Category: Around Oxford

12th Century Iffley – Study Days

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06/08/2024

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The last of the events organised by Living Stones, St Mary the Virgin, Iffley took place on Saturday 8 September, 2.00 – 5.00 Iffley Church Hall OX4 4EG, focussing on how the world changed in the 12th century when Iffley Church was built.

In ‘Encountering the Other: Conflict and connection in 12th-century Europe’, Dr Teresa Witcombe took us on a tour from Oxford to Toledo and back with Daniel of Morley, a scholar whose works are still preserved in the Bodleian Library. This century also saw the first Latin translation of the Qur’an (produced by an Englishman, Robert of Ketton, in the 1140s), and an increasing curiosity about the world beyond the Latin west.

This was followed by a workshop on the spread of secular music with Ian Pittaway; follow him on https://earlymusicmuse.com. Ian presented medieval harp, symphonia, gittern and citole. Playlist:

  • 0:04:14 Sainte Nicholaes godes druð (Godric of Finchale, England, died 1170)
  • 0:08:49 Cuers desirous apaie = A heart that is yearning (Blondel de Nesle, France, c. 1155–1202)
  • 0:17:58 Ce fu en mai = It was in May (Moniot d’Arras, France, fl. c. 1213 – d. 1239)
  • 0:23:00 Danse (Manuscrit du roi, France, c. 1300)
  • 0:27:57 brid one brere = bird on a briar (anonymous, England, c. 1290)
  • 0:34:55 Mirie it is (anonymous, England, c. 1225)
  • 0:43:36 Sumer is icumen in (anonymous, England, c. 1250-60) [with audience participation – listen out for the cuckoo!]
  • 0:49:25 La seconde Estampie Royal – The second Royal Estampie (Manuscrit du roi, France, c. 1300)
  • 0:53:55 untitled estampie (anonymous, England, c. 1270)
  • 1:16:16 Edi beo thu heuene queene (anonymous, England, c. 1265–90)

We hope to continue the theme next year with a focus on the symbolism of the architectural features and carvings around the church. Please get in touch if you are interested in sharing your research! For contact details and this year’s programme see https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/events

Iffley Church was built in the 1160s. Its lavish design and ornamentation clearly express complex ideas that were topical then but which mystify today’s visitors. Living Stones, the church’s education and heritage programme, is exploring the changing world of the building’s patron and parishioners. This year a series of study days focuses on life and scholarship in the twelfth century.

On 18 May 2024, the opening talks focussed on manuscripts from St Frideswide’s Priory and records of pilgrims to St Frideswide’s shrine with Andrew Dunning and Anne Bailey. On 13 July 2024, Emily Winkler presented interpretations of the past, and Stewart Tiley immersed us in book creation: https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/past-events/f/building-on-the-past-and-writing-for-the-future

Dr Andrew Dunning, St Frideswide’s Legacy: Literature and Local Care in Twelfth-Century Oxford

The canons of St Frideswide’s Priory relaunched what later became Christ Church Cathedral in the 12th century. The Priory became a locally renowned place of pilgrimage attracting large numbers of women looking for healing for themselves and their families. Surviving miracle stories show the concern that the canons took for local pastoral care, and their efforts to reach equally ‘the rich and the poor, the small with the great’.

Dr Anne E. Bailey, St Frideswide’s Female Pilgrims in the Middle Ages.

Further information on Dr Anne E. Bailey’s work can be found on https://twitter.com/AnneEBailey1  and her publications page. More on the Pilgrimage Study Day on 25 June 2024, co-organised be her, with a keynote address by Andrew Dunning and the Pilgrimage walk along St Frideswide’s Way (26-29 June 2024), a guided walk with prayers and reflection to launch the new pilgrimage route between Oxford and Reading. Led by Dr Anne Bailey, Canon Sally Welch, and Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano. Pilgrims were blessed at the beginning of the journey by the Bishop of Oxford.

Header image: The Norman West porch of St Mary the Virgin, Iffley

An Introduction to Middle High German

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02/08/2024

16:06

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Workshop and Launch

The new Introduction to Middle High German by Howard Jones and Martin H. Jones (OUP 2024) is a dedicated student edition of The Oxford Guide to Middle High German, designed for taught courses and self-study. It provides an accessible overview of the grammar and lexis of the language suitable for introductory-level students and includes thirty extensively-annotated texts with explanatory notes suitable for use in teaching. It is accompanied by a companion website which gives open access to further online resources for the study of Middle High German.

Introduction to the workshop by Howard Jones and Henrike Lähnemann

The workshop was designed as a test case to show ways of using the ‘Introduction’ within a university setting or for self-study . Participants got access to the online version and worked with it in groups ranging from beginners to experts on aspects of Middle High German. The “Translathon” consisted of a group competition to translate and comment on passages of the Middle High German text ‘Helmbrecht’.

Commentary by Howard Jones on ‘Helmbrecht’, lines 913 to 1047Download
Translatathon with six competing groups, translating lines 984 to 1035, featuring

00:00 Group 1: Nicholas Champness, Nina Cornell, Philip Flacke, Anna Vines
00:38 Group 2: Sharon Baker, Monty Powell, Willa Stonecipher, An Van Camp
01:14 Group 3: Theodore Luketina, Daniel Ruin, Nina Unland, Hestia Jingyan Zhang
02:04 Group 4: Reuben Bignell, Greta Evans, Andreas Groeger
03:01 Group 5: Joshua Booth, Lia Neill, Catriona Robertson
03:49 Group 6: Isabelle Gregory, Wilfred Lamont, William Thurlwell

The workshop took place on Saturday 2 November 2024, 2-6pm, Taylor Institution Library, Room 2, University of Oxford. Participants were students from first-year undergraduate to doctoral level – a range of people, in fact, who wanted to acquire, practise, and improve their knowledge of Middle High German. No previous knowledge of Middle High German was required. Organisers Sarah Bowden, Howard Jones, and Henrike Lähnemann

Funded Doctoral Position: The Seven Sages of Rome

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31/07/2024

21:23

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The research project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History”  invites applications for one doctoral research associate: FU Berlin advertisement of the position

The project is funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin as part of the Berlin University Alliance/Oxford University Einstein Visiting Fellowship scheme. The selected postholder will work closely with the PIs of the project, Professor Dr Jutta Eming, Freie Universität Berlin and Dr Ida Tóth, University of Oxford (Einstein BUA/Oxford Visiting Fellow 2024-27). 

Please note that the application deadline is 20 August 2024.

The position is funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin as part of the Berlin University Alliance/Oxford University Einstein Visiting Fellowships scheme. The Doctoral Research Associate will participate in the project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History”. The selected postholder will be jointly supervised by the PIs of the project, Professor Dr Jutta Eming, Freie Universität Berlin and Dr Ida Toth, University of Oxford (Einstein BUA/Oxford Visiting Fellow 2024-27).
The research project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History” focuses on one of the most popular and least studied works of pre-modern world literature. Transmitted in over thirty languages and attested through hundreds of manuscripts and early printed editions, this tradition provides ample scope for exploring the extant material from textual, intercultural, and intersectional literary perspectives. The Einstein BUA/Oxford research project proposes to undertake an interdisciplinary, collaborative and comparative philological, literary, and cultural analysis in Byzantine/Medieval Latin and Medieval German and Early Modern Studies. Its goal is to reassess and redefine the traditional approach to the SSR and to medieval literature in general.

Job description:
The Doctoral Research Associate will study one specific set of motifs – Wisdom, Power, and Gender – that is common to all surviving traditions of the Seven Sages in the German and/or Greek textual tradition. The main duty will be to conduct research on a doctoral project designed along these research lines. The postholder will work under the direction of Professor Dr Jutta Eming and Dr Ida Toth as well as collaborating with the other members of the research group. The postholder will assist in planning and organisation of scholarly events (lectures, seminars, workshops, outreach programmes), in publication projects, and will play a key role in securing the online visibility and digital presence of the project. 
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated doctoral candidate with strong interests in wisdom literature, intersectionality, and concepts of power. The successful candidate will join a team of textual and literary scholars, who play an active role in the current efforts to reassess traditional literary canons and to create an alternative, and much more nuanced, understanding of pre-modern global literary history.

Requirements:
• A Master’s degree qualification (MA, MSt, MPhil or the equivalent) in a subject/field relevant to the Project (German Studies, Byzantine Studies/Medieval Latin)

Desirable:
• Above-average Masters’ degree grade 
• Doctoral project on the Seven Sages of Rome
• Excellent command of the spoken and written English language
• Demonstrable interest in the project’s focus area (Wisdom – Power – Gender)
• Ability to work independently
• Commitment to team-building and teamwork
• Willingness to engage in interdisciplinary exchange

Application materials:
• An application letter/statement of purpose (one page)
• An outline of the planned dissertation project (two pages)
• A curriculum vitae with list of publications (if applicable) 
• Official transcripts of all previous degrees and university diplomas
• A copy of master’s thesis or a sample of written work (max. 25 pages)

How to apply:
Your application materials should state the identifier Predoc_JE_BUA_SSoR_2_24. They should be combined in a single PDF document and sent electronically to Ms Sylwia Bräuer (s.braeuer@fu-berlin.de). Two letters of recommendation from university-level teachers should be submitted separately. They should be addressed and emailed to the project PIs Jutta Eming (j.eming@fu-berlin.de ) and Ida Toth (ida.toth@history.ox.ac.uk).

Report on the Oxford-Berlin Workshop ‘The Seven Sages of Rome as a Global Narrative Tradition’

11-12 November 2022, organised by Ida Toth (Oxford) and Jutta Eming (Berlin)

The Seven Sages of Rome (SSR) is a title commonly used for one of the most widely distributed pre-modern collections of stories, which – remarkably – also happens to be barely known today, even among medievalists and early modernists. Several early versions of the SSR exist in Greek (Syntipas), Arabic (Seven Viziers), Hebrew (Mishle Sendebar), Latin (Dolopathos, Historia septem sapientum), Persian (Sindbād-nameh) and Syriac (Sindbād) as well as in the later translations into Armenian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, English, French, Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, Russian, Scottish, Serbian, Swedish, Spanish, Romanian, Turkish and Yiddish. The multilingual traditions of the SSR, with their many intercultural links, cannot be adequately understood within the current division of research disciplines into distinct medieval and modern linguistic areas. To mend this deficiency, the workshop has invited specialists in affiliated fields to address the problems of surveying the long history of creative adaptations associated with the SSR. The participants will consider the complexities of the philological, literary, and historical analysis of the SSR in many of its attested versions across the pre-modern and early modern periods. The workshop is envisaged as a forum for a robust discussion on possible ways of advancing the current scholarship of the SSR, and as an opportunity to strengthen the inter-institutional collaboration involving specialists based at the universities in Oxford and Berlin, and more broadly.

The workshop will start with a session in the Weston Library on Friday morning where the group will meet other Oxford medievalists at the Coffee Morning, followed by a view of special collections in the library. While this is for speakers only, their is limited capacity to attend the following talks at the Ioannou Centre. If interested, please contact the workshop co-ordinator Josh Hitt.

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

  • 2 pm – 3 pm: Beatrice Gründler, Kalīla and Dimna – AnonymClassic: Methodology and Practical Implementations (via Zoom, 1st-fl Seminar Room)
  • 4 pm – 5 pm: Daniel Sawyer, Forgotten books: The application of Unseen Species Models to the Survival of Culture (In person, Outreach Room)

SATURDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

10 am – 11.30 am

  • Jutta Eming, The Seven Sages of Rome in Literary History and Genre Theory
  • David Taylor, Re-examining the Evidence of the Syriac Book of Sindbād
  • Ida Toth, The Byzantine Book of Syntipas: Approaches and Directions
  • Emilie van Opstall, The Representation of Women in Byzantine Syntipas and Latin Dolopathos

12 pm – 1.30 pm

  • Bettina Bildhauer, Consent in the German Version of the Seven Sages of Rome
  • Rita Schlusemann, Genre, Dissemination and Multimodality of the Septem sapientum Romae, especially in Dutch and German
  • Niko Kunkel, Statistics and Interpretation: Annotating the German Sieben Weise Meister
  • Ruth von Bernuth, Yiddish Seven Masters

4.30 pm: Tea and a guided tour of St Edmund Hall with Henrike Lähnemann

5.45 pm: Evensong at New College

Appendix: List of manuscripts and early printed books in the Bodleian Library:

  • Arabic: Pococke 400
  • Greek: Barocc. 131 and Laud. 8
  • Armenian: MS. Arm. e. 33 and MS. Canonici Or. 131
  • Hebrew (Mishle Sendebar/Fables of Sendebar): MS. Heb. d. 11 (ff. 289-294) and MS. Bodl. Or. 135 (ff. 292-300r)
  • Yiddish: Opp. 8. 1115 Mayse fun Ludvig un Aleksander and Opp. 8. 1070 Zibn vayzn mansters fun Rom
  • Welsh Jesus College MS 111
  • Middle English: B. Balliol College MS. 354
  • English, early printed book: The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome. Now newly Corrected better Explained in many places and enlarged with many pretty Pictures etc. London, Printed for John Wright, next to the Globe in Little-Brittain, 1671

Image: British Library, Add. MS. 15685, f. 83r (XIV century, Venice)

Call for Papers – ‘Epiros: The Other Western Rome’

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30/07/2024

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Friday 8th – Saturday 9th November 2024, Virtual Workshop

For close to two and a half centuries, the state of Epiros represented a crucial node for an alternative socio-political network of the Balkans. Founded by the illegitimate son of the union of three imperial Byzantine dynasties, at its largest extent Epiros assumed the title of ‘Empire of the Romans’ and campaigned to the very walls of Constantinople. Defeated but not destroyed in 1230, Epiros persisted in its autonomy through the strength of its ties. Bound by either marriages or confession to Italians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Vlachs and Albanians, and more, Epiros continued to exist as an alternate, moved Byzantium that understood its reunification of the former provinces of the Byzantine Balkans to be a retaking and preservation of ‘the West’, a term with which it also self-identified. Transitioning in the fourteenth century to Albanian and later Italian rule, Epiros’ role as a centre of multi-ethnic exchange and independence created a legacy that exists today.

This workshop seeks to gather leading research across multiple fields to discuss the places and peoples which were either part of or engaged with this Epirote Western Rome. Following two successful panels at Kalamazoo and Leeds International Medieval Congresses, supported by the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, this hybrid workshop calls upon scholars to present from multiple specialisms. One of the reasons Epiros and its neighbours in the period of the Principality, Empire, and Despotate have remained so poorly studied has been the reliance upon century-old editions and a reluctance to publish in translation. Therefore, we envision not only a proceedings volume from this workshop but additionally the creation of a ‘sourcebook’ for Epirote Western Rome and its surrounding states which presents both papers and the key materials for its study in English translation with critical edition as necessary.

Potential topics for study include but are not limited to: History, Archaeology, Epistolography, Art History, Ethnic/Identity Studies, Spatial and Topography Studies, Numismatics, Network Studies, Sigillography, Ecclesiastical Studies, Manuscript Studies, Environmental History, Philology and Vernacular Studies. Papers should be twenty minutes long, allowing ten minutes for questions, and shall be delivered in English. Please email abstracts of 300 words to Nathan Websdale by Saturday 17th August 2024.

Organisers: Nathan Websdale (Oxford), Evangelos Zarkadas (Rhode Island).

Header image: Michael I Komnenos Doukas Angelos. Silver Aspron Trachy (3.54 g), ca. 1210. Mint of Arta. Nimbate bust of Christ Emmanuel facing, raising hand in benediction and holding Gospels. Reverse: + MIXAHΛ ΔECΠE, Michael standing facing, holding scepter and akakia; above to right, manus Dei. DOC 1; SB 2227 Extremely rare.

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

Medieval MSS Support Group at the Weston Library

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15/07/2024

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We are pleased to trial a new format, once or twice a term, in which readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!

The sort of questions you might bring are:

  • What is the place and date of origin of this MS?
  • What is the place and date of origin of this binding?
  • What does the decoration of this MS suggest?
  • What does this semi-legible inscription say?
  • Whose bookplate is this, or how could I find out?

Meetings will typically be held in the Horton Room (just across the corridor from the manuscripts reading room on the 1st floor). If you wish to pose a question, please order the relevant manuscript to the issue desk, and email the details to Matthew Holford, Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, the day before, so that he can arrange for it to be transferred across to the Horton Room for the session. Alternatively, provide a good quality digital image that we can display on a large monitor.

In the expectation that many readers will be at the Weston Library on Fridays for the weekly Coffee Morning in the Visiting Scholars’ Centre, the next such sessions are scheduled for the following dates:

  • NEW Friday, 4 April (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 2 May (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 16 May (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 30 May (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 13 June (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 1 August (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm
  • NEW Friday, 5 September (Horton Room) 11.30-12:30pm

Header image: Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 264, f. 96r

The TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World after Two Terms of Activity

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11/07/2024

09:46

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Ugo Mondini is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and the Principal Investigator of the TORCH Network. He works on medieval Greek poetry and language education in the eleventh-century Byzantine Empire.

As we approach our first summer break, it is time to reflect on the initial activities of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World. The OMS Blog has generously offered us space to share our journey so far, which has taken us through the forms, languages, communities, and geographies of medieval poetry and the challenges its comparative study poses.

Rowing Towards a Theory of Medieval Poetry

Our fortnightly reading group has been the cornerstone of our activities, offering a place and time to explore medieval poetry from various regions and languages and hear each other’s views. We convened in the Humanities building every even week during term time, and we discussed medieval poetry with tea, coffee, and biscuits.

In Hilary 2024, with Ugo Mondini, Marina Bazzani, and Theo Van Lint, we addressed the complexities of Greek and Armenian poetry. In Trinity 2024, Jennifer Guest guided us through the different forms of medieval Japanese poetry. Poems, presented through handouts in their original languages and writings alongside a Romanisation/phonetic transcription and a translation, were read aloud in the original language, translated, explained in depth and in context, and discussed. This has allowed participants to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and beauty of each poem, and of each poetry.

We are delighted to see how dynamic our sessions can be and how they evolve based on participants’ interests and interactions, driven by a shared curiosity and passion for medieval literature as well as by the pursuit of a choral, informed theory of medieval poetry. For instance, we discussed if and how to compare the way in which vernacular and learned poetry emerged and functioned in Greek and Japanese. We also observed the evolution of Armenian poetry, focusing on eleventh-century works. In our discussions, we reflected on the different ways pre-modern audiences may have appreciated poetry as well as on the challenges of translating poetry into modern languages.

Each session attracted a diverse audience, including students, early-career researchers, senior scholars, and administrative staff. We also had the pleasure of welcoming non-Oxonian participants, who happened to be in Oxford and are usually based in Edinburgh, Milan, and London/Tokyo. The average attendance was 4–8 people per session.

The International Workshop

We hosted our first international workshop, Binding the World, Withholding Life: Poetry Books in the Medieval Mediterranean, generously sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, and TORCH. The event took place at Exeter College (FitzHugh Auditorium), Oxford. We thank once again the College and its staff for their hospitality and service.

This workshop examined medieval poetry books from various origins, exploring their features, functions, and impact on the transmission and appreciation of medieval poetry across different ages and cultures. We explored how poems were stored, organised, and displayed, addressing the broader question of what ideas of medieval poetry and poetry books can be gleaned from these sources.

We took a comparative approach, with speakers focusing on different literary traditions around the Medieval Mediterranean. After the greetings of Sub-Rector Barnaby Taylor and Marc Lauxtermann, the two organisers, Ugo Mondini and Alberto Ravani, shared some opening remarks. Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) discussed books with poems in Romance languages, Niels Gaul (The University of Edinburgh) focused on Greek, Marlé Hammond (SOAS) covered Arabic, and Adriano Russo (École française de Rome) addressed Latin. The discussions were rich and varied, offering deep insights into the transmission and preservation of medieval poetry.

Exploring Manuscripts
Nicholas Kontovas led an excellent seminar at the Weston Library, where we could admire magnificent manuscripts of the Romance of Alexander. This seminar delved into the transmission eastwards of the legend of Alexander the Great – both in poetry and prose – through illuminated manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries. The tickets sold out so quickly that we did not even have time to advertise the event. This stimulated us to organise similar activities in the near future. We thank again Nicholas and the Bodleian Libraries for this opportunity.

The Future of Research
Where is the research on medieval poetry going? And how is this direction related to other fields of study? The Doctoral Seminar Projecting Poetry has been an exciting initiative designed to provide a platform for doctoral students working on medieval poetry to present their ongoing research to a diverse audience of fellow students and senior scholars. So far, we have hosted five seminars covering poetic traditions from Greek, Arabic, Middle and Late Medieval English, and Italian; another one is scheduled for September 2024. We continue to welcome submissions from Oxonian, national, and international doctoral students, encouraging explorations of potential intersections between academic disciplines.

Ideas on and of Poetry
In HT W9, with Elizabeth Hebbard (Indiana University Bloomington)’s thought-provoking paper on the study of Troubadour melodies, we launched the new series Talks on Medieval Poetry. Through these lectures, we invite international scholars to present theories of poetry and insights from their research, which may have broader implications for the understanding of medieval poetry and literature.

Looking Ahead

After the summer break, there is much more to come. In Michaelmas 2024, our reading group will resume, bringing together Oxonian enthusiasts of medieval poetry to explore new texts and traditions. Our Talks on Medieval Poetry will feature lectures by international scholars – three are already scheduled between December 2024 and April 2025, but no spoilers for now! We anticipate receiving fascinating proposals for the Doctoral Seminars Projecting Poetry. But we are also developing brand new activities in person, online, and in hybrid format, fostering collaborations with other networks and research centres at Oxford and around the globe.

So, stay connected with us through our website, newsletter (blank email to poetrymedievalworld-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk), and social media (X/Twitter: @PoetryMedieval) for updates. If you want to learn more about the network, contact us via email. And if you want to contribute, you are more than welcome: We are open to new ideas and feasible proposals.

For now, enjoy the summer! We look forward to seeing you all in the new academic year.

Picture credit: The blind Homer http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/15480

Launch of the ‘Life of Nuns’

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17/06/2024

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During the Medievalist Coffee Morning on Friday, 21 June 2024, Henrike Lähnemann launched her new book The Life of Nuns. Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers 2024, open access: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0397
To purchase a paper copy with a 20% discount, use the code LONHL_24 at checkout

On show were the following five manuscripts, all available digitised via https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/, three from the Cistercian convent of Medingen near Lüneburg (http://medingen.seh.ox.ac.uk/) and two Rules for female convents:

Following this, there was a presentation by Stacie Vos (Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellow in Women’s History) talk about Women doing medieval studies in the early 20th century. Stacie reflected on the legacies of several early-20th-century women medievalists who pursued academic and extra-academic careers. She started the group ‘Enclosure’ which January 2021 to February 2024 was hosted at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages under enclosure.mml.ox.ac.uk, now archived at the Bodleian Library Web Archive.

***

It all started with a mistake: ‘Der Spiegel’, a widely read news magazine in Germany, ran a double-spread article on the big research project which Eva Schlotheuber and I direct, the edition of 1.200 letters from the Benedictine convent Lüne in North Germany. In the interview for it, we had talked about how important education by the nuns was for the ‘Lehrkinder’, children educated at the convent. The girls would come into the community, aged 7 to 9, and then get a thorough grounding in a wide range of discipline such as music, as pictured in the scene from a text book from Kloster Ebstorf.

Teaching Music in the Convents (Ebstorf, Klosterarchiv V 3, 15th century, fols 200v–201r)

Der Spiegel’ turned our phrase of ‘Lehrkinder’ into ‘die Kinder der Nonnen’ (the children of the nuns) – hinting at sex and scandal behind convent walls (in 2/2020 ‘So colourful was the life of nuns in the Middle Ages’).

This sparked further media interest and the Ullstein publishing house approached us because it had piqued their interest. When we explained that the attention-grabbing headline about “the nuns had children” was based on a misunderstanding, they were slightly disappointed – but then offered us the opportunity to set the record straight. And, arguably, what we could offer was much more exciting: the colourful and detailed accounts of lively, intellectual, strategic, argumentative, powerful women, shaping religion and politics of their times, looking after the girls (despite or even because they were their spiritual and not biological daughters!), negotiating business deals, writing, painting, composing and influencing the way we live today through their books, songs, and art.

‘The Life of Nuns’ tries to capture the richness of the life of these medieval nuns by incorporating as much primary source material as possible. Each of the big topics – such as Education, Music, and yes: Love and Friendship – starts with an account taken from the diary of a nun who lived at the end of the 15th century in the convent St Crucis in Braunschweig. The anonymous author covers the high feasts – celebrating the entry of new nuns, welcoming illustrious visitors –  and the everyday mundane events – lice, Lebkuchen (gingerbread), laundry. And we end every of our chapters with the presentation of a significant art work from the convents: the impressive wall paintings done in the 14th century by “three nuns all called Gertrud” in Wienhausen, the largest medieval world map in Ebstorf (30 goatskins sewn together), tapestries, statues, stained glass, the oldest spectacles in the world (fallen through the floorboard cracks in the nuns’ choir) – an embarrassment of riches from a world that few people even know existed. That is particularly true for an Anglophone audience since so much of the evidence is lost due mainly to the dissolution of the monasteries but also a repurposing of surviving architecture and treasures. Compare Kloster Wienhausen and Godstow Abbey: in Wienhausen we have got the full set of monastic buildings, cloisters, huge grain stores, cells, corridors, imposing Gothic nuns choir and more – and everything that furnished it: stained glass, wall paintings, sculptures, down to the different set of dresses for the statues.

The Cistercian Convent of Wienhausen from the South: Magazine (left) and Nuns’ Choir. Photograph: Henrike Lähnemann
Filming at the ruins of one Godstow Abbey near Oxford

In Godstow, on the other hand, we can sense the dimensions of its former power by looking at the impressively long surrounding wall of enclosure and glimpse some of its stylish beauty from the ruined chapel at the back – the rest is only possible to reconstruct from scant archival evidence. Looking at the German counterparts, who shapeshifted through the Reformation, transforming into Protestant female communities who still look after the rich tapestry of medieval life, offers the chance to rectify this in part – and encounter the Life of Nuns at their fullest, mystical, worldly, polyphonous and very much relevant still today.

Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024: Exchanging Words

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17/06/2024

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The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024 will be held on 18th June 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library both in person (presenters/attendees) and online (attendees).

Tuesday 18 June 2024, 9am – 5pm
Online and In-person, Room 2, Taylor Institution Library, Saint Giles’, Oxford OX1 3NA
Free but registration required
Register here for in-person attendance – Sold out
Register here to join the conference online
Online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.

The aim of this conference is to explore the concept of exchange, whether it be textual or material, to, for and between women in the global Middle Ages. As a research group based upon the concept of exchanging ideas, we wish to explore medieval women’s own networks of exchange and transmission, and the influence of this upon both the literature and culture of the period as well as the present day.

We are delighted to present the programme for the day:

9:00-9:30 Registration 
9:30-9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks 
9:45-11:15 Session 1 “Scholarly Networks” 
Katrin Janz-Wenig (SUB Hamburg) & Lenka Panušková (The Czech Academy of Sciences) | Communication Strategies Through Change: Translations, Compilations and Ekphrasis 
Ved Prabha Sharma (Independent Researcher) | Women Scholars and Knowledge Exchange in Medieval Indian shāstrārth Tradition 
Tatiana Barkovskiy (University of Cambridge) | A Beguinian Learning Network, or How to Approach ‘Medieval Women Mystics’ as Philosophers  
11:15-11:45 Break with Refreshments 
11:45-13:15 Session 2 “Relationships With and Between Women” 
Costas Gavriel (University of Oxford) | Gaining the Queen’s Confidence: The Relationship Between Leonor López de Córdoba and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile 
Lucia Akard (University of Oxford) | Talking About Rape and Exchanging Knowledge in Medieval Dijon 
Meg Greenough (Independent Researcher) | The Wilton Matrix: Mothering in Goscelin of Saint Betin’s Liber Confortatorius
13:15-14:30 Lunch Break 
Exploring the Taylorian’s Treasures, with Professor Henrike Lähnemann (University of Oxford) 
14:30-15:45 Keynote Address 
Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey) | Medieval Women Writers: Troubling a Feminist History of British Women’s Writing
15:45-16:15 Break with Refreshments 
16:15-17:45 Session 3 “Nuns’ Words” 
Francesca Maria Villani (University of Bari) | Eloise’s Psalmody: Body and Voice Through the Epistles
Jane Bliss (Independent Researcher) | The Nun Changes her Library Book 
Hilary Pearson (Independent Researcher) | Teresa de Cartagena’s Models of Female Authority 
17:45 Closing Remarks 
18:00 End of Conference

Please direct any questions to any of the conference organizers: 
Katherine Smith (katherine.smith@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Marlene Schilling (marlene.schilling@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Carolin Gluchowski (carolin.gluchowski@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Santhia Velasco Kittlaus (santhia.velascokittlaus@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk)

The research group and the conference are generously funded by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and their “Critical-Thinking Communities” Initiative.

The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays 2025

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07/06/2024

17:37

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Around Oxford, opportunities

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Call for Actors, Directors, Costume Makers, and Musicians!

Would you like to take part in a medieval dramatic experiment? Directors, actors, costume makers and musicians wanted!

The next cycle is going to take place on 26 April 2025 at St Edmund Hall

These plays were a very popular form of drama in the Middle Ages – with different groups performing short plays telling stories from the Bible. To take part in the next performance, contact Antonia Anstatt and Sarah Ware, Co-Heads of Performance, or email Professor Henrike Lähnemann, Fellow at St Edmund Hall Fellow and Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics, and Professor Lesley Smith, Fellow and Tutor in Politics and Senior Tutor at Harris Manchester College, Co-Directors of the Oxford Medieval Studies Programme at TORCH, under the address medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk.

More information and an overview of what was performed in 2019, 2022, and 2023 at https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/mystery-cycle

COLSONOEL 2024 in Review

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05/06/2024

09:24

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Around Oxford, events

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Putting a halt to in-person events, face-to-face conversations unmediated by a digital screen, and forcing people around the world to re-think how the interacted with each other, COVID-19 also placed a stranglehold on much academic dialogue and conferences experiences. One of the victims of the pandemic era was the Cambridge, Oxford, and London Symposium on Old Norse, Old English, and Latin (COLSONOEL). The last COLSONOEL was due to take place in St. John’s College, University of Oxford in May 2020 but which was sadly cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

In 2024 a new committee at the University of Oxford, headed by Natasha Bradley, and comprising of Ashley Castelino, Simon Heller, and Mary Catherine O’Connor, took up the reins to bring this symposium back to life. In the spirit of its return to the world of conferences and academic discourse, the theme of COLSONOEL 2024 was ‘Rebirth, Renewal, Renaissance’. This symposium for post-graduate students and early career researchers was set up as a supportive and welcoming academic environment for presenters to test new ideas and to share their research. And it is in this vein, that COLSONOEL began again and hopes to continue for many years to come.

COLSONOEL 2024 kicked off on a wet and dismal Friday 3rd May in St Hilda’s College in the Garden Room Suite, which transformed into an exciting day of papers and conversations. Exquisite views stretching over Oxford with its dreaming spires rising to the rain-sodden heavens framed the speakers and their presentations at St Hilda’s as we welcomed ten speakers from Oxford, Cambridge, and Birkbeck.

Considering the question of reception and intertextual relationships in the first session, David Bond West opened COLSONOEL with his paper on ‘Rhetorical Storytelling in Bergr Sokkason’s Mikjáls saga’. Moving from Old Norse to Old English, Mingwei Lu examined the relationships between psalms and elegies in the paper ‘“Hu lange wilt þu, Drihten” – A Comparison of Religious Revival in the Old English Psalms and the Old English Elegies’. Leaping forward to the modern era, Emily Dixon asked what it meant to think through soil and landscapes in her paper ‘Rebirth through soil: The earth of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Beowulf and The Wanderer’.

Following this line of movement to earth-centred evidence and thinking about what can be uncovered through archaeology, Katie Beard opened the second session with her investigation into amulets, ‘Armaments as Amulets in Old Norse in Old Norse Literature and Archaeology’. Daisy Bonsall worked through the theme of the conference in thinking about the multiple uses and re-purposing of textiles in Anglo-Saxon England in ‘A Case for Regifting: Reusing Textiles to Create and Renew Connections in Anglo-Saxon England’.

The inter-relationship of life and death and the possibility of comparing through these ontological concerns took centre stage in session three as Alexia Kirov discussed images and themes of birth and death in ‘Re: birth and death – from (pre-)cradle to grave in Early English Literature’. What are the appropriate responses to the death of king and what is the emotional performance a poet may engage in when his king dies? Molly Bovett looked at some of these questions and more in ‘The Death of the King in Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds’. Staying in the realm of Old Norse literature but migrating from the historical world of medieval Norway and Iceland to the world of the mythological texts, Kendra Nydam closed the third session with her paper ‘Thrice-burnt, Thrice-born: Revisiting the Fateful Role of Gullveig in Norse Mythology’.

How different medieval historians and societies think about and write about the past formed a key concern of the concluding papers in the fourth and last session of the day. In ‘Reviving the Gothic Past and justifying a Swedish present in the Festum patronorum regni Suecie’ Adrián Rodríguez turned attention to historiographical concerns in fifteenth-century Sweden. Moving one last time from Scandinavia back to medieval England, Emily Clarke gave the closing paper ‘Reforming the Past: History and Antiquarianism in the English Benedictine Reform’.

An intellectually curious atmosphere and friendly environment created a fertile and productive day of discussions in the form of question-and-answer sessions after the papers as well as more informal conversations in the tea breaks and lunch. The COLSONOEL Committee would like to thank everyone who attended this year’s symposium. We would also like to extend a special thanks to our sponsors, Oxford Medieval Studies and TORCH, who made COLSONOEL 2024 possible. We look forward to the return of COLSONOEL 2025.

Mary Catherine O’Connor, June 2024