Please see below the details for the History of Liturgy Seminar taking place this coming Monday (17th Nov) at 17.30, both in person at Balliol College and online.
Category: events
Medieval Matter MT 25, Week 5
A medieval event a day keeps the blues away – meet week 5 head-on with another set of seminars and events! As always, you can find a complete copy of the Oxford Medieval Studies Booklet here. Any last-minuted changes will be updated in the weekly blogpost and in the calendar, both accessible via https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/.
This week, on the 13th and 14th of November, the Crafting Documents project, alongside the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, is hosting the ‘Heritage Science and Manuscript Conference‘. Registration is free, and the full programme of events is available here.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Italian Research Seminar – 1:00, Taylorian Room 2. Ryan Pepin will be speaking on ‘‘Dietro la memoria non può ire’: Copyists’ Slips in the Textual Tradition of the Commedia‘.
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Tom Johnson (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Inscription Economy in Fifteenth-Century England’.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar AND Medieval French Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. Juluan Mattison (U of Georgia) will be speaking on ‘What is an English book? French Scribes, Scripts and Texts in England’
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Nancy Thebaut (Catz) will be speaking on ‘Gender, Nature, and the Limits of Art: A Close Reading of ‘Two Riddles of the Queen of Sheba’, a Late Medieval Tapestry at the Met Cloisters‘.
- Old Norse Research Seminar – 5:00, New Seminar Room, St. John’s College. Caz Batten (Pennsylvania) will be speaking on ‘Unmaking a Man: The Contested Bodies of the Völundr Legend’. Drinks to follow.
- Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15, location TBC, contact Hattie Carter
Wednesday
- John Lydgate Book Club – 11:00, Smoking Room (Lincoln College).
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar on the Constance Chronicle – 11:15, Somerville College.
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Marlena Whiting (Groningen) will be speaking on ‘Hodology, Wayfinding, and Geographical Knowledge in Late Antique Pilgrimage Accounts’
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Environmental History Working Group – 12:30, Room 20.421 in the Schwarzman Centre. Ryan Mealiffe will be speaking on ‘What are White Storks (Ciconia ciconica) Doing in High and Late Miedieval Calendars’?
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, hybrid. Simon Rodway (Aberystwyth) will be speaking on ‘Gwlithod Blewog a Mygydau Barddol: Golwg Newydd ar Garchariad Aneirin yn y Tŷ Deyerin’
- Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St. Catherine’s College. Carly Boxer (Bucknell University) will be speaking on ‘Abstract Figures and Bodily Change: Giving Form to Unseen Things in Late Medieval England’
- Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Elina Hamilton, Peter Lefferts and Elzbieta Witkowska-Zaremba will be speaking on ‘Theinred of Dover (fl. c. 1300): A New Context for him in Fourteenth-Century Music Theory’
- Compline in the Crypt – 9:30pm, St Edmund Hall.
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group: Library Visit (Merton) – 5:00. Sign-up required.
Saturday
- Workshop and Vespers for St Edmund. -14:00, St Edmund Hall Chapel. Open to all, no singing experience required. For registration, follow this link.
Opportunities
- Call for readers: For a Multilingual Medieval Compline in the Crypt on 20 Nov, 9.30pm, Henrike Lähnemann is looking for versions of the Our Father in as many medieval languages as possible. Old High German, Middle High German, Old English, and Middle English have been assigned but any further languages are welcome! Contact her if you have a version and are willing to read it.
- CfP: Shaping the Word – the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts in the Early Medieval West. Deadline 17th Nov 2025.
- Colloquium: ‘Journals, Past, Present and Future’, hosted by The Review of English Studies. More info and registration here.
- Register before 30 November for Ars Inquirendi – Querying the Pre-Modern in the Age of Large Multimodal Models
- Register for MEMRN Winter Conference 2025 13-16 November via Eventbrite HERE.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
- CfP: Locational Lives: Medieval Experience in Town and Country. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Character Groupings in Classical and Medieval Art and Literature at the University. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- Mortimer History Society Essay Prize. Deadline: 15th February 2026.
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group
Weeks 1-4, 7-8 Thursdays 10:00-11:00 am
Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, Oxford OX1 2HG and online via Zoom: see link below.
Convenors: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger and Joseph O’Hara This reading group is an opportunity to practise reading directly from images of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in an informal setting. No advance preparation is required and all skill levels are welcome!
This year we will look at documents and manuscript excerpts from a broad range of the many genres found in medieval Hebrew texts, including scientific, literary, and legal. We will consider their palaeography, language, and historical context, and learn practical skills for reading unfamiliar handwriting, dealing with damaged texts, and interpreting dates and unusual vocabulary.
There will be coffee, tea and cake from 11am in the Common Room of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for those attending in person.
In Week 5, there will be no reading group but please join the Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts and History group which will meet in person from 9am to 5pm on Thursday, 13 November.
Please note that in Week 6 (20 November) the reading group will not meet, either in person nor on line. The reading group will resume in Week 7 (27 November).
In order to attend this reading group via Zoom, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_Cx7LY20T-S0NxNwYgGBGQ
Medieval Matter MT25, Week 4
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3.00, Institute of Archaeology, Lecture Room. Wyatt Wilcox will be speaking on ‘Isolated Barrows in Early Medieval England: A Spatial Analysis’
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Anna Chrysostomides (Queen Mary, University of London) will be speaking on “Non-Binary Gender in Abbasid Baghdad: Reality vs. Fiction”
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. Kathy Lavezzo (U of Iowa) will be speaking on ‘The Darker Side of the Middle Ages’.
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Clare Whitton (Blackfriars) will be speaking on ‘Resurrecting a Patron Saint: The Feast of San Gennaro in 14th century Naples’
Wednesday
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Somerville College. The topic for this term is Ulrich von Richental, Chronik des Konzils zu Konstanz (1414-1438).
- Centre for Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Welcome Lunch – 12.30, Balliol College
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Erin Thomas Dailey (Leicester) will be speaking on ‘Why Did the Byzantine Empire Forbid SlaveOwners from Making Eunuchs of their Slaves? Castration, Masculinity, and Identity in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’
Thursday
- Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10:00, Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute and online.
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Chronicling the Self: including extracts from the memoirs of Lady Nijo and Leonor López de Córdoba
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, online. Lloyd Bowen (Cardiff) will be speaking on ‘London Puritan networks and the publication of the 1630 Welsh Bible’
- David Patterson Lecture – 6:00, Clarendon Institute, Walton St. Dr Emily Rose (Academic Visitor, OCHJS) will be speaking on “A Bleeding Corpse, A Grim Grimm Fairy Tale with Early Modern Shivers: The Dubious Margaret of Pforzheim (1267?), A Singular Female Blood Libel”. In order to participate in this lecture via Zoom, please register at this link.
- Latin Compline in the Crypt – 9:30pm, in the crypt below St-Peter-in-the-East, St Edmund Hall
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Oxford University Heraldry Society Lecture – 4:30, Harris Seminar Room of Oriel College. Professor Yorick Gomez Gane will be speaking on “The Italian Language in British Heraldry,” followed by a drinks reception.
Opportunities
- CfP: Locational Lives: Medieval Experience in Town and Country. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Character Groupings in Classical and Medieval Art and Literature at the University. Deadline 5th Jan 2026.
- CfP: Shaping the Word- the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts inthe Early Medieval West. Deadline 17th Nov 2025.
- MEMRN Winter Conference 2025 signups open.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
Medieval Matters, MT25 Week 3
Week 3 is upon us – please find below the weekly offering of events, groups, and opportunities. As always, you can find a complete copy of the Oxford Medieval Studies Booklet here. Any last-minuted changes will be updated in the weekly blogpost and in the calendar, both accessible via https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Lucy Donkin (University of Bristol) will be speaking on “Ex urbe et ab Hierosolomis: The Materiality and Portability of Place in Pre-Reformation Europe”.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. A range of contributors will be speaking on ‘On the Life and Works of Vincent Gillespie’
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Susanna Heywood (KCL): will be speaking on ‘A Practical Guide to Kingship?: the virtue of prudence in Giles of Rome’s De Regimine Principum’
- Medieval French Researsh Seminar – 5:00, Maison Française d’Oxford. Prof. Ellen Delvallée (Université Grenoble Alpes) will be speaking on ‘‘Éclats de la Chronique française de Guillaume Cretin: de l’inachèvement aux explorations esthétiques’
- Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15, location TBC, contact Hattie Carter
- Oxford Architectural and Historical Society – 5:30, Rewley House. Duncan Taylor will be speaking on ‘A New Understanding of Oxford’s Divinity School Vault’
Wednesday
- John Lydgate Book Club – 11:00, Smoking Room (Lincoln College).
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Somerville College.
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Stratis Papaioannou (Athens) will be speaking on ‘The Synaxarion of Constantinople as Historiography’
- Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures Lecture – 5:15, Memorial Room (The Queen’s College). Daniel Schwemer (Würzburg) will be speaking on ‘Ancient Kings, a New Language (and sometimes wheelbarrows): a decade of field epigraphy at the Hittite capital Boğazköy-Ḫattuša’
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Environmental History Working Group – 12:00, Room 20.421 in the Schwarzman Centre. Madeleine Fyles (UToronoto) will be speaking on ‘More than Kindling: Algarrobo Posts and Social Memory on the Peruvian North Coast’.
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, hybrid. Jaione Diaz Mazquiaran (Alan R King Etxepare Chair 2025) will be speaking on ‘Language, Beliefs, and Belonging: Immigrant Students in Basque-Medium Education’
- Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St. Catherine’s College. Hannele Hellerstedt (Ox.) will be speaking on ‘Seeing Double: Visualizing La Cité des dames and La Cité de Dieu‘.
- Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Anne Walters Robertson (The University of Chicago) will be speaking on ‘a cycle of masses for all seasons in the Burgundian court’
- Spooktacular Manuscripts – 3:00, Visiting Scholars’ Centre (Weston Library). To celebrate Halloween, Alison Ray will present a range of spooktacular medieval manuscripts, from magical spell books and alchemical texts to depictions of black cats and a witches’ sabbath. Costumes are optional! NOTE that a University or Bodleian reader card is required for access, which is via the Readers’ entrance to the Weston Library
- Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group: Library Visit (Merton) – 5:00. Sign-up required.
Opportunities
- Cambridge Colloquium in ASNC: Women and the Weird (Saturday 21 February 2026). Deadline 10th November 2025.
- Those wishing to join the Old Norse Reading Group mailing list should email brooklyn.arnot@magd.ox.ac.uk.
- The programme for the Heritage Science and Manuscripts Conference is now available.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Medieval Insular Romance Conference CfP. Deadline 31 October 2025.
- Special Issue: Points of Friction CfP. Deadline 2 November 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
Medieval Matters MT25, Week 2
Welcome to week 2, and the Medieval Matters email – a day early this time to coincide with St Frideswide’s Day! In honour of the occasion, Jesus College has paid for the Pershore Legendary to appear on Digital Bodleian, which includes the most accurate copy of Robert of Cricklade’s Life of St Frideswide. Browse away!
As always, you can find a complete copy of the Oxford Medieval Studies Booklet here. Any last-minuted changes will be updated in the weekly blogpost and in the calendar, both accessible via https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College.
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. Peter Jones (King’s College, Cambridge), will be speaking on ‘Event, story and image in writings of John Arderne (1307-c.1380), English surgeon’.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. David Scott-Macnab (North-West U) will be speaking on ‘Edward, Second Duke of York’s Master of Game: A New Edition for EETS
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Church and Culture Seminar – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. John Merrington (All Souls) will be speaking on ‘Reading the Five Thousand: gender, the body and the interpretation of John 6 in medieval Europe’.
- Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm at the at the Maison Française d’Oxford. Prof. Johannes Junge Ruhland (University of Notre Dame) will be speaking on ‘The Bookishness of French Prose Histories’.
Wednesday
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Somerville College. The topic for this term is Ulrich von Richental, Chronik des Konzils zu Konstanz (1414-1438).
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre. Johannes Pahlitzsch (Mainz) will be speaking on ‘Concepts of Space and Orthodoxy beyond Byzantium’.
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College (meet at Lodge). Authorising the Text: including extracts from the prose works of Teresa de Cartagena and Anna Komnene.
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, hybrid. Rhys Kaminski-Jones (CAWCS) will be speaking on ‘Bardic liberties: Bardism and slavery in the poetry of Iolo Morganwg’.
- Guild of Medievalist Makers – 5:30, online. Making Space Session.
- Oxford University Heraldry Society – 6:30, online. Mike Rumble will be speaking on ‘The Heraldry of Kensington and Chelsea, London’.
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
- Memorial Service for Professor Vincent Gillespie – 2:00, Keble College Chapel.
- Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group Workshop – 5:00, Merton College. Workshop with Joumana Medlej.
Opportunities
- MEMRN Winter Conference 2025 signups open.
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Medieval Insular Romance Conference CfP. Deadline 31 October 2025.
- Special Issue: Points of Friction CfP. Deadline 2 November 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
Medieval Matters, MT25 Week 1
Welcome to Michaelmas 2025 and to the definite version of the Oxford Medieval Studies Booklet! And greetings from the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Among the many superlatives it boasts, there can probably be added the claim that this is the largest grouping (a madness?) of medievalists in the world, allowing encounters across the Humanities faculties. We’ll start this year and term in the traditional way with a social in Harris Manchester College on Tuesday of week 1, 13 October, from 5pm – everybody welcome.
This email will arrive every Monday in your inbox; any changes after that will be updated in the weekly blogpost and in the calendar, both accessible via https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/.
Monday
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Introduction to Arabic Palaeography – 2:00, Khalili Research Centre
- Carmina Burana: Graduate Text Seminar – 5:00, Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College
- Medieval History Seminar – 5:00 with drinks reception to follow, All Souls College. James Miller (Christ Church, Oxford) will be speaking on “Imagining Monastic Perfection: Benedict, Fleury, and Beyond in the Central Middle Ages”.
Tuesday
- Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Margaret Thatcher Centre, Somerville. Richard Dance (Cambridge) will be speaking on “Mirror Man: Ormm and his Words”.
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room)
- Medieval Studies Social – 5:00, Harris Manchester College. All welcome – come and meet your fellow medievalists!
- James Ford Special Lecture 2025 Oxford Centre for Early Medieval Britain & Ireland (EMBI) – 5:15, Shulman Auditorium, Queen’s College. Francesca Tinti (University of the Basque Country) will be speaking on “Long-Distance Travel from Early Medieval Britain”.
- Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15, location TBC, contact Hattie Carter
Wednesday
- Early Medieval ‘Global Britain’: A Workshop by the Oxford Centre for Early Medieval Britain & Ireland (EMBI) – 9:15, The Memorial Room (Queen’s College). Booking required.
- John Lydgate Book Club – 11:00, Smoking Room (Lincoln College).
- Medieval German Graduate Seminar, planning meeting – 11:15, Somerville College.
- Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 in the Schwarzman Centre.
- Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
- Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar.
Thursday
- Middle English Reading Group – 11:00, Beckington Room (Lincoln College).
- Environmental History Working Group – 12:00, Room 20.421 in the Schwarzman Centre. Stephanie Holt (Oxford) will be speaking on “Curious Minds: Gilbert White and Thomas Pennant”.
- Celtic Seminar – 5:00, online. Elisabeth Chatel (CRBC) will be speaking on “The Joseph Loth Dilemma: Scientific Authority and Cultural Identity in Brittany”.
- Old Norse Welcome Event – 6:00, Gardeners’ Arms (Plantation Road).
Friday
- Medievalist Coffee Morning – 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. This week, Christina Ostermann and Henrike Lähnemann will speak on the ‘Girl Who Lived in the Library‘, the memoirs of Luisa Hewitt, born in the basement of the Taylorian in the 1880s
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room).
Opportunities
- Call for Committee Members for the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference.
- Medium Ævum Essay Prize welcomes applications. Deadline 1 December 2025.
- Medieval Insular Romance Conference CfP. Deadline 31 October 2025.
- Special Issue: Points of Friction CfP. Deadline 2 November 2025.
- Data Visualization in the Humanities: Nodegoat Open Workshop.
Palaeography Offers in Michaelmas 25
There are a number of palaeography offers available for anybody interested in Oxford happening in Michaelmas 2025, coordinated by Dr Laure Miolo, Lyell Career Development Fellow in Latin Palaeography and Dilts Fellow at Lincoln College, historian of late medieval Europe, specialising in manuscript studies and history of early libraries with a special focus on scientific books and practices. Contact her for any of the below under laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.
Header Image: Lincoln College/EL/OAS/D1
- French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Mo 10.30-12
- Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives, Fr 2-3pm
- Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Tue 2-3.30pm
1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group
This group is open to anyone with an interest in Old French, Middle French and Anglo-Norman manuscripts. We study and read manuscripts from the 12th century to the 16th century with a special focus on palaeography. We meet every Monday between 10.30am-12pm in the Weston Library.
If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please write to Laure Miolo.
The seminar comprises brief lectures on the morphology and function of scripts, as well as the evolution of script shapes and graphic systems in context, followed by transcription practice using original manuscripts and documents. Sessions are structured around the historical development of scripts, progressing from simpler shapes and strokes with minimal ligatures and abbreviations to more cursive and complex forms. A study of the diverse scripts found between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries in manuscripts and documents written in Old French, Middle French, and Anglo-Norman — and produced in various geographical areas —will allow participants to gain familiarity with a wide range of scripts and abbreviations. The reading of literary texts in parallel with the analysis of manuscripts and their scripts serves to complement both the lectures and transcription practice.
2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives
Every Friday 2-3pm Weston Library (Horton Room)
This weekly one-hour seminar offers participants the opportunity to work directly with original documents from various Oxford parishes, held in the Bodleian Libraries. Focusing primarily on thirteenth-century deeds, these documents provide rich insight into everyday life in medieval Oxford. Open to undergraduates, postgraduates, and early career researchers, the seminar welcomes all those interested in working with primary sources and conducting in-depth contextual analysis of historical records
Working individually or in pairs on a self-selected original document, participants will closely examine its physical and material features (such as writing surface, layout, and signs of use), carry out transcription and translation, and identify the individuals and locations mentioned in order to situate the document within its historical context. Particular emphasis will be placed on the seals attached to the documents.
Alongside collaborative work on these unpublished or little-studied sources, participants will gain experience in the digitisation and cataloguing of archival materials, and will have the opportunity to present their research and original documents to a wider audience during a one-day workshop in Trinity Term.
This seminar is held at the Weston Library (Horton Room) in collaboration with Matthew Holford, Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo via email: laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo
3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group
(advanced beginner, intermediate and advanced levels)
For those wishing to develop, deepen or maintain their skills in Latin palaeography, we meet every Tuesday between 2pm and 3.30pm in the Weston Library (Horton Room or Visiting Scholars Centre). We explore a wide variety of medieval manuscripts and documents dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Each session combines hands-on analysis of different scripts, abbreviations, and codicological features. Regular practice is key to building palaeographical skills and gaining confidence in reading a range of scripts, from clear book and documentary hands to more cursive and heavily abbreviated ones. This reading group is designed to introduce the essential features of each script and abbreviation, enabling participants to read and interpret manuscripts directly and with confidence. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo
Probatio pennae
Dear Oxford Medievalists,
Hello from your new Social Medial officer!
As we prepare for the start of term, I want to encourage anyone and everyone to contribute ideas for content on the Oxford Medieval Studies social media.
We are active anywhere and everywhere — Beacons (this platform), BlueSky, Instagram, and Threads — and eagerly awaiting your suggestions.
If you want an event, workshop, or seminar advertised, please let me know and I will spread the word!
If (when!) something exciting happens in your research, we can raise awareness about that too!
I hope to hear from many of you throughout the year. Wishing everyone a great start to a new term, with a reflection on the weird and wonderful of medieval manuscripts:
Customer: I’d like a letter ‘E’ please.
Scribe: A normal one, or a snail-helmeted warrior with an ostrich leg and plums down his pants?
Customer: The plums one, obviously.
Cheers,
Elizabeth Crabtree
elizabeth.crabtree@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Interim Medieval Matters (Long Vac)
Term draws near. Please send all entries for next term’s OMS booklet to medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk, by Wednesday of -1 week at the latest (1st October). Until then, please see below a number of upcoming deadlines and opportunities:
- CFP: CHASE Medieval and Early Modern Research Network (MEMRN) postgraduate conference – deadline 12 September. More info here.
- Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages classes. The deadline to apply is 12 September at 12 noon UK time. More info here.
- The Medieval Academy of America’s podcast series The Multicultural Middle Ages is accepting episode proposals for their 5th season. More info here.
- CFP: Cambridge Medieval History Graduate Workshop. Deadline 29th September. More info here.
- Applications are open for the John W. Baldwin Post-Doctoral Fellowship. The Post-Doctoral Fellow will be a scholar whose research aligns with the goals of the study of “Europe in the world” and who has demonstrated evidence of innovative methodologies. Deadline 10th Nov. More info here.
- The West Horsley Place Trust seeks a researcher. More info here.