Category: events

The Latin Hymn as Scriptural Exegesis – from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages

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02/08/2025

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events, opportunities

25–26 September 2025.
Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, Oxford, OX1 3LU
Registration is free but compulsory https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/event/the-latin-hymn-as-scriptural-exegesis-from-late-antiquity-to-the-middle-ages

The Latin hymnic tradition is one that spans over a millennium from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages to the Reformation (and beyond). In that period, there are aspects of it that have remained in many ways stable and enduring, but individual and local contexts and usages at various junctures in its long-lived history have required it to change and to adapt. The corpus also represents a group of texts that would, in many cases, have been very well known beyond the narrow confines of the intellectual and social elite who operated at the highest levels of Latinity and – even if largely penned by incredibly adept Latinists – had a much wider reach than many other Latin texts because of the performed nature of hymns. The relationship of hymns to other exegetical traditions and to the liturgical and para-liturgical contexts in which they were used is also noteworthy.

This conference brings together an international group of scholars at varied career stages from different disciplinary backgrounds with interests that include the Latin hymnic tradition and scriptural exegesis across a period covering a little over a thousand years. We intend to explore the ways in which the widespread but understudied phenomenon of hymnody has been used as a means of elaborating on, engaging with, and complementing the teachings of Christian scriptures by homing in closely on the texts themselves.

Organisers: Tristan Franklinos and Cosima Gillhammer

Thursday, 25 September 2025

Arrivals from 1330.

1400–1445 Simon Whedbee (Loyola) Hymnus est laus Dei cum cantico: Teaching with and about hymns in the cathedral schools of twelfth-century Paris.

1445–1530 Tristan Franklinos (Oxford) Exegesis in Abelard’s hymns for the Feast of the Ascension.

1530–1600 Tea & Coffee

1600–1645 Marie Zöckler (LMU Munich) Ave mundi creator – Nature, its creator, and the fusion of scholastic philosophy and scriptural exegesis in Latin hymns.

1645–1730 Juan Montejo (LMU Munich) The Flores Psalmorum of Gregory of Montesacro: exegesis through abbreviatio.

1730 Reception

Friday, 26 September 2025

1015–1100 Cillian O’Hogan (Toronto) Martyrs as exegetes in Prudentius’ Peristephanon.

1100–1145 Katie Painter (Oxford) Nature and scripture in the Liber Kathemerinon: Prudentius on the kaleidoscope of creation.

1145–1230 Joshua Caminiti (Oxford) Singing alone: the private hymns of Marius Victorinus.

1230–1400 Lunch

1400–1445 Danuta Shanzer (Vienna) Voices and sources: revisiting Hilary, Hymn 2.

1445–1530 Cosima Clara Gillhammer (Oxford) Lux vera gentis Anglice: Latin hymns in Anglo-Saxon England

1530–1600 Tea & Coffee

1600–1645 Nicholas Richardson (Oxford) mellifluis nostras musis qui impleuerat aures: Scripture and sweet music in the hymns of St Paulinus of Aquileia.

1645–1730 Christoph Uiting (Zurich) Festa Christi – Notker’s sequence on Epiphany in a late medieval commentary.

This event is generously supported by the Faculty of Classics Board, the Craven Committee, the Institute of Classical Studies, and Oxford Medieval Studies (sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities [TORCH]).

Manuscripts by Numbers

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25/07/2025

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Using Data to find Interesting Manuscripts in the Bodleian’s Medieval Catalogue

On Friday 25th July 2025, the Bodleian Coffee Morning presentation was given by Matthew Holford and Sebastian Dows-Miller, who are working on a project on the Bodleian’s western medieval manuscript catalogue data.

The purpose of the project, funded by Digital Scholarship @ Oxford, is to open up the library’s TEI catalogues for use by students and non-digital scholars by extracting the data into spreadsheets, which allow cross-comparison of over 11,000 medieval manuscripts held in Oxford’s collections.

Being able to compare manuscripts by details like their size and layout means that we can identify particularly interesting outlier manuscripts, and that was the topic of this presentation. Those present were treated to an introduction to:

  • MS. Lat. th. b. 4: the manuscript with the most lines per page (105+).
  • MS. Canon. Liturg. 28: the manuscript with the thinnest binding (9mm).
  • MS. Rawl. G. 26: one of just 4 manuscripts in the catalogue recorded as having 5 columns per page.
  • MS. Auct. F. 2. 6: the narrowest manuscript in the catalogue (that is, the one with the lowest ratio of leaf width to leaf height).
  • Canon Class. Lat. 84: one of the manuscripts in the catalogue with the biggest margins (that is, the lowest ratio of text to blank page).
  • MS. Bodl. 787 (endleaves): the manuscript unit with the greatest average height between lines.

If you’re interested, you can download the raw data by clicking here.

Watch the full recording of the talk below! The slides shown are included beneath the video.

View the Slides below:

Bodleian Coffee Morning Presentation v1Download

Medieval Matters, The Long Vac

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24/06/2025

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Dear all,

Weekly emails will stop over the long vac, but it is worth drawing to your attention a number of opportunities that take place before term starts up again. It is never too early to send in events for the booklet and / or the calendar – we will keep posting events on the OMS calendar as soon as you send them in.

Two more things OMS is looking for:
1) We are still seeking information on your publications for the production of an impact document – please send information of any monographs/edited volumes etc with a short blurb to this email address ASAP.
2) The social media officer position is still vacant – we know that Ashley Castelino is a hard act to follow (see his report here) but he is prepared to help whoever is taking over to learn the trade secrets.

Last week saw the premiere of the filmed version of the Oxford Medieval Mystery Play – thank you to all of you who watched along online! The entire collection is available on our Youtube channel here, where each individual play can also be found.

IMC Leeds 2026 has opened its Call for Papers. Following the death of Twitter, it can be hard to circulate CfPs – if you are organising an event for this, please send me information ASAP, and I will try and make sure that these are all circulated as a group. Medievalists Coffee Mornings continue throughout the term break, only stopping in August.

Events

  • 26th June, 6:30pm. Oxford University Heraldry Society online lecture on ‘The King’s Esquire. The life of Robert Waterton ( c.1365-1425 ) in its heraldic context’. Zoom link here.
  • 1st July, 5.15pm-6.15pm. ‘Invisible Treasures’ film screening and panel discussion. More information, and free tickets, here.

Opportunities

  • Three-year postdoc research fellowship in Göttingen in Early Medieval Manuscript Studies and Germanic Philology, on the ERC INSULAR project. More information here.
  • CfP for ‘Borders, Boundaries and Barriers: Real and Imagined in the Middle Ages’, a conference held at Oxford 20th-21st April 2026. More information here.

Medieval Matters, TT25 Wk 8

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16/06/2025

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

Another academic year draws to a close: welcome, finally, to Week 8. The full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

Next Thursday, 19 June, 4:30-6pm, is the official launch date for the “The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays – the Film”. This is a wonderful chance to come together to celebrate the end of the year, and watch some of the excellent performances that were put on earlier in the term. At 4:45pm, the film will have its youtube premiere. You can tune in from anywhere in the world to comment; find the full schedule of when each play will start, more information, and a teaser here.

NB. If you are leaving us at the end of this year, and you would like to remain a member of this mailing list (and you are most welcome to do so), please  register here with your personal email (link always available from our homepage https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/).

Monday

  • Poetry, Power, Literacy, and the Emergence of Vernacular Literatures – 9am in the Radcliffe Humanities Building, Seminar Room. The workshop is part of the activities of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World.
  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 am in the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Stuart Airlie (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Returns of the Repressed: Aby Warburg’s cultural history of Percy Ernst Schramm’. Following the talk, a special drinks reception will be held to mark Julia’s retirement. Please sign up here.

Tuesday

  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Cassidy Serhienko (Pembroke) will be speaking on ‘‘That Fayre Lady’: women and the code of chivalry in late Arthurian romance’; Senia Magzumov (Worcester) will be speaking on ‘Imagining the Rus’ Pagan Past in the Radziwill Chronicle: a comparative study with the Litsevoi Letopisnyi Svod’.

Wednesday

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Lucian Shepherd and Monty Powell will present. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates for future terms, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Special OCBR lecture – Marc Lauxtermann (Exeter) will be speaking on ‘The Emergence of Fiction: Byzantium and the East’.
  • Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Glaire Anderson (University of Edinburgh) will be speaking on ‘A Bridge to the Sky: Science and Arts in the Age of Ibn Firnas (d. 887)’.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pm in the Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. The theme is ‘Letters of Friendship and Gratitude’.

Thursday

  • The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays: Film launch – 4:30pm at the Farmingdon Institute, Harris Manchester College.
  • Lincoln Unlocked – 5.15pm in the Weston Library. Rebecca Menmuir will be speaking on ‘Achilles at Lincoln: Unlocking the Medieval Text of a Classical Poem’. Book here.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

  • British Academy talks on Anglo-Saxon and medieval Irish numismatics. More info here.
  • The Latin Hymn as Scriptural Exegesis – from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages – 25–26 September 2025. Registration is free but compulsory. Futher details here: https://classics.web.ox.ac.uk/event/the-latin-hymn-as-scriptural-exegesis-from-late-antiquity-to-the-middle-ages
  • Essay Prize for Review of English Studies seeking applications – more information here.
  • A number of roles are available at Hamburg’s ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’: Doctoral Researchers, post-docs, and advanced post-docs.
  • London Medieval Society’s 80th anniversary colloquium on ‘Memory and Commemoration’ is being held at on Saturday 28th June at The Warburg Institute.
  • ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
  • The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
  • Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
  • Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
  • National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
  • CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
  • CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
  • A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
  • Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
  • Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
  • The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.

Medieval Matters TT25 Week 7

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09/06/2025

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Welcome to Week 7: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here. First, a number of important reminders.

The Centre for Early Medieval Britain and Ireland is hosting an online exhibition of artefacts and manuscripts that explore the lives of early medieval women. To submit an item, or to attend the even, follow this link.

The Medieval History research seminar in Week 8 (16 June) has been moved to the Old Library in All Souls. There will be a drinks reception afterwards, 6.30-7.30pm, in the Great Quad, to mark Julia’s retirement.  For catering purposes, people planning to attend should RSVP using this form: https://forms.office.com/e/Mr92xB66jh

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Andrew Dunning (Bodleian Library Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Cult of Saint Frideswide in Medieval Oxford’.

Tuesday

  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • EMBI ‘Women in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland’ online exhibition – 3.30pm, Massey Room, Balliol College.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. Francesca Peacock (Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Thu and thi wyff arn barrany and bare!’: the experience of infertility and the cult of St Anne in medieval East Anglia, c. 1100 – 1500′; Isabelle Amy Job (St Anne’s) will be speaking on ‘Blanche of Castile and Le Miroir de l’Ame’; Molly Bray (Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Conspicuous Materiality, Collective Devotion: making and exchanging textiles in the Lüneburg Heath c. 1500’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Bastien Racca (Université de Fribourg, Switzerland) will be speaking on ‘‘L’amour rêvé: des métalepses dans le Songe Vert ?’’

Wednesday

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 6: Horoscope: dating and interpretating medieval horoscopes.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • June & Simon Li Lecture in the History of Art – 5pm at Lincoln College. Aden Kumler (University of Basel) will be speaking on ‘Vera mensura. Dimensional realism in medieval manuscripts’.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. John-Francis Martin (Oriel) will be speaking on ‘“The Last Byzantine Controversy” — Politics, Rhetoric, and Religion from the Council of Ferrara-Florence to the Fall of Constantinople’.
  • Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Simon Townley (Victoria County History of Oxfordshire) will be speaking on ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once: Exploring Medieval Place and Society through Local History’. Book here.
  • Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Sophia Vasalou (University of Birmingham) will be speaking on ‘Al-Ghazālī and the Ideal of Godlikeness’.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar– 5pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Kat Smith (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Virgin Mary in Medieval and Early Modern Women’s Writing’.

Thursday

  • Oxford Environmental History Working Group – 12:30 online. Bill Smith (DPhil History) will be speaking on “Chains of Control and Reins of Resistance: Nonhuman Animals and the Plantationocene in the American South”.
  • ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts – 1–5pm.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
  • Research Workshop: Working with modern theory on Medieval Women’s Writing – 5pm in the Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College.
  • Oxford Translation Day 2025 – 6pm at the Taylor Institute. More info here.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

  • The Latin Hymn as Scriptural Exegesis – from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages – 25–26 September 2025. Registration is free but compulsory. Futher details here: https://classics.web.ox.ac.uk/event/the-latin-hymn-as-scriptural-exegesis-from-late-antiquity-to-the-middle-ages
  • Essay Prize for Review of English Studies seeking applications – more information here.
  • A number of roles are available at Hamburg’s ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’: Doctoral Researchers, post-docs, and advanced post-docs.
  • London Medieval Society’s 80th anniversary colloquium on ‘Memory and Commemoration’ is being held at on Saturday 28th June at The Warburg Institute.
  • ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
  • The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
  • Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
  • Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
  • National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
  • CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
  • CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
  • A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
  • Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
  • Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
  • The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.

EMBI ‘Early Medieval Women’ Online Exhibition

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08/06/2025

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When: Tuesday 10th, 3:30-5.

Where: Massey Room, Balliol College

Interested in exploring the lives of medieval women? Recently stumbled upon a text or a bit of material culture that piqued your interest?  The Centre for Early Medieval Britain and Ireland will be launching an online exhibition later this spring, designed to complement the British Library’s recent Medieval Women exhibition. While the BL focused primarily on later medieval material, we hope in our exhibition to shed light on the lives of early medieval women.  

For us to embark on this project, we need your help!  

We are looking for artefacts, objects, manuscript inscriptions or sections, documentary evidence, and any other bits and bobs that might speak to the history and lived experience of early medieval women.

If you have in mind something that you would like to be included in the exhibition, we will be hosting an informal meeting next Tuesday, 10 June at 3:30pm at Balliol (main site—Massey Room) to give everyone an opportunity to present their ideas, with time for general discussion about the exhibition as a whole.

To prepare, please send us a single slide for each object/manuscript (one slide per exhibition piece, up to three) you’d like to propose, with a couple of bullet points telling us about it and its relevance. We’ve attached a sample slide, just so you have an idea of what we’re looking for. No need to do a full write-up on your proposals; we’d just love to get an idea of what interests you. 

Please send your slide(s) to Harriet Carter (harriet.carter@lmh.ox.ac.uk) and Sarah Ware (sarah.ware@history.ox.ac.uk) by Monday, 9 June at 6pm. 

Even if you don’t have a particular object in mind for the online exhibition, please do come along to our meeting. This will be a laid-back discussion, and all are welcome (undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, instructors, community members, and everyone in between). We hope to see many of you there!  

Image Credit: Add MS 33241, f. 1v

‘Art of the Book’ Exhibition at New College, Oxford

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02/06/2025

14:35

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Friday 13 June 2025, 12 noon–5PM
Lecture Room 4, New College, Oxford

New College Library is pleased to announce our exhibition for Trinity Term!

Clockwise: New College Library, Oxford, BT3.275.1, MS 281, MS 369

In ‘Art of the Book’, we explore the beauty of all things bibliographical through our wonderful special collections—from the medieval period to the present day. Expect fabulous illumination, exquisite illustrations, beautiful bindings, and some outstanding private press works.

The items will be on display in Lecture Room 4 in New College on 13 June, between 12pm and 5pm. For those unfamiliar with New College, just head to the Porters’ Lodge (located halfway down Holywell Street). There will be signs to direct visitors to the exhibition.

The exhibition is free and open to all, so please do spread the word . . .

Medieval Matters TT25, Week 6

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02/06/2025

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Welcome to Week 6: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

Big News! Join us on Thursday 19th June from 4:30 – 6 at the Farmingdon Institute (Harris Manchester College) for the Film Launch of the Medieval Mystery Plays! We are promised ‘liberal quantities of drinks (including the famous Tiddly Pommes apple juice) and nibbles’; full announcement and trailer here….

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Megan Welton (UCD) will be speaking on
    ‘Diu nocteque: Investigating Liturgical Programs of Prayer for TenthCentury Ruling Women’.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Rita Copeland (Pennsylvania) will be speaking on ‘Messy Chaucer’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Cosima Gilhammer (Christ Church) will be speaking on ‘Liturgy and Translation in Medieval England’.

Wednesday

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Rahel Micklich and Anna Wilmore will be speaking on beginnings and endings in different versions. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • CMTC Social ‘Tea – 4:30 – 6 in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Everybody welcome!
  • Medieval Visual Culture Lecture – 5pm in the Raptakos Seminar Room, St Catherine’s College. Vincent Debiais will be speaking on ‘Frustration and Failure: Medieval Images of Christ’s Transfiguration (12th-13thC).
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Giuseppe Mendicino (University of Milan) will be speaking on ‘John Tzetzes and the Heritage of Hephaistion: Transmission, Critique, and Innovation in Byzantine Treatises on Metrics’.
  • Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Anoush Ehteshami (Durham University) will be speaking on ‘Iran’s Crisis of Governance’.

Thursday

  • Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute’s conference (‘Transmitting and Preserving Languages in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean’) – 8.45am in the Gillis Lecture Theatre, Balliol College. More information here.
  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • Handle with Care: The Oldest Translations of the Bible in English – 4:30pm in the St Cross Lecture Theatre. Register here.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Yusuf Tayara (Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies) will be speaking on ‘The mosque as instrument: new approaches in the history of Islamicate astronomy’.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group Reading Group: Connoisseurship and Medieval Manuscripts: A Roundtable – 4pm online at the Center for Digital Scholarship at the Weston Library. Write to oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com for more information.
  • Old Norse seminar – 5pm in the History of the Book Room, EFL. Richard Dance (Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘The Etymologist vs. the Vikings: Some “Difficult” Old Norse Borrowings in Middle English‘.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

  • A number of roles are available at Hamburg’s ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’: Doctoral Researchers, post-docs, and advanced post-docs.
  • London Medieval Society’s 80th anniversary colloquium on ‘Memory and Commemoration’ is being held at on Saturday 28th June at The Warburg Institute.
  • ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
  • The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
  • Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
  • Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
  • National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
  • CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
  • CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
  • A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
  • Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
  • Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
  • The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.

Film Launch Medieval Mystery Plays 2025

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01/06/2025

08:15

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Watch the release of the films of the Mystery Plays and celebrate the end of the academic year with Oxford Medieval Studies! Since OMS was just awarded a prize for the Mystery Plays from the ‘Engagement with Research’ fund, there will be liberal quantities of drinks (including the famous Tiddly Pommes applejuice) and nibbles as well as discussions on how to continue the dramatic adventures in the future. Do come along to have your say whether, when, and how to stage the next Mystery Cycle!

When? Thursday, 19 June 2025, 4.30-6pm
Where? Farmingdon Institute, Harris Manchester College

Film premiere will start on 19 June 2025, 4:45pm. Join us from anywhere in the world to comment live on the premiere!

16:45 – Opening
16:48 – The Fall of the Angels
17:00 – Adam and Eve
17:21 – The Flood
17:42 – Abraham and Isaac
17:58 – The Annunciation
18:06 – The Nativity
18:32 – The Wedding at Cana
18:47 – The Crucifixion
19:02 – The Lamentation & The Harrowing of Hell 1
19:17 – The Harrowing of Hell 2
19:20 – The Resurrection
19:42 – The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins
20:07 – The Last Judgement

Read a report on the 2025 Medieval Mystery Cycle. After the film launch, all plays will be accessible via the Oxford Medieval Studies youtube channel as one film and individually!

Header image: Ben Arthur capturing the Passion of the Holy Virgins, the penultimate play in the Mystery Cycle

Medieval matters TT25, Week 5

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26/05/2025

08:22

Comments Off on Medieval matters TT25, Week 5

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

Welcome to Week 5: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

Thank you to those who have submitted their publications for the OMS impact booklet – please continue to send short blurbs to the Oxford Medieval Studies email address ASAP. Pictures also welcome!

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar is cancelled due to illness.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty.  Rowan Wilson (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Feeling Aliene, Now and Then: Work, Contemplation, and Alienation between Medieval Devotion and Modern Academia’, and Anine Eglund (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Speaking Dead: Conversing with the Living from Beyond the Grave in Early English Literature ‘.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • EMBI ‘Women in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland’ online exhibition – 4pm, location TBC.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. Rachel Cresswell (Blackfriars) will be speaking on ‘Scripture, text and proof-text in Anselm of Canterbury’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Catherine Léglu (University of Luxembourg) will be speaking on ‘ ‘The Anglo-Norman Bible (c.1350): rethinking a context’.
  • Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures Work-in-Pogress seminar – 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Laure Miolo (Lincoln College) will be speaking on ‘Predicting and observing eclipses in fourteenth-century Paris: what the manuscripts tell us’, and Shazia Jagot (University of York) will be speaking on ‘Astrolabe as archive and an archive of astrolabes: Chaucer’s astrolabe and its Islamic affordances’.

Wednesday

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
  • The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 5: Conjunctions and eclipses.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Rustam Shukurov (IMAFO, Vienna) will be speaking on ‘The Empire of Trebizond: The State of Research and Possible Future Directions’.
  • Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Chris Briggs (Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘The Popular Classes and Royal Justice in Medieval England: Evidence from the Derbyshire Eyre of 1330-31’. Book here.
  • Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Blain Auer (University of Lausanne) will be speaking on ‘The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India’.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar– 5pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Victoria Sands (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Dormer Newdigate Family, London Charterhouse and English Reformation’.

Thursday

  • Environmental History Working Group – 12:30 in the Colin Matthew Room, History Faculty. Lucia Nixon (Classical Archaeology, Senior Tutor, St Hilda’s, Co-Director, Sphakia Survey) will be speaking on ‘Toward an Archaeology of Sustainability: Resource Packages and Landscape Management in Sphakia, Southwest Crete’.
  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
  • Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 5:00pm, Pembroke College.

Friday

  • Fragments of Lives. Medieval Lives in the Muniments of Magdalen, Lincoln, and Beyond – from 9am at Lincoln College. Enquiries to laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.
  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

  • ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
  • The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
  • Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
  • Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
  • National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
  • CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
  • CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
  • A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
  • Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
  • Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
  • Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
  • The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.