Category: events

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 6

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18/11/2024

08:03

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Monday morning can mean but one thing: Medieval Matters is here to grace your inboxes once again. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here.

Rumbling in the distance, early work begins on the Medieval Mystery Cycle 2025. At 5pm on Friday 29 November 2024, at St Edmund Hall, there will be an event to bring together actors, directors, musicians and those interested in texts and props. All are welcome, especially those who are unsure how to get involved. Tea and cake provided. More information about the event, and the Cycle in general, can be found on the blog post here which also advertises the exciting (and paid) role of ‘Head of Performance’ for a current graduate student – see below under ‘opportunities’.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3pm at the Institute of Archaeology. Rebecca Tyson, U. of Bristol will be speaking on ‘Navigating the Norman invasion of England in 1066: A Maritime Environmental Perspective’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Moreed Arbabzedah (Jesus Oxford) will be speaking on ‘New Perspectives on Gerald of Wales’.
  • Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30pm in the English Faculty Graduate Common Room.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Nicholas Watson (Harvard) will be speaking on ‘Vernacular Theology in Thirteenth-Century Oxford: Robert Grosseteste and his Circle’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Medieval Poetry Reading Group – 4.30pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radliffe Humanities Building. The theme this week is Light without Sun or Moon: The Poetry of Kabīr.
  • Medieval Church and Culture – tea from 5.00pm (talk starts at 5.15) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Conrad Leyser (Worcester) will be speaking on ‘The Rule of Augustine Revisited’.

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Late Roman Legislative Codices and Jews.
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Lucia Orlandi (Paris/Rome) will be speaking on ‘Recent Research on Baptism and Baptisteries in Late Antiquity’.
  • History of Art Research Seminar – 5pm in the History Faculty Lecture Theatre. Nancy Thebaut (Oxford) will be speaking on “Queering Medieval Art at The Met Cloisters”.
  • Michaelmas Term 2024 Lecture of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures – 5.15pm in the
    Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Christopher Whittick will be speaking on ‘“I Found it in a Skip” – Provenance and Priorities in British Archives’.

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Italian Late Medieval and Early Modern Palaeography Course – 10am in the Chough Room, Teddy Hall.
  • Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts and Histories – 2pm-5.30pm in the Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute. This group convenes once a term to read together unpublished Hebrew and Latin documents from Medieval England as sources for the history of the Jews before the expulsion of 1290.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon Room, Exeter Collge. The text this week is Theseus and Romulus (Plutarch, Lives).
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5pm online. Marion Löffler (Cardiff) will be speaking on ‘“Desert wilds of India Africa”: Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Eisteddfod competitions and Empire, 1834–1853’.
  • The Politics of Memory: The Reimagination of Medieval India (Panel Discussion) – 5pm in St Luke’s Chapel, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm in the Arumugam Building, St Catz. Alixe Bovey (The Courtauld Institute of Art) will be speaking on ‘Visual Storytelling in 14th-century London: Subtexts, Pretexts, Contexts’.
  • Medieval and Renaissance Music Seminar – 5pm online (register here). Lucia Marchi (University of Trento) will be speaking on ‘The Long Life of the Trecento Repertory’.
  • David Patterson Lectures – 6pm in the Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute. Dr Dean Irwin (University of Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Jews and Christians as Neighbours in Medieval English Towns’.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Crafting the Book Lecture – 1pm in the Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre at the Weston Library. Sara Charles and Eleanor Baker will be speaking. For more information, see here.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Crafting the Book Practical Workship – 2.15pm and 4pm in the Bodleian Bibliographical Press (FULLY BOOKED).
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • The Germanic Reading Group – 4pm online. This week, the focus will be on Gothic extracts of Nehemia, led by Morgan. Contact Howard Jones if you would like the zoom link and handout.

UPCOMING

  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  •  Head of Performance sought for Medieval Mystery Plays to pull the strings for the 2025 performance of the Medieval Mystery Plays. Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors, are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and, above all, well-organised graduate student or postdoc. There will be a reward of £300. See here the advertisement.
  • CfP for a thematic session at NAPS 2025 titled ‘Scripture and the Arts in Clement of Alexandria‘. Deadline for abstract submissions is November 18th: use this form.
  • 4-year funded Collaborative Doctoral Award(CDA), co-supervised between the University of Nottingham and the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford:  ‘Digital Approaches to Medieval Chant and Local Religious Heritage’. Deadline 13 January 2025: more information here.
  • The Medieval Academy of America’s Graduate Student Committee seeks new committee members for the 2025-2027 term. Submit self-nomination forms here.
  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

-TKA

Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 13 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/)

Medieval Mystery Cycle 2025 Update

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12/11/2024

16:33

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We are advertising for a Head of Performance and announcing a speed dating / workshop meeting!

1. Medieval Mystery Plays Meeting of the Minds Workshop

Friday 29 November 2024 (Week 7), 5–6.30pm, at St Edmund Hall, Doctorow Hall

Join this speed dating workshop for matching up actors, directors, musicians, texts, and props for the upcoming Medieval Mystery Cycle on 26 April 2025! Whether you are interested but still unsure how to put together a play, which play to choose, or how to act, all are welcome! The focus of the workshop will be on how to produce a medieval play script in an accessible version (of up to 20 minutes), but there will also be an opportunity to match actors and directors and to discuss any other practical questions you might have on site at St Edmund Hall – and to enjoy tea and cake!

Meanwhile, we’re still looking for groups to join the Medieval Mystery Cycle: have a look at the original blog post!

Let us know if you’re interested in joining by emailing Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors. Also contact us if you are a graduate student or postdoc interested in this opportunity:

2. Head of Performance sought for Medieval Mystery Plays

Are you interested in pulling the strings for a successful run of the 2025 performance of the Medieval Mystery Plays? We are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and, above all, well-organised graduate student or postdoc to

  • liaise with the directors, volunteers, and groups taking part
  • plan the logistics of the performance
  • run the operations on the actual performance date
  • coordinate the publicity
  • write and / or edit the programme
  • facilitate the documentation
  • head the stewarding team

There will be a reward of £300 plus the opportunity of networking closely across the medievalist and performance people of Oxford and beyond. Please apply by Monday, 25 November 2025, with a short statement of interest and your CV by emailing Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors.

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 5

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10/11/2024

18:00

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Four weeks have passed: four weeks remain. In the words of Elton John: ‘I guess that’s why they call it the blues’. To cheer our ailing souls, this week’s Medieval Matters is brimming with upcoming events and a particular concentration of new opportunities. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Gregory Lippiatt (University of Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Bogomils or Bogeymen?: Heresy between East and West in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’. NB. this week, the talk takes place in the Hovendon Room (All Souls).

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Jenyth Evans (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘”Enucleator venio, non pugnator”: The Uneven Authority of Pseudohistories in Gerald of Wales’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Old Norse Research Seminar – 5pm in Seminar Room L, English Faculty. Alison Finlay (Birkbeck) will be speaking on ‘From Iceland to the World: Translating Flateyjarbók’: all welcome, drinks to follow.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Eunice Yu (Wolfson) will be speaking on ‘Harmonising Paradox in Early Modern Venice: Collecting and Constructing National Identity in Print’.
  • The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures: ‘Work in Progress’ Colloquium – 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, Queen’s College. Julia Lorenz (Merton College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Konrad of Würzburg’s “Herzmaere”: An Instruction on How (Not) to Love’, and Dr Alan Darmawan (SOAS, London) will be speaking on ‘Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5.15pm at the Maison Française d’Oxford. The theme this week is ‘Researchers at Work: Serendipity and Surprise’

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is – The Emperor and the Jews
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Book at Lunchtime, 1-2pm: Henrike Lähnemann in conversation with Lyndal Roper and Nancy Thebaut will present ‘The Life of Nuns’ as part of the TORCH series. You can join the waiting list for the live event at the Radcliffe Humanities Building or watch it live streamed. Register here.
  • Medieval Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries: An Introduction to Collections and Catalogues – 2pm in the Horton Room, Weston Library. An introduction to the medieval European manuscript collections at the Bodleian Library and the print and online catalogues in which they have been described from the 17th century onwards.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Max Lau (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Rebirth of Byzantine Anatolia in the Twelfth Century’.

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon Room, Exeter Collge. The text this week is Claudius (Tacitus, Annals 13.3).
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group – 1pm online. Aafreen Rashid (South Asian University, New Dehli) will be speaking on ‘Framing Feminist Strategic Discourse: Begum Jahanara and the Exchange of Letters During the War of Succession in Mughal India (1657-59)’. Sign up here.
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5.15pm at Jesus College and online. Elisa Cozzi (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘From Dánta Grá to Dante: Irish–Italian genealogies, 1350–1850’.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College. For more information, please contact Jane Bliss (jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org).

UPCOMING

  • To register for the ‘Crafting the Book’ one-day workshop, held on 22 November at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, please follow this link.
  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  •  CfP for a thematic session at NAPS 2025 titled ‘Scripture and the Arts in Clement of Alexandria‘. Deadline for abstract submissions is November 18th: use this form.
  • 4-year funded Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA), co-supervised between the University of Nottingham and the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford:  ‘Digital Approaches to Medieval Chant and Local Religious Heritage’. Deadline 13 January 2025: more information here.
  • The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 2025 is now open to abstract submissions from current postgraduates or those who have recently completed postgraduate study. The theme is ‘Sickness and Health’. More information here.
  • The Medieval Academy of America’s Graduate Student Committee seeks new committee members for the 2025-2027 term. Submit self-nomination forms here.
  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

TKA

Medievalists in their natural habitat. Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 3 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/).

The OMS Beowulf Study Day

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05/11/2024

11:00

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On the 18th October, a Beowulf Study Day was organised by Francis Leneghan in honour of the publication of Heather O’Donoghue’s book entitled Beowulf: Poem, Poet and Hero, which was released earlier this year. Heather’s book is an ode to the mastery of Beowulf, ‘imperfect and fraying around the edges as it is’. A roundtrip tour of the poem’s narrative, its poetic makeup, and its modern reception, Heather guides us through this extensive, close reading of Beowulf and its ‘Storyworld’. New readers are warmly welcomed to the landscape of the poem, and readers familiar with the poem meet afresh its setting and society and the inhabitants that populate its landscape, human and otherwise. We are reminded of the poem’s innate and ornate artistry, and the immensity of the poetic skill worked into every half-line. The book offers not just a grand overview of the very stuff of the poem, but speaks to Heather’s nuanced appreciation of the fine threads that string it together, weaving together the voices of poet, narrator and scop, as well as the voices (and voicelessness) of its characters. 

Scholars on the Study Day presented on a range of topics on the epic Old English poem, extolling and echoing Heather’s research, which has reinvigorated Beowulf criticism and reminded us all exactly why Beowulf’s afterlife continues to be so long-lived. 

Just as Heather notes that Beowulf begins ‘with a bang’, the day began, appropriately, with an enthusiastic ‘Hwæt!’ from the room as Laura Varnam asked the audience to participate in her creative responses to Beowulf, which take the form of feminist poetry and give a voice to Grendel’s mother. Alison Killilea followed and read excerpts from her own translation of the poem, a Corkonian take which reimagined Heorot along the crenelations of Carrigrohane Castle.

Helen Appleton and Rachel Burns shared their exciting research later in the morning. Helen suggested that with the dragon fight, the Beowulfpresents us with a hagiographical setting wherein the Geats need a saint but have only a hero. Rachel’s research focused on Wealhtheow’s neck-ring, and its extraordinary ‘thing power’. Her analysis showed us just how loquacious inanimate objects can be, reifying myth, history and historiography.   

In the afternoon, Mark Atherton transformed Seminar Room K into Heorot, encouraging us to think about deictic placement and spatial blocking in the Danish hall, while Edward Gill explored the intricacies of the poem’s microstructure and examined how the poet flits between past, present and future with palindromic syntax.

Francis Leneghan then took us through a myriad of textual parallels that situate Beowulf in the company of other Old English texts. His talk aspired to change the persistent narrative that Beowulf is the ‘odd one out’ in the corpus, suggesting rather that its intertextuality places it at the very centre of Old English literature. Simon Heller followed with a discussion of adaptations of Beowulf, revealing ­­–– to everyone’s surprise –– the poem’s marked narratological similarities with Jaws. 

Fittingly, the final speaker of the day was Heather’s husband, Bernard, who read from his own poetic works inspired by Old English literature. His translation of The Wanderer, uttered softly to the rapt room, brought the day to its close with images poignant not just to the tenth century or to the time at which Bernard composed his translation, but which spoke eerily to the here and now.

Following the series of talks, Heather expressed how galvanising the day had been, motivating her to pursue research on Beowulf. The Study Day brought together students and scholars from Oxford and other institutions, as well as local schoolteachers. Over seventy people in total attended, with some in an overflow room, all united by around 3000 lines of Old English poetry which continue to yield new interpretations and creative responses. As the day ended, Francis reminded us that ­we are not at the end but the beginning of Beowulf scholarship.

Grace O’Duffy (St John’s College)

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 4

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03/11/2024

11:12

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events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities

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The days are getting colder and the nights are drawing in: fear not, for the medieval events roll ever on and on. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here, and do check the Oxford Medieval Studies blog for reports of recent medieval events; also worthwhile checking out is the History of the Book blog with a report e.g. last week on a palaeography class with Laure Miolo and Alison Ray (including a “bat book”!). Do send in your own suggestions for blog posts to Miles Pattenden!

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3pm at the Institute of Archaeology. Lyn Blackmore (Museum of London Archaeology) will be speaking on ‘The Seventh-Century Bed Burial at Harpole: Aspects of Recent work’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Teresa Barucci (Magdalen) will be speaking on ‘Identity and Geographical Origin at the Late Medieval University of Paris: An Analysis of Manuscript Decoration’.
  • Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30pm in the English Faculty Graduate Common Room.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Francis Leneghan (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘A Perilous Task? The Making of the Old English Heptateuch (Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 509)’
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • The Germanic Reading Group – 4pm online. This week, the focus will be on extracts from Physiologus, the elephant. Contact Howard Jones if you would like the zoom link and handout.
  • Medieval Poetry Reading Group – 4.30pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radliffe Humanities Building. The theme this week is Light without Sun or Moon: The Poetry of Kabīr.
  • Early Modern Graduate Forum – 5.15pm in Seminar Room B at the English Faculty. Jacob Ridley (DPhil candidate, Univ) will be talking on the topic of  ‘Androcracy and Personification from Everyman to Spenser’. Wine and soft drinks provided.
  • Medieval Church and Culture – 5.00pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Helen Flatley (Somerville) will be speaking on ‘Ties that Bind: Partnership, Surety and Social Bonds between Christians, Muslims and Jews in Toledo, 1085-c.1300’.

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Angelology and Demonology.
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Arkadiy Avdokhin (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Gone with the Wind: Ambition, Scatology, and Violence in Acclamations for Albinos at Aphrodisias’.
  • VRF in the Creative Arts: Inks & Paints of the Abbasids – 5.15pm in the Eliot Theatre, Merton College. This talk will take us through the pigments and dyes that made up the Islamic scribe’s colour palette. Joumana Medlej will describe their preparation and behaviour from a practitioner’s perspective, and share process photos from her re-creation of ink recipes from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, along with insights into inkmaking practices gleaned from these texts. 

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon Room, Exeter Collge. The text this week is Caesar (Plutarch, Life of Caesar 63–66).
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5pm online. Elizabeth Boyle (Maynooth) will be speaking on ‘Psychology and the Individual in Medieval Ireland’.
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm in the Arumugam Building, St Catz. Elena Lichmanova (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Religious Storytelling and the Rise of Marginalia’.

Friday

  • Oxford Medieval Society ‘Shut Up and Write’ – 9.30 to 12 in Blackwell’s Cafe.
  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • Inaugural Lecture of the Gad Rausing Associate Professor of Viking-Age Archaeology, held at St Cross College at 3pm on Friday 8th November. Dr Jane Kershaw will be speaking on ‘The Viking Diaspora: Causes, Networks and Cultural Identity’. Tickets are available here.

Saturday

  • Reading in the Woods: A Day of Learning About Wood in the Library. 11am at the Weston Library and online. More info here.

UPCOMING

  • To register for the ‘Crafting the Book’ one-day workshop, held on 22 November at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, please follow this link.
  • 700 Years of the Thames at The National Archives – The National Archives (London), Thursday November 7 – drop in between 15:00 and 19:00. Tickets here.
  • Tickets are available here for the Society of Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium (4th-6th November 2024).
  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

T.K.A

Bodleian Library MS. Arch. Selden. B. 10, fol 5r

The inaugural ADAM workshop (Addressing Difficult Aspects of the Medieval) 

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01/11/2024

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The inaugural ADAM (Addressing Difficult Aspects of the Medieval) workshop took place from the 23rd–24th September 2024 at St. John’s College, University of Oxford. 

The programme on Monday 23rd began with a 90-minute discussion of the ‘Möndull-Ingibjörg’ episode from Göngu-Hrólfs saga. The committee selected this episode as it contains references to sexual assault, physical disability, and race. 

We distributed the text in an English translation several weeks before the workshop. In the session we discussed: the ‘sanitisation’ of sexual violence and racial insensitivity through translation; the difficulty in mapping contemporary understandings of rape, race, and disability onto the past; the scholar’s positionality in their approach to these topics. The conversation soon moved beyond the text to consider these issues in academia at large. Positionality was particularly controversial, with delegates discussing their discomfort in studying topics without lived experience – ‘am I the right person to be speaking about this?’ – and the potential advantages and disadvantages to foregrounding one’s own experience in academic work. The conversation led us to consider how research grounded in lived experience might complement that which is not, and how scholars of different positionalities might collaborate.

This opening discussion was followed by two paper sessions, the first of which was on ‘Facing the public: What do people want from history?’ and the second on ‘Ethnic identities: interrogating nationhood and colonialism’. Among the papers, we heard considerations of: the risk of harassment faced by women scholars; museological representations of slavery; racial erasure in the interpretation of a Middle English lyric; and the miscategorisation of the ‘Ruthanian’ language along contemporary national lines.

These sessions were followed by a keynote presentation from Professor Corinne Saunders (University of Durham). Professor Saunders gave an instructive account of her movement from her doctoral thesis, to her seminal monograph on ‘Rape and Ravishment’; an academic path she did not anticipate as a postgraduate. She was aware of the pressure upon scholars who ‘fall into’ the study of topics such as these to equip themselves both academically and psychologically. She also noted that a project can become more ‘difficult’ due to external factors, such as when COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd coincided with the final stage of a project on ‘breathlessness’.

The following day began with a group tour with the Uncomfortable Oxford social enterprise. In our scheduled discussion afterwards, delegates were especially taken by the tour’s engagement with the history of antisemitism in the city and the location of a number of University landmarks atop significant Jewish sites. We discussed the University’s reticence when addressing difficult histories and the insufficiency of the ‘plaque response’, whereby a commemorative plaque is erected in a way that might be easily overlooked or dismissed. Delegates debated the best way to supplement such a response so that these aspects of institutional history sit alongside prevailing, comfortable narratives.

Two sessions followed under the banner of ‘Sexual interactions’, the first considering ‘Power structures and interpersonal relationships’ and the second ‘Violence, affect, and audience’. Dividing this topic into two allowed delegates to engage with medieval representations of sexual material that frustrate contemporary categories.  We heard papers on the study of: conjugal violence in court reports of 15th-century Freising; how best to teach the phenomenon of the ‘raping hero’; and ‘compassion fatigue’ in scholars dealing with artistic representations of Lucretia’s rape by Tarquinius.

The workshop concluded with a panel on ‘Redefinitions: Moving beyond structures’, which dovetailed with our recurrent discussions of terminology and the lack of overlap between contemporary language and historical concepts. Papers were presented on the inadequacy of contemporary disability theory in appraising medieval medical text, and the applicability of queer theory to the interpretation of cross-dressing in a monastic context. The workshop concluded with an hour-long discussion, in which we restated our need to wrangle with contemporary language and its misalignment with the categories of the past, as well as to continuously re-evaluate ‘best practice’ in addressing these difficult topics, both in the classroom and in scholarship.

We canvassed for anonymous feedback from our delegates following the workshop and the response has been uniformly positive, with comments emphasising the value of the workshop environment for rigorous and respectful debate. Our delegates have offered a number of suggestions for the network’s development and we now look towards implementing a mailing list and website to provide resources for scholars, organising an edited collection of papers from the workshop, and arranging an open conference at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. We have also been invited to collaborate with Corinne Saunders in her work at The Affective Experience Lab, University of Durham.

We are most grateful to OMS for the financial support.

Adam Kelly (University of Oxford), Grace O’Duffy (University of Oxford), Elliot Worrall (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 3

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27/10/2024

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Call for Papers, events, News, opportunities

Time flies when you’re trapped inside a poorly-lit library basement: Week 3 is upon us! Please find included a list of this week’s events and opportunities. As always, a PDF version copy of the booklet can be found here. Read on.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Sarah Hamilton (University of Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Writing History in the Tenth Century’.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Denis Renevey (Lausanne) will be speaking on ‘Discovering and Re-Fashioning the Self: The Apophatic and Encyclopaedic Journeys of Andrew Boorde (c. 1490–1549)’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Seminar Series – 2.30pm in Basement Teaching Room No. 1, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Pusey Lane. Peter Tóth (Bodleian Libraries) will be speaking on ‘A Tale of Three Continents: Reuniting a Copto-Greek Ostracon’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm at the Maison Française d’Oxford. This week’s presentation is on ‘Researchers at Work: Collaboration and Encounter’.
  • Medieval Church and Culture – 5.30pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Peter Tóth (Bodleian Library) will be speaking on ‘Virgin Mary visits Hell: Identifying a Medieval Latin Apocryphal Text’. NB. the later start time this week.

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Magic and Religious Boundaries.
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Geoffrey Greatrex (Ottawa) will be speaking on ‘What Sort of Late Antiquity? Reflections on P. Brown, Journeys of the Mind’.

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon Room, Exeter Collge. The text this week is Nero (Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars 6.5).
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5pm at Jesus College and online. Nina Cnockaert-Guillou (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) will be speaking on ‘From Acallam na Senórach to Agallamh na Seanórach: Structuring Narratives and Recycling Texts in (Early) Modern Ireland’.
  • Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5pm online. A. Zayaruznaya (Yale University) and Andrew Wathey (The National Archives and Northumbria University) will be speaking on ‘Philippe de Vitry (31 October 1291 – 9 June 1361)’. Please register using this form.
  • Compline in the Crypt (in German for Reformationstag) – 9.30pm in the Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (!), the library church of St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. This week will see the presentation of Hans Sachs’s Dialogues in German and a Tudor Translation, followed by a chance to print a keepsake at the Bibliographic Press in the Old Schools Quad. All welcome.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group, Work-in-Progress Meeting – 5pm in the Hawkins Room,  Merton College. There will be two speakers: Tom McAuliffe (‘Membra mutilata: Reading a Twelfth-century Rochester Manuscript in its Intended Order’) and Ana Dias (‘Writing and Devotion in Early Medieval Chelles: The Production of Relic Labels’).
  • Hans Sachs New Edition Launch Day – 5pm in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pm in Lincoln College. Joanna Augustyn will be speaking ong ‘Embroidery as Alternative Writing: Philomela’s Tongue’.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College. For more information, please contact Jane Bliss (jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org).

Saturday

  • Middle High German Study Day – 2pm in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library. Please register by Wednesday with the following form; only a couple of spaces left!
  • The Oxford Centre for Early Medieval Britain and Ireland is organizing a trip to the Brixworth Annual Lecture, taking place at 5pm. Tickets are £8.00 for students and £12.00 for adults. If you are interested in travelling down from Oxford, please email Robert Klapper.

UPCOMING

  • Tickets are available here for the Society of Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium.
  • Tickets are available here for the inaugural lecture of the Gad Rausing Associate Professor of Viking-Age Archaeology, held at St Cross College at 3pm on Friday 8th November. Dr Jane Kershaw will be speaking on ‘The Viking Diaspora: Causes, Networks and Cultural Identity’.
  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES

  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

T.K.A

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Junius 11, fol. 3.

‘Epiros: The Other Western Rome’ Virtual Workshop, Friday 8th – Saturday 9th November 2024. Registration and Programme.

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22/10/2024

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This workshop was made possible through the generous support of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR) and The Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities (Torch).

Epiros Workshop Programme FinalDownload

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 marriage or confession to Italians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Vlachs, 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 gathers 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.

Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElduCsrjojHNIUxUlJ-geTXPVBuiBkzywn

All timings are in the UK’s Timezone (GMT)

DAY 1 Friday, 8th November 2024

Opening address

9:00 – 9:20

Welcome from Nathan D.C. Websdale and Evan Zarkadas

Session 1 Overview: Epirote Studies

9:30 – 11:00

9:30-10:00 EFSTRATIA SYGKELLOU (Ioannina)

Medieval Epiros: Scientific Studies and Activities in Greece: An Overview

Break – 15 min

10:00-10:30 EVAN ZARKADAS (Independent)

The New Ioannites: The Influx of the Constantinopolitan Refugees in Epiros after 1204 and their Impact on Ioannina

10:30-11:00 BRENDAN OSSWALD (Tübingen)

Late Medieval Epiros: A Spatial Analysis

Session 2

The Dytikoi I: The (Post) ‘Komnenian System’

11:15 – 12:45

11:15-11.45 MICHAEL ANGOLD (Edinburgh)

The Petraliphas in Exile

11:45-12:15 NATHAN D.C. WEBSDALE (Oxford)

In Defence of Epiros: Michael Angelos and Theodore Komnenos Doukas as Traitors, Heirs, and Moses

12:15-12:45 JOHN KEE (Dumbarton Oaks)

Michael Choniates’ Letters to Epiros: John Apokaukos, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, and the end of Byzantine Aegean Greece

Break – 75 min

Session 3 The Dytikoi II: Network Analysis

14:00 – 15:30

14:00-14:30 CHRISTOS TSATSOULIS (N.H.R.F., Athens)

Towards an Edition of a Prosopographical Lexicon for Byzantine Epiros (4th-15th c.): the “Anonymoi” in Epirote Society

14:30-15:00 KATERINA KORRE (Patras)

The Vasilachi case: Observations on the Population Patterns Through the “Archontes” of the Late Medeival Epiros

15:00-15:30 ROBIN SHIELDS (Independent)

Epiros as a Breadbasket? The Extraordinary Barges Agreement of 1436 and the Wider Cereal Trade Between the Tocco Despotate and Ragusa in the mid-15th century

Session 4 The Hybrid Material Culture of Epirote Rome

15:45 – 16:45

15:45-16:10 ANDREA BABUIN (Ioannina)

The Military Element in Late Medieval Epiros through Literary, Historical and Artistic Sources of the Period

16:10-16:40 ALLISON GRENDA (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Memory, Futurity, and Subversion in Arta’s Despotic Landscape: The Case of the Church of the Parigoritissa

DAY 2 Saturday, 9th November 2024

Session 5

09:00 – 11:00

A Roman ‘Empire’ of the Balkans I: Epiros and Bulgaria

09:00-09:30 FRANCESCO DALL’AGLIO (Bulgarian Academy)

Not Just Klokotnitsa: Relations Between Epiros and Bulgaria between 1207 and 1241

09:30-10:00 KALIN YORDANOV (Bulgarian Academy)

“Totum ducatum di Finepople et quisque eum tenet”: A Key to Solving Theodore Komnenos’ Mysterious Diversion Towards Klokotnitza at the March on Constantinople in 1230?

10:00-10:30 ILIA CURTO PELLE (Princeton)

Circulation Patterns of Epirote-Thessalonican Coinage in the 13th Century

10:30-11:00 SAMUEL E.L. COWELL (Vienna)

Reevaluating the Epirote Coinage of Michael II Komnenos Doukas

Break – 30 min

Session 6

A Roman ‘Empire’ of the Balkans II: Epiros amidst its Neighbours

11:30 – 13:30

11:30-12:00 JACK DOOLEY (Royal Holloway, London)

The Orsini Family in the Aragonese Chronicle of Morea

12:00-12:30 AGON RREZJA (Zagreb)

Albanians Between the Despotate of Epiros and the Latin West in the 13th-14th Centuries

12:30-13:00 GREGORY MANOPOULOS (D.U.Th., Komotini)

Rediscovering history in early 17th century Epiros: The 14th century “Χρυσόβουλον τῆς ὑπεραγίας Θεοτόκου τῆς Πωγωϊαννῆς”

13:00-13:30 GEORGE TEREZAKIS (Tübingen)

The Transformation of Late Byzantine Epiros to Early Ottoman Sanjak of Yanya (Ioannina) (12th-16th c.): Continuity and Change

Session 7

Reassessing Social Life in the Dossier of John Apokaukos, Metropolitan of Naufpaktos (1200–1232)

14:30 – 16:00

14:30-15:00 NICK CHURIK (Princeton)

Everyday Violence in Apokaukos

15:00-15:30 IOANNIS SMARNAKIS (Aegean)

Episcopal Power and Urban Communities in the Early Despotate of Epiros

15:30-16:00 ALEKSANDAR JOVANOVIC (Fraser Valley)

Contract-Loving Communities: Imperial Bureaucratic Practices in the Provincial Society of John Apokaukos

16:00 – 16:15 Closing Remarks

Panel 34 of the bayeux Tapestry, featuring two birds.

Medieval Matters: MT 24, week 1

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13/10/2024

17:24

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events, News, Uncategorized

,

First week is upon us! Welcome back, and a particular welcome to those joining us for the first time. I hope you’ve all had a chance to flick through the booklet of medieval events this term – if not, a PDF version can be found here. I’d like to draw your attention to the OMS Welcome Event this Tuesday at 5pm – I look forward to meeting lots of you there, and hearing more about the events you are running.

And: check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am at the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls. Edward Zychowicz-Coghill (KCL) will be speaking on ‘Writing the Conquest of Egypt: A case study in the Formation of Islamic Historical Writing’.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, St Cross Building. Amy Appleford (Boston University) will be speaking on ‘Ascetic Theory and the Impaired Christ: Peter Damian, Richard Rolle, Julian of Norwich’.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2pm in the Weston Library.
  • Oxford Medieval Studies Welcome Event – 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. A welcome event for all medievalists, old and new – all those running a seminar/group are encouraged to come along to pitch their event to the community!

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207, The Clarendon Institute, Walton St. The topic this week will be Jewish Women and Communal Roles.
  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11.15am at Somerville College. The topic for this term is Konrad von Megenberg: ‘Buch der Natur’. The 1861 edition by Pfeiffer is open access online, 2003 edition by Luff/Steer is accessible via SOLO. This will be a short organisational meeting – contact Henrike Lähnemann for more information.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm on Teams. To join and/or to find out more, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Alexander Sherborne (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Extraordinary Medieval Monuments of Georgia: A Report by the Oxford University Byzantine Society Research Trip, July 2024’.
  • Dante Reading Group – 5.30pm in Seminar Room 11, St Anne’s College

Thursday

  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – time TBC, Online. Arnisha Ashraf (Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi) will be speaking on ‘Woman’s Body as ‘Commodity’: Matrimonial Alliances and Political Dynamics in Medieval Assam (c.1600-1800)’.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapeldon Room, Exeter College. The theme this term is ‘Greek and Roman Lives’.
  • Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5pm on Zoom. Please register here.
  • ‘The Winter Sun in Capricorn: Portal Imagery in Chaucer & Chartres Cathedral’, with the American Friends of Chartres – 7:30, held Online. Tickets here.

Friday

  • Beowulf Study Day – 10pm in the Study of the Book Room, Faculty of English. Booking required.
  • Medievalists Coffee Morning 10.30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College. This term, the group will be reading Troilus and Criseyde – please bring a copy of the Riverside Chaucer if possible.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm at the Weston Library. Andrew Honey will be speaking on ‘Cataloguing Medieval Bookbindings at the Bodleian: Manuscripts from Reading Abbey as a case study’. Spaces are limited: please email Elena Lichmanova by 16/10/2024.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College.

UPCOMING

  • Tickets are still available here for the inaugural lecture of the Gad Rausing Associate Professor of Viking-Age Archaeology, held at St Cross College at 3pm on Friday 8th November. Dr Jane Kershaw will be speaking on ‘The Viking Diaspora: Causes, Networks and Cultural Identity’.

OPPORTUNITIES

T.K.A

Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 34 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/). The little divider chap above is from Panel 18.

Medieval Matters: MT 24, week 0

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08/10/2024

15:30

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events, News

Hello my friends, and welcome (back) to Oxford.

The beginning of another term means a new set of exciting events to put in your calendars. The first version of the new Medieval Booklet of events can be found here. If you are organising an event or series this term, please have a quick check through: addenda and corrigenda to medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk.

Each week I will be emailing out a list of that week’s events and opportunities, bright and early on a Monday morning. This week’s selection can be found below.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Thursday 10th October:

  • The Celtic Seminar starts at 5pm in the Memorial Room at Jesus College.

Friday 11th October:

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning 10.30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library. All welcome
  • The NEW Medieval MSS Support Group 11:30-12:30 in the Horton Room in the Weston Library: 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! 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. A second date this term will be on 6 December.

COMING UP

  • On Tuesday, 15 October, there will be a chance to meet together as a community with the Welcome Social, held in the Wellbeloved Room at Harris Manchester College. If you are hosting a reading group/ lecture series/event this year we highly encourage you to come along to help spread the word. See you all there!

OPPORTUNITIES

  • University College Dublin is advertising a PhD studentship in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE), supervised by Dr Megan Welton. For more information, please see the recent blog post here.

If you know of anybody interested in the medieval who is not on this mailing list, please encourage them to register here for the mailing list.

T.K.A

Balliol College MS 238A, fol. 1r