Category: events

Texts in transition

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22/03/2026

15:55

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A workshop on editing texts from medieval Britain

The Early English Text Society for graduate students and early career scholars.

Featuring: Richard Dance, Ralph Hanna, Kathryn Lowe, William Marx, Ad Putter, and Susan Irvine.

St Hilda’s College, Oxford

11.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.

Saturday 18 April 2026.

£20 for members of the EETS,

£34 for non-members.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided free

For registration or membership of the EETS, contact Dr Daniel Orton at eets@ell.ox.ac.uk

It is possible to obtain the members’ discount by joining at the time of registration. Website EETS

Medieval Matter HT26, Week 8

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08/03/2026

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Around Oxford, blog, Call for Papers, conference, events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities, Uncategorized

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We have made it, at long last, to the end of another Hilary term – but the events don’t stop coming! Please find below another week full of medieval events for you to enjoy, and an ever-increasing list of future opportunities. NB: the Maison Française d’Oxford lecture this Tuesday has had to move earlier and is now at 12:00.

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library.
  • Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2:15, Weston Library. Seamus Dwyer (Cambridge) will speak on ‘Pen-Flourishing and the Boundaries of Meaning’.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3:00, Archaeology Faculty.  Eugene Costello will be speaking on ‘Exploring the expansion of pastoral farming in northern Europe’s uplands, c.1200-1600’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Nick Evans (Birkbeck) “Cowries, Cloth and Coins: Currency in Medieval Economic Anthropology”.
  • Theory and Play: Comparative Medievalisms – 5.15, Lady Margaret Hall.

Tuesday

  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Mike Carr (Edinburgh) will be speaking on ‘Popes, Ambassadors and Falcons: Trade and Diplomacy between Latin Europe and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Fourteenth Century’.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Maison Française d’Oxford lectures: ‘Children in the Middle Ages’ – 12:00, Maison Française. NB. the new, earlier, time.
  • Maghrib History Seminar: “Reading the Qurʾān across the Mediterranean: Toward a Maghribī School of Tafsīr in Early Islam” – 5:00, The Queen’s College.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Celeste Pan (Balliol) will be speaking on ‘Some issues of translation in an illuminated Hebrew bible manuscript from medieval Brussels (Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibl., Cod. Levy 19)’.
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell.

Wednesday

  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Matthew Holford and Laure Miolo will be speaking on ‘Text identification’.
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, Thyrd Part, ll. 1288-2142; Palyce of Honour, Dedication, ll. 2142-2169.
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Islamic Studies Seminar – 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Professor Sheilagh Ogilvie (University of Oxford) will speak on ‘Leviathan’s Health: State Capacity and Epidemics from the Black Death to Covid’.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Nathan Websdale (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Unbecoming Roman: Performative Ethnicity and Panspermía in the Byzantine World c.1190-1235’.
  • eCatalogus+: A Digital Tool for the Automated Study of Latin Manuscripts (Liturgical Case Studies) – 5:00, Weston Library. More infomation here.
  • Lydgate Book Club – Weston manuscript visit with Laure Miolo. Meet 3:50pm at the Weston lockers for a 4pm start. Please email Shaw Worth for any information.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College. Making and Breaking Connections, including letters sent by Hildegard von Bingen and Catherine of Lancaster, queen of Castile.
  • Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Elisabeth Giselbrecht, Louisa Hunter-Bradley and Katie McKeogh (King’s College London) will be speaking on ‘No two books are the same. Interactions with early printed music and the people behind them’.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, hybrid. Eleanor Stephenson (Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘Landscapes of Extraction: Philippe de Loutherbourg and the Morris Family’s Copper Works, Swansea’.
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St Catherine’ College. Emily Guerry (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Silver trees and pearl crosses: Franco-Mongolian diplomacy and cultural exchange in thirteenth-century Karakorum’.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (Freie Universität, Berlin) will be speaking on ‘A Greek-Orthodox monastery in the desert: Mount Sinai and the material culture of its Arabic (and Islamic) manuscripts’.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. This week, Jana Lammerding will speak on the representation of witches in the Douce Collection.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. Week 8: The Bible printed. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact Péter Tóth.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • EMBI ‘New Books: A Celebration’. – 4:30, Schwartzman Room 421. Helena Hamerow and Conor O’Brien will talk informally about the process of researching and writing the projects that they have both just published, and we will also hear some reflections on being a postdoctoral researcher on a major project such as the ERC-funded grant for FeedSax. End-of-term drinks in Jude the Obscure, Walton St.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, John Roberts Room at Merton College. Julian Harison (Curator, British Library) will be speaking on ‘Sir Robert Cotton and Oxford’.

Opportunities and Reminders

eCatalogus+: A Digital Tool for Latin Manuscripts

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03/03/2026

17:28

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11 March, 5pm, Horton Room, Weston Library
Dr Paweł Figurski Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
eCatalogus+: A Digital Tool for the Automated Study of Latin Manuscripts  (Liturgical Case Studies)

The presentation introduces eCatalogus+, an innovative digital platform designed for the comprehensive description and automated analysis of medieval Latin manuscripts, with a particular focus on liturgical sources. At its core, eCatalogus+ combines HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) technology with advanced tools that improve transcription accuracy and enable the automatic analysis of manuscript contents. Its main features—powerful search functions, interactive databases, and collaborative research modules—facilitate both individual and collective work on medieval texts. The system has been successfully implemented in research projects such as eCLLA+ and Liturgica Poloniae: A Descriptive Catalogue of Polish Liturgical Manuscripts, where it supports the study, cataloguing, and interpretation of medieval liturgical sources. Through selected liturgical case studies, the presentation will demonstrate the platform’s research potential and its contribution to the evolving field of digital manuscript studies. Ultimately, the talk aims to show how digital technologies are transforming the study of medieval manuscripts, opening new avenues for both academic inquiry and public engagement.

Paweł Figurski is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The focus of his research is on the history of liturgy and its political significance as well as on medieval manuscript culture, book illumination, and the theology of politics in the Early and High Middle Ages. He is also an active researcher, database analyst, and developer of tools for automated research on the Latin liturgical tradition in the field of digital humanities. He is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of two projects: “Liturgica Poloniae…”, funded by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education (NPRH), and “Dangerous Prayers…”, funded by the Polish National Science Centre (SONATA)  

Please let Matthew Holford know if you would like to join him and the speaker for dinner after the talk.

Medieval matter HT26, Week 7

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02/03/2026

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Welcome all to week 7, and another packed schedule of events. The ‘Opportunities and Reminders’ section is growing particularly large, with a number of new additions – keep an eye out for CfPs and funding opportunities. The OMS blog continues to grow rapidly: Cris Arama (MSt. Medieval Studies) has recently written a report on Ian Forrest’s workshop.

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Jo Story (Leicester) “Insular manuscripts: why membrane matters” [Please note: this session will be in-person only, not hybrid – this is due to restrictions governing the sharing of unpublished data by grant partners].

Tuesday

  • EMBI workshop: ‘Reading’ manuscript membrane: bioarchaeology of early medieval books’ – 10:00, Weston Library. Requires pre-booking.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Simon Heller (Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Translation, Transformation, and Transmission: the case of the Old English Beowulf’
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5:15, Maison Française d’Oxford. Nathalie Koble (ENS Paris) will be speaking on ‘Sens et sentibilité. Pour une lecture multimédiale de la Dame à la Licorne (Musée de Cluny, Paris)’ .
  • Poetry Reading: Kevin Crossley-Holland – 5:30, St Edmund Hall. More information here.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Matthew Holford and Laure Miolo will be discussing Medieval Libraries and Provenance
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, Thyrd Part, ll. 1288-2142 
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Islamic Studies Seminar – 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Dr Moin Nizam will be speaking on ‘Transnational Ties of Faith: Imdadullah’s letters and writings from the Hijaz during the late-19th century’.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Alasdair Grant (Hamburg) will be speaking on ‘Ubiquitous and Universal? Rebellion and State Formation between Byzantium and Early Islam’

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, Oriel College. Dr Beatrice Groves (Research Fellow, Trinity) will be speaking on ‘”Azure-laced / With blue of heaven’s own tinct:” Shakespeare’s heraldic language’.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanities Centre and Online). Emmet Taylor (Cork) will be speaking on ‘Heads, hierarchy and the heroic’
  • Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15. Email Harriet Carter for location.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Günseli Gürel (Khalili Research Centre) will be speaking on ‘Picturing marvels, magic and monsters at the Ottoman court, 1574–1603’.
  • Guild of Medievalist Makers – 5:30, online. Optional theme: regrowth.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week is ‘Vernacular Bibles of the Middle Ages’. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer at Péter Tóth.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.

Opportunities and Reminders

Kevin Crossley-Holland Reading

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25/02/2026

21:50

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Kevin Crossley-Holland will be reading from his newly-published Collected Poems in the Old Dining Hall at St Edmund Hall on Tuesday 3 March at 5:30pm.

Bringing together over five decades of work. Collected Poems celebrates one of Britain’s most admired and enduring voices. Kevin Crossley-Holland’s writing spans the landscapes of memory, myth and the human heart. Rooted in lived experience and rich in literary tradition, his poetry draws on folklore and the natural world to speak vividly to our own time. This landmark volume captures the full measure of his craft and imagination-a celebration of a lifetime devoted to words.

Kevin is a prize-winning poet, translator from Anglo Saxon (including Beowulf), re-teller of traditional tale (The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and Between Worlds: British Folk Tales), librettist and novelist for children, winning the Carnegie Medal for Storm and the Guardian Fiction Prize for The Seeing Stone, the first book in his Arthur trilogy.

He has collaborated with many composers, including Sir Arthur Bliss, William Mathias, Nicola LeFanu, Bob Chilcott , Bernard Hughes and Cecilia McDowall, and artists including Charles Keeping, John Lawrence, Norman Ackroyd and Chris Riddell.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was a Fulbright Distinguished Visiting Professor and endowed chair in the Humanities in Minnesota from 1991 until 1996, and served as President of the School Library Association 2012-2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Society of Authors, and an Honorary Fellow of Saint Edmund Hall, Oxford.

“Kevin Crossley-Holland is a master, a magician and commander of the language, the roots of whose work are deeply entwined with ancient patterns of truth and knowledge. I salute and venerate him.” Philip Pullman

“This is a fantastic collection, and I love it. His poetry is so very rich and so varied, and covers such an impressive amount of ground. There are anthems, war cries, memories, love songs and hymns to the glory of nature, all written in language that is clear, robust, and sometimes luminously, breathtakingly beautiful.” Joanne Harris

Entry is free and no need to register.

Medieval Matters HT26, Wk6

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22/02/2026

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Welcome, all, to week 6 – it was lovely to see so many of you at the OMS lecture last week. An updated version of the OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term.

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2:15, Weston Library. Eric Crégheur (Université Laval) will be speaking on ‘The Bruce Codex (MS. Bruce 96): Answering the Riddles of Coptic Gnostic Manuscript’.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3:00, Archaeology Faculty. Charlotte Wood will be speaking on ‘A cultural history of combs in Medieval England, c. 400-1400’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Chris Wickham (Birmingham/Oxford) will be speaking on “International commerce and regional development: pepper in the Indian Ocean”.
  • Theory and Play: Comparative Medievalisms – 5.15, Lady Margaret Hall. Selections from: Dhuoda’s Liber Manualis  (9th Century CE, tr. Handbook for William); Boethius’ Consolatio (6th Century CE, tr. Consolation of Philosophy); Ode in Praise of al-Mansur Al-Amiri, Emir of Córdoba by Ibn Darradj al-Qastalli (10-11th Century CE)  
  • Oxford Thomistic Institute Lecture – 7:30, Blackfriars. Prof Rebecca Rist will be speaking on ‘Pope or Antipope?: Schism and the Medieval Papacy’

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Elaine Treharne (Stanford University) will be speaking on ‘‘Motes of gold’: early English poetry and its modern recollection’
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Tom Cousins (Bournemouth) will be speaking on’ The Mortar Wreck: A Thirteenth Century shipwreck outside of Poole Harbour, Dorset’.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Early Modern Diplomacy Seminar 1400-1800: ‘Competition or Integration? Urban and Princely Diplomacy at times of Civil War in the Burgundian Low Countries (1380s vs. 1480s)’ – 4:15, University College. Michael Depreter (UC Louvain Saint Louis-Brussels) will be speaking on ‘Competition or Integration? Urban and Princely Diplomacy at times of Civil War in the Burgundian Low Countries (1380s vs. 1480s)’.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Celeste Pan (Balliol) will be speaking on ‘Some issues of translation in an illuminated Hebrew bible manuscript from medieval Brussels (Hamburg, Staatsund Universitätsbibl., Cod. Levy 19)’ 
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. T
  • Book Launch: Medieval Commentary and Exegesis – Interdisciplinary Perspectives – 5:30, Monson Room (LMH). More information.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Laure Miolo will be speaking on ‘Calendars and time-reckoning’.
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, Seconde Part, ll. 772-1287.
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Robert Wiśniewski (Warsaw) will be speaking on ‘Mapping Unholy Places in Late Antiquity’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar – 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Jocelyne Cesari (University of Birmingham) willbe speaking on ‘From Divine Sovereignty to National Legitimacy: Transformations in the Theology of Political Islam’
  • John Lydgate Book Club – 5:15pm. All Souls College, Hovenden Room. Mishtooni Bose will be speaking on ‘Thinking with Lydgate’. Please email shaw.worth@all-souls.ox.ac.uk for a copy of the text.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College. Experiences of Captivity and Enslavement – including extracts from the works of Layla bint Lukayz, ‘Arib al-Ma’muniyya, Qamar, Uns al-Qulub and Leonor López de Córdoba
  • Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Andrew Kirkman (University of Birmingham) will be speaking on ‘Made to measure or prêt à chanter? The Court of Wilhelm IV and the Later Alamire Manuscripts’
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Online. Malo Adeux (CRBC)  willbe speaking on ‘Ystoria Daret: sources, circulation, reception’
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Eva Schreiner (Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence) will be speaking on ‘Debt in stone: architectures of finance in late Ottoman Istanbul’.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. Week 6: The Bible in Medieval Europe. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact Péter Tóth.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, Sir Howard Stringer Room at Merton College. Tour of the All Souls College library with Peregrine Horden, Fellow Librarian. The deadline to register has passed. To be put on a waiting list, write to oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com. 

Opportunities and Reminders

Medieval matter HT26 Wk 5

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16/02/2026

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Welcome to Week 5.

Apart from the Medieval Studies Lecture this Thursday, I would like to highlight a new CfP: Forgotten Libraries: Lost, Dispersed, and Marginalised Manuscript Collections: The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) is pleased to invite Oxford-based researchers to participate in the workshop Forgotten Libraries to be held at The Queen’s College (Oxford) on Tuesday 16 June. 

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Jay Rubenstein (University of Southern California) will be speaking on “Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and the Wages of Sin”.

Tuesday

  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Maria Fusaro (Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Maritime Risk Management and Aequitas: the long life of the principle of General Average’
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Maghrib History Seminar- 5:00, The Queen’s College. Prof. Cyrille Aillet (Université Lumière Lyon 2)  will be speaking on “Ibadism and Medieval Maghrib: a View from Within”
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Luisa Ostacchini (Jesus) will be speaking on ‘(Re)working Miracles: translating Gregory the Great’s Dialogues in Old English literature’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5:15, Maison Française d’Oxford. Fran Charmaille (Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge) & Gareth Evans (St John’s College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Trans Studies and Medieval Literatures’. (joint seminar with Medieval English)
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Andrew Honey will be discussing Bindings.
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, Seconde Part, ll. 772-1287 .
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseille) will be speaking on ‘Dependent Labour in the Late Antique Near East’
  • Maison Française d’Oxford lecture series – 5:00, at the Maison. Antoine Destemberg will be speaking on ‘‘Is medieval biblical exegesis a form of totemism? An examination of analogical-social thinking in Moralised Bibles’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar- 5:30, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Dr Tugba Bozcaga (Kings College London) will be speaking on ‘Imams and Patrons: Service Provision by Islamic Non-State Actors’.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Environmental History Working Group – 12:30–2:00pm, Humanities Centre History Hub Room 20.421. Louis James Henry (PhD Medieval Environmental History, University of Stavanger, Visiting Student at KCL) will be speaking on “Timely Courts and Immediate Responses: Waste Management as a Temporal Issue in Late Medieval England”.
  • Pop-up display – ‘What do Christ Church’s newly acquired Hebrew books tell us about the College in the 17th century?’ – 12:00 – 2:00,  Christ Church Upper Library. More info here.
  • OMS Lecture -5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, Oriel College. Dr Nicolas Vernot (Guest Researcher, CY Cergy Paris University) will be speaking on ‘Heraldry and Magic’.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanities Centre and Online). Sarah Zeiser (Harvard) will be speaking on ‘Finding allegory, history, and a complicated timeline in the harvest quatrain of Rhygyfarch ap Sulien’.
  • Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15. Email Harriet Carter for location.
  • Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures – 5:15, Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Hana Navratilova (Harris Manchester College/ AMES, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Meidum: landscape, pyramid, graffiti, and political memory’
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Umberto Bongianino (Khalili Research Centre) will be speaking on ‘Wall painting in the Islamic West and the aesthetic of naqsh’.
  • Latin Compline in the Crypt with the St Edmund Consort – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week is ‘The Bible in Latin: Old Latin and the Vulgate’. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer at Péter Tóth.
  • Pop-up display – ‘What do Christ Church’s newly acquired Hebrew books tell us about the College in the 17th century?’ – 12:00 – 2:00,  Christ Church Upper Library. More info here.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 3:30, Weston Library. Workshop with Laure Miolo: Observing and Measuring the Heavens: Manuscripts, Instruments, and Astronomical Practice in the Middle Ages. Limited places. The deadline to register has passed. Write to Oxford Medieval Manuscript group if you want to go on a waiting list. 
  • Postponed: the Wikipedia Editathon planned for today has been postponed to Trinity Term.

Opportunities and Reminders

New Hebrew Acquisitions in Christ Church

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14/02/2026

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You are warmly invited to attend our third pop-up display of the term: “What do Christ Church’s newly acquired Hebrew books tell us about the College in the 17th century?”

Where: Christ Church Upper Library (ask for directions at the Porter’s Lodge!)
When: 19th and 20th February, 12-2pm
Questions: library@chch.ox.ac.uk

Please join us for this pop-up display of some new and exciting Hebraica acquisitions, paired with items from our existing collections, with focus on the 17th century. Highlights will include Syriac, Arabic and Ottoman Turkish manuscripts but also Hebrew calendar volvelles.

Entry is free and open to all. Please note that there is no step-free access to the Upper Library.

Dr Rahel Fronda, Hebrew and Judaica Deputy Curator, Bodleian Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG, T: 01865 277602
E: rahel.fronda@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

CfP: Forgotten Libraries: Lost, Dispersed, and Marginalised Manuscript Collections

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13/02/2026

13:42

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Around Oxford, Call for Papers, events

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The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) is pleased to invite Oxford-based researchers to participate in the workshop Forgotten Libraries to be held at The Queen’s College (Oxford) on Tuesday 16 June. Conceived as the first stage of a broader research initiative, the workshop aims to bring together scholars working across linguistic traditions and historical periods to reflect on neglected manuscript collections and their significance for the study of textual cultures.

Within the dominant frameworks of manuscript studies, research have long been anchored in the analysis of individual codices and in major, well-defined collections that structure institutional and disciplinary narratives. Yet many manuscripts survive in ways that render them effectively invisible: scattered across different holdings, insufficiently catalogued, marginalised by new political and linguistic orders, or remembered only through fragmentary references. These “forgotten”, “lost”, or “marginalised” collections raise fundamental questions about how manuscripts and libraries contingently relate to knowledge production over time.

While the workshop’s emphasis falls on libraries and manuscript collections—their formation, coherence, disintegration, and afterlives—we also recognise that individual artefacts often reveal broader dynamics. Manuscripts are mobile objects: they migrate across regions, institutions, and epistemic frameworks, and this movement profoundly shapes their visibility, accessibility, and scholarly legibility. A single codex may preserve traces of an otherwise vanished collection; an isolated manuscript may retain ownership marks, organisational clues, or textual relationships that point back to a forgotten ensemble. Attention to both scales—the library and the single object—is therefore essential.

Participants will present short case studies illustrating how forgotten libraries can be located, reconstituted, or reintegrated into scholarly practice, whether through surviving catalogues, dispersed manuscripts, institutional histories, or digital tools. The workshop aims to: (1) Map the diversity and significance of forgotten manuscript collections; (2) Develop shared methodological approaches that integrate collection-level thinking with close artefact analysis and digital methods; (3) Reflect on the broader structural, institutional, and historical conditions that produce manuscript displacement, fragmentation, and neglect.

Beyond these immediate aims, the workshop constitutes the first phase of a larger collaborative project on forgotten and displaced manuscript collections. It will be followed by an international conference in 2027, and its results will contribute to a collective volume to appear in the forthcoming book series Manuscript and Text Cultures (Liverpool University Press).

The workshop will be held at The Queen’s College (Oxford) on Tuesday 16 June.

Abstracts of up to 300 words, together with a short biographical note, should be submitted by Friday 14 March to Shaahin Pishbin and Clément Salah

Medieval Matter HT26, Week 4

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08/02/2026

16:04

Comments Off on Medieval Matter HT26, Week 4

Call for Papers, conference, events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities

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Welcome to Week 4. An updated version of the OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term. For your diary: The 2026 OMS Lecture will take place on Thursday 19 February 5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner. Tony Hunt’s memorial service is will be held on 16th May, 2.30, St Peter’s College Chapel (booking etc in due course).

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2:15, Weston Library. Emily Guerry (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Bodleian’s Gaignières Collection: A paper museum for Gothic tombs’.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3:00, Archaeology Faculty. Matthew Johnson will be speaking on ‘New World Settlement and the English Middle Ages’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Cordelia Heß (Aarhus) will be speaking on “Medieval Racism? Social Practices in Colonial Contact Zones in Greenland and Sápmi (900-1500)
  • General Linguistics Seminar – 5.15, Humanities Centre 30.400. Henrike Lähnemann will be speaking on The nuns’ language: Latin-German code-mixing in the Lüne letters
  • Theory and Play: Comparative Medievalisms – 5.15, Lady Margaret Hall. Selections from: Anandavardana’s Dhvanyaloka (9th century CE, tr. The Light of Suggestion); Mechthild of Magdeburg’s Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (13th century CE, tr. The Flowing Light of the Godhead); Cywydd Ymry

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Kirsty Bolton (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Power and conversion in middle English romance’.
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Simon Egan, Queen’s University Belfast will be speaking on ‘God forebede that a wylde Yrishe wyrlynge shulde be chosene for to be there kynge’: Gaelic Recovery in a North Atlantic Context, c.1350-c.1550′
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Clément Salah (Queen’s) will be speaking on ‘Materialising Translation: manuscripts and the movement of knowledge in tenth-century North Africa’.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, MacGregor Room, Oriel College. Patric Dickinson, CVO (Clarenceux 2010-21) will be speaking on ‘Symbolism in Heraldry: Mysterious or Manifest?’
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Céline Delattre and Robert Minte will be speaking on ‘Inks and Pigments’
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, First Part, ll. 127-771 
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Pamela Armstrong (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Excavations of the Church of St Polyeuktos at Sarachane Revisited’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar: ‘Hajj the Art of Pilgramage’ – 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
  • John Lydgate Book Club – 5:15pm. All Souls College, Hovenden Room. Mary Wellesley will speak on Lydgate and devotion.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College. Pilgrims and Travellers, including extracts from the works of Egeria, Margery Kempe and Lady Nijo.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanties Centre) and Online. Llion Wigley (University of Wales Press) will be speaking on ‘Ynysoedd Gobaith: Adeiladu Iwtopia yng Nghymru’r Ugeinfed Ganrif’.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. BOOK LAUNCH — Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court.
  • A Medieval Saint in the Modern World: Oswald of Northumbria in Words and Music – 6:15, The Chapel at King’s College London.
  • Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. Translations of the Bible in the Eastern Mediterranean: Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Arabic. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact Péter Tóth
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • EMBI ‘Databases: A Skills Workshop’ – 4.00, Humanities Centre, History of Art Seminar Room.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, Sir Howard Stringer Room at Merton College, Emma J. Nelson (No take-backsies? Gerald of Wales and the Boundaries of Book Donation) and Elliot Cobb (Miraculous and Marginal Women in the Metz Psalter-Hours).

Opportunities and Reminders