The Oxford/Groningen 2025 Old Frisian Summer School (OFSS25) will take place in Groningen (Netherlands), 7th-11th July. This will be a fun way to learn Old Frisian in a week, to view original Old Frisian manuscripts and to see the world heritage landscape of old Frisian ‘terps’ or dwelling mounds.
OFSS25 : Old Frisian : A Gem within the OId Germanic Languages.
The OFSS25 should be of special interest to students (UG and PG) and Early Career Researchers of Old English, Old Norse, Old High German or Gothic who are interested in learning Old Frisian. You will be taught grammar and practice translation in hands-on workshops. Invited speakers will give lectures by on the Old Frisian text corpus and history to provide historical and cultural context. Library visits to view the manuscripts are on the programme and a tour around the ‘terps’ will be organised on 12th July.
Questions?? Attend as a taster session a lecture by Johanneke Sytsema (as part of Henrike Lähnemann’s lecture series ‘Topics in Historical Linguistics’) on Strong Verbs Across English, Frisian, Dutch, Low German, High German, an introduction to the crucial place of Frisian in the history of Germanic Languages Venue: Taylor Library, room 2, Date: Friday week 5 (21 Feb), 2–3pm
Postgraduate Research Forum (hybrid), 2nd April 2025
This forum seeks to provide a supportive environment in which postgraduates can share ideas and get helpful feedback. Proposals are welcomed for 20-minute papers that explore the nuanced relationships between ‘Outsiders’ and ‘Insiders’ during the medieval period, which may include, but are not limited to:
Defining Boundaries:
How were boundaries—geographical, social, and cultural constructed in medieval societies?
Who were considered ‘insiders’ and who were relegated to the status of ‘outsiders’?
What role did religion, ethnicity, and class play in shaping these distinctions?
Power and Exclusion:
How did medieval institutions (such as the Church, feudal lords, and guilds) wield power over both insiders and outsiders?
What mechanisms were used to exclude certain groups from participation in economic, political, or religious life?
Were there instances of resistance or subversion by those on the margins?
Cultural Exchange and Hybridity:
How did interactions between insiders and outsiders lead to cultural exchange, adaptation, and hybrid identities?
What can we learn from the cross-cultural encounters between medieval Europeans, Byzantines, Arabs, and other groups?
Did artistic, literary, or architectural expressions reflect these interactions?
Narratives of Otherness:
How were outsiders portrayed in medieval chronicles, literature, and art?
Were there attempts to challenge or subvert prevailing stereotypes?
What can we glean from these narratives about societal attitudes towards difference?
Marginalized Voices:
Who were the marginalized groups in medieval society (e.g., Jews, lepers, heretics, women)?
How did they navigate their position as outsiders?
Can we recover their voices and experiences from historical sources?
Please submit an abstract of up to 150 words and a short biography by 31st January 2025 to readinggcms25@googlegroups.com. Please also provide your name, affiliation, contact information, and if you intend to present your paper either in-person or remotely.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne on Cultural Politics and Social History, c. 1100-c. 1500
Thursdays at 5pm, Weeks 1-6 Hilary, Examination Schools
French played a major, though not the only role, in the pervasive multilingualism of British history and culture. As Britain’s only medieval ‘global’ vernacular, it was also important to a wide range of people for their participation in external theatres of empire, trade, culture, conflict, and crusade. Displacing the long shadow of nineteenth-century nationalizing conceptions of language and their entrenchment in modern university disciplinary divisions, emerging histories of French in England and increasingly of French in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland offer new ways of understanding language and identity. These lectures trace francophone medieval Britain in a chronological sequence across its four main centuries, interpolating two thematic lectures on areas especially needing integration into our histories, medieval women and French in Britain, and French Bible translation in medieval England.
About the Lecture Series: The Ford Lectures in British History were founded by a bequest from James Ford, and inaugurated by S.R.Gardiner in 1896-7. Since then, an annual series has been delivered over six weeks in Hilary term. They have long been established as the most prestigious series in Oxford and an important annual event in the University’s calendar.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne in her allotment on Osney Island in Oxford
About the speaker: Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne is Professor emerita of both the University of York, where she held the Chair of Medieval Literature from 2005 to 2010, and Fordham University in New York, where she was the Thomas F.X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature from 2010 to 2019.
Her wide-ranging scholarship has most recently focused on the reconceptualization of English medieval literary culture as a multilingual community. She has created a fundamentally new understanding of the importance attached to knowing, speaking, reading and/or writing French in later medieval England: work on the culture of late medieval England is now unthinkable without taking her insights into account. The approach was spearheaded in her Vernacular Literary Theory from the French of Medieval England: Texts and Translation (with Thelma Fenster and Delbert Russell) (Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2016), which built on the earlier The Idea of the Vernacular: Middle English Literary Theory c. 1280-1520, with Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans. A book of essays, The French of Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Jocelyn Wogan-Browne(2017), speaks to the extensive influence of her work and the esteem in which she is held by the scholarly community.
Jocelyn came to Oxford from Australia to study for the BPhil in Medieval Language and Literature at St Hilda’s College under the supervision of Elspeth Kennedy, one of Oxford’s most inspirational teachers. Her fellow countryman, Bruce Mitchell, another medievalist, became her mentor, and she became established in Oxford at the events he hosted for students from the southern hemisphere. Jocelyn started a DPhil in Old Norse and Old French, but accepted a lectureship in Early Middle English and Anglo-Norman at Liverpool, later receiving a doctorate on the strength of her numerous publications. Liverpool was followed by positions at York and Fordham, where her dedication to students and teaching won her a basket of teaching awards, in addition to her distinguished research profile.
Now living in Oxford and a member of St Edmund Hall, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne remains a dynamo of multi-disciplinary research. Her Ford Lectures will undoubtedly turn our concept of ‘English History’ on its head.
Lecture Schedule
23rd Jan: “Alle mine thegenas … frencisce & englisce”: The Languages of 1066 – And All That
30th Jan: Langue des reines: The Importance of Women to French and French to Women.
6th Feb: Expansions: ‘Everyone knows that French is better understood and more widely used than Latin’: Matthew Paris (in French, 1253×59)
13th Feb: ‘That each may in his own tongue … know his God’ (Grosseteste, in French, 1230s): Bible Translation in Medieval England
20th Feb: “Lette Frenchmen in their Frenche endyten”(Thomas Usk, c.1384-87): French in the Multilingual Fourteenth Century
27th Feb: “Et lors que parlerez anglois /Que vous n’oubliez pas le François” (manuscript dedication, c. 1445) : Off-shoring French?
On Friday 8th and Saturday 9th November, the online workshop Epiros: The Other Western Rome was held, platforming twenty-one papers from sixteen universities. As the second phase of a new international project, the workshop investigated the Byzantine successor-state of Epiros (1204–1444). Formed from the Fourth Crusade, this Balkan state existed as an alternative narrative and third Byzantine-Roman context, encompassing a vast variety of peoples of the former empire.
Originally envisioned as a one-day workshop, the programme was expanded to two days to accommodate so many excellent submissions. As a result, we were able to offer panels on, The ‘Post-Komnenian System’, ‘Epiros and Bulgaria’, ‘Epiros and its other Neighbours’, ‘Network Analysis,’ ‘Hybrid Material Culture,’ and more. The workshop’s convenors are hugely grateful for the participation of speakers and attendees, as well as the support of both The Oxford Centre Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR).
An edited volume of papers is planned, and a selection of images below.
Week 8 is finally upon us, and a final round of events. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here. Keep an eye on your inboxes over the vac – I will be sending out an email asking for contributions to next term’s booklet. Recruitment for the Medieval Mystery Cycle on 26 April 2025 is going into a new phase with the appointment of Antonia Anstatt and Sarah Ware as Co-Heads of Performance – contact then with questions.
Wishing you a lovely Christmas with this recording of ‘Nowel’ from Bodleian Library, MS. Arch. Selden B. 26, fol. 14v.
EVENTSTHIS 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. Stephen Rippon (University of Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Excavations at Ipplepen’.
OMS Tea Talks – 4.30 in New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Tea and biscuits provided.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Alicia Smith (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Harlot/Saint: Tracking the Figure of Thais Meretrix in Medieval Manuscript Compilations.’
Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30pm in the English Faculty Graduate Common Room.
Tuesday
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.
Medieval Church and Culture – tea from 5.00pm (talk starts at 5.15) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Phil Booth (St Peter’s) will be speaking on ‘Egypt from the Ancient Mediterranean to the Middle Medieval East: A Seventh-century Chronicle Between Worlds’.
Wednesday
Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Violence against Jews and Jewish Violence.
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 Women’s Writing – Chat with an Expert – 1pm in the VHH Seminar Room, Lincoln College. Rachel Delman (Heritage Partnerships Coordinator) will be talking about ‘Medieval Women’s Stories in Heritage & Community Settings’.
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
Inaugural Dorothy Whitelock Lecture – 5pm in in Lecture Theatre 2, St Cross Building . Gale Owen-Crocker will be speaking on ‘Social History and False Friends: From Anglo-Saxon Wills to the Bayeux Tapestry via Material Culture’
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Zdenka Stahuljak (UCLA) will be speaking on ‘Methodologies of Commensuration: Poetry, History, and Knowledge’.
Thursday
Italian Late Medieval and Early Modern Palaeography Course (1400-1800) – 10pm in the Chough Room, Teddy Hall.
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 Alexander (Plutarch, Life of Alexander 7–8, 62–65).
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm in the Arumugam Building, St Catz. Ben Tilghman (Maryland, USA) will speak on ‘What Art Does When It’s Doing Nothing: Stillness, Perdurance, and Agency in Medieval Art’
Medieval and Renaissance Music Seminar – 5pm online (register here). Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (Independent scholar) will be speaking on ‘A.I., Similarity, and Search in Medieval Music: New Methodologies and Source Identifications’.
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.
The Germanic Reading Group – 4pm online. This week, the focus will be on Old English: Extracts from the Life of St Chad (Nelson leading).
OPPORTUNITIES
CHASE-DTP funded PhD opportunity between MEMS Kent and Westminster Abbey to investigate medieval manuscript fragments in the Abbey’s archives, application deadline 17 February 2025. More info here.
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.
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.
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.
On 22 November, the ‘Crafting the Book’ Workshop was organised by Alison Ray (St Peter’s College) with talks and practical activities led by Sara Charles (University of London) and Eleanor Baker (Balliol College). Attended by university students, researchers, as well as library and archives staff, the workshop engaged with the history of the book and material culture of medieval manuscripts and early printed works, including their production, decoration, and provenance through signs of ownership.
The lunchtime lecture featured talks in the Weston Library by Sara and Eleanor on their recently published research on book history. First, Sara presented three case studies of early female scribes from her trade publication, The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, August 2024). Next, Eleanor shared a range of book curses from the Middle Ages onwards, and the research process behind her new work, Book Curses (Bodleian Publishing, November 2024). The lecture was a stimulating look at the human agency involved in the lifecycle of manuscripts and early books, from production and use to their survival today.
The afternoon continued with practical workshops in the Bodleian Bibliographical Press led by Sara and Eleanor, in which participants developed a deeper understanding of contemporary artistic and reader practices through taking part in hands-on craft methods. In our first workshop, Sara guided participants in the preparation of iron gall ink and quills to practice medieval writing, and they additionally tested pigments used in illumination. For our second workshop, Eleanor led groups of participants to prepare their own book curses on bookmarks using letterpress printing and the session was accompanied by an introduction to printing techniques by press supervisor Richard Lawrence. Attendees greatly enjoyed engaging with the materiality and craft methods in manuscript and print culture.
The ‘Crafting the Book’ Workshop was held in association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). We are also grateful for assistance in planning and supporting the workshop on the day by Alex Franklin (Bodleian), Richard Lawrence, Tianqi Wang (St Peter’s) and Holly Smith (St Anne’s).
Much like Bob Dylan, we have all spent the last week Blowin’ in the Wind: here are this week’s medieval events to help you through. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here.
A reminder that this Friday – 5pm at St Edmund Hall – there will be an event for those interested in this year’s Medieval Mystery Plays. All are welcome, even (/ especially) if you are unsure how to get involved.
EVENTSTHIS 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. Fouzia Farooq Ahmed (All Souls / Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad) will be speaking on ‘Gender Ventriloquism in Medieval India: the Writings of Amir Khusro’. Drinks to follow.
Tuesday
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Edward Shawe-Taylor (St Cross) will be speaking on ‘The Qur’an of Mūsā b. Bughā: Reassembling a Lost Egyptian Manuscript’.
Medieval French Research Seminar – 5.15pm at the Maison Française d’Oxford. The theme this week is ‘Otherworld Objects between [REF] and [FIC]’.
Wednesday
Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is: Eating and Sharing Meals with the Religious Other.
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. Alberto Rigolio (Durham) will be speaking on ‘The Rise of the Memrā in Syriac Literature’.
Prof Dr Hermann Parzinger, President of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, lecture at 17.15. at the Weston Library on the history of the Prussian Heritage Foundation along with the importance of sustainability and the contemporary, post-colonial responsibilities and challenges faced by the heritage sector. A drinks reception will follow.The sign up is here.
Thursday
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
British Archaeological Association Post-Graduate Online Conference – 12.20pm online. Register here.
Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon Room, Exeter Collge. The text this week is ‘on writing Lives’ (Tacitus, Annals 4.34).
Torch Talk: ‘Locating Silences: The Status and Agency of Women in the Delhi Sultanate’ – 4pm in St Luke’s Chapel, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5.15pm at Jesus College and online. Tanguy Solliec (LACITO, CNRS, Paris) will be speaking on ‘Breton Dialect Variation: An Opportunity to Reflect on the Emergence and Formation of a Language’.
Compline in the Crypt (in English) – 9.30pm in the Crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East (!), the library church of St Edmund Hall.
An Introduction to Greek Manuscript Culture – 2pm in the Horton Room, Weston Library. First come, first served: email almut.fries@classics.ox.ac.uk for more info.
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.
Medieval Mystery Plays Meeting of the Minds Workshop – 5pm at St Edmund Hall. More information here.
Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm in the Mure Room, Merton College. Eleanor Jackson (British Library, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts) will be speaking on ‘Medieval Women in Their Own Words: Curating the British Library Exhibition’.
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).
OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)
CHASE-DTP funded PhD opportunity between MEMS Kent and Westminster Abbey to investigate medieval manuscript fragments in the Abbey’s archives, application deadline 17 February 2025. More info here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
EVENTSTHIS 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 inthe 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’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EVENTSTHIS 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’.
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.
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.
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.
