Medieval Matters MT24, Week 6

Monday morning can mean but one thing: Medieval Matters is here to grace your inboxes once again. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here.

Rumbling in the distance, early work begins on the Medieval Mystery Cycle 2025. At 5pm on Friday 29 November 2024, at St Edmund Hall, there will be an event to bring together actors, directors, musicians and those interested in texts and props. All are welcome, especially those who are unsure how to get involved. Tea and cake provided. More information about the event, and the Cycle in general, can be found on the blog post here which also advertises the exciting (and paid) role of ‘Head of Performance’ for a current graduate student – see below under ‘opportunities’.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3pm at the Institute of Archaeology. Rebecca Tyson, U. of Bristol will be speaking on ‘Navigating the Norman invasion of England in 1066: A Maritime Environmental Perspective’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Moreed Arbabzedah (Jesus Oxford) will be speaking on ‘New Perspectives on Gerald of Wales’.
  • Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30pm in the English Faculty Graduate Common Room.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Nicholas Watson (Harvard) will be speaking on ‘Vernacular Theology in Thirteenth-Century Oxford: Robert Grosseteste and his Circle’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Medieval Poetry Reading Group – 4.30pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radliffe Humanities Building. The theme this week is Light without Sun or Moon: The Poetry of Kabīr.
  • Medieval Church and Culture – tea from 5.00pm (talk starts at 5.15) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Conrad Leyser (Worcester) will be speaking on ‘The Rule of Augustine Revisited’.

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Late Roman Legislative Codices and Jews.
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Lucia Orlandi (Paris/Rome) will be speaking on ‘Recent Research on Baptism and Baptisteries in Late Antiquity’.
  • History of Art Research Seminar – 5pm in the History Faculty Lecture Theatre. Nancy Thebaut (Oxford) will be speaking on “Queering Medieval Art at The Met Cloisters”.
  • Michaelmas Term 2024 Lecture of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures – 5.15pm in the
    Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Christopher Whittick will be speaking on ‘“I Found it in a Skip” – Provenance and Priorities in British Archives’.

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Italian Late Medieval and Early Modern Palaeography Course – 10am in the Chough Room, Teddy Hall.
  • Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts and Histories – 2pm-5.30pm in the Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute. This group convenes once a term to read together unpublished Hebrew and Latin documents from Medieval England as sources for the history of the Jews before the expulsion of 1290.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon RoomExeter Collge. The text this week is Theseus and Romulus (Plutarch, Lives).
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5pm online. Marion Löffler (Cardiff) will be speaking on ‘“Desert wilds of India Africa”: Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Eisteddfod competitions and Empire, 1834–1853’.
  • The Politics of Memory: The Reimagination of Medieval India (Panel Discussion) – 5pm in St Luke’s Chapel, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm in the Arumugam Building, St Catz. Alixe Bovey (The Courtauld Institute of Art) will be speaking on ‘Visual Storytelling in 14th-century London: Subtexts, Pretexts, Contexts’.
  • Medieval and Renaissance Music Seminar – 5pm online (register here). Lucia Marchi (University of Trento) will be speaking on ‘The Long Life of the Trecento Repertory’.
  • David Patterson Lectures – 6pm in the Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Institute. Dr Dean Irwin (University of Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Jews and Christians as Neighbours in Medieval English Towns’.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Crafting the Book Lecture – 1pm in the Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre at the Weston Library. Sara Charles and Eleanor Baker will be speaking. For more information, see here.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Crafting the Book Practical Workship – 2.15pm and 4pm in the Bodleian Bibliographical Press (FULLY BOOKED).
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • The Germanic Reading Group – 4pm online. This week, the focus will be on Gothic extracts of Nehemia, led by Morgan. Contact Howard Jones if you would like the zoom link and handout.

UPCOMING

  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  •  Head of Performance sought for Medieval Mystery Plays to pull the strings for the 2025 performance of the Medieval Mystery Plays. Henrike Lähnemann and Lesley Smith, the Co-Directors, are looking for an enthusiastic, creative and, above all, well-organised graduate student or postdoc. There will be a reward of £300. See here the advertisement.
  • CfP for a thematic session at NAPS 2025 titled ‘Scripture and the Arts in Clement of Alexandria‘. Deadline for abstract submissions is November 18th: use this form.
  • 4-year funded Collaborative Doctoral Award(CDA), co-supervised between the University of Nottingham and the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford:  ‘Digital Approaches to Medieval Chant and Local Religious Heritage’. Deadline 13 January 2025: more information here.
  • The Medieval Academy of America’s Graduate Student Committee seeks new committee members for the 2025-2027 term. Submit self-nomination forms here.
  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

-TKA

Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 13 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/)

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 5

Four weeks have passed: four weeks remain. In the words of Elton John: ‘I guess that’s why they call it the blues’. To cheer our ailing souls, this week’s Medieval Matters is brimming with upcoming events and a particular concentration of new opportunities. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Gregory Lippiatt (University of Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Bogomils or Bogeymen?: Heresy between East and West in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’. NB. this week, the talk takes place in the Hovendon Room (All Souls).

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Jenyth Evans (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘”Enucleator venio, non pugnator”: The Uneven Authority of Pseudohistories in Gerald of Wales’.
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Old Norse Research Seminar – 5pm in Seminar Room L, English Faculty. Alison Finlay (Birkbeck) will be speaking on ‘From Iceland to the World: Translating Flateyjarbók’: all welcome, drinks to follow.
  • Medieval Church and Culture –  5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Eunice Yu (Wolfson) will be speaking on ‘Harmonising Paradox in Early Modern Venice: Collecting and Constructing National Identity in Print’.
  • The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures: ‘Work in Progress’ Colloquium – 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, Queen’s College. Julia Lorenz (Merton College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Konrad of Würzburg’s “Herzmaere”: An Instruction on How (Not) to Love’, and Dr Alan Darmawan (SOAS, London) will be speaking on ‘Mapping Sumatra’s Manuscript Cultures’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5.15pm at the Maison Française d’Oxford. The theme this week is ‘Researchers at Work: Serendipity and Surprise’

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is – The Emperor and the Jews
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Book at Lunchtime, 1-2pm: Henrike Lähnemann in conversation with Lyndal Roper and Nancy Thebaut will present ‘The Life of Nuns’ as part of the TORCH series. You can join the waiting list for the live event at the Radcliffe Humanities Building or watch it live streamed. Register here.
  • Medieval Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries: An Introduction to Collections and Catalogues – 2pm in the Horton Room, Weston Library. An introduction to the medieval European manuscript collections at the Bodleian Library and the print and online catalogues in which they have been described from the 17th century onwards.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Max Lau (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Rebirth of Byzantine Anatolia in the Twelfth Century’.

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon RoomExeter Collge. The text this week is Claudius (Tacitus, Annals 13.3).
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group – 1pm online. Aafreen Rashid (South Asian University, New Dehli) will be speaking on ‘Framing Feminist Strategic Discourse: Begum Jahanara and the Exchange of Letters During the War of Succession in Mughal India (1657-59)’. Sign up here.
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5.15pm at Jesus College and online. Elisa Cozzi (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘From Dánta Grá to Dante: Irish–Italian genealogies, 1350–1850’.

Friday

  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College. For more information, please contact Jane Bliss (jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org).

UPCOMING

  • To register for the ‘Crafting the Book’ one-day workshop, held on 22 November at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, please follow this link.
  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  •  CfP for a thematic session at NAPS 2025 titled ‘Scripture and the Arts in Clement of Alexandria‘. Deadline for abstract submissions is November 18th: use this form.
  • 4-year funded Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA), co-supervised between the University of Nottingham and the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford:  ‘Digital Approaches to Medieval Chant and Local Religious Heritage’. Deadline 13 January 2025: more information here.
  • The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 2025 is now open to abstract submissions from current postgraduates or those who have recently completed postgraduate study. The theme is ‘Sickness and Health’. More information here.
  • The Medieval Academy of America’s Graduate Student Committee seeks new committee members for the 2025-2027 term. Submit self-nomination forms here.
  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

TKA

Medievalists in their natural habitat. Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 3 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/).

Medieval Matters MT24, Week 4

The days are getting colder and the nights are drawing in: fear not, for the medieval events roll ever on and on. As always, a PDF version of the booklet can be found here, and do check the Oxford Medieval Studies blog for reports of recent medieval events; also worthwhile checking out is the History of the Book blog with a report e.g. last week on a palaeography class with Laure Miolo and Alison Ray (including a “bat book”!). Do send in your own suggestions for blog posts to Miles Pattenden!

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3pm at the Institute of Archaeology. Lyn Blackmore (Museum of London Archaeology) will be speaking on ‘The Seventh-Century Bed Burial at Harpole: Aspects of Recent work’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Teresa Barucci (Magdalen) will be speaking on ‘Identity and Geographical Origin at the Late Medieval University of Paris: An Analysis of Manuscript Decoration’.
  • Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30pm in the English Faculty Graduate Common Room.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm at Lecture Theatre 2 of the St Cross Building. Francis Leneghan (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘A Perilous Task? The Making of the Old English Heptateuch (Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 509)’
  • The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
  • The Germanic Reading Group – 4pm online. This week, the focus will be on extracts from Physiologus, the elephant. Contact Howard Jones if you would like the zoom link and handout.
  • Medieval Poetry Reading Group – 4.30pm in the Colin Matthew Room, Radliffe Humanities Building. The theme this week is Light without Sun or Moon: The Poetry of Kabīr.
  • Early Modern Graduate Forum – 5.15pm in Seminar Room B at the English Faculty. Jacob Ridley (DPhil candidate, Univ) will be talking on the topic of  ‘Androcracy and Personification from Everyman to Spenser’. Wine and soft drinks provided.
  • Medieval Church and Culture – 5.00pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Helen Flatley (Somerville) will be speaking on ‘Ties that Bind: Partnership, Surety and Social Bonds between Christians, Muslims and Jews in Toledo, 1085-c.1300’.

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207 of The Clarendon Institute. The theme for this week is Angelology and Demonology.
  • Medieval German Seminar: Konrad von Megenberg ‘Buch der Natur’ – 11.15am at Somerville College. To be added to the Teams group for updates, please email Almut Suerbaum.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm online. To join, please email Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Arkadiy Avdokhin (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Gone with the Wind: Ambition, Scatology, and Violence in Acclamations for Albinos at Aphrodisias’.
  • VRF in the Creative Arts: Inks & Paints of the Abbasids – 5.15pm in the Eliot Theatre, Merton College. This talk will take us through the pigments and dyes that made up the Islamic scribe’s colour palette. Joumana Medlej will describe their preparation and behaviour from a practitioner’s perspective, and share process photos from her re-creation of ink recipes from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, along with insights into inkmaking practices gleaned from these texts. 

Thursday

  • Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute. For more information, please email Joseph O’Hara.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapledon RoomExeter Collge. The text this week is Caesar (Plutarch, Life of Caesar 63–66).
  • Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies seminar – 5pm online. Elizabeth Boyle (Maynooth) will be speaking on ‘Psychology and the Individual in Medieval Ireland’.
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm in the Arumugam Building, St Catz. Elena Lichmanova (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Religious Storytelling and the Rise of Marginalia’.

Friday

  • Oxford Medieval Society ‘Shut Up and Write’ – 9.30 to 12 in Blackwell’s Cafe.
  • Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College.
  • Inaugural Lecture of the Gad Rausing Associate Professor of Viking-Age Archaeology, held at St Cross College at 3pm on Friday 8th November. Dr Jane Kershaw will be speaking on ‘The Viking Diaspora: Causes, Networks and Cultural Identity’. Tickets are available here.

Saturday

  • Reading in the Woods: A Day of Learning About Wood in the Library. 11am at the Weston Library and online. More info here.

UPCOMING

  • To register for the ‘Crafting the Book’ one-day workshop, held on 22 November at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, please follow this link.
  • 700 Years of the Thames at The National Archives – The National Archives (London), Thursday November 7 – drop in between 15:00 and 19:00. Tickets here.
  • Tickets are available here for the Society of Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium (4th-6th November 2024).
  • The LGBTQ+ History Hackathon is happening on November 29th 2-5.30pm at the History Faculty. Register here.

OPPORTUNITIES (new items highlighted)

  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025 CfP – seeking 20 minute papers from graduate students on the theme of ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’, for a conference held 24th and 25th of April, 2025. More info here.
  • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeking an assistant professor specializing in visual or material cultures between c. 700 and 1750 CE. More Info here.
  • A fully-funded AHRC doctoral studentship at Oxford in partnership with The National Archives is seeking applicants to work on Chaucer’s life and poetry – https://oocdtp.web.ox.ac.uk/ox-cda-turner-nationalarchives.
  • The Central European University are advertising a number of funded PhDs and Masters – see the blog post here.
  • University College Dublin are advertising a funded PhD in Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE) which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton. See the blog post here.
  • An opportunity has arisen to translate Alice in Wonderland into Old Norse – The translator would own the copyright and receive a royalty for copies sold. Those interested should email Sarah Foot.
  • OxMedSoc are looking for a secretary and publicity officer. Please email oxfordmedievalsociety@gmail.com.
  • PRAGESTT German Studies Student Conference will take place on the 21st and 22nd March 2025 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) – please see https://pragestt.ff.cuni.cz/en/home/
  • The Oxford University Byzantine Society has issued a Call for Papers for their 27th International Graduate Conference, held on the 1st-2nd March 2025, in Oxford and Online. More information can be found here.
  • The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. Deadline 2 December. More information can be found here.
  • Check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.
  • Addenda and corrigenda to Oxford Medieval Studies by Monday 5pm, please.

T.K.A

Bodleian Library MS. Arch. Selden. B. 10, fol 5r