Saturday 15 November | 14:00-19:00 | Chapel St Edmund Hall Open to all, whether singer, scholar, or curious listener. No singing experience required. Tickets: £15 (General) | £5 (Students & Concessions) | free for SEH staff, students & Fellows Register on Eventbrite
The historical wind and vocal ensemble In Spiritu Humilitatis joins the Choir of St Edmund Hall for an immersive exploration of Renaissance Vespers. Reading directly from original choirbooks in white mensural notation, and guided by the sound of cornetts, sackbuts, and voices, participants will rediscover the expressive freedom of improvised polyphony and the luminous sonorities of early sacred music.
While traditional musical education often relies on modern editions, working from original sources opens a world of interpretative freedom. It allows musicians to make their own informed choices about phrasing, accidentals, and flow, rather than relying on an editor’s interpretation. It’s a liberating process. Reading from the sources draws you closer to the composer’s voice, encouraging a more personal, heartfelt performance.
This workshop invites you to experience that process firsthand: to step into the world of a Renaissance choir and take part in the singing of Vespers for St Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. Together we’ll explore the structure of the service, learn how to sing psalms in monody and improvise around plainchant, and practise reading from original notation.
Open to all, whether singer, scholar, or curious listener, this participatory event is about discovery, connection, and the joy of music-making. There are no wrong notes, only the opportunity to let your musicianship lead the way.
Here’s how the afternoon will go:
2:00 pm – Welcome and introduction to the structure of Vespers 2:30–3:30 pm – Working on the psalms Break After the break – Exploring polyphonic pieces in white mensural notation 5:10 pm – Short break 5:30 pm – Performance of Vespers for St Edmund
“OH, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice […]
– Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
Going back to Germany after my two-week adventure in Oxford, I, just like Alice, felt as if waking up from a magical dream. It is not an overstatement to say that the city has bewitched me and, trust me, you don’t have to be a huge Harry Potter geek (which I nevertheless am) to fall under its spell. No wonder the city served as inspiration for Lewis Carroll‘s most famous novel. Instead of a White Rabbit with a big pocket watch, it was Henrike Lähnemann with her trumpet whose call I followed. Prof. Lähnemann kindly invited me to the XML summer school taking place yearly at St Edmund Hall and to spend another week as her intern at the Sommerakademie of the German Scholarship Foundation
Saint Margaret’s Well in Binsey featuring as “Treacle Well“ in Alice in Wonderland
“CURIOUSER and curiouser!”
– Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
There‘s no better way to describe my time in Oxford. From the start, the theme of my visit was “Looking behind closed doors“. I arrived just in time for the Oxford Open Doors, which take place each year in September and allow the public a sneak peek into Oxford’s Colleges. For me that meant: see as much as you can within one day! I think I almost walked 40 000 steps that day, but the visual enrichment made more than up for the physical fatigue.
Shrine of St Frideswide in Christ Church Cathedral
While, outside of Open Doors, you can get into some colleges by simply asking nicely or pretending to be a prospective student, you usually need to pay an entrance fee, which can vary from £2 to up to £20, depending on the colleges prestige and their Harry Potter screen-time. The best way to get inside without having to pay is to go to a college chapel service or evensong. No one can fine you for wanting to go to church and no one will come after you if you walk the grounds a little afterwards. (As long as you don’t step on the grass!) Prof. Lähnemann took us to Christ Church Cathedral on the first day of the Sommerakademie, where we were able to enjoy all the pomp and circumstance of an Anglican church service and the angelic voices of Christ Church’s choir.
As the saying goes “When one door closes, another one opens up“, I spent my second week as part of Prof. Lähnemann’s working group “Opening the Archives“. The object was to create a digital edition of Martin Luther’s pamphlet “Wider die mörderischen und räuberischen Rotten der Bauern“ (1525), which is going to be published in November 2025 in the Reformation Series of the Taylor Editions. Together with her colleague Dr Andrew Dunning, Prof. Lähnemann gave us enlightening insights into the history of bookmaking, the collection of Reformation pamphlets in Oxford, and printing practices in the 16th century. We even dabbled a little in some printing work ourselves at the printing workshop of the Bodleian Library.
Printing Workshop in the ‘schola musicae’ of the Bodleian Library
Duke Humfrey’s Library
At the end of the week, we had not only gained a better understanding of the Reformation and the Peasant’s War, but, thanks to Emma Huber, the German subject librarian and DH lead at the Taylor Institution Library, also made our own transcription and edition as well as curated an exhibition case at the Taylorian.
One of the key lessons I learned during my time in Oxford is to approach all objects with curiosity and to look closely. There is usually a story behind the smallest and most insignificant-seeming thing – whether it be an old shoe scraper or an inconspicuous pencil marking in a book. Our little group was lucky enough to have access to those parts of the University not open to the public, but many of Oxford’s treasures are not kept under lock and key. The “Treasured“ Exhibition at the Weston Library is a great example of that. Free of charge, you can gaze at various precious specimens of the Library’s collection.
But you don‘t even always need to step inside to discover hidden treasures. Simply by walking through Oxford’s streets with attentive eyes, you‘ll see things that seem to come straight from Wonderland: Gargoyles staring down at you in no way less grotesque than Carroll’s grinning cat; or the beak heads around the entrance of St Peter-in-the-East (St Edmund Hall) and St Mary’s in Iffley, which are – to put it once more in Carroll’s words – “indeed a queer-looking party“.
Junius Manuscript at the “Treasured“ Exhibition in the Weston Library
Chevron Ornaments with beak heads at St Peter-in-the-East (St Edmund Hall)
St. Mary’s (Iffley): West entrance with Chevron Ornaments including beak heads
A Mad Tea Party
As Alice learns during her Adventures, it often is not so much about what you do, but who you do it with. It makes a huge difference if you have a tea party with a mad hatter, a March Hare, and a dormouse or with your old aunt Agatha. It’s the people that make an event unforgettable. And that summarizes my summer school experience(s) quite nicely. Especially during the first week at the XML summer school, where I, as a medieval Germanist and foreigner to the digital world, only understood about 30% of what was being taught. However, I met so many fascinating, inspiring people and had interesting discussions, in which new perspectives opened up to me. The same holds for the Sommerakademie of the German Scholarship Foundation: Young people from all different subjects and backgrounds coming together, sharing ideas, knowledge and always a good laugh. That is why I regard tea breaks, lunches and dinners as an essential part of the summer school experience. They give you the chance to connect with other people, socialise, pick up interesting conversations, and, of course, enjoy the excellent food! (In that respect Teddy Hall excelled. But you need to be quick when it comes to pudding, otherwise you might face an empty tray and ask yourself: “WHO stole the tarts?“) Staying on the topic of food and socializing, I would advise everyone to visit the Coffee Mornings at the Weston every Friday at 11:30 am. Alongside tea, coffee and biscuits there is a talk on a different topic every week, so no matter which subject you are coming from, there will be something for you. It is a great opportunity to see some of the unique holdings of Oxford’s libraries and gain an insight into current research projects at the university.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the person who most prominently shaped my Oxford experience: Henrike Lähnemann. One thing is for sure, had I been interning for another Professor, the two weeks would have been less crazy, lacked fun, less memorable. So next time you think you hear the distant call of a trumpet, follow it! It might lead you into Wonderland…
Judith Habenicht is a German and History student at the University in Heidelberg who spent two weeks in Oxford on a placement with Henrike Lähnemann
New directions in the study of written artefacts from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages. Organised by the Crafting Documents project (AHRC-DFG) and co-sponsored by the Centre for Manuscripts and Text Cultures, University of Oxford. 13-14 NOVEMBER 2025, SHULMAN AUDITORIUM. THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Register for free here
9:30 Arrival and registration (coffee and tea available for all attendees) 9:45 Welcome Julia M. H. Smith (Crafting Documents co-PI, All Souls College, University of Oxford) Martin Kauffman (Head of early and rare collections, Special Collections, Bodleian Library) Dirk Meyer (Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, The Queen’s College, Oxford) 10:00 Brent Seales (University of Kentucky): UnLost: uncovering lost knowledge from the ancient library of Herculaneum 10:50 Richard Gameson (Durham University): The Hereford palimpsest psalter 11:40 Jess Hodgkinson (University of Leicester) Insular manuscripts and their readers: using photometric stereo imaging to study drypoint writing 12:30 Lunch Break TECHNOLOGIES TO RETRIEVE WRITING (Chair Lesley Smith, Harris Manchester College, Oxford) INKS AND PARCHMENT (Chair Martin Kauffman, Bodleian Library) 2:30 Kristine Rose-Beers (University Library Cambridge) Early Islamic manuscripts on parchment: surface preparation and practice-based research 3:20 Andy Beeby (Durham University) On the variation in the density of writing as seen by multi and hyper-spectral imaging: looking over the scribe’s shoulder 4:10 Coffee and tea break 5:00 Ira Rabin (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) Ana de Oliveira Dias (University of Oxford) Ink analysis of early medieval relic labels Wine reception sponsored by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, The Queen’s College, Oxford (6:00 – 7:00)DAY 2 MATERIAL SCIENCE AND HERITAGE RESEARCH 9:30 Alberto Campagnolo (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven) Approaches to heritage science for manuscripts in the Digital Humanities 10:20 Michael Marx, Institut für Studien der Kultur und Religion des Islam Goethe-Universität Frankfurt / Institute of Advanced Studies Jerusalem Results of carbondating of early Qurʾānic manuscript and their implications for our understanding of the history of the Qurʾān 11:10 Coffee and tea break 11:40 Matthew Collins (University of Copenhagen/University of Cambridge) Proteomics analysis of parchment samples 12:30 Colloquium pause (Chair Dirk Meyer, The Queen’s College, Oxford) 4:00 Coffee and tea 4:30 Tessa Webber (Trinity College, University of Cambridge) Early medieval written artefacts: a palaeographical perspective 5:00 Round table discussion BROADER PERSPECTIVES (Chair Julia Smith, All Souls College, University of Oxford)
There are a number of palaeography offers available for anybody interested in Oxford happening in Michaelmas 2025, coordinated by Dr Laure Miolo, Lyell Career Development Fellow in Latin Palaeography and Dilts Fellow at Lincoln College, historian of late medieval Europe, specialising in manuscript studies and history of early libraries with a special focus on scientific books and practices. Contact her for any of the below under laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.
Header Image: Lincoln College/EL/OAS/D1
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Mo 10.30-12
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives, Fr 2-3pm
Latin Palaeography Manuscript ReadingGroup, Tue 2-3.30pm
1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group
This group is open to anyone with an interest in Old French, Middle French and Anglo-Norman manuscripts. We study and read manuscripts from the 12th century to the 16th century with a special focus on palaeography. We meet every Monday between 10.30am-12pmin the Weston Library.
If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please write to Laure Miolo.
The seminar comprises brief lectures on the morphology and function of scripts, as well as the evolution of script shapes and graphic systems in context, followed by transcription practice using original manuscripts and documents. Sessions are structured around the historical development of scripts, progressing from simpler shapes and strokes with minimal ligatures and abbreviations to more cursive and complex forms. A study of the diverse scripts found between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries in manuscripts and documents written in Old French, Middle French, and Anglo-Norman — and produced in various geographical areas —will allow participants to gain familiarity with a wide range of scripts and abbreviations. The reading of literary texts in parallel with the analysis of manuscripts and their scripts serves to complement both the lectures and transcription practice.
Oxford, St John’s College MS 164, fol. 1r
2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives
Every Friday 2-3pm Weston Library (Horton Room)
This weekly one-hour seminar offers participants the opportunity to work directly with original documents from various Oxford parishes, held in the Bodleian Libraries. Focusing primarily on thirteenth-century deeds, these documents provide rich insight into everyday life in medieval Oxford. Open to undergraduates, postgraduates, and early career researchers, the seminar welcomes all those interested in working with primary sources and conducting in-depth contextual analysis of historical records
Working individually or in pairs on a self-selected original document, participants will closely examine its physical and material features (such as writing surface, layout, and signs of use), carry out transcription and translation, and identify the individuals and locations mentioned in order to situate the document within its historical context. Particular emphasis will be placed on the seals attached to the documents.
Alongside collaborative work on these unpublished or little-studied sources, participants will gain experience in the digitisation and cataloguing of archival materials, and will have the opportunity to present their research and original documents to a wider audience during a one-day workshop in Trinity Term.
This seminar is held at the Weston Library (Horton Room) in collaboration with Matthew Holford, Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo via email: laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo
3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group
(advanced beginner, intermediate and advanced levels)
For those wishing to develop, deepen or maintain their skills in Latin palaeography, we meet every Tuesday between 2pm and 3.30pm in the Weston Library (Horton Room or Visiting Scholars Centre). We explore a wide variety of medieval manuscripts and documents dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Each session combines hands-on analysis of different scripts, abbreviations, and codicological features. Regular practice is key to building palaeographical skills and gaining confidence in reading a range of scripts, from clear book and documentary hands to more cursive and heavily abbreviated ones. This reading group is designed to introduce the essential features of each script and abbreviation, enabling participants to read and interpret manuscripts directly and with confidence. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo
As we prepare for the start of term, I want to encourage anyone and everyone to contribute ideas for content on the Oxford Medieval Studies social media.
We are active anywhere and everywhere — Beacons (this platform), BlueSky, Instagram, and Threads—and eagerly awaiting your suggestions.
If you want an event, workshop, or seminar advertised, please let me know and I will spread the word!
If (when!) something exciting happens in your research, we can raise awareness about that too!
I hope to hear from many of you throughout the year. Wishing everyone a great start to a new term, with a reflection on the weird and wonderful of medieval manuscripts:
Customer: I’d like a letter ‘E’ please. Scribe: A normal one, or a snail-helmeted warrior with an ostrich leg and plums down his pants? Customer: The plums one, obviously.
Cheers, Elizabeth Crabtree elizabeth.crabtree@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
The Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group (OMMG) is a collective of eight postgraduate students and early-career researchers who bonded in Oxford over their passion for medieval manuscripts. We host a seminar series which gathers a community of emerging scholars, from the University of Oxford and beyond, around the study of medieval books and the art of illumination.
OMMG seminars take place twice monthly on Friday afternoons. We discuss the most exciting recent research; share our own projects and ideas in a supportive environment; learn from lectures and tutorials given by experienced colleagues; and examine medieval manuscripts together during library visits.
Since the start of our activities in Hilary Term 2024, we have organised over twenty events, created an online reading group, and launched social media accounts on Instagram and Bluesky. This academic year, we welcome our first Honorary Member! We are very happy to announce that James Marrow, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Princeton University, will give a guest lecture in Trinity Term.
Are you a manuscript specialist, a book enthusiast or an admirer of medieval art? We would love you to join us! To subscribe to our mailing list and for all enquiries, please contact: oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com.
Steering committee:
Martin Kauffmann is Head of Early and Rare Collections at the Bodleian Libraries.
Peter Kidd is an independent scholar of medieval and illuminated manuscripts based in Oxford.
Laure Miolo is Associate Professor in Medieval Latin Manuscript Studies at Wadham College.
Organising committee:
Irina Boeru is a final-year DPhil candidate at St. Hilda’s College. She has worked extensively on humanism, accounts of exploration and travel narratives in French, Spanish and Latin illuminated manuscripts. Her doctoral project focuses specifically on chronicles of the fifteenth-century conquest of the Canary Islands. Prior to her DPhil, Irina completed a BA in Medieval and Modern Languages and a MSt in Medieval Studies at the University of Oxford.
Fergus Bovill is a first-year DPhil candidate in History of Art at Merton College. His thesis, entitled Breaking, Remaking, Reimagining: The Afterlives of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Nineteenth Century, studies the culture of assembling individual illuminations cut from medieval books in albums and collages which proliferated during that period. Fergus holds a BA in History of Art from the University of York and a MSt in Medieval Studies from the University of Oxford. Between his MSt and DPhil, he worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz—Max-Planck-Institut.
Antonia Delle Fratte is a fourth-year PhD student in the History Department at the University of Padua. She holds a BA and MA in History of Art from the Sapienza University of Rome, where she specialised in manuscript illumination and the career of Gustav Friedrich Waagen. Antonia continues to work on Waagen as part of her doctoral project, which analyses the reception of illuminated manuscripts in the nineteenth century. In 2022, she received a CERL grant for cataloguing incunabula at the Royal Library of Belgium and began collaborating with the Vatican Apostolic Library on manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino.
Hannele Hellerstedt is a second-year DPhil candidate in History of Art at Lincoln College. Her research interests include conceptions of gender between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as the relationship between Gothic and Italianate architectural styles at the turn of the early modern period. Her thesis, entitled Constructing Virtue: The Female Builder in Late Medieval and Early Modern French Illuminated Manuscripts, examines the motif of the woman-builder within the prolific literary output of late medieval and early modern France, combining text-image analysis with archival research on women on construction sites.
Elena Lichmanova is Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and a final-year DPhil candidate at Merton College. Her doctoral project explores the origins and early history of marginalia in medieval manuscripts, focusing on illuminated English devotional books of the thirteenth century. Elena has devoted most of her research to the Rutland Psalter, held at the British Library, and the rise of Gothic marginalia.
Mathilde Mioche is a second-year PhD student at The Courtauld Institute of Art. Her thesis, entitled Markets for the Macabre: Uncovering New Contexts for the Art of Death in Europe, 1450–1550, investigates the extraordinary demand for macabre art in late medieval and Renaissance Europe. Mathilde is also a Prints and Drawings Study Room Assistant at The Courtauld Gallery. She holds a BA in History of Art from University College London and a MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford.
Ana de Oliveira Dias is a historian of early medieval visual and intellectual culture with a specialisation in manuscript studies. She received a PhD in Medieval History from Durham University in 2019 and is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the project Crafting Documents, c. 500–c. 800 CE at the University of Oxford. Ana also holds the position of William Golding Junior Research Fellow at Brasenose College.
Celeste J. Pan is a final-year DPhil candidate in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Prior to her DPhil at Balliol College, she completed a BA in English at the University of Cambridge and a MPhil in Medieval Studies at the University of Oxford. Celeste works primarily on illuminated Hebrew manuscripts from medieval northern Europe, in particular a liturgical Pentateuch manuscript produced in northeastern France in 1296, known commonly as ‘the Rothschild Pentateuch’. She is especially interested in style, multilingualism and heraldry.
Image: Incipit to the Gospel of John, from the Lindisfarne Gospels. Courtesy British Library, MS Cotton Nero D. IV, folio 211r.
‘In our own tongues’: The Medieval Vernacular Bible and its European Contexts’ is organised jointly by the Oxford and Augsburg research teams of the ‘Medieval Vernacular Bibles as Unity, Diversity and Conflict’. The project is based at the universities of Oxford and Augsburg and is supported by the UK-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities (Arts and Humanities Research Council and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the Bavarian Academy.
Compline based on the translations and manuscripts discussed at the conference. Text booklet
As part of the conference, we will be hosting the following session on Wednesday 1st October 2025:
3pm-5pm Bodleian Library, Lecture Theatre Chair:Andrew Dunning (University of Oxford)
Elizabeth Solopova (University of Oxford), Welcome
Hannah Schühle-Lewis (University of Oxford), ‘Þe pope, maister of bischopps’: Translating an Episcopal Oath in 1380s England
Michael Kuczynski (Tulane University), Hebrew and Greek Words in the Wycliffite Bible
10.30am – Coffee
11am-12.30pm St Stephen’s House
Chair: Nadine Popst (University of Augsburg)
Domenic Peter (University of Augsburg), ‘Als Daniel gesprochen hat’: The Book of Daniel in the Work of the Austrian Bible Translator and Beyond
Stefanie Katzameyer (University of Augsburg), ‘Ungefüerte pfaffen’, ‘Stiffter alles kriegs vnd streytz’, ‘Discipuli Antichristi’: Criticism of the Clergy by the Austrian Bible Translator, Austrian Heretical Movements, and the Wycliffites
Angila Vetter (Hamburg University), Modelling Lay Authority in Digital Editions: When the Austrian Bible Translator Invokes Wolfram von Eschenbach
1-2pm Lunch at St Stephen’s House
Afternoon: Walk to the Norman church of St Mary, Iffley, with Henrike Lähnemann, followed by viewing of the Old Library, St Edmund Hall.
Evening: Buffet dinner, followed by Compline in the Norman Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (library church of St Edmund Hall).
1 October
9am-10.30am St Stephen’s House
Chair: Catherine Mary MacRobert (University of Oxford)
Kateřina Voleková (Charles University / Czech Language Institute), Old Czech Glosses on the Psalms in Latin Biblical Dictionaries
Andrea Svobodová (Czech Language Institute), Colophons in Late-medieval Bohemian Biblical Manuscripts
Katarzyna Jasińska-Różycka (Institute of Polish Language, Polish Academy of Sciences), Scriptural Echoes in the Prologues to Medieval Dictionaries: Motifs, Citations, and Inspiration
10.30am – Coffee
11am-12.30pm St Stephen’s House
Chair: Freimut Löser (University of Augsburg)
Vladimir Agrigoroaei ( CNRS / Centre for Medieval Studies, Poitiers), The Cultural Implications of God’s Preference for the French Speech in the Old Testament Poem Written by Évrat (Late–Twelfth Century)
Corentin Delattre (University of Poitiers / Centre for Medieval Studies, Poitiers), ‘To furnish the priests to maintain the law’: Structures and Contents of London, British Library, MS Arundel 230
Ágnes Korondi (Fragmenta et Codices Research Group of the Hungarian Research Network, National Széchényi Library), Converting the Gospel of Nicodemus into a Sermon: The Old Hungarian Adaptation of the Apocryphon and its Latin Homiletic Background
1-2pm Lunch at St Stephen’s House
3pm-5pm Bodleian Library, Lecture Theatre
Chair:Andrew Dunning (University of Oxford)
Emily Davenport Guerry (University of Oxford),MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1:Illuminating the French New Testament and its readers, from Jean le Bon to Duke Humfrey
Freimut Löser (University of Augsburg), MS. Laud Misc. 479: The Paradisus-collection
Henrike Lähnemann (University of Oxford), MSS. Bodl. 969-970: A Fifteenth-century German Bible
Catherine Mary MacRobert (University of Oxford), MS e Mus. 184: The Vicissitudes of the Church Slavonic Psalter
Elizabeth Solopova (University of Oxford), MS. Bodl. 441: Gospels in Old English
7pm Conference Dinner at St Stephen’s House
2 October
9am-10.30am St Stephen’s House
Chair: Vladimir Agrigoroaei (CNRS / Centre for Medieval Studies, Poitiers)
Ana-Maria Gînsac (Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași), The Practice of Alternative Translation in Two Seventeenth-century Romanian Psalters
Ileana Sasu (University of Tours), Translating Saint Audrey:Images, Motifs, and Cultural Adaptations Across Europe
Élisa Marcadet (University of Tours), From Latin to Middle English: Vernacular Adaptations of Psalm 135 in the Surtees Psalter
10.30am – Coffee
11am-12.30pm – St Stephen’s House
Chair: Ian Johnson (University of St Andrews)
Ondřej Fúsik (Charles University and National Library of the Czech Republic), Latin Gerunds and Gerundives and their Old English Translational Equivalents as Evidenced in Old English Biblical Translations
Audrey Southgate (University of Oxford), Wyclif on Scripture and Islam
Mishtooni Bose (University of Oxford), The Sword of Solomon: John Bury, Reginald Pecock and the Authority of Scripture
1-2pm Lunch at St Stephen’s House
Image credit: Pentecost, Sherbrooke missal, fol. 169v, c. 1320
Illustration: Cristabel and her baby are cast out to sea; from Eglamour of Artois, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Douce 261, fol. 39v. Creative commons licence: CC-BY-NC 4.0
For more information on the programme and how to apply, please consult the OSRJL page and our News/Announcements page on our website. If you have questions, please email us at osrjl@ochjs.ac.uk.
Jewish languages are essential and incorporeal parts of Jewish history, creativity, culture and identity. Most of them are currently in danger of extinction while others are already dead, known only from early writing. Various research programmes stress the immense role of vernacular languages in Jewish life and culture as well as point to their fragility, yet universities offer very few learning opportunities for most of these rare Jewish languages.
Created in August 2021 by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies (OCHJS) in collaboration with the Institut des Langues Rares (ILARA) at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Paris, the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages (OSRJL) offers free, online teaching of rare Jewish languages and their cultural-historical contexts—along with a public lecture series, academic blog, Visiting Fellows programme, Jewish music classes (this year focusing on the history of Yiddish music!) and language Cafés—accessible at no cost to accepted students and members of the general public around the globe. By doing so, the OSRJL aims to preserve, spark interest in, enable access to and reflect on the nature and role of Jewish languages as rich linguistic facets of Jewish life and history. It is the first school of its kind globally.
You can read about the OSRJL’s second year, 2022–23, in the Impact Report:
In 2023–24, expanded the language offerings to include classes on 3 languages new to the programme—Haketia, Judeo-Hamadani and Kivruli, teaching a record 18 languages. Languages taught through the OSRJL in 2023–24 included:
Haketia (Dr Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic (Dr Assaf Bar Moshe, Freie Universität Berlin)
Judeo-Greek (Dr Julia G. Krivoruchko, University of Cambridge)
Judeo-Hamadani (Professor Dr Saloumeh Gholami, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
Judeo-Italian (Dr Marilena Colasuonno, University of Naples)
Judeo-Moroccan (Haviva Fenton)
Judeo-Neo-Aramaic (Dr Dorota Molin, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge)
Judeo-Persian (Dr Ofir Haim, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, & Maximilian Kinzler)
Judeo-Provençal (Dr Peter Nahon, Université de Neuchâtel)
Judeo-Tat (Professor Gilles Authier & Dr Murad Suleymanov, EPHE, Paris)
Judeo-Turkish (Professor Laurent Mignon, University of Oxford)
Karaim (Professor Henryk Jankowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
Kivruli (Dr Hélène Gérardin, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales/EPHE)
Ladino (Dr Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
Old Yiddish (Dr Diana Matut)
Yiddish (Dr Beruriah Wiegand, OCHJS, University of Oxford)
Some of the languages we teach—such as Classical Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-French, Judeo-Provençal, Judeo-Persian and Judeo-Greek—are extinct, and our teaching is therefore based, at least in part, on medieval texts and manuscripts written in these languages.
In April 2025, the Guild of Medievalist Makers was launched, co-founded by Eleanor Baker, Kristen Haas Curtis, and Laura Varnam. The Guild was the grateful recipient of an Oxford Medieval Studies Small Grant in Trinity Term 2025 to support the launch of their website and to assist with publicity materials for their first two conference appearances this summer. In this blogpost, Oxford co-founders Eleanor Baker and Laura Varnam introduce the Guild and its activities.
The Guild of Medievalist Makers is a newly formed organisation for academic and academic-adjacent creatives and makers dedicated to furthering creative-critical practice in the humanities and making space for creative play.
The Guild’s founders are medievalists who make: Eleanor Baker is a linocut artist (who produced the cord in our Guild logo, more on that below!), Kristen Haas Curtis is a cartoonist and creative writer, and Laura Varnam is a poet. We founded the Guild in order to connect with other creative medievalists, to foster future collaborations, and to promote the burgeoning field of creative criticism in the humanities.
Our mission statement is embodied by the acronym CORD: Community, Outreach, Recognition, Development. Our website fosters Community by providing a dedicated and accessible online space for medievalist creatives to find each other and for academics who might be looking for creative partners to get in touch with us.
Finally, we support the Development of members’ creative-critical skills by running online and in person events, including co-working events and workshops, as well as maintaining an online bibliography of resources and scholarship.
This summer, co-founder Laura Varnam represented the Guild at two important conferences in Medieval Studies: the Middle Ages in the Modern World at King’s College, London (https://themamo.org/) and the Gender and Medieval Studies conference at Christ Church Canterbury (https://medievalgender.co.uk/2025-canterbury/)
Laura Varnam at the Guild stall at MAMO
At MAMO, Laura ran a stall advertising the Guild and she had chats with lots of delegates about their creative-critical work in medievalism. We’re very grateful to everyone who subsequently signed up to join the Guild at MAMO! (Our sign-up page is here: https://www.guildmedmak.com/join-the-guild)
At the Gender & Medieval Studies conference, Laura also shared our newly printed Guild postcards and pin badges, and she advertised the Guild to delegates.
If you’d like to join the Guild please visit our website. And we’re very grateful once again to OMS for their financial assistance in launching the Guild!
