Practices of Contrafacture in Monophonic Song (1150–1550)
When: 20 June 2024 (week 9), 10am-7pm Where: Committee Room, Faculty of Music Convenor: Philip Wetzler
Looking at different repertories of monophonic song between 1150 and 1550, the aim of this workshop is to explore different approaches to the widespread spectrum of practices and concepts of contrafacture: composing new texts for pre-existing melodies. The fact of a song being a contrafact will not be taken as a result but as a starting point for further inquiries. In this workshop we will encounter similarities, analogies, and differences between different regions, languages, genres, and times between 1150 and 1550, looking at Trouvère, Sangspruch and Minnesang, religious song (geistliches Lied), Meistersinger and puy societies.
The schedule will be split into two parts: the first half is reserved for presentations of individual papers with a following discussion, in the second half we will collectively examine and interpret further selected case studies. Anybody interested is welcome to attend the presentations and take part in the discussions. If you want to attend or if you have questions, please email Philip Wetzler.
The workshop is generously funded by the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst e.V.
Preliminary schedule with provisional titles
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee/Tea
10:30-11:00 Introduction
11:00 – 11:45 Joseph Mason, Satire, allusion, erasure: approaches to contrafacture in trouvère songs of war
11:45 – 12:30 Philip Wetzler, From Contrafact to Practices of Contrafacture: Middle High German Sangspruch and Practices of Contrafacture
12:30 – 13:30 Light Lunch Break
13:30 – 14:15 Anna Wilmore, Ludic Lyrics: Play and Piety in Marian Contrafact
14:15 – 15:00 Agnes Rugel, “geistlich lieder, doch in weltlichen weysen”. How practices of contrafacture structure the landscape of religious songbooks in late medieval Germanspeaking areas
15:00 – 15:30 Tea/Coffee Break
15:30 – 17:00 Collective Discussion of Case Studies
17:00 – 17:30 Tea/Coffee Break
17:30 – 18:30/19:00 Collective Discussion of Case Studies
19:00 Dinner (self-paying)
Image from the Hohenfurt Songbook (Hohenfurter Liederbuch), fol. 65r, Hohenfurt / Vyssí Brod (Bohemia), Stiftsbibliothek Ms. 8b
CAT is back! After a successful run in June 2023, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed a second art-piece ‘Conversations Across Time’. Free tickets for the performances moving from the Ashmolean to a second secret hidden location are available via the website https://www.citizensai.com/
Dates: June 15th (preview at 11am – 1:20pm) | June 15th | June 16th
Schedule: 15:20 Meet on the steps at the Ashmolean Museum 15:30 Prequel 16:00 Departure for Scene Two 16:15 Scene II is in a Quantum Anomaly [hidden location] 17:40 End | Conversation to Follow
Players: Giovanni De Felice, Sirui Ning and, Juliette Imbert, PDK, Costi Levy, Directors:PDK and Costi Levy Composer: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
From the announcement in 2023: What do horses, medievalists, black hole orbits, boardrooms, and quantum computers have in common? Inspired by the Medieval Mystery Plays, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed an art-piece ‘Conversations Across Time’ which links medieval theatre, women in science, and Quantum future.
Tuesday 4 June 2024, 12 noon–4PM Lecture Room 6, New College, Oxford
We are delighted to announce New College Library’s upcoming exhibition ‘Mythical and Monstrous: Fantastical Creatures at New College Library’.
Hunt for weird and wonderful beasts in items from the College’s fabulous special collections, from dragons and unicorns, to centaurs, blemmyes, and merpeople.
Among the wide variety of items on display will be a beautiful thirteenth-century Psalter, a fantastic fourteenth-century apocalypse manuscript, a famous fifteenth-century chronicle, and a spectacular sixteenth-century astronomical text.
Discover how depictions and understandings of mythical monsters changed over time and explore what these creatures reveal about how people saw themselves and the societies in which they lived.
New College Library, Oxford MS 284, f. 21rNew College Library, Oxford MS 65, f. 30 r
The exhibition is free and open to all. Signs will be in place to direct visitors to the exhibition from the Porters’ Lodge, located halfway down Holywell Street.
Wednesday, 29 May 2024, 5.15-6.45 UK time Memorial Room: The Queen’s College, Oxford
Dr Peter Tóth (Cornelia Stark Curator of Greek Collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford) will speak on “In Quest of a Medieval Best-Seller: The Authorship of the Meditationes Vitae Christi” as term lecture for the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures
The Meditationes Vitae Christi, an anonymous medieval retelling of the life of Christ, appended with a number of extra and emotional details, has been described as the single most influential Franciscan text of the Middle Ages. A real best-seller that has come down to us in hundreds of manuscripts and versions in Latin and almost all the vernaculars of Medieval Europe. The text is known to have exercised an immense influence on Western spirituality and devotion and had decisive impact on Renaissance art and played pivotal role in the evolution of medieval Passion Plays and European theatre in general. Despite this enormous significance, the origin, date and authorship of the work has remained obscure and been in the focus of heated scholarly debates. After a brief survey of the problems of the text and the current scholarly consensus about its origins, the present paper will make an attempt to identify the author of the text and reconstruct its adventurous early history to explain its subsequent anonymity.
Image: Meditationes vitae Christi. English translation by Nicholas Love. Bodleian Library MS. Hatton 31, fol. 28v, mid-15th century. On medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
As we near the end of the teaching year I am driven to reflect on all of the fantastic things we’ve seen at OMS during the course of the year. I’m always struck by the phenomenal range of our medievalist activities: particularly by the huge number of languages represented! Some wisdom this week, then, on a common medievalist problem: that of translation between languages – taken, as always, from the Epistolae project: :
Scito, filia, quod sententia cujuslibet dicti, si de lingua in linguam translata fuerit, vix in peregrino idiomate, sua ei sapiditas vel compositio remanebit. [Know, daughter, that the meaning of any saying, if it is translated from one tongue to another, will barely retain its savour or composition in a foreign language.] A letter from A letter from Adam, abbot of Perseigne to Blanche of Navarre
Luckily for us all, there are ample opportunities to learn new medieval languages or to cement our understanding of existing ones at any number of reading groups! This week we have, for example, opportunities to hear about medieval English, Hebrew, Latin, German, Old Norwegian, and Japanese – and I’m sure, with apologies, that there are further languages that have escaped my immediate notice! Please see below for the weekly roundup, and to take full advantage of this embarrassment of linguistic riches.
The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading Group meets at 3pm in Univ. This informal reading group will explore queer and trans themes in medieval texts. In Trinity, we’ll be thinking about queerness and transness on trial in the Middle Ages. This week’s theme will be The trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (Speyer, 1477). All extremely welcome, both in-person and online! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email Rowan Wilson (rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk).
The Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series meets at 5pm in the Summer Common Room, Magdalen College. This week’s speaker will be David Bernabé (University of Oxford/University of the Basque Country), Riddles in the Grass: the characterisation and narrative value of landscape over the fields of Rohan. For more information, please see https://tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Old Library, All Souls College and on Teams. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, you can use this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker will be Laure Miolo (Lincoln, Oxford) ‘Establishing a school of astronomy and astrology in the fourteenth century? The case of the universities of Paris and Oxford’.
Tuesday 28th May:
The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 12.15pm in Lecture Room 2, English Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Alex Paddock, Keble College, Oxford, Patience, the Middle English Physiologus, and the deep sea of experience. Seminars followed by a sandwich lunch. All welcome!
The Medieval Poetry Reading Group meets at 4pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building. This week’s theme will be Japanese Poetry This is an activity of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World. For more information, you can refer to our website https://torch.ox.ac.uk/poetry-in-the-medieval-world; you can also contact Ugo Mondini.
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers will be Marion Ryley (Wadham), Envisioning Division: marginal medallions in medieval Judaic and Islamic manuscripts and Maya Smith (St Cross), Using Pigment Analysis of Pre-Conquest Manuscripts to Illuminate Trade and Commerce. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11.15am in Oriel College King Edward Street 7 (Annette Volfing’s office; press the intercom buzzer to be let in). The topic for this term is Konrad von Würzburg: ‘Der Schwanritter’; this week we will discuss human-animal interaction with Philip Flacke presenting. Open access edition here. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
Dr Peter Tóth (Cornelia Stark Curator of Greek Collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford) will speak on as term lecture for the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures “In Quest of a Medieval Best-Seller: The Authorship of the Meditationes Vitae Christi” 5.15-6.45 Memorial Room: The Queen’s College, Oxford
Thursday 30th May:
The Environmental History Working Group meets at 12.30-2pm in the Merze Tate Room, History Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Ruka Hussain, “Science, Ecology and Romanticism in George Catlin’s travelling ‘Indian Gallery’”. We try to keep discussions informal, and we encourage anyone at all interested in these kinds of approaches to join our meetings, regardless of research specialism or presumed existing knowledge. For updates on meeting details, refer to the EHWG tab on the Environmental History website. For further information or to join the EHWG mailing list, please email environmentalhistoryworkinggroup-owner@maillist.ox.ac.uk
The All Souls Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Science meets at 2-3.30pm in the Hovenden Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Lawrence Principe (Johns Hopkins University), Franciscan Spirituality, Transmutation, and the Antichrist: John of Rupescissa’s Alchemical Thought and Practices.
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm online. Please contact Howard Jones Howard.Jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk to request the handouts and to be added to the list. This week will be on Old Norwegian (Nelson leading).
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5pm at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building. All welcome! This week’s speaker will be Gervase Rosser, University of Oxford, ‘Irrational, Feminine, Subversive: The Cult of Miraculous Images in Medieval England’.
Friday 31st May:
The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
Assistant Professor of Early Medieval History [Temporary Cover]: The University of Cambridge Faculty of History wishes to recruit a Temporary Assistant Professor in Medieval History. This is a 2 year Temporary Assistant Professorship to cover the the absence of Professor Caroline Goodson, while she is seconded to the American Academy in Rome. The role will include teaching and examining at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a range of early medieval European topics; expertise relating to the medieval Mediterranean may be an advantage. For full details, please click here.
College Lectureship in Medieval History (part-time): St. Peter’s College invites applications for a one-year, 7-hour College Lectureship in Medieval History for one year from 1 October 2024, to provide teaching during Prof Stephen Baxter’s sabbatical leave. The position will be particularly suitable for either a doctoral research student nearing the completion of their thesis, or an early career scholar, seeking experience in college teaching and administration. For full details, please click here.
Transcription Opportunity: Katherine Turley requires a transcription of a fairly short item in English, in Oxford, Queens College MS 357 (fols. 83v–88v). If you are interested in undertaking this work (obviously for payment) please contact Katherine directly.
Finally, learning languages is all well and good, but of course the real joy (if I may be so bold to suggest, as a literature scholar…) comes in being able to use them for reading. So here is some wisdom on the joys of reading:
Ille liber mihi gratus erat, gratissima dicta. Ergo consumpsi saepe legendo diem. [That book was welcome to me, the words most welcome, So I spent the day reading them often.] A poem to Baudrifrom Constance of Le Ronceray
I hope that however you are spending this bank holiday Monday, you are able to enjoy welcome words, and to spend a day reading things that bring you delight!
[A Medievalist tries to get to grips with a new language… just because it’s a delight it doesn’t mean that it’s easy!] St John’s College MS. 61, f. 64 v. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian
A one-day conference, Recording Oxford’s Medieval Lives. A Mise en Perspective of Lincoln Documents, as part of the seminar started in October, Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln archives.
The conference in the Oakshot Room of Lincoln College featured student presentations on their year-long research into Lincoln’s medieval documents, alternating with academic papers. Anyone with an interest in the history of medieval Oxford and medieval documents in general was welcome. Organised by Laure Miolo and Lindsay McCormack (Lincoln College Archivist).
The presenters and other participants
10.00 Prof. Henry Woudhuysen (Rector of Lincoln College) Welcome words
10.15 Dr. Laure Miolo & Lindsay McCormack (organisers – Lincoln College) The seminar Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives
10.30–11.15 Dr. Alison Ray (St Peter’s College and All Souls) Archival sources for the medieval Oxford book trade
11.15–11.30 Break & refreshments
11.30–11.55 Tabitha Claydon, Claire Holthaus and Sam Oliver Their current research on medieval documents from All Saint’s Parish
11.55–12.10 Cory Nguyen and Charlie West Their current research on medieval documents from All Saint’s Parish
12.10–12.55 Dr. Richard Allen (MagdalenCollege, Oxford) ‘Qui scripsit hanc cartam’: Charters and their Scribes through the Archives of Magdalen College, Oxford (c.1100–c.1300)
13.00–14.00 Lunch break
14.00–14.15 Keely Douglas and Maria Murad Their current research on Anglo-Norman documents from Lincoln
14.15–14.30 Srija Dutta and Victoria Northridge Their current research on medieval documents from All Saint’s Parish
14.30–15.15 Prof. Philippa Hoskin (Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) Stamps of approval: the meaning of seals on medieval documents
15.15–15.30 Mehmet Tatoglu and Lucy Turner Their current research on medieval documents from All Saint’s Parish
15.30–15.45 Break & refreshments
15.45–16.30 Dr. Michael Stansfield (New College, Oxford) The Archival Ambition of William of Wykeham
16.45–17.00 Jess Hind and Lika Gorskaia Their current research on medieval documents from All Saint’s Parish
17.00–18.00: Break and drinks reception
18.00–18.45 Keynote lecture Prof. David d’Avray (UCL / Jesus College, Oxford) Comparative diplomatic: papacy and English royal government
The end of the teaching year is fast approaching! We’ve had such a busy and exciting year that I’m sure many of us are feeling rather exhausted – especially when it’s so warm outside! But there are still four more weeks of official term, and a medievalist’s work is never truly done – if you need some inspiration, heed this advice from Aldhelm, taken from the Epistolae project:
carissimi, si quamlibet parum a vestra bona consuetudine aliquando vel semel sentitis declinare: gravem casum gemendo vos incurrisse iudicate. [dearest friends, if you ever feel that you are slipping occasionally or even once, from your good habits, however little it may be, consider with groans that you have incurred a serious fall.] A letter (1102) from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury to Edith
I take this to mean “no slacking in fifth week”! If you’re feeling weary and in need of perking up as we approach the end of the year, our blog post this week is sure to raise your spirits. The blog post about the first of three 12th Century Study Days at Iffley gives a fantastic insight into local history and sainthood, and a wonderful sense of our Medievalist community’s work outside of the University walls! To watch recordings of the talks by Andrew Dunning and Anne E. Bailey, read about future events from Living Stones, and sign up for the Pilgrimage walk along St Frideswide’s Way (26-29 June 2024), please visit the blog post here.
It’s also easier to keep up your “good habits” when you’re surrounded by such a wonderful community of medievalists – please see below for the week’s opportunities to keep up the good work:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
On 25 May, there will be a workshop on The Reading and Reception of the Homeric Poems and the Nibelungenlied in Germany and Europe from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, at the Taylorian and the Bodleian; papers in the morning, manuscript sessions and an exhibition opening in the afternoon. The workshop is open to all with no attendance fee. The papers will also be livestreamed. Please register your interest before Thursday night by emailing John Butcher; for online attendance, a link will be sent out 24 hours in advance. A selection of the papers and the two guided tours will also later be made available as podcasts. The exhibition Epic! Homer and Nibelungenlied in Translation to coincide with the workshop will be open just for a week, so make sure to catch it between 22 and 29 May and / or download the exhibition catalogue which comes out as an open access publication as part of the ‘Cultural Memory’ series by Taylor Editions.
All are welcome to a new Latin palaeography group, organised by William Little and Rebecca Menmuir with the Societas Ovidiana. Our aim is to transcribe previously unedited material from a range of medieval manuscripts, beginning with a 12th-century commentary of Ovid’s Heroides 12 (Medea to Jason). This will be a friendly and informal group open to everyone interested in improving (or maintaining) their Latin and palaeography skills, encountering a range of medieval manuscripts, or learning more about classical reception. We will meet on Zoom every Wednesday, 10am EDT / 3pm BST / 4pm CEST, beginning Wednesday 29th May. Please email Rebecca Menmuir for more information and a joining link.
OCHJS: Concert – Blind Far Out at Sea: Eran Tzur in Conversation and Concert: 4th of June 2024, 18:00-20:00, Maison Française d’Oxford, 2 Norham Rd, Oxford. Tzur will reunite with his old friend, Elad Uzan, a member of Oxford’s Faculty of Philosophy. Together, they will explore the connection between the Hebrew language, medieval texts and musical expression, and the art of composing poetry, playing together from different periods of Tzur’s artistic catalogue. Register for Tickets here. The event is free, but space is limited, so book your tickets soon. For further information, please click here.
EVENTS THIS WEEK:
Monday 20th May:
The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts. We will read a very entertaining account of the legendary foundation of Cambridge University by the Carmelite friar Nicholas Cantlow. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites.
The Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series meets at 5pm in the T. S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College. This week’s speaker will be Will Sherwood (University of Glasgow), “I am a link in the chain”: Victorian Transformations of British Romanticism and their Influence on Tolkien. For more information, please see https://tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Old Library, All Souls College and on Teams. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, you can use this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speakers will be Charles West (Edinburgh), Helen Gittos (Balliol) and Mirela Ivanova (Sheffield), in discussion: Inventing Slavonic Cultures of Writing Between Rome and Constantinople.Please note the change of room.
Tuesday 21st May:
The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 12.15pm in Lecture Room 2, English Faculty. This week’s speakers will be Alicia Smith (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), Negotiating shame through the ‘harlot saint’ Thais and Nancy Jiang (University of Warwick) Medieval Penitential Piety and the Virtues of Debt Suretyship. Seminars followed by a sandwich lunch. All welcome!
CMTC presents — “Work in Progress” Colloquium (Trinity Term 2024) 5.15–6.45pm Memorial Room, The Queen’s College: Carolin Gluchowski (New College, Oxford), ‘Revising Devotion: Exploring Church Reform through Prayerbook MS. Lat. liturg. f. 4’ and Paola Rea (Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Napoli / Universitat de València), ‘Non ti maravigliare che io non mi distenda nelo scrivere: Female Autographs and Kinship in an Early-Modern Italian Epistolary Corpus’. Abstracts on https://cmtc.queens.ox.ac.uk/seminars/
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers will be Alex Still (BNC), Hrothgar’s horse: the evidence for an interconnected elite across the North Sea world and Elizabeth Williams (LMH), Heavenly Sensations: multisensory encounters with the liturgy in medieval Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre, c. 1099-1215. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
Wednesday 22nd May:
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11.15am in Oriel College King Edward Street 7 (Annette Volfing’s office; press the intercom buzzer to be let in). The topic for this term is Konrad von Würzburg: ‘Der Schwanritter’. Open access edition here. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5.15pm at Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, and online via Teams. Teams link: https://msteams.link/FW0C. This week’s speakers will be Maximilien Durand (Musée du Louvre) and Jannic Durand (Musée du Louvre) – ‘Creating the Louvre’s New Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art: Issues and Challenges in a Turbulent World’. Please note the change in venue and start time!
The Book launch of Siân E. Grønlie’s The Old Testament in Medieval Icelandic Texts. Translation, Exegesis and Storytelling takes place at 5.30-7pm in Seminar Room 9, St Anne’s College. We celebrate the launch of the book (Boydell and Brewer, 2024), with a panel discussion with Prof Heather O’Donoghue, Prof Henrike Laehnemann, and Dr Rachel Burns, followed by a drinks reception. For further details, please see here.
Thursday 23rd May:
The All Souls Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Science meets at 2– 3pm in the Hovenden Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Michael Hunter (Birkbeck, University of London), Robert Boyle’s Strange Reports: From the Outlandish to the Supernatural. To be added to our mailing list please email Dan Haywood mailto:daniel.haywood@sjc.ox.ac.uk
Friday 24th May:
Recording Oxford’s Medieval Lives. A Mise en Perspective of Lincoln Documents takes place from 10am-7pm at Lincoln College. The conference will include academic papers and presentations by students and participants in the year-long seminar ‘Exploring medieval Oxford through Lincoln Archives’. They will be presenting their work and discoveries at the conference alongside papers by David d’Avray (UL/Jesus College), Philippa Hoskin (CCC, Cambridge), Richard Allen (Magdalene College), Michael Stansfield (New College) and Alison Ray (St Peter’s and All Souls). Anyone with an interest in the history of medieval Oxford and medieval documents more generally is welcome to attend and can register by writing to Laure Miolo and Lindsay McCormack.
The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace. This week, Thea Gomelauri will present medieval Hebrew manuscripts.
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group will meets at 5-6.30pm at the Julia Mann Room in St Hilda’s College, with the option to join remotely online. Those attending in person please be at the Lodge BY 5.00, where we will meet you and take you to the room in South Building. The texts, together with supplementary material, can be found on TT Padlet Please ensure you print the text (or bring it electronically), as we do not provide paper copies. Wine and soft drinks are available as usual!
Finally, for further inspiration to keep working hard through this last stretch of the teaching year, here is some further advice from Anselm:
Nullus enim potest vitare defectum, nisi qui se semper extendit ad profectum. [For nobody can avoid falling back except one who always strains towards progress.] A letter (1094/1095) from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury to Nun M.
The sun should help to ward off any fifth week blues, and to ensure no “falling back” happens, but if you need further assistance, please do come along to the very friendly medievalists coffee morning. In the meantime, I wish you all a week of research and teaching progress!
[Medievalists diligently striving towards progress together…] St John’s College MS. 61, f. 2 r. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian
The sun has finally arrived in Oxford! After such a long winter and such a cold and windy April, I think I speak for us all when I say that seeing Oxford in the sunshine is a real joy! I for one was so overjoyed to see the sun this weekend that I was reminded of this wisdom from the Epistolae project:
non sic tempestate iactatus portum nauta desiderat, non sic sitientia imbres arva desiderant, non sic curvo litore anxia filium mater expectat, quam ut ego visibus vestris fruere cupio [more than the storm-tossed sailor longs for the harbour, more than the thirsty fields desire rain, or the anxious mother watches by the shore for her son, do I long for the sight of you.] A letter from Egburg/Egburga/Ecburg (716-20)
Our blog post this week is a real delight, as both a celebration of a new book publication and a fantastic insight into medieval verse. Dr Daniel Sawyer writes about his brand new book, out this month with Oxford University Press, on Reading Middle English Verse. This will be such an invaluabe teaching resource for those of us teaching medieval literature, and I for one am hugely excited! To discover how studying Middle English verse can make us rethink our modern day use of English, to read more about the many varieties of Medieval English poetry, and to find a discount code for the book, read Daniel’s blog post here.
For further sights that are sure to bring you joy, feast your eyes on all of the fantastic events taking place this week:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Invitation to end of year celebration with OMSBook launch: On Tuesday 11 June 11, 2024. 5.00 p.m. for 5.15, the last meeting of the .Medieval Church and Culture‘ seminar’ In the chapel at Harris Manchester College will be combined with a drinks reception and a book launch of New Zealand medievalism: reframing the medieval, edited by Anna Czarnowus and Janet M. Wilson, Routledge. Speakers: Anna Czarnowus (Katowice), Carolyne Larrington (Oxford), David Matthews (Manchester), and Janet Wilson (Northampton). All welcome but RSVP by Friday 7 June 7 to Janet Wilson
EVENTS THIS WEEK:
Monday 13th May:
The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group meets at 1-2pm on Teams. A friendly venue to practice your Latin and palaeography on a range of texts and scripts. We will read a very entertaining account of the legendary foundation of Cambridge University by the Carmelite friar Nicholas Cantlow. Sign up to the mailing list to receive weekly updates and Teams invites. https://web.maillist.ox.ac.uk/ox/info/medieval-latin-ms-reading
The Queer and Trans MedievalismsReading Group meets at 3pm in Univ. This informal reading group will explore queer and trans themes in medieval texts. In Trinity, we’ll be thinking about queerness and transness on trial in the Middle Ages. This week’s theme will be The trial of Rolandina Ronchaia (Venice, 1355). All extremely welcome, both in-person and online! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email Rowan Wilson (rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk).
The Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series meets at 5pm in the Summer Common Room, Magdalen College. This week’s speaker will be Dr. Eleanor Parker (Brasenose College, University of Oxford), Tolkien and the Anglo-Saxon Calendar. For more information, please see https://tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/.
The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College and on Teams. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). Alternatively, you can use this link. If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker will be Emma Hornby (Bristol): ‘Intertextuality in medieval Spain: liturgy, iconography, architecture and music at San Miguel de Escalada in the tenth century’.
Tuesday 14th May:
The Medieval English Research Seminar meets at 12.15pm in Lecture Room 2, English Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Tim Glover (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Compilatory Form and Authorship in Richard Rolle and in Late-Medieval Religious Literature. Seminars followed by a sandwich lunch. All welcome!
The Medieval Poetry Reading Group meets at 4pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building. This week’s theme will be The Wakan Rōeishū (Japanese and Chinese-Style Chanting Collection, c. 1000): Sound and Manuscript. This is an activity of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World. For more information, you can refer to our website https://torch.ox.ac.uk/poetry-in-the-medieval-world; you can also contact Ugo Mondini at ugo.mondini@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
The 2024 Zernov Lecture meets at 5pm at the Maison française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, OX2 6SE. This year’s speaker will be Dr Sebastian Brock FBA, (University of Oxford), ‘The Ecumenical Journey of the Writings of St Isaac the Syrian’, introduced by David G.K. Taylor (Associate Professor in Aramaic and Syriac, Wolfson College, Oxford).
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at 5.15pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. This week’s speakers will be Elena Vermeer (Trinity), The Old English and Old Norse ‘Joshua’: translation and readership in context and Vita Dervan (Lincoln), Rewriting Virgil through Dante: Guido da Pisa’s Fiore d’Italia and medieval translation. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
Wednesday 15th May:
There will be no meeting of the Medieval German Graduate Seminar this week.
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets at 4-5pm on Teams. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Please contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles, Oxford, and online via Teams. Teams link: https://msteams.link/FW0C. This week’s speaker will be James Cogbill (University of Oxford) – ‘Fourteenth-Century Byzantine History-Writers and the Problem of Emperors’ Family Ties’.
The Oxford Interfaith Forum will meet at 6pm, online via zoom for Sounding the Silence – Contemplation as Poetic Practice; Poetry as Contemplative Practice by Dr Aaron Maniam. To register, please click here.
Thursday 16th May:
The Environmental History Working Group meets at 12.30-2pm in the Merze Tate Room, History Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Mim Pomerantz, “Ecological Automatism: Photography and Non-Human Creativity in Minotaure (1933-1939)”. We try to keep discussions informal, and we encourage anyone at all interested in these kinds of approaches to join our meetings, regardless of research specialism or presumed existing knowledge. For updates on meeting details, refer to the EHWG tab on the Environmental History website. For further information or to join the EHWG mailing list, please email environmentalhistoryworkinggroup-owner@maillist.ox.ac.uk
The Germanic Reading Group meets at 4pm online. Please contact Howard Jones Howard.Jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk to request the handouts and to be added to the list. This week will be on the Gothic Bible (Ryan leading).
The Medieval Women’s Writing Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm in Lincoln College, Lower Lecture Room. This week’s theme is Arabic and Hebrew Medieval Women’s Writers. Stay up to date with events by joining our mailing list or following us on X @MedievalWomenOx. Texts for the reading group are shared on the mailing list.
The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5pm at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building. All welcome! This week’s speaker will be Livia Lupi, University of Warwick, Artistic Practice and the Emergence of the Architect in Italy, c. 1300 – c. 1480.
Friday 17th May:
The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
The final meeting of the initiative ‘Teaching the Codex’ will take place at Merton College 2-5pm on the topic of ‘hybridity’. Places are limited but if you would like to check whether there is still space, contact Mary Boyle.
The Oxford Medieval Society Chain Maille Workshop takes place at 2-5.30pm, in St John’s College New Seminar Room. Registration is MANDATORY. Don’t miss out, places are limited! Tickets: £15. Refreshments will be provided. To register, click here.
The Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group (OMMG) meets at 3.15pm at the V&A Museum, London. We will look at Illuminated Manuscript Cuttings at the V&A, London in conversation with Catherine Yvard, National Art Library Special Collections Curator. Places are limited: please write to elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk by 10/05/2024.
Saturday 18th May:
Living Stones meets at 2pm in Iffley Church Hall for talks by Andrew Dunning and Anne Bailey on Oxford in 1160: Scholars and Pilgrims at St Frideswide’s Priory. For more information and Tickets please visit https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/events.
I wish you a week of research joys and garden joys alike!
[A flock of Medievalists visit the University Parks to find some summer joys] St John’s College MS. 61, f. 23 v. By permission of the President and Fellows of St John’s College, Oxford Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian
This blog post and book display in the Voltaire Room between 3 and 10 May is a showcase of the excellent range of books on Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature held at the Taylorian. The display accompanies the launch of new digital editions of three versions of an Old Norse-Icelandic saga,Hrómundar saga Greipssonar, in the Taylor Editions series, and the release of an open access study of the saga’s transmission history,Lost but not forgotten: The saga of Hrómundur and its manuscript transmission, by Katarzyna Anna Kapitan.
To limit the number of books on physical display, the exhibit was structured around three themes: Icelandic Language and Literature in Oxford, The Story of Hrómundur, and Legendary Sagas. All items on display are from the holdings of the Taylor Institution Library, unless otherwise specified on the label.
Panel 1: Icelandic Language and Literature in Oxford
The first book on the Icelandic language published in Oxford appeared in 1688. It was a reprint of the 1651 Copenhagen edition of the first early modern grammar of Icelandic by Runólfur Jónsson (d. 1654), an Icelander educated at the University of Copenhagen. At Oxford, the first formal lectureship in Old Icelandic was established in 1884, to which Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1827–1889) was appointed. Guðbrandur, born and raised in Iceland moved to the UK to supervise the completion of the Icelandic–English dictionary, initiated by Richard Cleasby (1797–1847). He was awarded an honorary M.A. degree by Christ Church in 1871. In Guðbrandur’s memory, the Vigfusson Readership in Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities was established at Oxford, and in 1976 the first woman was elected to this readership, Ursula Dronke, née Brown (1920–2012). Ursula held a professorial fellowship at Linacre College and is best known for her work on the Poetic Edda. In her early days, she was a fellow at Somerville College, where she wrote her B.Litt. thesis on The Saga of Thorgils and Haflidi (Ice. Þorgils saga og Hafliða), the published version of which is on display here along with some of Guðbrandur’s most important works.
Recentissima antiquissimæ linguæ septentrionalis incunabula [The Most Recent Cradle of the Most Ancient Northern Language] by Runólfur Jónsson Language: Latin Publication place and date: Oxford, 1688 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library 9.E.9.B(2)
An Icelandic-English Dictionary by Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon Language: Icelandic and English Publication place and date: Oxford, 1874 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library REP.M.113
An Icelandic Prose Reader by Guðbrandur Vigfússon and Frederick York Powell Language: Icelandic and English Publication place and date: Oxford, 1879 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library RHO 053 r.9
Panel 2. The Story of Hrómundur
The story of Hrómundur existed already in the Middle Ages. According to an Old Norse-Icelandic saga, The Saga of Thorgils and Haflidi (Ice. Þorgils saga og Hafliða), which is a part of the thirteenth-century Sturlunga compilation, the story of Hrómundur was recited for entertainment at a wedding feast at Reykhólar in the year 1119.
The famous passage reads as follows: Hrólfur from Skálmarnes told a story about Hröngviður the Viking and King Ólafur and the mound-breaking of Þráinn the berserk and Hrómundur Gripsson, with many verses in it. This story was used to entertain King Sverrir, and he declared that such lying sagas were most amusing. Although men can trace their genealogies to Hrómundur Gripsson, Hrólfur himself had composed this saga.
On display are two Oxford editions of the saga: the 1878 edition of Sturlunga saga by Guðbrandur Vigfússon and the 1952 edition of Þorgils saga og Hafliða by Ursula Dronke (née Brown).
2.1 The first volume of Sturlunga saga, edited by Guðbrandur Vigfússon Language: English and Icelandic Publication place and date: Oxford, 1878 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library (RHO) 053 r. 35
2.2 The edition of Þorgils saga og Hafliða by Ursula Brown Language: English and Icelandic Publication place and date: Oxford, 1952 Shelfmark: Bodleian Library 27855 e.57
The medieval Saga of Thorgils and Haflidi (Ice. Þorgils saga og Hafliða) mentions that some Icelanders could trace their genealogies to Hrómundur. This refers to the account in The Book of Settlements (Ice. Landnámabók), the medieval work describing the settlement of Iceland in the 9th century.
In Landnámabók, Hrómundur is presented as a native of Telemark in Norway and a great-grandfather of Ingólfur and Leifur, the first settlers of Iceland.
Despite the references to Hrómundur and his saga in medieval sources, no known manuscript of the medieval saga has survived. The story, as we know it today, is a seventeenth-century adaptation of a medieval poem. In scholarship, it is classified as one of the legendary sagas, a group of entertaining narratives describing the legendary past of Scandinavia. Early modern historians, such as the Icelander employed at the Danish court, Thormodus Torfæus (1636–1719), were interested in the contents of legendary sagas as historical sources. Therefore, Torfæus included Hrómundar saga in his list of ancient Icelandic monuments of literature published in his Succession of Rulers and Kings of Denmark (Lat. Series dynastarum et regum Daniæ) from 1702.
2.3 The book of the settlement of Iceland, translated by Thomas Ellwood Publication place and date: Kendal, 1898 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library ICE.2.D.THO.1
2.4 The map of Iceland published as a part of Thomas Ellwood’s translation Publication place and date: Kendal, 1898 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library ICE.2.D.THO.1
2.5 The facsimile edition of the Landnámabók manuscripts, with an introduction by Jakob Benediktsson Publication place and date: Reykjavík, 1974Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library M94.L35
2.6 Series dynastarum et regum Daniæ [Succession of rulers and kings of Denmark] by Thormodus Torfæus. Language: Latin Publication place and date: Copenhagen, 1702 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library 110.D.3(I)
Panel 3. Legendary Sagas
Legendary sagas (Ice. fornaldarsögur) are a group of Old Norse-Icelandic prose narratives dealing with the early history of mainland Scandinavia, before the unification of Norway and the settlement of Iceland in the 9th century. Among the best-known examples of legendary sagas is The Saga of the Völsungs (Ice. Völsunga saga), which has a famous counterpart in the Middle High German epic poem Nibelungenlied; The Saga of Rolf Kraki (Ice. Hrólfs saga kraka), which narrates material related to the Old English poems Beowulf and Widsith; and The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok (Ice. Ragnars saga loðbrókar), which gained international fame thanks to the TV series Vikings. The Icelandic name fornaldarsögur, assigned to this group of texts, is derived from Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, the title of the 1829–1830 edition of select Icelandic sagas by the Danish philologist Carl Christian Rafn (1795–1864). The composition of Rafn’s work was highly indebted to the work conducted by his predecessors, especially the Swedish philologist Erik Julius Björner (1696–1750) and the Danish linguist Peter Erasmus Müller (1776–1834). On display here are important volumes of legendary sagas edited by all three of them.
3.1 Nordiska kämpa dater [Deeds of Nordic Heroes], edited by Erik Julius Björner Language: Icelandic, Swedish, and Latin Publication place and date: Stockholm 1737 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library 108.I.14
3.2 The second volume of Sagabibliothek [Saga Library] by Peter Erasmus Müller Language: Danish Publication place and date: Copenhagen 1818 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library 106.D.6
3.3 The second volume of Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda [Ancient Sagas of the Northern Lands], edited by Carl Christian Rafn Language: Icelandic Publication place and date: Copenhagen 1829 Shelfmark: Taylor Institution Library N.S.12.ADDS.F.24
Poetry needs space. As music relies on its opposing silence; to be recognisable at first sight, poetry needs blanks. Transmitting texts in the Middle Ages was also a matter of space but rather concerned with the cost of writing material and the lack thereof. As a result, single poems were squeezed into the page at the expense of those defining blanks. Inevitably, large collections and vast anthologies densely occupied handwritten folia.
Nowadays, established traditions and criteria rule the process of compiling poetry books. But what was the awareness that ruled these processes in the Middle Ages? This is the topic of the workshop. The broad question is what idea of poetry and poetry books can be gleaned from this process. Is gathering just a necessity, or does it conceal a conscious poetic message? If conscious, what role does the physicality of the manuscript play for the poetic unit?
Medieval poetry books can be either multi-authorial anthologies or single-authorial collections, and many are the ways in which those poetic books could have been formed. Poems of different authors could have been selected around a common theme, or with a chronological criterion; authorial collections could be made by authors themselves, their students, or other members of their circle. These books could contain a macrostructure and, therefore, an overarching narrative; they could reflect a specific time of the author’s activity or summarise a life-long production. The way poems were arranged in ‘big containers’ and transmitted directly affected their readership, reception and their current literary status.
From the perspective of literary theory, the arrangement in medieval manuscripts opens an array of crucial questions: the relationship between the single poem and the poetry book, the way – supposedly different – in which long and shorter compositions were treated and the correspondence between its parts. Furthermore, how much was the idea of a single-thematic unit present in the minds of the compilers? Was this book to be read cover to cover, or something to read out or perform with music? And how does the layout of poetry, including the absence of those defining blanks, impact the reader’s experience?
Within this framework, the workshop focuses on the circulation of poems in the medieval Mediterranean, which is used as a case study to explore medieval literature.
Convenors: Ugo Mondini (University of Oxford) and Alberto Ravani (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Speakers: Marisa Galvez (Stanford University), Niels Gaul (The University of Edinburgh), Marlé Hammond (SOAS University of London), Adriano Russo (École française de Rome)
Programme
Friday, 31st May 2024
9:45 a.m.
Registration
10:15 a.m.
Welcoming address Barney Taylor (Sub-rector, Exeter College) Marc D. Lauxtermann (Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages)
Introduction Ugo Mondini (Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages) Alberto Ravani (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
10:30 a.m.
First Session Chair: Marina Bazzani (Faculty of Classics)
Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) – From Chansonniers to Whole-World Poetics: The Poetry Book as a Mode of Worlding
11:15 a.m.
Coffee break
11:30 a.m.
Adriano Russo (École française de Rome) – Between Chaos and Order: Dynamics of Formation of Medieval Latin Verse Collections
12:15 p.m.
Lunch
2:30 p.m.
Second Session Chair: TBD
Niels Gaul (University of Edinburgh) – Byzantine ‘Poetry Books’: From Embers and Sparks of Classicising Learning to Tokens of Literati Self-Fashioning?
