu. 48 / Barth. 94 (Bartholomäusstift, mid 15th cent.)
  • Graduals (archdiocese of Mainz, ‘Moguntinum’): Ms. lat. qu. 44 (Bartholomäusstift, 2nd ¼ 15th cent.), Ms. Leonh. 13 (c. 1525 from St Leonhard)

The character of Mary Magdelene was of central prominence during the day. In the Frankfurt Play she has nearly as many scenes as Christ (more than Mary the Mother of God) and she undergoes the most significant change throughout the narrative. This is even reflected in the staging, with her initially appearing on the West side of the square (representing Hell), and later moving to the East (Heaven) after her conversion. Within the Hessian play tradition, embellishments are added to her story (a lover, taunting devils…) that are of musical interest as well, involving vernacular song.

Margot Fassler explored this with reference to the longest chant of the play, a sequence written for her (‘Laus tibi Christe’) bv Gottschalk of Limburg (or of Aachen) in the late eleventh century. The malleability of her character, resulting from the unclarity of exactly who she is in the gospels, made her a popular and versatile saint, with several aspects of her life explored in visual arts as well as liturgical music. In the early Middle Ages, she was also rendered as the sinner in Luke 7 and even the woman healed from bleeding. In the figure of Mary Magdelene, Margot Fassler explained, we have a condemnation of worldly vice (before her conversion), a model penance, and a story of conversion, making her both a universal saint and at the same time a privileged first witness of the Resurrection  and ‘apostola apostolorum’. Margot Fassler also highlighted the significance of visual depictions of Mary Magdalene, and how these would enrich a future performing edition project, as well as the role of intertextuality within the sequence repertoire, especially resonances with Adam of St Victor’s ubiquitous ‘Laudes crucis’.

Monty Powell then began the more hands-on afternoon session with a paper on the ‘adaptability’ of medieval drama, specifically in the context of the Hessian group of plays from which a large number of full and fragmentary play-manuscripts survive. A number of sources, collated from the Stadtrechnungen and Bürgermeisterbuch of medieval Frankfurt as well as from personal diaries, provide insightful (and sometimes amusing) accounts of the great tradition of putting on Passion and Easter plays in medieval Frankfurt. They also document amajor change that took place in the tradition: before 1480, it seems, plays were performed under the auspices of the Bartholomäusstift, to which context, from more than one century earlier, the Frankfurter Dirigierrolle belongs. After 1480, the plays came under the close control of the Town Council: the manuscript containing the text that Germanists have termed the Frankfurter Passionsspiel was copied in 1493, and contains an (incomplete) play text that has become far less “liturgical” in character but where other scenes have been added and vastly expanded upon. A case in point are the Mary Magdalene scenes: as the afternoon’s workshop showed, the later passion plays from Frankfurt and Alsfeld revel in exploiting to the full not only the comic potential inherent in such a character, but also her importance as a model of penance. This second, penitential aspect of Magdalene’s character had been demonstrated so wonderfully earlier in the day by Margot Fassler. 

​It is important to keep in mind that we can never safely map records of historical performance onto the text preserved in play-manuscripts. For instance: although it would be tempting to read Johannes’ Kremer’s 1493 play-text, now known as the Frankfurter Passionsspiel, as an archived version of the performance that we know took place one year before, things might not be quite so simple: is it an archive recording parts of the play performed one year before, or Kremer’s own rewritten version, perhaps intended for future performance – or for his own enjoyment and personal use? And what about its relationship to the plays held in Frankfurt over the following decades, for which no play-manuscriptssurvive? We can ask similar questions about the later Alsfelder Passionsspiel manuscript. Although dates of three performances, along with the content of what was performed when, is recorded on its first folio, the manuscript shows evidence of three scribal hands which cannot always be easily differentiated from one another, and includes added quires and pages stuck in to the manuscript. The point is that a ‘reconstruction’, of music and/or of a whole play, is not quite as simple as we might wish. As Johannes Janota, editor of the Hessian group of plays, argued in his excellent essay Mittelalterliche Texte als Entstehungsvarianten, it is paramount to develop models of editions (in the case of the Hessian group, parallel texts) that do not obscure but make clear (sichtbar) the constant processes of rewriting and adaptation – what Walter Haug called der aktualisierende Vollzug – at work between manuscript witnessesof play-texts, and in medieval literature more generally. By comparing and attempting to perform not just comparable Mary Magdalene scenes from the play-texts, but also their music as reconstructed by Peter Macardle, we hoped that Saturday afternoon’s workshop could make these processes not just sichtbar, but hörbar, too.

FrankfurtPassion-MaryMagdalen-WorkshopversionDownload

The group then divided into pairs and small groups, each exploring possible approaches to different elements of the play in a future English-language performing edition. Questions raised included whether—and how—music might be translated, how faithfully to adhere to original forms and language (both musical and textual), and how to transmit the feel and experience of the play, with its contrasts between sacred and secular, high- and lowbrow, vernacular and learned. The responses were creative, insightful and above all, enjoyable, culminating in a showcase of recomposed folk laments, sensuous settings of courtly and worldly desire, Shakespearean-influenced verse translations and various choreographies, including the Ring Dance, a popular dance type in Medieval Germany that blurred the boundaries between sacred and secular authorities, as well as the mundane and the divine.

The workshop was not only successful, therefore, in introducing the project of publishing Macardle’s edition, but it also demonstrated how his work can inspire a broader, creative engagement with this stimulating and exciting dramatic genre.

Harrowing of Hell Cast Call

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24/04/2026

13:22

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The Harrowing of Hell.26 is an experimental and abstract piece inspired by medieval mystery plays. It depicts Christ’s descent into Hell after his crucifixion, where he confronts Satan to free the righteous souls (Adam, Eve, the patriarchs, and the prophets) held captive for millennia. The one Satan believed he had defeated returns to break down the gates of Hell. The characters oscillate between anguish and hope as they await redemption.

About the director: Méryl Vourch is an Oxford Visiting Student at Merton College. She has worked as an assistant director with Laurent Delvert and Denis Podalydès at the Opéra de Lille (Gounod’s Faust, May 2025), and assisted Caroline Staunton (Don Giovanni, Opéra Bastille, 2023) and Mariame Clément (Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne Festival, 2023). As a director, she has staged three productions in Paris: Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland (Théâtre Nicole Loraux, 2024–2025), and Mamma Mia! (MPAA, 2025).

We will be performing our play in week 6 (2 to 6 June) at the Burton Taylor Studio, from 9:30 to 10:30pm and in week 7 (9 to 11 June, tbc) in the crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (St Edmund Hall), from 8 to 9pm. We are still missing three roles (Adam, Eve, and a demon; all backgrounds welcome, aged 18+). There were auditions on 25/26 April, but anyone who was unavailable is very welcome to contact the director by email for further information.

Roles Available

  • One demon (one of two): part of a grotesque and comic duo—agents of chaos, both cruel and ridiculous, frustrated by their condition.
  • Adam and Eve: a bourgeois couple frozen in time, marked by long waiting, repetitive gestures, and a certain passivity

All roles include some choreographed scenes (minimal movement required).

Auditions

Please prepare a monologue of your choice (2–5 minutes) and an extract from the audition pack for your chosen role. Contact : meryl.vourch@merton.ox.ac.uk if you are interested or have any questions! If the audition dates have already passed but you are still interested, you are very welcome to contact us.

Forgotten Libraries

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21/04/2026

12:14

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Lost, dispersed, and marginalised manuscript collections

Provisional programme – for updates refer to the blog of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures. For more information: clement.salah@queens.ox.ac.uk or shaahin.pishbin@queens.ox.ac.uk

Day 1: Tuesday 16 June: The Making and Unmaking of Libraries

Memorial Room, The Queen’s College, Oxford

9:00 Welcome
9:15–9:30 Shaahin Pishbin & Clément Salah, “Introduction to Forgotten Libraries”
Session 1: Reconstructing Dispersed Libraries
9:30–10:00 Henrike Lähnemann, “Superfluous precious objects: Reconstructing the
manuscript production of the Medingen nuns”
10:00–10:30 Nour Obeid, “Writers’ Libraries as Houses of Trouble: Fragmentation and
Reconstruction in the Arab Region”
10:30–11:00 James White, “The Hyperlinked Manuscript: Reading and Bibliography in
Seventeenth-Century Iran”
11:00–11:30 Coffee Break
Session 2: Endowment, Community, and the Formation of Libraries
11:30–12:00 Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, “Endowment practices and the formation of Jewish
libraries in the Islamicate world”
12:00–12:30 Ronny Vollandt, “Karaite library in Jerusalem”
12:30–14:00 Lunch
Session 3: Displacement, Empire, and Reconfigured Collections
14:00–14:30 Hallie Swanson, “Between Royal Collection and Oriental Repository: The
Forgotten Library of Fort William College”
14:30–15:00 Gulguncha Lalbekova, “Imperial Legacies and Displaced Heritage: The Case
Study of Badakhshani Ismaili Manuscripts in Russian State Archives”
15:00–15:30 Coffee Break
Session 4: Marginalised Traditions and Hidden Repositories
15:30–16:00 Balasubramanyam Chandramohan, “Forgotten Manuscripts: Lost, Dispersed
and Marginalised Manuscripts- a case study of Tamil and Telugu Palm leaf
Manuscripts”
16:00–16:30 Udaya Cabral, “Hidden Knowledge Hubs: Recovering the Neglected Palm-Leaf
Manuscript Collections of Sri Lankan Monastic Libraries”
19:00 Dinner at Queen’s

Day 2: Wednesday 17 June: Tracing and Reconstructing Forgotten Collections

Taylorian Room 2, Taylor Institution, Oxford

Session 5: Tracing Lost Collections Through Fragments and Objects
9:00–9:30 Zoe Screti, “Finding Life in Fragments: The Obfuscation of Autograph Albums
in Archive Catalogues”
9:30–10:00 Holly Smith, “The Fragile Fates of Medieval Music Manuscripts – A Story of
Preservation and Loss”
10:00–10:30 Ana Dias & Julia Smith, “‘The chest of anonymous relics’: Reconstructing the
earliest relic collection of Sens cathedral (France)”
10:30–11:00 Coffee Break
Session 6: Catalogues, Data, and the Production of Invisibility
11:00–11:30 Matt Lampitt, “(Un)Mapping the March: Lost Books, Ghost Data”
11:30–12:00 Sian Witherden, “Defining ‘Rejected’ and ‘Unidentified’ provenance in
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain”
12:00–12:30 Maeve Hagerty, “Valued at nothing’: Unsettling the (Post)Colonial Archival
History of the Danson Erotica Collection”
12:30–14:00 Lunch
Session 7: Libraries Without Shelves: Singular Objects and Dispersed Worlds
14:00–14:30 Elisian Ralli, “A lost library by design: ‘Bibliophilie créatrice’ and the
reinvention of the modern manuscript”
14:30–15:00 Thea Gomelauri, “Forced Migration of Rustaveli’s Epic Poem: Bodleian
Library MS. Wardrop d.27”
15:00–15:30 Coffee Break
15:30–16:30 Roundtable: What is a Library When It Disappears?
17:00–18:00 Drink reception at Queen’s

Events at Iffley Church

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20/04/2026

15:45

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Around Oxford, events, opportunities

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 welcome visitors to the church on Sunday afternoons from Easter to October.

Events 2026 Drawing Iffley Church

Spend a day looking at and drawing Iffley Church with local artist and teacher, MICAH HAYNS

Saturday 16 May 2026 10.30-5.00pm St Mary’s Church OX4 4EJ

Iffley Church is an outstanding Romanesque building. It stands in a unique historic landscape

  • all materials supplied
  • live demonstration and feedback
  • For amateurs aged 16+
  • Limited numbers
  • BOOK NOW! Ticket sales open!

The session starts in the Church Hall, Church Way, Iffley OX4 4EG. Bring your own lunch. Or visit nearby pub, The Prince of Wales, 73 Church Way, Iffley, Oxford OX4 4EF 01865 586379  https://www.princeofwalesiffley.co.uk/

 Living Stones will provide free hot and cold drinks throughout the day.

All materials will be provided, but you are welcome to bring your own sketching stool, sketch book, or anything you are working on if you wish.

The day will run as part of East Oxford Art Weeks. Some of Micah’s work will be exhibited in the Church Hall throughout the day. 

Work by participants will join the exhibition at the end of the day after which participants may take their work home.

MORE INFORMATION and BOOKING FORM

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drawing-iffley-church-tickets-1981794010233?aff=oddtdtcreator

Events 2025

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.

A Multilingual Moses Play

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12/04/2026

20:08

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Around Oxford, events

Moses. The ‘Exagoge’ of Ezekiel. ‘Moses and the Shepherd’ by Rumi

Friday, May 8, 2026 – 18:30: Ioannou Centre, 66 St Giles
Sunday, May 10 – 12.30: Iffley Church Hall
Monday, May 11 – 6pm: Wolfson College Buttery

David Wiles directs a production of the extant fragments of a tragedy written in Alexandria in the second century BC.  Drawn from the Book of Exodus, the story tells of the Hebrews’ escape from Egypt.  The play was written by a Jew, and is the first extant dramatization of a biblical text. 

The performance is mostly given in ancient Greek, with the opening scene played in English.  The project follows on from Hrosvita’s Martyrdom of the Three Virgins performed in Latin in 2025, and prior to that Seneca’s Octavia in a Renaissance translation.  

The cast are a mix of students and seniors. The production style will be choral, using movement to illustrate narrative passages such as the burning bush and the crossing of the Red Sea – so fluent knowledge of ancient Greek is not required.  

The first performance is in the Classics Centre in St Giles at 6.30 on Friday May 8, sponsored by the APGRD https://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/events.  The second is in Iffley Church Hall at 12.30 on Sunday, May 10.  The third is in Wolfson College Buttery at 6.00 on Monday, May 11, sponsored by the Ancient World Research Cluster.  The performance should last for about 35 minutes, and we will have a brief Q&A afterwards. The APGRD and AWRC are both kindly providing wine.

EXAGOGE by Ezekiel. The Exagoge was written in Alexandria in the 2nd century BCE in the mode of a Greek tragedy, adapted from the Book of Exodus. It is the earliest dramatic adaptation of Biblical text. 269 lines were preserved by Christian commentators. We have made only a small number of cuts, but line allocations have been transposed, with the role of Moses divided between four different actors. Storyline: Pharaoh’s daughter discovers baby Moses in the Nile, and rears him. He kills an Egyptian overseer and flees to Libya, where he marries, sees a vision of the stars, and then God in a burning bush. Moses is reluctant to return. God tells him to inflict plagues on Egypt in order to secure the release of the Hebrews from bondage. After an angel of death has ‘passed over’ the houses of the Hebrews, they flee, pursued by the Egyptian army. The waters of the Red Sea open for them, then drown the Egyptians. In the final non-Biblical episode, the story is resolved by a kind of deus ex machina – perhaps a mirage, perhaps a demon, perhaps a phoenix.

  • Ruthanne Brooks. Mariam, Chum (Sepphora’s sister); Moses 3.
  • Leonie Erbenich. Pharaoh’s daughter; Sepphora (Moses’ wife).
  • Valentina Davi. Moses’ Mother.
  • Loveday (Junyu) Liu. Moses 1.
  • Alex Marshall. Raguel (Sepphora’s father); Moses 4.
  • Laurence Nagy. Pharaoh; God.
  • Vishal Rameshbabu. Herald.
  • David Wiles (standing in). Moses 2.
  • All. Chorus

MOSES AND THE SHEPHERD by Rumi. Much more contemplative, Moses and the Shepherd is a story from the Manavi, a compilation of parables dictated by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi (1207-1273) over the last fifteen years of his life. We hope that the two plays speak to each other in interesting ways.

  • Goatherd: Laurence Nagy
  • Moses: David Wiles
  • God: Alex Marshall
  • Director: David Wiles
  • Music: Jessica Qiao

Medieval Germanists Gathering (GBOFFL 2026)

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10/04/2026

21:45

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Around Oxford, conference, report

, , ,

“meister, phiff uff, lasz vns springen.” – Maria Magdalena, Frankfurter Passionsspiel 8b (ll. 698–743)

Enough rays to make functional the St Edmund Hall sundial; yellow, orange, and burgundy tulips; the four-note blast of that iconic hunting horn: these signs heralded the beginning of the three-day GBOFFL Conference of medieval Germanists one late afternoon in April.

The GBOFFL participants — from universities whose cities make up the abbreviated title, i.e. Geneva, Bern, Oxford, Freiburg (im Breisgau), Freiburg (im Üechtland), and Lausanne — kicked off the conference with a gathering in the cosy, climate-controlled Old Library of Teddy Hall, where they noshed anise cake and perused materials from the Hall’s collection, including a pamphlet on St Edmund and a Monty Python-themed cardboard catapult.

GBOFFL participants engage with the Teddy Hall collections (Photograph: Giovanna Truong)

After the reception, and with the rare books safely stowed, the participants poured tea and coffee and partook in analyzing and performing the Passionsspiel, in particular scenes from the Frankfurt and Alsfeld versions which are being prepared for an edition focussing on the life of Mary Magdalen — more on this during a workshop on medieval German drama on 2 May!

With their dramatic prowess soundly proven, the Germanists poured into the Wadham Room of The King’s Arms for a celebratory pint, each looking forward to the schedule of lectures and workshops in the days to come.

Gebofel in the Schweizerisches Idiotikon

The ninth of April saw a slate of four lectures by graduate scholars Monty Powell, Luke Cooper, Jasmin Eggel, and Felix Stürz. Each prepared a 30–40-minute presentation and fielded questions for the remainder of the given hour. Lively discussions ensued, on the voice of God, on magical poets, on video games, and on many further interesting topics, that are too many to elaborate here (,der zu vil zu schreiben wer’). A surprise lecture was given by Cornelia Herberichs on the etymology of the word GBOFFL, which proved not just to be an acronym, but a Swiss German description of a spirited (if labour-intensive) gathering.

After lunch, doctoral student Giovanna Truong (that’s me) led a workshop on letterpress printing (and early Yiddish typography) in which the GBOFFL participants learned to set their own names in lead type. With the expertise of Richard Lawrence, the Bodleian Bibliographical Press’s master printer, the students and faculty were able to print the list of names on a card alongside a linocut image of a peacock under a GBOFFL banner (designed and produced by yours truly with materials and assistance from Henrike Lähnemann). Some participants also printed t-shirts bearing the unofficial logo.

The card lists the names of workshop participants and bears a description in Yiddish: “דאָס קאַרטל איז געדרוקט געװאָרן אין אָקספֿאָרד אויפֿן גבאָפֿפֿל” — “This card was printed in Oxford at the GBOFFL.”

The day ended with a candlelit vegetarian dinner in the St Edmund Hall Old Dining Hall, where joyous chatter could be heard until twilight. Some of the merry group migrated to the Hall’s Crypt, where gowned Oxford scholars sang Compline in Latin and Middle High German around an Easter candle. The evening ended after sundown with the sung prayers of Havdalah, marking the end of the Jewish Passover holiday.

GBOFFL Schola in the Norman crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East, the library church of St Edmund Hall

The GBOFFLers returned the next day to Teddy’s Doctorow Hall for an enlivening of the senses — an early lecture by Susanne Finkel on visual poetics in Partonopier and Meliur works. The schedule called for a trip to the Weston Library for the weekly Coffee Morning, this week led by Philine Armbruster, Lucian Shepherd, and Henrike Lähnemann on the topic of manuscript fragments (and, as usual, including a few minutes for gazing at the dreaming spires from the roof terrace).

Welcome to the Coffee Morning by Chris Fletcher

Manuscripts and Books shown:

  1. Otto von Passau ‚24 Alte‘: MS. Germ. b. 3, fols 2-3, ed. here https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/otto-von-passau/);
  • Douce 212 Die vierundczweinczig Altē. od’ d’ guldin tron, GW M28503 Augsburg: Anton Sorg, 10.III.1480. 2° Letter by Wieland Schmidt, Die vierundzwanzig alten Ottos von Passau, Palaestra, 212 (Leipzig, 1938), 231-2 no. 1; See VL VII 229-34. Augsburg: Anton Sorg, 10 Mar. 1480. Folio. Wanting gathering [*] containing the register, sheet [05.6], and gathering [x]
  • Boec des gulden throēs of der xxiiij. ouden 1484[X.25] | herlem [J. Bellaert] | (fol.) Auct. 6 Q 5.23 GW M28517 Provenance: Haarlem, Netherlands, Franciscan Tertiary Nuns, S. Anna; inscription on r9r: Dit boec hoert toe den susteren van sinte Marien conuent binnen Haerlem in sinte Jans straet ende heeft ghege[n]en pieternel dirck der Ende marijtgen maertens der onse susteren tot een testement’. Purchased from Asher & Co. for £2.15.0; see Library Bills (1851-5), 77; Books Purchased (1853), 65. O-036 in Bod-Inc
  • Die vier und zweintzig Alten. Auffs new gebessert. Vet. D1 c.426, Dillingen: Sebald Meier 1568

2. Der Heiligen Leben

Fragments which were previously bound with the Der Heiligen Leben fragments

  • MS. Eng. hist. c. 36: summary catalogue, p. 865: was part of a series of unreferenced fragments &c. arranged as Palæographical Specimens, which was broken up in 1895. Now MS. Eng. hist. c. 36.
    1) a cardinal’s hat sent to Woolsey by the pope 15 Nov 1515, backed by the Bodleian (?) conservations; this presumably refers to the Cardinal’s hat still held at Christ Church https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/news/cardinal-wolseys-hat-ipswich
    2) etc. mainly early modern letters, some 19th cent
    75, 76) list with specimen announcing and recouncing German-Turkish war

Rebecca Schleuß / Henrike Lähnemann: Regelhandschriften

Fun with Fragments manuscript presentation
The GBOFFL participants enjoyed exclusive views of Oxford.

The GBOFFL participants were allowed to stay for an extra hour-long manuscript workshop session with the aforementioned presenters plus Rebecca Schleuss, who showed off manuscripts of nuns’ regulations.

Rebecca Schleuß presenting manuscripts with monastic rules

After a lunch out on the town, the digestively sated but intellectually ravenous scholars rounded out the programme with two lectures, by Julie Dietsche and Hannah Free, which drew connections between printed works and manuscripts, and truth, fiction, and fanfiction, respectively. Their energetic presentations were the exclamation point at the end of a packed couple of days.

The group parted under sunny skies, promising to carry the warm, convivial, erudite spirit of the conference to next year’s gathering in Freiburg, Switzerland. Until then — zayt gezunt (be well)!

Medieval Matters – Vac

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23/03/2026

10:46

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Around Oxford, Call for Papers, conference, events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities, Uncategorized

The OMS emails will be put on brief pause over the vac, although the blog will be continually updated with new events. Please see below a number of important opportunities and reminders before term starts. Of particular note to those interested in early medieval England (and who amongst us doesnt fall into that category) is the British Library’s upcoming PhD placement on the Norman Conquest. Applications are open for three PhD placements which will support the development of our upcoming major exhibition on the Norman Conquest, marking the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror. Apply by Monday 6 April 2026. Apply by Monday 6 April 2026.

Texts in transition

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22/03/2026

15:55

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,

A workshop on editing texts from medieval Britain

The Early English Text Society for graduate students and early career scholars.

Featuring: Richard Dance, Ralph Hanna, Kathryn Lowe, William Marx, Ad Putter, and Susan Irvine.

St Hilda’s College, Oxford

11.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.

Saturday 18 April 2026.

£20 for members of the EETS,

£34 for non-members.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided free

For registration or membership of the EETS, contact Dr Daniel Orton at eets@ell.ox.ac.uk

It is possible to obtain the members’ discount by joining at the time of registration. Website EETS