Category: Around Oxford

It feels like term has just begun, but here we are in week 8 already! That said, the medievalist happenings at Oxford are far from over. In fact, we have an especially full week of exciting events and seminars lined up for you! This isn’t surprising: even Alcuin knew that week 8 was sometimes the richest of all the weeks:

saepe posterior adfert hora, quod prior non poterat
[Often the later hour brings what the earlier hour could not, Ep. 239]

Please do peruse the announcements, events and opportunities listed below, to see all of the joys that the ‘late hour’ of Week 8 has brought to us:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• New AHRC Network: Noblesse Oblige? ‘Barons’ and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia (10^th-14^th Centuries). This network is a forum for the re-evaluation of ‘baronial’ government and the common good between the tenth and fourteenth centuries across different Afro-Eurasian polities. For full details, please see the network website here. The network is also offering two opportunities: a conference and call for associate membership — see the “opportunities” section of this email for full details!
• The Oxford Interfaith Forum will be hosting a talk of interest to Medievalists next week, on 13th March, 6-7pm, via Zoom. The talk will be Dr Nick Posegay (University of Cambridge), ‘Material and Linguistic History of Arabic Manuscripts in Muslim and Jewish Contexts‘. To register, please click here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 6th March:

• The Byzantine Graduate Seminar takes place at 12.30-2pm online via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Juliana Santos Dinoá Medeiros (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Hagiography and miracle performance in seventh-century Gaul. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.
• The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group led by Matthew Holford and Andrew Dunning is meeting as usual via Teams from 1-2pm. We will start with natural history from a medieval encyclopaedia. Sign up for the mailing list to receive updates and the Teams invite, or contact matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information. 
• The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ College, 12 Merton St Room 2. This week’s theme is Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s Frauendienst. All extremely welcome! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.
• The Medieval Archaeology Seminar today is CANCELLED.
• A Workshop for the Medieval Mystery Plays will take place in the Pontigny Room, St Edmund Hall, with David Wiles and Jim Harris, for all actors and directors, 4:30-6pm.
• The Medieval History Seminar takes place at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Jacopo Gnisci (UCL), Ethiopia and Byzantium: Reframing the Evidence. (You may also attend remotely, Teams link here: or log in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and join the group “Medieval History Research Seminar”, team code rmppucs. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk). 
• The Lincoln Leads seminar takes place at 5.30–7pm at Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College. This week’s panel is ‘How do we define ‘child’ and ‘adult’?’, and features Harriet Soper (Fellow in English Literature) on life courses in Old English poetry. Book a free place here.

Tuesday 7th March:

• The Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar will take place at 2–3.30pm in the New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Tea and coffee available from 1.45pm. This week’s speaker will be Duncan Hardy, University of Central Florida, ‘Reform and crusade at the imperial diets: towards a new explanatory framework for political change in the late medieval Holy Roman Empire‘.
• The third and final lecture of this year’s E. A. Lowe Lectures in Palaeography takes place at 5pm in the MBI Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College. This year’s lectures are given by Prof. Niels Gaul, A G Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies and Director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Today’s lecture will be on the subject of  “Authority”, and relates expressions of authorial ethos to matters of mise-en-page, with particular attention to marginal spaces. All welcome.
• The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets in the Charles Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Paper starts at 5.15pm, with tea, coffee, biscuits and friendly Medievalist chat from 5pm! This week’s speakers will be Henrietta Leyser (St Peter’s) and Samuel Fanous (Bodleian Library): The Vision of the Monk of Eynsham
• Concert ‘Inn stetter hut’: The Linarol Consort of Viols and James Gilchrist present a songbook from the court of Emperor Maximilian 7.30-9.30pm at the Holywell Music Room, preceded by a free pre-concert talk 5.55-6.45pm at the same venue with Henrike Lähnemann. Tickets for both can be obtained at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/linarolconsort. Listen to the concert playlist.

Wednesday 8th March:

• The Medieval German Seminar features a special guest lecture by Dr Aletta Leipold (Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Leipzig), 11.15-12.45 in the island room, Oriel College.
• The Medieval Crafternoon will take place at 1.30-4.30pm at 21 St Giles, St John’s College. Come along for an afternoon of medieval textile crafts! The guided workshop will focus on four textile techniques, and refreshments will be served. To sign up, click here. For question, email Eleanor Birch.
• The Medieval Italian Seminar will take place at 3.30pm at G. Martin Room, History Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Nicola Carotenuto (Oxford, St Hugh’s): ’Trade, traders, and institutions in late medieval Venice’.
• The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
• The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles. This week’s speaker will be Zachary Chitwood (Univ. of Mainz), ‘A Cloister for the (Grand) Komnenoi: Dynastic Rivalry and Memoria at the Foundation of Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos’.
• The Medieval English Research Seminar takes place at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty, followed by a drinks reception. This week’s speaker will be Niamh Kehoe (University of Düsseldorf), ‘Humour and Horror in Ælfric´s Passion of St Vincent’.

Thursday 9th March:

• The Oxford Medieval Commentary Network will meet at 12.45-2.15pm in Thatched Barn, Christ Church (by meadow entrance). Free lunch from 12.45, seminar paper begins at 1.15. Today’s speaker will be Alistair Minnis, Emeritus Professor, Yale, ‘Reconciling amour and yconomique: The significance of the Chess of Love commentary by Evrart de Conty (c.1330–1405)’. Please direct all questions to Cosima Gillhammer, or visit the website
• The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music will take place on Zoom at 5pm. This week’s speaker will be Emily Zazulia (University of California at Berkeley), The Fifteenth-Century Song Mass: Some Challenges. If you are planning to attend a seminar this term, please register using this form. For each seminar, those who have registered will receive an email with the Zoom invitation and any further materials a couple of days before the seminar. If you have questions, please just send an email to matthew.thomson@ucd.ie
• The Celtic Seminar will take place at 5.15pm via Teams and in The History of the Book Room, English Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Nora White (Maynooth), ‘Multimedia ogham and digital epigraphy‘. Please contact David Willis if you need a link.
• The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm at St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be Mary Carruthers New York University, All Souls College, Oxford, ‘Envisioning Thinking: Geometry and Meditation in  the Twelfth Century‘.
• The Medieval Vestments Conference takes place at St John’s College on March 9-10. This conference is inspired by the college’s collection with a mixture of impressive speakers, interactive workshops, and dynamic displays. To register, visit the eventbrite page.

Friday 10th March:

• Weston Library Medieval Coffee Morning, 10.30-11.30, will feature Old High German glosses, scratch and otherwise, presented by Luise Morawetz. For more information on newly found glosses in the Bodleian cf. http://medieval.seh.ox.ac.uk/2022/12/13/ms-canon-pat-lat-57/
• Double bill on etymology in German and English with Aletta Leipold (Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch) rûna, rîzan, scrîban – A Cultural History of Writing based on examples from the Old High German dictionary, 3-4pm, and Philip Durkin (Oxford English Dictionary): Lexical Borrowing – Fremdwörter, Lehnwörter and German words in English, 4-5pm, in 47 Wellington Square, 1st floor, lecture room 1 (access via the second staircase, end of the corridor), the final session of Henrike Lähnemann’s lecture series on German Historical Linguistics.

OPPORTUNITIES:

• Conference and Call for Associate Membership: Noblesse Oblige? ‘Barons’ and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia (10^th-14^th Centuries). We would like to welcome any who might be interested in our research to join a conference, which will take place in Oxford between the 25^th and the 27^th May 2023 – 5^th week of Trinity. In addition, we would like to open our network to associate members: this is especially aimed at early career academics or students interested in questions of governance, elites, and the common good in this period. Any student or ECR interested in joining as an associate member should email max.lau@worc.ox.ac.uk with a CV and short personal statement on their research and what they would contribute to the network. For full details, please see the OMS blog here and the network website here.
• CfP: Dissolving Kinship in the Early Middle Ages, ca. AD 400-1000: The University of York, 1-2 June 2023. Proposals for 30-minute papers are invited from late-stage postgraduates and ECRs. Due to the generosity of the Past & Present Society and the Department of History, University of York, accepted speakers who wish to present in person will receive at least a 150-pound bursary towards travel and accommodation. We also welcome applications for virtual presentations. Please send ca. 300 word abstracts and a brief bio to both organisers, Dr Alex Traves (alex.traves@york.ac.uk) and Dr Becca Grose (becca.grose@york.ac.uk), by 7 April 2023. For full details, please click here.
• Invitation to Attend an International Conference “Episcopal Leadership. Shaping Power in Gaul and Hispania (IVth-VIIth centuries)”, organized by Prof. Dr. Sabine Panzram (RomanIslam Center, Universität Hamburg), Prof. Dr. Marc Heijmans (Aix Marseille Université, Centre Camille Jullian) and Dr. Paulo Pachá (RomanIslam Center, Universidade Federal di Rio de Janeiro). The workshop will take place on 6-8 March 2023 (in person and on Zoom). For full details, please click here.

Of course, whilst this week marks the last week of teaching term, it’s not the end of Medieval happenings in Oxford. In fact, I’m sure many of us are looking forward to the opportunity to hunt down some elusive research time! Here is Alcuin on the difficulty of finding research time:

Fateor siquidem: propemodum ante annos triginta voluntatem huius habere operis; sed quievit calamus meus…
[I confess, I had a desire to write this work thirty years ago: but my pen was at rest… Ep. 159]

Wishing you all a week full of exciting medievalist gatherings, and a vac full of bountiful and productive research time!

Teaching term may be starting to wrap up, but things are still extremely busy here at OMS. There are so many exciting events and upcoming free-to-attend online conferences for us to enjoy that it’s hard to remember that we are entering the final fortnight of term! That said, I am sure I am not alone in feeling quite tired at this point in the term. For those of you feeling likewise, here is some wisdom from Alcuin:

Saepe […] bos lassus fortius figit ungulam
[The tired ox always puts his hoof down more strongly, Ep. 85]

In other words, though we might be tired this week, we might still do our best work! Here is the week’s roundup of events – there’s lots to take strength from:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Medieval Vestments Conference at St John’s College (March 9-10). Taking inspiration from the college’s unique gallery of stunning medieval vestments, this conference will feature two day’s worth of speakers and presenters. These presentations will be enriched by displays from both the college and Bodleian Library archives as well as a dynamic exhibition of works created during the conference workshops. Please register for the segments that you are interested in and able to attend here on eventbrite.
• The After Constantine Journal, Medievalists.net, and the Orthodox Academy of Crete invite you to attend the conference Easter in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, which will take place on Zoom and YouTube on April 1st, 2023. This conference will examine how Easter was celebrated and viewed from Late Antiquity throughout the medieval period. Every year this would be a high point of the Christian life, and late antique and medieval people were keenly interested in many aspects of this event. For full details, please see here.
• There will be a half-day colloquium on the quattrocento scholar, Sicco Polenton, and his magnum opus – the first extended history of Latin literature to have been written in modernity – at Faculty of Classics in Oxford on Friday, 14 April 2023. It will begin at 13:45. Attendance is free, but please register attendance by writing to Tristan Franklinos.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 27th February:

• The Byzantine Graduate Seminar will not take place today. The seminar resumes next week!
• The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group led by Matthew Holford and Andrew Dunning is meeting as usual via Teams from 1-2pm. We will continue with natural history from a medieval encyclopaedia. Sign up for the mailing list to receive updates and the Teams invite, or contact matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information. 
• The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ College, 12 Merton St Room 2. This week’s speaker is Kat Smith on ‘The female pursuit of  knowledge through the Virgin Mary’s breasts in 15^th century Castile’. All extremely welcome! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.   
• The Seminar in Manuscript Studies and Palaeography will take place at 2.15-3.45pm, in the Weston Library, Horton Room. This week’s speaker will be Laura Light (Les Enluminures), “Latin Bibles in England c. 1200-c. 1230“. For further information contact matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
• A special lecture on Islamic Law in Norman Sicily, by Professor Jeremy Johns, will take place at 5pm in the L. W. Auditorium, Wolfson College.
• The Medieval History Seminar takes place at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Liesbeth van Houts (Cambridge), ‘Towards a new biography of Empress Matilda: what can be known about the women of her acquaintance?.‘ (You may also attend remotely, Teams link here: or log in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and join the group “Medieval History Research Seminar”, team code rmppucs. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk). 
• The Lincoln Leads seminar takes place at 5.30–7pm at Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College. This week’s panel is ‘Failure and First Drafts’. Book a free place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/lincoln-leads-2023-1539199

Tuesday 28th February:

• The Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar will take place at 2–3.30pm in the New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Tea and coffee available from 1.45pm. This week’s speaker will be Peter Crooks, Trinity College Dublin, ‘Chimera of Conquest: Colonial Warfare in Late Medieval Ireland‘.
• The Codicology and the material book seminar takes place at 2-3.30pm in the Weston Library, Lecture Theatre. This week’s speaker will be Teresa Webber, on Medieval Libraries.
• Dr Nelson Goering will be talking about Old High German and Old Saxon metre from 2:15 to 3:45 on the ground floor of the Linguistics Faculty on Walton Street as part of the Comparative Linguistics Seminar.
• The Medieval French Research Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Maison française d’Oxford (www.mfo.ac.uk). Drinks at 5pm, presentations begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker will be Dominique Lagorgette (Université Savoie Mont Blanc), ‘“Par sainct Copin, je suis tanné”. Jurons et blasphèmes dans quelques textes des en moyen français : représentations de l’oralité et transgression’. For more information, to be added to the seminar maillist, or for the Teams link to join a seminar remotely, contact helen.swift@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.
• Medieval Church and Culture meets on Tuesday at Harris Manchester, 5pm (tea and biscuits) for a 5.15pm paper. The speaker will be  Elena Lichmanova (Merton), on Humour in the Margins: the interpretative problem.
• The first of this year’s E. A. Lowe Lectures in Palaeography takes place at 5pm in the MBI Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College. This year’s lectures are given by Prof. Niels Gaul, A G Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies and Director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Today’s lecture will be on the subject of “Codex”, and explores the phenomenon of Byzantine literati curating their own writings in codex format and possible ancient and patristic models; with glances at similar practices in other medieval manuscript cultures. All welcome.

Wednesday 1st March:

• No Medieval German Seminar this week – watch out for some special events in week 8 with guest Dr Aletta Leipold from the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (Leipzig)!
• The Medieval Italian Seminar has been changed to Friday: please see full details there.
• The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield (michael.stansfield@new.ox.ac.uk) for further details and the Teams link.
• The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles. This week’s speaker will be Nikos Zagklas (Univ. of Vienna), ‘Τhe Cinderella of Byzantine Literature: Rethinking Schedography in Middle and Late Byzantine Periods’.
• The Medieval English Research Seminar takes place at 5.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty, followed by a drinks reception. This week’s speaker will be Tom Grant (University of Utrecht), ‘In Defence of Bjarki: Reappraising Beowulf’s Links with Scandinavian Legend’.
• A taster session for the Old Frisian Summer School will take place at 5.15pm, at the Taylor Institution Library, Room 2. We will be discussing the similarities between Old Frisian and Old English and aspects of the settlement history of Frisians. No booking required. For further information, please contact by the organiser Dr Johanneke Sytsema.

Thursday 2nd March:

• The Celtic Seminar will take place at 5.00pm via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Dimitra Fimi, ‘Magic writing: Representations of the Og(h)am script in contemporary fantasy‘. Please contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk for the link.
• The second of this year’s E. A. Lowe Lectures in Palaeography takes place at 5pm in the MBI Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College. This year’s lectures are given by Prof. Niels Gaul, A G Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies and Director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Today’s lecture will be on the subject of “Ethos”, and examines the ways in which such codices were thought to display the author’s character, and what the concept entailed in this context. All welcome.

Friday 3rd March:

• The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library with presentation of items from the special collections.
• A taster lecture for the Old Frisian Summer School will take place at 3-4pm, at 47 Wellington Square, 1st floor, Lecture Room 1, about Old Frisian among the other Germanic languages (part of the Paper IV German Historical Linguistics series). No booking required. For further information, please contact by the organiser Dr Johanneke Sytsema.
• The Medieval Italian Seminar will take place at 3.30pm at G. Martin Room, History Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Elena Rossi (Oxford, Magdalen), ‘The Entangled Nature of the University and Family Spheres in Medieval Bologna’.
• The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm at St Hilda’s College, in the Julia Mann Room. The text will be extracts from the Chronicle of Langtoft; pdf will be provided. For access to the text and further information, please email: stephanie.hathaway@gmail.com or jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org.
• The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5pm at The Royal Oak. Please email Ashley Castelino (ashley.castelino@lincoln.ox.ac.uk) to be added to the mailing list.

Saturday 4th March:

• A Church Monuments Society Online Lecture takes place at 5pm, online. Dr Karen Blough (Professor Emerita of Art History at SUNY Plattsborough) will be speaking about Abbatial Effigies from Quedlinburg in the Medieval and Early Modern Era. For full details and to register, please click here for the eventbrite page.

OPPORTUNITIES:

• Columbia University is hosting A Colloquium for Early Medieval Studies, Indigenous Futures / Medieval Pasts: “Analogues and Kinship: A Talking Circle”, taking place on March 10, at 10:30am-3:30pm ET / 15:30 – 20:30 GMT. This CEMS talking circle and workshop facilitates a broad discussion about the politics, power structures, and potentials of thinking about medieval pasts in concert with Indigenous futures. To register to attend via zoom, please click here.

Finally, some wisdom on Alcuin on prudent library use when you are tired:

quod pondera librorum nobiscum portari nequeunt, ideo aliquotiens brevitati studendum est, ut […]habeat fessus ex itinere viator, quo se recreet: licet ex pondere portantis manus non gravetur
[Because we cannot carry heavy books, we have sometimes had to aspire to brevity, so that the traveller weary from the road might have what restores them, without their hands being weighed down by the weight of it Ep. 49]

In other words, take lightly from the libraries this week: don’t let your weary hands be weighed down by great stacks of books!