With full term about to begin, I have three exciting developments for you all.
First, a final reminder that the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays take place on the 26 April (this Saturday) from 12 noon at St Edmund Hall. The incredible booklet can be found at the end of this post, which illustrates just how many of our community are involved, and the feast of entertainment available on the day. See you all there!
Second, the first draft of the termly OMS booklet can be found here. If you have submitted an event, please cast a quick eye over the information to ensure that it is correct. If you are yet to submit your events but woul like them to be included, please do so ASAP.
Finally, OMS is seeking a new Social Media Officer. The Social Media Officer is in charge of connecting all of Oxford’s medievalists via the OMS Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts and also occasionally posting on here, the OMS blog. You will be responsible for posting across these platforms to advertise OMS events, opportunities and news. Familiarity with social media advertising is beneficial but not essential: this is an ideal way to gain technical know-how about social media, advertising and marketing that can be used in your academic career and beyond. The post usually comprises an hour or two a week. You can read a retrospective of the current Officer Ashley here. Those interested should reply to this email address before Saturday, where there will be the chance to shadow.
Are you curious about what manuscripts can tell us beyond their texts? Join Digital Scholarship @ Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries for a hands-on workshop using data from manuscript catalogues to explore trends and patterns in medieval manuscript production.
You’ll learn:
What kinds of data can be recorded about manuscripts
How to interpret and analyse manuscript catalogue entries
Ways to identify trends and patterns using simple tools like Excel
You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with manuscripts from the Bodleian’s collections, learning new skills that you can apply in your future studies and research. You’ll also get to contribute to the ongoing development of the manuscript catalogues, with your contributions credited on the Bodleian website.
No technical experience is required, just a basic familiarity with Excel.
Spaces are limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Workshop dates:
Thursday of 3rd week (15th May), 1–5pm – undergraduates
Thursday of 4th week (22nd May), 1–5pm – undergraduates
Thursday of 7th week (12th June), 1–5pm – postgraduates
Please still fill in the form if you are unavailable on these dates, as we may be able to make additional workshops available if there is demand.
Signup deadline: Midday, Friday of 2nd Week (9th May)
Scripture suggests that the Christian apocalypse will only happen once. OMS, however, has so far seen two in Hilary Term, both in preparation for the Medieval Mystery Plays 2025 on 26 April 2026 (programme here, and more below), with one now available to stream in perpetuity for HistoryHit’s new documentary The Medieval Apocalypse, presented by Dr Eleanor Janega.
A shorter version of the performance for HistoryHit, composed from the outtakes (thanks to Laura McMillen who sent over the edited clip!)
Hopefully the post below can shed some light onto the process of mounting a medieval performance-text, and offer some insight into the dramaturgs hard at work for their performances on the 26th April. We hope if you watch both your appetites for the Plays might be whetted—especially for those hankering for the Judgement-narrative, of which another staging is forthcoming by the MSt English 650–1550 cohort on the 26th!
Choosing the text
Though Middle English versions of the Last Judgement exist across the gamut of post-Conquest literature (in poetry and prose as well as drama), Henrike Lähnemann chose an excerpt from so-called ‘Towneley’ collection of mystery plays as our performance text since a) there was already a text available from the preparation for the 2019 cycle, b) (more importantly) it starts with the reference to a horn!
our company (Professor Henrike Lähnemann, Dr Andrew Dunning, Timothy Powell, Michael Angerer, Shaw Worth, Monty Powell, and the Revd Andreas Wenzel)
Like most religious medieval English drama, we ultimately know very little about the provenance and assembly of the texts that come together in their unique sixteenth-century witness (San Marino, California, Huntington Library, MS HM 1). Unlike the York and Chester cycles, it’s not clear when, or by whom the plays were commissioned; as I’ll discuss below, they show marks of major internal revision, suggesting their transmission over an extended period. That would fit with our idea of English dramatic cycles taking place around the Feast of Corpus Christi in the summer: on one day, different guilds re-staged episodes from the Bible from Genesis through to Revelation, at least some of the time on mobile wagons in civic centres between which spectators could move.
The cycle takes its name from the prominent Lancashire family in whose library the manuscript containing the plays was held until the nineteenth century; the dialect of the plays themselves, however, suggests a West Yorkshire origin, and has long been associated with Wakefield in the West Riding, though debate around that attribution rages on. The Last Judgement is a particular gem from the Towneley plays insofar as it bears the distinctive nine-line stanza used by one (hypothetically reconstructed) contributor to the cycle usually called the ‘Wakefield Master’, whose naturalism and comedy elevates what are otherwise completely pedestrian reiterations of doctrinal tropes into rich dramas. (For an accessible introduction to the Master’s verbal tricks, check out the London Review of Books’ Medieval LOLs podcast episode on the Second Shepherds’ Play, hosted by Drs Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu — link here! – and watch the play in the 2019 performance).
The story as we cut it is very simple—and I’ll avoid ‘spoilers’ to keep you entertained—but the play sees two souls, Bonus and Malus (Monty Powell and Michael Angerer), called to attest to their earthly deeds before Christ seated in majesty and accompanied by three (non-speaking, but singing) helper-angels (Henrike Lähnemann, Andrew Dunning, Tim Powell), and Jesus’ (me) replies to them both. By Malus he is less than impressed…
Putting the play together
Then came the issue of how to stage it. To call any contemporary performance of Middle English (religious) plays ‘historical reconstructions’ is hard to justify, though the situation varies from text to text. Almost no information regarding the staging of the four major cycles survives (beyond some rather opaque, and certainly guild-manipulated registers from York), to say nothing of the fact that the (Tudor!) witnesses to Middle English cycle drama postdate their first performances in most cases by almost two centuries. The Towneley manuscript more likely emerges from sixteenth-century antiquarianism, in other words, rather than from active use. As a substitute, with Henrike’s help and direction, we used stage directions from fifteenth-century German dramatic records, like those surrounding the Bordesholm Marienklage, which leaves rich prefatory details in Latin of players, costumes, and props down to individual textile-types. As Christ I wore a paper crown and (real) liturgical vestments, provided by Andreas Wenzel from the St Edmund Hall chapel (including the right preparatory prayers); stigmata were ably provided by Alison Ray of the Bodleian, whose Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm (sponsorship pending) lent a rather septic sheen to Christ’s woundys, smeared on Boots own-brand cotton gloves. Malus and Bonus wore academic gowns over black; the angels wore surplices and wings from the St Edmund Hall costume store, along with—long-term OMS fans can be reassured—Henrike’s bannered horn invoked by Malus in the opening lines.
Filming and reperformance
Filming for the HistoryHit documentary took place in January. Following a quick review of the text and a rundown on mid-Yorkshire vowels circa 1450, we set up to film in the extraordinary Romanesque crypt (under the medieval church of St Peter-in-the-East, now in use as the college library; the crypt itself has been largely unaltered since the twelfth century). There we met Eleanor, the HistoryHit camera team, and the English Faculty’s own Professor Laure Ashe, who also features in the documentary as an interviewed expert. Laura, Eleanor, and Alison provided our ‘audience’, providing boos, cheers, and some less-than-pious (and probably more historically accurate) snickers; with some B-roll taken by the team, and coffee enjoyed afterwards, the documentarians vanished away to some of their other treats (if these delights weren’t enough, also see Alison introducing the Douce Apocalypse in the film as well!)
In Eighth Week we then reperformed the same extract in the Visiting Scholars’ Centre in the Weston for full term’s final Medieval Coffee Morning as a kind of live ‘ad’ for the Mystery Plays.
Performing in the library allowed us the particular treat of presenting one of the Bodleian’s lesser-appreciated treasures, namely the roll containing the pseudo-dramatic Middle English fragment known as the Dux Moraud (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. poet. f. 2). If it is indeed an ‘actor’s roll’, as some critics have been eager to suggest, then this rather slender piece of parchment is a vanishingly rare gateway into the performance culture that flourished in East Anglia in the mid-late fifteenth century, including plays like Wisdom, The Castle of Perseverance, the Digby Mary Magdalene, and the N-Town cycle. Like other extant Anglian plays extant, the Moraud is distinctively racier than other regions of Middle English cycle drama; we won’t tell if you look it up.
Despite the fact that they feature the same actors using the same text, these two versions of the Towneley Judgementdemonstrate very neatly the huge potential value of experimental reperformance—of music, mime, liturgy, and dance as well as drama—as a means of engaging with medieval media at large. The HistoryHit documentary brings up interesting questions: with the intervention of the camera, the viewer is no longer free to observe different aspects of the performance going on at once; modern English subtitles ‘remediate’ the frequently alliterative Middle English text, dropping another kind of information into the mix; narration, rather like the long German prefaces mentioned above, will set audiences looking to correlate what they’ve previously heard with what they’re seeing. The Weston performance, on the other hand, makes fewer modernization attempts, but prompted a fair few audience questions on what had actually been said!
All that’s to say that reasons are very few that medievalists shouldn’t find themselves at Teddy Hall on the 26th to watch the Mystery Plays. The day will bring together a huge range of religious drama and promises to alchemize some cross-discipline work as always.
Cast
Jesus (Shaw Worth) – MSt. Medieval Studies Malus/Evil Soul (Michael Angerer) – DPhil. candidate in Medieval English Bonus/Good Soul (Monty Powell) – MSt. Modern Languages Singing Angel (Andrew Dunning) – Curator of Medieval Manuscripts Trumpet angle (Henrike Lähnemann) – Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics
Malus: Alas I harde that horne / that callys vs to the dome, 3 All that euer were borne / thider behofys theym com. 4 May nathere lande ne se / vs from this dome hide, 5 ffor ferde fayn wold, I fle / bot I must nedys abide; […] 6 Alas, that I was borne! 11 I se now me beforne, 12 That lord with Woundys fyfe; 13 how may I on hym loke, 14 That falsly hym forsoke, 15 When I led synfull lyfe? 16
Jesus: The day is commen of catyfnes, 394 all those to care that ar vncleyn, 395 The day of batell and bitternes, 396 ffull long abiden has it beyn; 397 The day of drede to more and les, 398 of Ioy, of tremlyng, and of teyn. 399 Ilka wight that wikyd is 400 may say, alas this day is seyn! 401 here may ye se my Woundys wide 402 that I suffred for youre mysdede, 403 Thrugh harte, hede, fote, hande and syde, 404 not for my gilte bot for youre nede. […] 405 All this suffred I for thi sake. 432 say, man, What suffred, thou for me? 433 Mi blissid barnes on my right hande, 434 youre dome this day thar ye not drede, […] 435 When I was hungre ye me fed, 442 To slek my thrist ye war full fre; 443 When I was clothles ye me cled, 444 ye Wold, no sorowe on me se; […] 445 Therfor in heuen shall be youre rest, 456 In ioy and blys to beld, me by. 457
Bonus: lord, When had thou so mekill nede? 458 hungre or thrusty, how myght it be? 459 When was oure harte fre the to feede? 460 In prison When myght We the se? 461 When was thou seke, or wantyd wede? 462 To harbowre the when helpid we? 463 When had thou nede of oure fordede? 464 when did we all this dede to the? 465
Jesus: Mi blissid barnes, I shall you say 466 what tyme this dede was to me done; […] 467 My blessed bairns, I shall you say What time this deed was to me done; … ye cursid, catyfs of kames kyn, 474 That neuer me comforthid, in my care, 475 Now I and ye for euer shall twyn, 476 In doyll to dwell for euer mare; […] 477 Catyfs, ye chaste me from youre yate; 483 when ye were set as syres on bynke 484 I stode ther oute wery and Wate, 485 yit none of you Wold, on me thynke, 486 To haue pite on my poore astate; 487 Therfor to hell I shall you synke, […]!
Malus: 488 lorde, when had thou, that all has, 504 hunger or thriste, sen thou god is? 505 When was that thou in prison was? 506 When was thou nakyd or harberles? […] 507 Alas, for doyll this day! 512 alas, that euer I it abode! 513 Now am I dampned for ay, 514 this dome may I not avoyde. 515
Jesus: Mi chosyn childer, commes to me! 524 With me to dwell now shall ye weynde, 525 Ther ioy and blys euer shall be, 526 youre life in lykyng for to leynde! 527 Jesus turns to Malus and sends him out howling ye warid Wightys, from me ye fle, 528 In hell to dwell withoutten ende! 529 Ther shall ye noght bot sorow se, 530 And sit bi sathanas the feynde. 531
Bonus: We loue the, lorde, in alkyn thyng, 613 That for thyne awne has ordand thus, 614 That we may haue now oure dwellyng 615 In heuen blis giffen vnto vs. 616 Therfor full boldly may we syng 617 On oure way as we trus; 618 Make we all myrth and louyng 619 With te deum laudamus.
On 24 April, 8pm, Antiquum Documentum are pleased to present a concert to celebrate the launch of the new book ‘Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy’ (Cosima Clara Gillhammer, Reaktion Publishers). The programme features music connected to the book’s main themes, by composers such as Palestrina, Byrd, Weelkes, Amner, Judith Weir, and others, sung in ornamented style.
Entry is free. Books and drinks will be available for sale in the interval.
About the book: Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy offers a captivating journey through the history of religious rituals in Western Europe, showcasing the profound impact of Christian liturgy on art, literature, music and architecture. Through ten evocative stories, it explores medieval rituals and their cultural influence up to the present day, providing fresh insights into the enduring legacy of the liturgy as an expression of human emotion and religious experience. Accessible to all, this guide provides translations and explanations to uncover the hidden treasures of ancient rites and their lasting significance, appealing to those seeking a deeper understanding of Western liturgical traditions. For more information: www.liturgybook.com
The Oxford Medieval Commentary Network is pleased to present a plainchant workshop on 24 April 2025, 3-4.30pm in Christ Church. All are welcome; no prior experience necessary. Please sign up here or email cosima.gillhammer@lmh.ox.ac.uk
When? 26 April 2025, from 12 noon. Where? St Edmund Hall, Queen’s Lane, OX1 4AR
Come One, Come All! Free entry, no booking required.
On Saturday, 26 April 2025, a cycle of medieval mystery plays will be performed by various troupes around St Edmund Hall’s grounds. Medieval mystery plays were performed throughout the Middle Ages by and for everyday townspeople, and we’re excited to put on quite a day of shows for you!
Worried that you won’t understand the performances done in medieval languages? Never fear! Each play will be accompanied by a modern English prologue, which will help to summarise the play.
12 noon: OldTestamentPlays (Front Quad):
The Fall of the Angels (Angels of Oxford) – Middle English
Adam and Eve (Oxford German Medievalists) – Hans Sachs, German
The Flood (The Travelling Beavers) – Middle English
Abraham and Isaac (Shear and Trembling) – Middle English
1.30pm: New Testament Plays (Churchyard):
The Annunciation (Low Countries Ensemble) – Middle Dutch
The Nativity (Les Perles Innocentes) – Marguerite de Navarre, French
The Wedding at Cana (Pusey House) – Modern English, with Middle English archaisms
The Crucifixion (The Wicked Weights) – Middle English
The Lamentation (St Edmund Consort) – Bordesholmer Marienklage, Low German and Latin
The Harrowing of Hell (The Choir of St Edmund Hall) – Latin Sequence
3.30pm: New Testament Plays Continued:
The Resurrection (St Stephen’s House) – Middle English
The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins (Clamor Validus) – Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, Latin and modern English
The Last Judgement (MSt English, 650–1550) – Modern English
6.15pm: Evensong (Chapel)
No tickets or booking is required, and it is free to attend. You are welcome to drop in and out throughout the afternoon. All performances will take place outside, so please dress comfortably for the weather conditions. There will be two small tea breaks, at around 1.15pm and 3.15pm.
The Wicked Weights admire their purpose-built cross – all ready for the Crucifixion! Picture: Rebecca Menmuir
If you have any questions about the cycle or the performances, email the co-heads of performance: Sarah Ware (sarah.ware@merton.ox.ac.uk) and Antonia Anstatt (antonia.anstatt@merton.ox.ac.uk). And look out for updates to our website, where detailed information about the individual plays will be published.
For a trailer of the type of Medieval Mystery play which awaits you, have a look at the extract from the Towneley Last Judgement play performed for a HistoryHit programme about the Apocalypse
When? 28 March, 18:30–20:15 Where? Research Centre, Thatched Barn, Christ Church Meadow
The anonymous English Enterlude of Godly Queene Hester (c. 1529) is a fascinating play, unperformed since the 16th century. Ostensibly in praise of Esther, heroine of Jewish history, the play is actually a political satire about the demise of Cardinal Wolsey. The fall of Wolsey, who had been the monarch’s right-hand man, was a key moment in the reign of Henry VIII. Assuerus, King of Persia, stands for Henry, while Aman, the model of the evil counsellor, for Wolsey. Henry’s wife, Katherine of Aragon, is idealised in the figure of Hester, who fills a traditional role for virtuous royal women by interceding with her husband, but also boldly argues that queens should exhibit the same virtues as kings and can perfectly well govern kingdoms when their husbands are away fighting wars! She thus anticipates the strong secular heroines of Shakespearean comedy.
Originally, the play would have been performed by a boys’ company so it is appropriate that it will be staged by Edward’s Boys. This company, from King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, has, over the last two decades, revolutionised our understanding of the early modern repertoire. Alongside the English Enterlude, they will also present a short purimshpil, a Jewish folk play. The purim plays (still a living tradition in Yiddish) tell the story of Esther in a very different mode, celebrating the rescue of the Jewish people by their heroine in farcical style. The production is part of the WOMARD project, which explores connections between Jewish, Christian and Islamic Theatre and is sponsored by the SNSF.
When? 2 May 2025, 6-8pm Where? Old Library (drinks) and Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (performance)
Come one, come all! Prepare to worship the power of a good shit and marvel at the agonies and ecstasies of excrement!
The year is 1320 in the stinking town of Netherhole. A young nun feels the hand of God clutch her guts, an ambitious Earl issues a dangerous decree, and a ghost rises from the river. Doctors, priests and rumours descend and Netherhole’s fortunes are changed forever.
The Netherhole Martyr is a play recounting a year in the fortunes of the people of Netherhole, a Yorkshire town in the grip of religious fervour after a young novitiate enacts a painful communion with the divine through her constipated bowels.
This semi-staged reading of the play, held in the spectacular Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East at St Edmund Hall, celebrates its recent publication by Strange Region Press. Written in shades of Donne and Swift, the text of this surreal and macabre work by Good Friends for a Lifetime is fully illustrated by Sigrid Koerner and Hannah Mansell.
The event is free to attend and no booking is required. Copies of the book will be available to purchase. The event will begin with drinks in the Old Library at 6pm, followed by a performance in the Crypt that will last approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Maeve Campbell, Minna Jeffery and Lily Levinson are Good Friends for a Lifetime. They met on the MA Text and Performance at Birkbeck and RADA. Their first production, Shades of Mediocrity, about friendship, the cult of male genius and Simon & Garfunkel was performed at Camden People’s Theatre and the Old Red Lion. They were associate artists at Bathway Theatre, University of Greenwich, in 2021.
Strange Region is a publisher of experimental writing by artists, novelists and poets. They endeavour to use publishing as a tool to celebrate writing as performance, as architecture , as a mechanical component of creative practice and as a space to enjoy the perilous corners of the human experience.
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 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.
