Category: events

Medieval Church and Culture Seminar

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07/01/2023

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Tuesdays. Meeting from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm

Tuesdays, Charles Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College

Tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm

Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar

Week 1                        Medieval Church and Culture Social

17 January                   Come along for tea, coffee, and biscuits in the Charles Wellbeloved Room from 5pm-6pm. A chance to share ongoing research, catch up informally, and give suggestions for themes and speakers in coming terms. All are welcome. 

Week 2                        David d’Avray (UCL)

24 January                   The medieval legacy (to 1234) of the first decretal age (c. 400)

Week 3            Susannah Bain (Jesus)

31 January                   Maps, Chronicles and Treaties:  defining political connections in late-thirteenth-century northern Italy                                    

Week 4                        Mary Hitchman (Wolfson)

7 February                   Martyred Mothers: Augustine’s sermons on Perpetua and Felicitas

Week 5                        Federica Gigante (History of Science Museum)

14 February                 Islamic spoils in a Christian context: the reuse of Islamic textiles in Medieval Italian churches

Week 6                        Laura Light (Les Enluminures)

21 February                 The Paris Bible:  what is it, and why its name matters

Week 7                        Bee Jones (Jesus)

28 February                 Bernard’s ‘barbarians’: the Irish in the Life of Malachy

Week 8                        Henrietta Leyser (St Peter’s) and Samuel Fanous (Bodleian Library)

7 March                       The Vision of the Monk of Eynsham

Convenors:Lucia Akard (Oxford SU);  Sumner Braund (St John’s), Bee Jones (Jesus), Lesley Smith (HMC)

Programme Trinity Term 2021

Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar. This Trinity Term, as always, MCC will feature presentations from the 2020-21 Medieval Studies MSt cohort on their upcoming dissertations. on teams (click on this link to join)

Convenors: Sumner Braund (St John’s), Amy Ebrey (St John’s), IanMcDole (Keble), Lesley Smith (HMC)

Week 2 (4 May): Pilar Bertuzzi Rivett (Lincoln): Ten Names, One God: Exploring Christian-Kabbalistic affinity in a Christian hymn of the twelfth century
Samuel Heywood (St Peter’s): The Finnish Product: translation and transmission of Luther’s hymns in Finland and Sweden

Week 3 (11 May): Jennifer Coulton (Wolfson): Tongue-tied and Legal Loopholes: binding motifs in Early Medieval England
Florence Eccleston (Jesus): The Emotional and Embodied Experience of the Seven Deadly Sins, c.1350-c.1500

Week 4 (18 May): James Tomlinson (Magdalen): The Relationship between Music and Architecture in Late Medieval Creativity: structure, allegory, and memory
Irina Boeru (Wadham): At the frontier of the known world: cartographic and heraldic encounters inLibro del Conosçimiento de todos los Rregons et Tierras et Señorios que son por el mundo, et de las señales et armas que han

Week 5 (25 May): Arielle Jasiewicz-Gill (Oriel): Lay Devotion and Performative Identity in the Fifteenth Century
Florence Swan (Wolfson): The devel of helle sette his foot therin! A literary historical analysis of the cook in late medieval England

Week 6 (1 June): Thomas Henderson(Linacre): Twelfth-Century Mathematical Thinking: an anonymous fractions treatise, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. F.1.9

OMCN Interdisciplinary Seminar Series 2023

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06/01/2023

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The Oxford Medieval Commentary Network is delighted to announce an upcoming Seminar Series for Hilary Term 2023. We will welcome four distinguished speakers from different disciplines, who will share their insights into different aspects of the commentary tradition. Seminars will take place on Thursdays of weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, at the Thatched Barn at Christ Church. There will be a free lunch at 12.45pm, followed by a one-hour seminar 1.15-2.15pm. Further details below, and on our website.

E  A  Lowe Lectures in Palaeography 2023: Professor Niels Gaul 

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22/12/2022

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Manuscripts of Character: Codex, Ethos, and Authority in Byzantium and Beyond

Professor Niels Gaul will deliver the E A Lowe Lectures at 5pm on the following days in the MBI Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College. Niels Gaul is A G Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies and Director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Edinburgh; from 2005 to 2007 he held the inaugural Dilts-Lyell Research Fellowship in Greek Palaeography at Lincoln College and in the Faculty of Classics.  His research interests include the socio-historical dynamics of schools, learning, and the classical tradition in Byzantium; since 2017 he has been co-directing an ERC-funded comparative project on classicising learning in the Byzantine and middle-period Chinese imperial systems.

Tuesday 28 February  –  “Codex” – explores the phenomenon of Byzantine literati curating their own writings in codex format and possible ancient and patristic models; with glances at similar practices in other medieval manuscript cultures

Thursday 2 March – “Ethos” – examines the ways in which such codices were thought to display the author’s character, and what the concept entailed in this context

Tuesday 7 March –  “Authority” – relates expressions of authorial ethos to matters of mise-en-page, with particular attention to marginal spaces

All welcome!

Corpus Christi College MS 30 (fol. 114r), from the Commentary on the Gospels by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 12th century), a significant Byzantine biblical scholar (ca. 1050/60 – ca. 1108).

Header image: Gospel Lectionary with Marginal Illuminations, second half of 11th century, Dumbarton Oaks MS 1, BZ.1939.12 f.4v (See the manuscript online via Dumbarton Oaks on the Web)

CfP: Postgraduate Conference 2023 (University of Bristol): Identities, Communities and ‘Imagined Communities’

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15/12/2022

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When: 14-15 April 2023

Abstracts and enquiries: cms-conference-enquiries@bristol.ac.uk
Deadline: 10 February 2023

After the success of the 2022 ‘Transitions’ Conference, we invite you to the next instalment of the longest-standing medievalist PGR conference series. This year’s theme of Identities, Communities, and ‘Imagined Communities’ marks the 40-year anniversary of the publication of Benedict Anderson’s book on national identity. Observing all the uses medievalists have made of his theories in subsequent years, the conference celebrates the interdisciplinary currents that have benefitted academia in recent decades – Anderson, after all, did not initially believe his theories were suitable for the medieval world. We welcome respondents and delegates to reflect on how we use concepts of identity and community more broadly across medieval history. Society’s interest in its identities is arguably more topical today than it was in 1983 when Imagined Communities was first published. How did medieval communities see and perform their identities, how did this change over time, and why? What role did identities play – be they political, linguistic, or religious – in the consolidation of some communities and the subjugation of others?

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
• National Identities
• Religious Identities
• Sexuality and Gender Identities
• Ethnoreligious Communities
• Marcher Identities
• Urban Communities
• County Communities
• Frontiers, Conquest, and Expansion
• Law and Custom
• Migration and Xenophobia
• Ethnic Origins and Contemporary Myths
• Art and Architecture
• Seals and Heraldry
• Patronage and Memory
• Sovereignty
• Local Autonomy
• Archaeology
• Nationalism
• Concepts in History-writing

We welcome abstracts from postgraduates and early-career researchers, exploring all the aspects and
approaches to concepts of identity and communities, in all relevant disciplines pertaining to the medieval
period, broadly construed c.500-c.1500. Abstracts are 300 words for 20-minute papers. This year’s
conference will be a hybrid event online and on the campus of the University of Bristol.

CfP: Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2023

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15/12/2022

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The Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference committee are very excited to announce that the theme for the 2023 conference will be: ‘Names and Naming’

The conference will be held in person (with limited measures for online papers) at Ertegun House, Oxford, on the 20th and 21st of April, 2023. We are thrilled to announce this call for papers relating to all aspects of the broad topic of ‘names and naming’ in the medieval world. We are welcoming papers in any discipline, be it literary; historical; archaeological; linguistic; interdisciplinary; or anything else. There are no limitations on geographical region or time period, as long as the topic falls within the medieval period.

Examples of areas of interest may include but are not limited to:

♦ Naming and shaming
♦ Authorship; pseudonyms
♦ Classifications
♦ Etymology
♦ Place names
♦ Historiographical groups
♦ Ethnonyms
♦ Insults
♦ Nicknames
♦ Seals, identity
♦ Translation
♦ Trades
♦ Lineage
♦ Genres
♦ Graffiti; marginalia
♦ Saints’ names; cults

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Papers should be a maximum of 20 minutes. We intend to provide bursaries to help with travel costs, and we are welcoming applications from graduate students at any university.

Please email abstracts of 250 words to oxgradconf@gmail.com by 15th January, 2023.

The Latin Works of Piccolomini (PP Pius II): A Colloquium

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13/12/2022

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When: Thursday 23 and Friday 24 March 2023

Where: Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, Faculty of Classics, 66, St. Giles’ Oxford OX1 3LU

This colloquium is the first in a collaboration on medieval and early modern Latin between the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford and the Abteilung für Griechische und Lateinische Philologie at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn. There will be eleven papers on the Latin works of the fifteenth-century humanist, Enea Silvio Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II). The draft timetable is available here.

The colloquium begins on Thursday afternoon and runs until Friday evening. The registration fee of £10:- contributes toward the subsidised cost of refreshments (incl. lunch on the full day). To register, please follow this link to the University Stores: https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/product-catalogue/classics/classics-events/the-latin-works-of-piccolomini-pp-pius-ii-a-colloquium

Please direct any queries to Dr Tristan Franklinos tristan.franklinos@classics.ox.ac.uk 

ETC seminar – Medieval Commentaries on Vergil

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29/11/2022

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Dear All,

The final session of the Early Text Cultures Seminar on Pre-modern Commentaries will take place on Wednesday 30 November at Corpus Christi College, Seminar Room, 2-3pm. Vittorio Danovi (Oxford) will give a talk titled

Medieval Commentaries on Vergil (Bern scholia and Servius Auctus)

My research is primarily concerned with the commentary on Vergil’s Eclogues and Georgics known as Bern scholia and with the augmented version of Servius’ commentary on the whole of Vergil known, after its first editor Pierre Daniel, as Seruius Danielis or DS scholia. Both commentaries were probably assembled in seventh-century (Insular?) scriptoria by anonymous compilers who resorted to pre-existing commentaries, but almost all their extant witnesses date back to the Carolingian period. I am currently aiming to analyse the characters of the different versions of the Bern and DS scholia transmitted by each witness and to establish their genealogical relationships. On these grounds, I hope to shed some new light on the Carolingian engagement with the two commentaries.

Please do come in person! But if you cannot, here is a Zoom link to attend remotely:

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/94503373094?pwd=RFVCaXpDNlNjN2dROVR0a1lIUS9uUT09

Meeting ID: 945 0337 3094
Passcode: 581504

All best wishes,
ETC Board

‘The iconography of the Mass of St Gregory in England’: Prof. Julian Luxford at Oxford Medieval Visual Culture Seminar

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29/11/2022

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When: Thursday 1 December at 5 pm 

Where: St Catherine’s college, Bernard Sunley Building Room D (It is better to ask the St Catherine’s lodge porters for directions because this room is at the other end of the college!)

Julian Luxford, Professor at the School of Art History, University of St Andrews, will present on The iconography of the Mass of St Gregory in England .

The talk will be followed by drinks reception and a communal dinner at Gino’s (at attendee’s own expense). Everyone is welcome!

With any questions, please write to Elena Lichmanova elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk

Digital Humanities and Sensory Heritage (DHSH): Jean-Philippe Échard (Paris)

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29/11/2022

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Materiality-driven digital approaches to music museum artefacts: from spectro-imaging and CT scans, to photogrammetry

When: Thursday 1 December 2022, 4.30pm

Where: Linbury Room, Worcester College, Oxford

Speaker: Jean-Philippe Échard (Paris)

In the last three decades, the digitalisation of techniques for the analysis of cultural heritage artefacts has profoundly modified the ways of working with and interpreting data. Through a series of examples of projects conducted on the collection of historical musical instruments at the Musée de la Musique (Cité de la Musique – Philharmonie de Paris, Paris France), this talk will explore this major change, and highlight the value of these new approaches today. The characterisation of pigments in paintings decorating 17th-c. Flemish harpsichords sheds light on the painting techniques used and on the smalt trade. X-ray spectro-imaging proves to be key for identifying royal coats of arms, in painted emblems on 16th-century violins made by Andrea Amati, and to identify parchments from a single 14th-c. book of hours that were found in three instruments by Antonio Stradivari. CT-scans and photogrammetry techniques produce 3D digital models of musical instruments, used to better understand their material history or their vibrational behaviour, or to 3D-print instruments. The potentials of such techniques to improve the readability of these material historical sources can be hugely valuable stimulating for historians.

Jean-Philippe Échard is Curator of Stringed Instruments at the Musée de la Musique in Paris (Cité de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris, France) since 2014. He trained as a chemist, with a degree from the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie, Paris (1998) and a doctorate from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (2010) on 16th-18th-c. varnishing techniques in instrument-making. He conducted research as conservation scientist on musical instruments in the laboratory of the Musée de la Musique (1999-2004 ; 2006-2013) and on easel paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA (2004-2005). He is the author of two books Le violon Sarasate, stradivarius des virtuoses (2018), and Stradivarius et la lutherie de Crémone (2022) as well as numerous papers and articles.

Find out more about the Digital Humanities and Sensory Heritage Network here. 

Medieval Matters: Week 8

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27/11/2022

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Here we are at the end of term! Last Friday was Oxmas, traditionally celebrated one month before Christmas Day to allow us to spread some festive cheer before term ends. I’m sure this week will be filled with festive celebrations. If you are about to embark upon Christmas shopping, you might be struggling to find the perfect gift. Fear not: Alcuin also struggled with this dilemma…

Diu deliberans, quid mentis meae devotio ad splendorem imperialis potentiae vestrae atque augmentum opolentissimi thesauri vestri muneris condignum reperire potuisset – ne ingeniolum animi mei, aliis diversa divitiarum dona offerentibus, otio torpuisset inani, et vacuis manibus parvitatis meae missus ante faciem beatudinis vestrae venisset.
[I have long deliberated over what I might consider a worthy gift for the brilliance of your imperial power and for the increase of your most opulent treasury, lest my mind might have grown slothful through the holiday and through idleness, and my messenger appear before you with empty hands whilst others were offering various gifts of riches, Ep. 205]

I have been wondering long and hard what “gifts” to offer you at the end of term, and hope that this seasonal and lengthier than usual quotation might suffice! I didn’t want to come to your inbox empty-handed since others are offering various gifts of great riches this week, from a special lecture by Professor Gordon Noble on Tuesday, to the final chance to see the exhibition of Violent Victorian Medievalism in person in the Taylorian on Friday. See below for a round-up of all of the diversa divitiarum dona on offer this week.

And a reminder: We are still looking for takers for plays for the Medieval Mystery Cycle on 22 April 2023. Full information here on how to propose a play – and do get in contact with Michael Angerer or Henrike Lähnemann if you have any questions. There will be a workshop for anybody considering taking part in early Hilary Term!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Remember to sign up for the Medieval Mystery Cycle! As play proposals are starting to trickle in, don’t miss your chance to join this unique bit of medieval fun. We will be offering a workshop on cutting play scripts at St Edmund Hall on Friday 20 January 2023, open to all potential directors. You can find more information, as well as the sign-up link, on our blog post.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday 28th November:

  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar takes place at 12.30-2pm online via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be İrem Kısacık (İstanbul Medeniyet University), Emotions in Late Antiquity. To register, please contact the organiser at james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group led by Matthew Holford, Andrew Dunning, and Tuija Ainonen is meeting as usual via Teams from 1-2pm.
  • The Medieval Archaeology Seminar takes place at 3pm in the Institute of Archaeology, Lecture Room. This week’s speaker will be Jane Kershaw, ‘A Viking winter camp in Northumberland? Ongoing work in the Coquet valley‘.
  • The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading Group meets at 3pm at Univ College, 12 Merton St Room 2. This week’s theme is The trial of Joan of Arc. All extremely welcome! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.  
  • The Medieval History Seminar takes place at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College and on Teams (Teams link here). This week’s speaker will be Robert Wiśniewski (Warsaw): ‘‘Avoid undue leaps’. Clerical career paths in Late Antiquity’. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk 
  • The Old English Reading Group takes place at 5.30-7.30pm. Please email grace.oduffy@sjc.ox.ac.uk for more information and to be added to the mailing list.

Tuesday 29th November:

  • The Medieval English Research Seminar takes place at 12.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Rhiannon Purdie (St Andrews),  ‘Synchronic histories of Older Scots Literature: the rewards and challenges of reconstruction’. The paper will be followed by lunch with the speaker. All welcome.
  • GLARE (Greek and Latin Reading Group) takes place at 4-5pm at Harold Wilson Room, Jesus College. Please meet at Jesus College Lodge. This week’s text will be Pseudo-Seneca, Octavia. All welcome to attend any and all sessions. For more details and specific readings each week, or to be added to the mailing list, email john.colley@jesus.ox.ac.uk or jenyth.evans@seh.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar takes place at 5pm at Charles Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. The theme for this term is ‘Women’. This week’s speaker will be Delfi Nieto-Isabel (Queen Mary University of London): Connecting the Dots:  heresy, inquisitors and invisible women. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.
  • The Codicology and History of the Book Seminar is hosting a Welcome Evening for Oxford DPhil Students at 6-8pm, in the Blackwell Hall, Weston Library. For further details, email bookcentre@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Early Medieval Britain and Ireland Network will host a lecture by Dr Gordon Noble, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. His talk, entitled ‘Discovering the Northern Picts,’ will discuss some of the significant discoveries of the award-winning Northern Picts excavations and what these findings mean for Pictish society ca 300-900 AD. The talk will take place at 7:00 PM at Worcester College in the Linbury Room. All are very welcome to attend. Any queries, please contact Meredith Cutrer at meredith.cutrer@worc.ox.ac.uk.

Wednesday 30th November:

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar this week does not meet on Wednesday but rather on Friday, 3pm (see below) for a paper by Dr Pia Selmayr. If you want to be added to the medieval German mailing list, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield (michael.stansfield@new.ox.ac.uk) for further details and the Teams link.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles. This week’s speaker will be Michael Jeffreys (Oxford), Imperial ceremonies away from the Great Palace, 1148-1159: the evidence of Manganeios Prodromos.

Thursday 1st December:

  • The Old French Reading Group takes place at 4pm at St Hilda’s College (meet by the lodge) in association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). We welcome readers of Old French of all abilities. For further information, please email alice.hawkins@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk or irina.boeru@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk
  • The Digital Humanities and Sensory Heritage (DHSH) – Seminar Series will meet at 4.30pm in the Linbury Room, Worcester College. The speaker will be Jean-Philippe Échard (Paris), Materiality-driven Digital Approaches to Music Museum Artefacts: from Spectro-imaging and CT Scans, to Photogrammetry. All welcome! For more information, click here.
  • The Seminar in Medieval and Renaissance Music will take place on Zoom at 5pm. This week’s speaker will be David Burn (University of Leuven): Sixteenth-Century Symbola. If you are planning to attend a seminar this term, please register using this form. For each seminar, those who have registered will receive an email with the Zoom invitation and any further materials a couple of days before the seminar. If you have questions, please just send me an email (matthew.thomson@ucd.ie).
  • The Oxford Medieval Visual Culture Seminar will take place at 5pm in St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be Julian Luxford University of St Andrews, The iconography of the Mass of St Gregory in England.
  • The Celtic Seminar will take place at 5pm, online via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Dewi Alter, ‘Darllen y tir yn iawn: Mannau’r cof yn Drych y Prif Oesoedd‘. Please contact a.elias@wales.ac.uk for the link.

Friday 2nd December:

  • The Medievalist Coffee Morning takes place at 10:30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre in the Weston Library (access via the Readers Entrance on Museum Road: straight ahead and up two floors!). This is a perfect opportunity to see treasures of the Bodleian, go up to the roof terrace, pick the brains of other medievalists and, of course, drink coffee.

Finally, some wisdom from Alcuin on the joy of gifts:

Licet nullius nunc mens mea desideret munuscula propter animi mei requiem, tua tamen mihi sunt semper dulcia.
[Although my mind now desires nothing because of the peace of my spirit, your gifts are always sweet to me, Ep. 189.]

In other words, no matter how peaceful your spirit, it’s always nice to get a present! I hope that your last week is filled with sweet gifts! I will be back in your inboxes briefly next week with a Christmas email to finish off the term.

[A Medievalist finds the perfect sweet gift for a friend]
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 60 v.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian