Medieval Matters: MT 24, week 0

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

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

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

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Thursday 10th October:

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

Friday 11th October:

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning 10.30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library. All welcome
  • The NEW Medieval MSS Support Group 11:30-12:30 in the Horton Room in the Weston Library: once or twice a term, in which readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have! If you wish to pose a question, please order the relevant manuscript to the issue desk, and email the details to Matthew Holford, Tolkien Curator of Medieval Manuscripts, the day before, so that he can arrange for it to be transferred across to the Horton Room for the session. Alternatively, provide a good quality digital image that we can display on a large monitor. A second date this term will be on 6 December.

COMING UP

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

OPPORTUNITIES

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

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

T.K.A

Balliol College MS 238A, fol. 1r

Palaeography Offers in Michaelmas 24

There are a number of palaeography offers available for anybody interested in Oxford happening in Michaelmas 2024, coordinated by Dr Laure Miolo, Lyell Career Development Fellow in Latin Palaeography and Dilts Fellow at Lincoln College, historian of late medieval Europe, specialising in manuscript studies and history of early libraries with a special focus on scientific books and practices. Contact her for  any of the below under laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.

Header Image: Lincoln College/EL/OAS/D1

  1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Mo 10.30-12
  2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives, Fr 2-3pm
  3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group, Tue 2-3.30pm

1. French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group

This group is open to anyone with an interest in Old French, Middle French and Anglo-Norman manuscripts. We study and read manuscripts from the 12th century to the 16th century with a special focus on palaeography. We meet every Monday between 10.30am-12pm in the Weston Library. 

If you are interested in joining the group or would like more information, please write to Laure Miolo.

Oxford, St John’s College MS 164, fol. 1r

2. Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives

Every Friday 2-3pm from week 2, Seminar Room 1, EPA Centre, Museum Road, OX1 3PX

Following the focus on medieval documents from Lincoln College last year, the seminar will now also include documents from Magdalen College in collaboration with Richard Allen (Magdalen College’s archivist). Both Colleges holds an outstanding collection of archives predating the Colleges’ respective foundations. A part of those documents relates to several parishes of Oxford, such as All Saints, St Michael’s at the Northgate and others. 

This weekly one-hour seminar aims to investigate these unpublished documents, mostly deeds, dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that bear witness to everyday life in Oxford at the time. Anyone interested in analysing primary sources and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documents are welcome to attend. Working in pairs on a self-selected source, the research will entail the examination of the record’s external characteristics (such as writing surface, layout, marks of use) as well as transcription, translation, and identification of locations and individuals mentioned in the records to establish a context. Special importance will be given to the seals attached to these documents. 

As well as collaborating on unpublished sources, attendees will gain experience in digitisation of sources and publish their analysis online. Students will prepare their item for exhibition, and a one-day workshop on these sources will be held in Trinity Term. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo

3. Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group

(advanced beginner, intermediate and advanced levels)

For those wishing to develop, deepen or maintain their skills in Latin palaeography, we meet every Tuesday between 2pm and 3.30pm in the Weston Library (Horton Room or Visiting Scholars Centre). We explore a wide range of medieval manuscripts and documents from the 9th to the 15th centuries. The session includes analysis of different scripts, abbreviations and codicological features. Practice is the key to developing palaeographical skills and becoming more comfortable with different scripts, including the more cursive and abbreviated ones. The aim of this group is to teach the basic elements of each script and abbreviation in order to help in the direct reading and analysis of the manuscripts. Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 562, fol. 1r

Crafting the Book: A One-Day Workshop

Date: Friday, 22 November 2024

‘Crafting the Book’ is a one-day workshop aimed at current Oxford University students with an academic interest in the history of the book and material culture of medieval manuscripts and early printed texts, including their production, decoration, and provenance through signs of ownership. They will engage with historic materials and develop a deeper understanding of contemporary artistic and reader practices through taking part in hands-on activities with craft methods.

Lunchtime Lecture: Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre at the Weston Library, 1-2pm (BOOK HERE)

Talks by expert speakers Sara Charles and Eleanor Baker with focus on their wide-ranging research on medieval illumination, calligraphy, and early printing techniques. Sara is currently a PhD student at the Institute of English Studies studying manuscript production in the Latin Christian world, and has a forthcoming trade history book, The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, August 2024). Eleanor is currently the English Subject Lead for the University of Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year, with a forthcoming trade history book, Book Curses (Bodleian Publishing, November 2024). The lunchtime lecture is free to attend.

Practical Workshops: Bodleian Bibliographical Press (FULLY BOOKED – contact the organiser to be added to the waiting list)

Workshop 1: Calligraphy Workshop led by Sara Charles taking place at 2.15pm on Friday, 22 November 2024 in the Bibliographic Press room located in the Old Bodleian Library. Sara is leading a practical session on making and writing with iron gall ink as well as painting on parchment.

Workshop 2: Letterpress Workshop led by Eleanor Baker taking place at 4pm on Friday, 22 November 2024 in the Bibliographic Press room located in the Old Bodleian Library. Eleanor is leading a practical session on crafting book curses with early printing techniques.

There is a £6 registration fee to attend each workshop or £12 for both (please bring cash or contact organiser) and each workshop will last roughly 1.5 hours.

Please contact event organiser Alison Ray (St Peter’s College Archivist) with any questions.

‘Crafting the Book’ is generously supported by the Oxford Medieval Studies Small Grant Scheme.

The Barmakids – The Bridge between Islamic and Indic Worlds

Tuesday, 24 Sept, 11am  in the MBI El Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, Oxford

You are cordially invited to the 2nd Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series delivered, in hybrid format, by William Dalrymple. Please register here to receive the Zoom link for those joining onlinehttps://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-barmakids-a-bridge-between-islamic-and-indic-worlds-tickets-1012691907757. The opening statements will be offered by Profs Matthew Weait, Director of Continuing Education, and Arezou Azad, Director of the Invisible East Programme.

There will also be a workshop on Friday, 27 Sept. Limited seating, reservation required

The Speaker

William Dalrymple, All Souls Visiting Fellow 2023-2024, is the author of the Wolfson Prize-winning “White Mughals”, “The Last Mughal”, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning “Return of a King”. “The Anarchy” was short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal, the Tata Book of the Year and the Historical Writers Association Award, was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.

William Dalrymple is the author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White MughalsThe Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning “Return of a King”. “The Anarchy” was short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal, the Tata Book of the Year and the Historical Writers Association Award, was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.

The Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series

The series connects individual stories to larger questions on the history and contemporary issues of the Middle East. The series aims to recognise and promote, in particular, microhistories, oral and documentary history, and fieldwork analysis. The series honours the life and work of Reza Hosseini (1960-2003) who last served as Humanitarian Officer in Iraq. The series was launched on the 20th anniversary of the attack on the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 which killed Reza and 21 colleagues.

This is a hybrid event. Please register here.

Come Collect!

An invitation from the Bodleian Libraries team: How do we relax? A lot of us like collecting things and enjoying our collections. They might be books, they might be records, they might be photographs… they can be anything!

Thursday 26 September, 6–8pm | Blackwell Hall, Weston Library

As a library, the Bodleian has enjoyed collecting for over 400 years and we want to foster that joy in others. Join us 6–8pm on Thursday 26 September in Blackwell Hall at the Weston Library to have a drink and celebrate collecting.

By all means just hang out with fellow collectors, but we encourage you to:

  • bring a treasured book, document, or vinyl record for an expert opinion
  • bring an old camera, or a photo or slide we may be able to scan
  • bring ephemera we might add to our collection (posters, flyers, event tickets… especially if they’re homemade).

You can also enjoy:

  • printing a memento on our historic press
  • having a go at making a mini zine
  • viewing some of the Bodleian’s special collections
  • meeting members of the student Bibliophile society and seeing what they collect
  • learning about how you can get more involved with the Bodleian.

Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/e/n63FFwAZCD – we look forward to seeing you soon! 

This is open to all university members, please spread the word.

Amelia Wray (she/her), Administrator, Special Collections, The Weston Library | Bodleian Libraries, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG, E: amelia.wray@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Dutch Rhetoricians’ Play: Man’s Desire and Fleeting Beauty

On Sunday 29 September 2024 (6pm and 8pm) the Chapel of New College, Oxford, offers the rare opportunity to see Man’s Desire and Fleeting Beauty, a short Dutch comedy. 

The play was written for a dramatic competition in Gouda in 1546 by a Leiden Chamber of Rhetoric, and this performance may only be the second time the play has ever been staged. You are all invited to come and find out whether Man’s Desire can win Fleeting Beauty’s affections and what role Fashion and Custom play in this amorous quest. 

The play is co-produced by Charlotte Steenbrugge (University of Sheffield) and Elisabeth Dutton (Université de Fribourg). Admission is free.

An Introduction to Middle High German

Workshop and Launch

The new Introduction to Middle High German by Howard Jones and Martin H. Jones (OUP 2024) is a dedicated student edition of The Oxford Guide to Middle High German, designed for taught courses and self-study. It provides an accessible overview of the grammar and lexis of the language suitable for introductory-level students and includes thirty extensively-annotated texts with explanatory notes suitable for use in teaching. It is accompanied by a companion website which gives open access to further online resources for the study of Middle High German.

Introduction to the workshop by Howard Jones and Henrike Lähnemann

The workshop was designed as a test case to show ways of using the ‘Introduction’ within a university setting or for self-study . Participants got access to the online version and worked with it in groups ranging from beginners to experts on aspects of Middle High German. The “Translathon” consisted of a group competition to translate and comment on passages of the Middle High German text ‘Helmbrecht’.

Translatathon with six competing groups, translating lines 984 to 1035, featuring

00:00 Group 1: Nicholas Champness, Nina Cornell, Philip Flacke, Anna Vines
00:38 Group 2: Sharon Baker, Monty Powell, Willa Stonecipher, An Van Camp
01:14 Group 3: Theodore Luketina, Daniel Ruin, Nina Unland, Hestia Jingyan Zhang
02:04 Group 4: Reuben Bignell, Greta Evans, Andreas Groeger
03:01 Group 5: Joshua Booth, Lia Neill, Catriona Robertson
03:49 Group 6: Isabelle Gregory, Wilfred Lamont, William Thurlwell

The workshop took place on Saturday 2 November 2024, 2-6pm, Taylor Institution Library, Room 2, University of Oxford. Participants were students from first-year undergraduate to doctoral level – a range of people, in fact, who wanted to acquire, practise, and improve their knowledge of Middle High German. No previous knowledge of Middle High German was required. Organisers Sarah Bowden, Howard Jones, and Henrike Lähnemann

Funded Doctoral Position: The Seven Sages of Rome

The research project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History”  invites applications for one doctoral research associate: FU Berlin advertisement of the position

The project is funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin as part of the Berlin University Alliance/Oxford University Einstein Visiting Fellowship scheme. The selected postholder will work closely with the PIs of the project, Professor Dr Jutta Eming, Freie Universität Berlin and Dr Ida Tóth, University of Oxford (Einstein BUA/Oxford Visiting Fellow 2024-27). 

Please note that the application deadline is 20 August 2024.

The position is funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin as part of the Berlin University Alliance/Oxford University Einstein Visiting Fellowships scheme. The Doctoral Research Associate will participate in the project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History”. The selected postholder will be jointly supervised by the PIs of the project, Professor Dr Jutta Eming, Freie Universität Berlin and Dr Ida Toth, University of Oxford (Einstein BUA/Oxford Visiting Fellow 2024-27).
The research project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History” focuses on one of the most popular and least studied works of pre-modern world literature. Transmitted in over thirty languages and attested through hundreds of manuscripts and early printed editions, this tradition provides ample scope for exploring the extant material from textual, intercultural, and intersectional literary perspectives. The Einstein BUA/Oxford research project proposes to undertake an interdisciplinary, collaborative and comparative philological, literary, and cultural analysis in Byzantine/Medieval Latin and Medieval German and Early Modern Studies. Its goal is to reassess and redefine the traditional approach to the SSR and to medieval literature in general.

Job description:
The Doctoral Research Associate will study one specific set of motifs – Wisdom, Power, and Gender – that is common to all surviving traditions of the Seven Sages in the German and/or Greek textual tradition. The main duty will be to conduct research on a doctoral project designed along these research lines. The postholder will work under the direction of Professor Dr Jutta Eming and Dr Ida Toth as well as collaborating with the other members of the research group. The postholder will assist in planning and organisation of scholarly events (lectures, seminars, workshops, outreach programmes), in publication projects, and will play a key role in securing the online visibility and digital presence of the project. 
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated doctoral candidate with strong interests in wisdom literature, intersectionality, and concepts of power. The successful candidate will join a team of textual and literary scholars, who play an active role in the current efforts to reassess traditional literary canons and to create an alternative, and much more nuanced, understanding of pre-modern global literary history.

Requirements:
• A Master’s degree qualification (MA, MSt, MPhil or the equivalent) in a subject/field relevant to the Project (German Studies, Byzantine Studies/Medieval Latin)

Desirable:
• Above-average Masters’ degree grade 
• Doctoral project on the Seven Sages of Rome
• Excellent command of the spoken and written English language
• Demonstrable interest in the project’s focus area (Wisdom – Power – Gender)
• Ability to work independently
• Commitment to team-building and teamwork
• Willingness to engage in interdisciplinary exchange

Application materials:
• An application letter/statement of purpose (one page)
• An outline of the planned dissertation project (two pages)
• A curriculum vitae with list of publications (if applicable) 
• Official transcripts of all previous degrees and university diplomas
• A copy of master’s thesis or a sample of written work (max. 25 pages)

How to apply:
Your application materials should state the identifier Predoc_JE_BUA_SSoR_2_24. They should be combined in a single PDF document and sent electronically to Ms Sylwia Bräuer (s.braeuer@fu-berlin.de). Two letters of recommendation from university-level teachers should be submitted separately. They should be addressed and emailed to the project PIs Jutta Eming (j.eming@fu-berlin.de ) and Ida Toth (ida.toth@history.ox.ac.uk).

Report on the Oxford-Berlin Workshop ‘The Seven Sages of Rome as a Global Narrative Tradition’

11-12 November 2022, organised by Ida Toth (Oxford) and Jutta Eming (Berlin)

The Seven Sages of Rome (SSR) is a title commonly used for one of the most widely distributed pre-modern collections of stories, which – remarkably – also happens to be barely known today, even among medievalists and early modernists. Several early versions of the SSR exist in Greek (Syntipas), Arabic (Seven Viziers), Hebrew (Mishle Sendebar), Latin (Dolopathos, Historia septem sapientum), Persian (Sindbād-nameh) and Syriac (Sindbād) as well as in the later translations into Armenian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, English, French, Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, Russian, Scottish, Serbian, Swedish, Spanish, Romanian, Turkish and Yiddish. The multilingual traditions of the SSR, with their many intercultural links, cannot be adequately understood within the current division of research disciplines into distinct medieval and modern linguistic areas. To mend this deficiency, the workshop has invited specialists in affiliated fields to address the problems of surveying the long history of creative adaptations associated with the SSR. The participants will consider the complexities of the philological, literary, and historical analysis of the SSR in many of its attested versions across the pre-modern and early modern periods. The workshop is envisaged as a forum for a robust discussion on possible ways of advancing the current scholarship of the SSR, and as an opportunity to strengthen the inter-institutional collaboration involving specialists based at the universities in Oxford and Berlin, and more broadly.

The workshop will start with a session in the Weston Library on Friday morning where the group will meet other Oxford medievalists at the Coffee Morning, followed by a view of special collections in the library. While this is for speakers only, their is limited capacity to attend the following talks at the Ioannou Centre. If interested, please contact the workshop co-ordinator Josh Hitt.

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

  • 2 pm – 3 pm: Beatrice Gründler, Kalīla and Dimna – AnonymClassic: Methodology and Practical Implementations (via Zoom, 1st-fl Seminar Room)
  • 4 pm – 5 pm: Daniel Sawyer, Forgotten books: The application of Unseen Species Models to the Survival of Culture (In person, Outreach Room)

SATURDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

10 am – 11.30 am

  • Jutta Eming, The Seven Sages of Rome in Literary History and Genre Theory
  • David Taylor, Re-examining the Evidence of the Syriac Book of Sindbād
  • Ida Toth, The Byzantine Book of Syntipas: Approaches and Directions
  • Emilie van Opstall, The Representation of Women in Byzantine Syntipas and Latin Dolopathos

12 pm – 1.30 pm

  • Bettina Bildhauer, Consent in the German Version of the Seven Sages of Rome
  • Rita Schlusemann, Genre, Dissemination and Multimodality of the Septem sapientum Romae, especially in Dutch and German
  • Niko Kunkel, Statistics and Interpretation: Annotating the German Sieben Weise Meister
  • Ruth von Bernuth, Yiddish Seven Masters

4.30 pm: Tea and a guided tour of St Edmund Hall with Henrike Lähnemann

5.45 pm: Evensong at New College

Appendix: List of manuscripts and early printed books in the Bodleian Library:

  • Arabic: Pococke 400
  • Greek: Barocc. 131 and Laud. 8
  • Armenian: MS. Arm. e. 33 and MS. Canonici Or. 131
  • Hebrew (Mishle Sendebar/Fables of Sendebar): MS. Heb. d. 11 (ff. 289-294) and MS. Bodl. Or. 135 (ff. 292-300r)
  • Yiddish: Opp. 8. 1115 Mayse fun Ludvig un Aleksander and Opp. 8. 1070 Zibn vayzn mansters fun Rom
  • Welsh Jesus College MS 111
  • Middle English: B. Balliol College MS. 354
  • English, early printed book: The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome. Now newly Corrected better Explained in many places and enlarged with many pretty Pictures etc. London, Printed for John Wright, next to the Globe in Little-Brittain, 1671

Image: British Library, Add. MS. 15685, f. 83r (XIV century, Venice)

Launch of the ‘Life of Nuns’

During the Medievalist Coffee Morning on Friday, 21 June 2024, Henrike Lähnemann launched her new book The Life of Nuns. Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers 2024, open access: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0397
To purchase a paper copy with a 20% discount, use the code LONHL_24 at checkout

On show were the following five manuscripts, all available digitised via https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/, three from the Cistercian convent of Medingen near Lüneburg (http://medingen.seh.ox.ac.uk/) and two Rules for female convents:

Following this, there was a presentation by Stacie Vos (Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellow in Women’s History) talk about Women doing medieval studies in the early 20th century. Stacie reflected on the legacies of several early-20th-century women medievalists who pursued academic and extra-academic careers. She started the group ‘Enclosure’ which January 2021 to February 2024 was hosted at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages under enclosure.mml.ox.ac.uk, now archived at the Bodleian Library Web Archive.

***

It all started with a mistake: ‘Der Spiegel’, a widely read news magazine in Germany, ran a double-spread article on the big research project which Eva Schlotheuber and I direct, the edition of 1.200 letters from the Benedictine convent Lüne in North Germany. In the interview for it, we had talked about how important education by the nuns was for the ‘Lehrkinder’, children educated at the convent. The girls would come into the community, aged 7 to 9, and then get a thorough grounding in a wide range of discipline such as music, as pictured in the scene from a text book from Kloster Ebstorf.

Teaching Music in the Convents (Ebstorf, Klosterarchiv V 3, 15th century, fols 200v–201r)

Der Spiegel’ turned our phrase of ‘Lehrkinder’ into ‘die Kinder der Nonnen’ (the children of the nuns) – hinting at sex and scandal behind convent walls (in 2/2020 ‘So colourful was the life of nuns in the Middle Ages’).

This sparked further media interest and the Ullstein publishing house approached us because it had piqued their interest. When we explained that the attention-grabbing headline about “the nuns had children” was based on a misunderstanding, they were slightly disappointed – but then offered us the opportunity to set the record straight. And, arguably, what we could offer was much more exciting: the colourful and detailed accounts of lively, intellectual, strategic, argumentative, powerful women, shaping religion and politics of their times, looking after the girls (despite or even because they were their spiritual and not biological daughters!), negotiating business deals, writing, painting, composing and influencing the way we live today through their books, songs, and art.

‘The Life of Nuns’ tries to capture the richness of the life of these medieval nuns by incorporating as much primary source material as possible. Each of the big topics – such as Education, Music, and yes: Love and Friendship – starts with an account taken from the diary of a nun who lived at the end of the 15th century in the convent St Crucis in Braunschweig. The anonymous author covers the high feasts – celebrating the entry of new nuns, welcoming illustrious visitors –  and the everyday mundane events – lice, Lebkuchen (gingerbread), laundry. And we end every of our chapters with the presentation of a significant art work from the convents: the impressive wall paintings done in the 14th century by “three nuns all called Gertrud” in Wienhausen, the largest medieval world map in Ebstorf (30 goatskins sewn together), tapestries, statues, stained glass, the oldest spectacles in the world (fallen through the floorboard cracks in the nuns’ choir) – an embarrassment of riches from a world that few people even know existed. That is particularly true for an Anglophone audience since so much of the evidence is lost due mainly to the dissolution of the monasteries but also a repurposing of surviving architecture and treasures. Compare Kloster Wienhausen and Godstow Abbey: in Wienhausen we have got the full set of monastic buildings, cloisters, huge grain stores, cells, corridors, imposing Gothic nuns choir and more – and everything that furnished it: stained glass, wall paintings, sculptures, down to the different set of dresses for the statues.

The Cistercian Convent of Wienhausen from the South: Magazine (left) and Nuns’ Choir. Photograph: Henrike Lähnemann
Filming at the ruins of one Godstow Abbey near Oxford

In Godstow, on the other hand, we can sense the dimensions of its former power by looking at the impressively long surrounding wall of enclosure and glimpse some of its stylish beauty from the ruined chapel at the back – the rest is only possible to reconstruct from scant archival evidence. Looking at the German counterparts, who shapeshifted through the Reformation, transforming into Protestant female communities who still look after the rich tapestry of medieval life, offers the chance to rectify this in part – and encounter the Life of Nuns at their fullest, mystical, worldly, polyphonous and very much relevant still today.

Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024: Exchanging Words

The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024 will be held on 18th June 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library both in person (presenters/attendees) and online (attendees).

Tuesday 18 June 2024, 9am – 5pm
Online and In-person, Room 2, Taylor Institution Library, Saint Giles’, Oxford OX1 3NA
Free but registration required
Register here for in-person attendance – Sold out
Register here to join the conference online
Online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.

The aim of this conference is to explore the concept of exchange, whether it be textual or material, to, for and between women in the global Middle Ages. As a research group based upon the concept of exchanging ideas, we wish to explore medieval women’s own networks of exchange and transmission, and the influence of this upon both the literature and culture of the period as well as the present day.

We are delighted to present the programme for the day:

9:00-9:30 Registration 
9:30-9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks 
9:45-11:15 Session 1 “Scholarly Networks” 
Katrin Janz-Wenig (SUB Hamburg) & Lenka Panušková (The Czech Academy of Sciences) | Communication Strategies Through Change: Translations, Compilations and Ekphrasis 
Ved Prabha Sharma (Independent Researcher) | Women Scholars and Knowledge Exchange in Medieval Indian shāstrārth Tradition 
Tatiana Barkovskiy (University of Cambridge) | A Beguinian Learning Network, or How to Approach ‘Medieval Women Mystics’ as Philosophers  
11:15-11:45 Break with Refreshments 
11:45-13:15 Session 2 “Relationships With and Between Women” 
Costas Gavriel (University of Oxford) | Gaining the Queen’s Confidence: The Relationship Between Leonor López de Córdoba and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile 
Lucia Akard (University of Oxford) | Talking About Rape and Exchanging Knowledge in Medieval Dijon 
Meg Greenough (Independent Researcher) | The Wilton Matrix: Mothering in Goscelin of Saint Betin’s Liber Confortatorius
13:15-14:30 Lunch Break 
Exploring the Taylorian’s Treasures, with Professor Henrike Lähnemann (University of Oxford) 
14:30-15:45 Keynote Address 
Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey) | Medieval Women Writers: Troubling a Feminist History of British Women’s Writing
15:45-16:15 Break with Refreshments 
16:15-17:45 Session 3 “Nuns’ Words” 
Francesca Maria Villani (University of Bari) | Eloise’s Psalmody: Body and Voice Through the Epistles
Jane Bliss (Independent Researcher) | The Nun Changes her Library Book 
Hilary Pearson (Independent Researcher) | Teresa de Cartagena’s Models of Female Authority 
17:45 Closing Remarks 
18:00 End of Conference

Please direct any questions to any of the conference organizers: 
Katherine Smith (katherine.smith@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Marlene Schilling (marlene.schilling@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Carolin Gluchowski (carolin.gluchowski@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Santhia Velasco Kittlaus (santhia.velascokittlaus@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk)

The research group and the conference are generously funded by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and their “Critical-Thinking Communities” Initiative.