Category: News

New Book by Oxford Medievalist Deborah Grice

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07/10/2021

16:04

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Calling all medievalists interested in the history of the early universities or the development of doctrine….

Deborah Grice’s ‘Church, Society and University: the Paris Condemnation of 1241/4’ was originally published in hardback by Routledge in August 2019. But it is now in paperback at £36.99 (available direct from them or on Amazon).

Moreover, there is a promotional code of 30% if buying it from Routledge, PBC30, valid until 31st October.

Church, Society and University: The Paris Condemnation of 1241/4 (Studies in Medieval History and Culture): Amazon.co.uk: Grice, Deborah: 9780367194383: Books

The book examines the list of condemned theological propositions issued in 1241/4 by the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne. It represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university’s early maturation, and it provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews.

Medieval Matters: Week 0 and Booklet

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04/10/2021

15:03

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Michaelmas Term is finally here, which means that our Medieval Booklet has now arrived! Inside you will find details of all of the seminars, events and reading groups happening this term, as well as some CFPs and save the dates for future events. Please do peruse and fill your calendars up!

I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you of our blog, which not only includes an archive of the Medieval Matters newsletters, but also CFPs, posts from Oxford Medievalists, and a handy calendar so that you can always keep an eye on upcoming events and copy the details to your own online calendar. We would love to receive submissions for blog posts, whether these are events, reports on ongoing projects or conferences. If you have an idea for a blog post, please email luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk or lesley.smith@history.ox.ac.uk.

A new term means new faces around Oxford. If this is your first Medieval Matters email, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to the Oxford Medievalist community on behalf of the OMS team! If you are a course convenor for a medieval MSt, please block-enrol your students for the newsletter (or send me names for block enrolling) so that we catch all new MSt and doctoral students in medieval subjects and ensure that everyone receives all of the latest Oxford Medieval updates. If you know of any new medievalists who have joined Oxford and wish to have them added to the mailing list, please do contact me on luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.uk. Alternatively, anybody can subscribe themselves to the Medieval Matters newsletter via the ‘About’ section of the blog – please do share the link with your incoming students.

Onto the announcements for this week:

  • Medieval Roadshow: We are still taking submissions for this year’s Medieval Roadshow, which is a great way for all seminar/reading group/medieval event convenors to publicise their wares. Come and give a two-minute in-person advert at this term’s Roadshow: Tuesday 12th October, 5-7 pm, at Teddy Hall. Please email luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk so she can get an idea of who’ll be talking — but if you haven’t ‘booked’ don’t worry – turn up anyway and we’ll fit you in. The Roadshow is an excellent way re-connect with our medieval community after so many months of virtual events. We are also happy to host virtual speakers via a Teams link: if you would like to present, but would prefer to do so remotely, please just let Luisa know so that arrangements can be made.
  • Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference: We are delighted to announce that the theme of the Eighteenth annual Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference will be Medicine and Healing, and that we are looking for new committee members! Please email oxgradconf@gmail.com, if you are interested!
  • Oxford Medieval Commentary Network: The first workshop and initial meeting of the Medieval Commentary Network will take place on 9th October, Christ Church, Research Centre., 8:30-5:30pm. Please email medievalcommentarynetwork@gmail.com with any questions and for further information.

Finally, a little wisdom from Alcuin to inspire you this week:

‘o quam dulcis vita fuit, dum sedebamus quieti inter sapientis scrinia, inter librorum copias‘

[‘Oh, how sweet life was, when we sat at leasure amongst the stacks of a learned man, amongst an abundance of books’ Ep. 281 ]

May your Michaelmas term be filled with such joys as these!

A manuscript illumination of a coot making its nest on water and on a rock
A coot kindly delivers the Michaelmas Term booklet to the email inbox of Oxford’s Medievalists: Merton College, MS 249, f. 10v. [view image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller
https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Fullica

Medieval Matters: Is It Term Yet?

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27/09/2021

16:54

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The days are getting colder, the leaves are getting crisper and Bodleian is getting busier… Michaelmas term is almost here! 0th week is just on the horizon, and I’m sure you can’t wait for the medieval events that lie in store. The Durham proverbs advise us that ‘geþyld byþ middes eades’ (‘patience is half of happiness’), so we must wait patiently for all of our seminars, reading groups and opportunities, but today I bring you some pre-term announcements to tide you over:

  • Network for new postdoctoral researchers: New postdoctoral Medievalists and Early Modernists from all disciplines are warmly invited to join a friendly network of new postdocs to help support the transition from doctoral to postdoctoral research. If you would like to get involved, please email Rebecca Menmuir at r.menmuir@qmul.ac.uk

  • ​Call for Papers: Spirits and Spirituality in Medieval Britain and Ireland C. 600-1400. The organisers invite papers which explore representations of spirits and spirituality in the medieval period from c. 600-1400 in Britain and Ireland, including, but not limited to the influence of Eastern and / or Western patristics; representations of spirits and demons; approaches to spirituality; how spirits and spirituality are represented in medieval texts, artefacts, art and material culture; or alternative spiritualities. Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to eleni.ponirakis3@nottingham.ac.uk by the 30th November 2021.

  • Job opportunity: The BnF are recruiting an Editorial content editor for The Art of Reading in the Middle-Ages, on a six-month contract starting 1/11/2011. For further information, see the job posting here

  • Medieval Roadshow: a great way for all seminar/reading group/medieval event convenors to publicise their wares. Come and give a two-minute in-person advert at this term’s Roadshow: Tuesday 12th October, 5-7 pm, at Teddy Hall. Please email luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk so she can get an idea of who’ll be talking — but if you haven’t ‘booked’ don’t worry – turn up anyway and we’ll fit you in. The Roadshow is an excellent way re-connect with our medieval community after so many months of virtual events.

  • Future Philology: Digitization and Beyond: A two-day online symposium organised by the Invisible East Programme. This is a fantasic opportunity for scholars working on digital corpora of documents from the ancient and medieval world to share their experiences and insights. Thursday 30th September – Friday, October 1st 2021. To register, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/future-philology-digitization-and-beyond-tickets-170156072393

Finally, I’d like to remind you to make sure to send your submissions for the Medieval Booklet to luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk before October 1st. Many thanks to everyone who has already sent me their entries. The Booklet will arrive in the first Monday email of 0th Week! Until then, I hope everyone is patiently but excitedly looking forward to the start of term.

A medievalist, eager for seminars and sick of waiting for the start of term, is visited by a caladrius and advised to be patient: Merton College, MS 249, f. 8v. [view image and text in the Taylor Edition by Sebastian Dows-Miller https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/bestiary/#Caladrius]

Medieval Matters: Pre-Term

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20/09/2021

11:40

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It brings me great joy to welcome you to the start of a new academic year at Oxford! I’m honoured to be taking over the role of OMS Communications Officer from Caroline Batten, the wonderful scribe and would-be-medieval-poet of last year’s Monday emails. I’m looking forward to bringing you all the latest Oxford Medieval news and keeping you up to date on the many exciting seminars and events that lie in store for us this year. If you would like your events to be promoted by OMS or have pitches for posts for the OMS blog, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk.

As Michaelmas approaches, so too does the arrival of this term’s Medieval Booklet. If you are running a seminar, event or reading group that you wish to appear in the booklet, please email me your submission before October 1st.

Term may not yet have begun, but we already have some events to bring to your attention:

  • Save the Date! Our first big event of the year is the Oxford Medieval Studies Roadshow, Tuesday 12th October, 5-7 pm, where you can promote your research seminars, conferences, projects and workshops. More details to follow shortly…

  • Seminar on the History of Domestic Violence. The 5th Seminar in History of Domestic Violence and Abuse series, organized by Juliana Dresvina & Anu Lahtinen, University of Oxford & University of Helsinki, will take place on Friday 1st October, 10am.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all back in Oxford in October, and to tentatively resuming in-person events. For now, I leave you with a little snippet of medieval wisdom, to whet your appetites for the term ahead:

Ælc man, ðe wisdom lufað, bið gesælig
[‘Everyone who loves wisdom is blessed’, Ælfric, preface to the Grammar]

A manuscript illumination of an asp and a man
A vacationing serpent is shocked by the arrival of the term’s first Medieval Matters email: Merton College, MS 249, f. 7r

Medieval Matters: Week 8 TT2021

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21/06/2021

18:07

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Dear all,

Unbelievably, here we are at the end of Trinity Term! The end of the year always flies by. Best wishes to all the Masters students turning in dissertations in the next few weeks.

There is only one announcement today: at the end of term, I’m departing my post as Communications Officer for Oxford Medieval Studies, as I’ll be headed off on postdoctoral adventures starting this autumn. I am, however, leaving you in the most capable of hands: the wonderful and brilliant Luisa Ostacchini will be taking over this job for the next academic year alongside her new role as Stipendiary Lecturer in Medieval English at St Edmund Hall.

It’s been an honour cluttering up your Monday inboxes. I’ve loved this job, and have deeply appreciated your hard work and enthusiasm in organizing these events and seminars; your promptness with announcements and reminders; your friendly corrections; and your kind missives about my relentless butchering of medieval texts for laughs. In the words of dear old Geoffrey: Min be the travaille, and thin be the glorie.

Hwæt, we Oxnaforda in ær-dagum / leorning-cnihta ond lareowa cræft gefrunon, / hu þa searo-monnas seminara fremedon. [Lo, we have heard of the skill of students and teachers of Oxford in the current times, how those clever people made seminars.] – A recently discovered Old English poem that will no doubt revolutionize the field

Onward to the seminars!

MONDAY 14 JUNE

  • The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance by contacting james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Kyriakos Fragkoulis (University of Birmingham), ‘(Re)contextualising a Late Antique City Through the Ceramic Record: The Case of Dion in Macedonia (Pieria, Greece)’.
  • The Medieval Latin Reading Group meets 1-2 pm on Teams. Submit your email address here to receive notices.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5 pm on Teams. This week we hear from another exciting panel of speakers: Tom McAuliffe, Richard Schlag, Ellie Birch, and Laura Rosenheim on ‘Politics and Power Plays, c. 1000-1500’.
  • Forgotten Christianities meets at 5 pm on Zoom. This week’s speakers are Joseph Glynias (Princeton), ‘Ibrahim the Protospatharios, the Melkites of Antioch, and Local Autonomy under Byzantine Rule’, and Kyle Brunner (NYU/ISAW), ‘Creation and Maintenance of Communal Boundaries Real and Imagined in Syriac Hagiography during the Early Islamic Period’. Register here.

TUESDAY 15 JUNE

  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3:30 pm on Google Meet. Contact oxfordmedievalbookclub@gmail.com to receive notices. This week’s theme is ‘Image and Legend’, an exploration of visual sources.
  • The Early Slavonic Seminar meets at 5 pm on Zoom. Register here. This week’s speaker is Kati Parppei (University of Eastern Finland), ‘Between East and West: Assumptions and Interpretations Concerning Medieval Karelia’.

WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE

  • Digital Editions Live returns from 3-5 pm on Teams (join the meeting here). This week’s seminar is a book launch; Edmund Wareham presents the newest book in the Reformation Pamphlet series, speaking on ‘500 Years Passional Christi und Antichristi’.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5 pm on Google Meet (link here). This week’s speaker is Michiel Op de Coul (Tilburg), ‘Theodore Prodromos: Towards an Edition of his Letters and Speeches’.

THURSDAY 17 JUNE

  • The Early Text Cultures Astronomy and Astrology Seminar meets at 3 pm on Zoom. Fill out this Google form to receive the link. This week’s speakers are Vilius Bartninkas (Vilnius) and Federico Valenti (Independent Scholar), on ‘Naming and Nomenclature: Ancient Greek and Early Chinese Astronomical Terminology’.
  • In place of the Aquinas Seminar Series, Bernd Goebel (Faculty of Theology, Fulda) will offer a reading session on Ralph of Battle at 4:30 pm on Zoom, focusing on an extract (§§37-46) from Meditatio cuiusdam Christiani de fide. Register here. 
  • The Celtic Seminar meets at 5:15 pm on Teams. Contact david.willis@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk for the link. This week’s speaker is Joshua Byron Smith (University of Arkansas), ‘Madog of Edeirnion’s Strenua cunctorum: A Welsh-Latin Poem in Praise of Geoffrey of Monmouth’.
  • The Medieval Trade Reading Group also returns this week at 7 pm on Teams. To be added to the team and have access to the reading materials, email annabel.hancock@history.ox.ac.uk.

FRIDAY 18 JUNE

A few seminars this term will continue into WEEK 9:

  • The Medieval History seminar will meet on Monday 21 June at 5 pm on Teams, as usual. Another exciting panel: Mary Hitchman, John Merrington, James Miller, and Elena Rossi, speaking on ‘Minds, Morals, and Martyrs in Medieval Communities’ (you have to love that alliteration).
  • Forgotten Christianities will meet on both Monday 21 June and Monday 28 June at 5 pm on Zoom. On the 21st, the speakers will be Augustine Dickinson (Hamburg), ‘Martyrs of God and Pillars of Faith: Literature and Identity in the Stephanite Movement’, and Nevsky Everett (SOAS), ‘The Ark of the Covenant and the Cross in Isaac of Nineveh and the Adversus Judaeos Tradition’. Register here. On the 28th, the speakers will be Emily Chesley (Princeton), ‘“I am going to go beyond the bounds”: Creating Miaphysite Community through a Woman’s Biographical Mimro’, and Samuel Noble (KU Leuven), ‘Abdallāh ibn al-Faḍl’s Conception of Philosophy: Byzantine Falsafa’. Register here.
  • The Early Text Cultures Astronomy and Astrology Seminar will meet on FRIDAY (note the time change) 25 June at 3 pm on Zoom. Fill out this Google form to receive the link. Massimiliano Franci (CAMNES, Firenze) and Cristian Tolsa (Barcelona) will speak on ‘Cultural Vistas: Ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Roman Culture’.
  • The Anglo-Norman Reading Group will meet on Friday of Week 9 at its usual time of Friday 5 pm.

Thanks to you all for brightening a trying year with such an incredible array of events, and maintaining our academic community even in times of plague. With all best wishes for a lovely end to term and a (hopefully) covid-free summer,

Caroline

A Puzzle of Fragments from Late Medieval Catalonia

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03/06/2021

06:51

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Our understanding of medieval culture vastly relies on fragmentary sources. Musicologists are especially well-acquainted with this —most historians working on pre-1500 music rely to a significant extent on ‘waste’ parchment as a source of information about lost musical cultures. Working with fragments is challenging; however, it can also yield extremely rewarding results when we are able to reconstruct a wider picture.

In a recent publication, I re-examined a group of musical fragments preserved in Catalan archives. They transmit a highly sophisticated repertory inspired by the musical practices of late fourteenth-century cardinals and popes in Avignon, alongside northern French aristocratic and royal households. My essay traces the provenance of these fragments, recalibrating the way we think about the connection between the original manuscripts, local ecclesiastic and courtly institutions, and individual clerics. To make a long story short, most of the manuscripts converge with the itineraries of King John I of Aragon (b. 1350, r. 1387-1396) —who was an enthusiastic lover of music— and his court. The rather concrete picture emerging from my study confirms the long-held hypothesis that the royal court of Aragon was a major force behind the dissemination of this refined musical repertory throughout late medieval Catalonia.

In order to make the results of my research accessible to non-specialists, I have put together this ten-minute video. I couldn’t resist including footage of some of my favourite medieval towns and buildings. I Hope you’ll enjoy watching it.


David Catalunya is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford, and a member of the ERC-funded project ‘Music and Late Medieval European Court Cultures’. Earlier he has worked at the University of Würzburg, where he served as an editor of Corpus Monodicum. He has been an Associate Director of DIAMM, and a member of the research board of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. His scholarly research embraces a wide range of topics in music, history and culture from the early Middle Ages to the Early Modern period. He is currently completing his book project Music, Space and Ceremony at the Royal Abbey of Las Huelgas in Burgos, 1200-1350.

Mortimer History Society Essay Prize 2021

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25/05/2021

11:53

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The Mortimer History Society is proud to announce in 2021 the sixth round of its annual essay prize

With the continued difficult circumstances, the scope of the prize has once again been extended. This year, essays will be accepted on:

✓ Any aspect relating to the history, geopolitics, topography, laws, economy, society and culture of medieval borderlands, including comparative studies, between 1066-1542, or:

✓ Any aspect of the medieval Mortimer family of Wigmore including its cadet branches and its impact on the history and culture of the British Isles

The prize

✓ first prize £750, runner-up prize £300, third-place £200

The conditions

✓ the essay must contain original research not published previously elsewhere and the prize is open to everyone who can meet the assessment criteria

The chair of the judging panel

✓ Emeritus Professor Chris Given-Wilson, University of St. Andrews

The closing date

✓ essays must be submitted by 1st March 2022

Publication

✓ prizewinning essays will be published in The Mortimer History Society Journal as may other commended entries

Click here for more details about the prize
Click here to see the rules of the competition
Click here for full details & conditions

Medieval Matters: Week 5 TT2021

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24/05/2021

17:00

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Dear all,

Week 5 and perhaps we’ll see some sun again in the next few days! Fortunately, medieval seminars are appropriate for all weather.

No announcements this week, aside from a note for those of you who are interested in fantasy literature to follow the Oxford Fantasy research cluster (and podcast!) on Twitter @OxFantasyLit. Onward to the seminars!

‘All the world’s a seminar, and all the men and women merely invited speakers; they have their questions and their comments, and one man in his time attends many papers.’ – As You Like It, if I recall correctly

MONDAY 24 MAY

  • The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance by contacting james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Grace Stafford (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz), ‘Between the Living and the Dead: Use, Reuse, and Imitation of Painted Portraits in Late Antiquity’.
  • The Medieval Latin Reading Group meets 1-2 pm on Teams. Submit your email address here to receive notices.
  • At 4 pm we have the Germanic Reading Group on Zoom, which will explore alliterative verse in a different Germanic language each week; this week, Eugenia Vorobeva will lead a session on Old Norse. To be added to the list, contact howard.jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5 pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Antonio Marson Franchini (St Cross), ‘The de festis Model Sermon Collection of Nicolas de Biard: Toward a Critical Edition’, with respondent Jessalynn L. Bird (Notre Dame University).
  • Old Norse Reading Group continues its journey through Hervarar saga at 5:30 pm on Teams. Email bond.west@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list.

TUESDAY 25 MAY

  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3:30 pm on Google Meet. Contact oxfordmedievalbookclub@gmail.com to receive notices.
  • The Early Slavonic Seminar meets at 5 pm on Zoom. Register here. This week’s speaker is Janet Martin (University of Miami, emerita), ‘Looking at the Bright Side: Some Benefits of the Pomest’e System in 16th c. Muscovy’.
  • Medieval Church and Culture also meets at 5 pm on Teams, on the MCC channel. Papers start at 5:15. This week’s speakers will be Arielle Jasiewicz-Gill (Oriel), ‘Lay Devotion and Performative Identity in the Fifteenth Century’ and Florence Swan (Wolfson), ‘The devel of helle sette his foot therin! A Literary Historical Analysis of the Cook in Late Medieval England’.
  • A third seminar at 5 pm on Teams: The Medieval French Research Seminar hears this week from three graduate students about their work-in-progress: Sebastian Dows-Miller, Alice Hawkins, and Mara-Elena Ciuntu. To be added to the mailing list, contact sarah.bridge@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.

WEDNESDAY 26 MAY

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11:15 am on Teams, to continue discussing a variety of short texts.
  • Digital Editions Live returns from 3-5 pm on Teams (join the meeting here). This week’s speakers, on illustrated Italian manuscripts, are Katie Bastiman & Holly Abrahamson, ‘Dane Ante-Purgatorio (MS. Canon.Ital. 108)’ and Giuseppe Nanfitò, ‘Boccaccio, Filocolo (MS. Canon.Ital. 85)’.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar, also on Teams, meets at 4:30 pm; contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk if you need the link. This week’s speakers are Gareth Evans and Siân Grønlie (Oxford), ‘Old Norse: Trees and Sons, Tears and Time’.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5 pm on Google Meet (link here). This week’s speakers are Krystina Kubina (Vienna) and Nathanael Aschenbrenner (Princeton), ‘Word as Bond in an Age of Division: John Eugenikos as Orator, Partisan, and Poet’.

THURSDAY 27 MAY

  • The Early Text Cultures Astronomy and Astrology Seminar meets at 3 pm on Zoom. Fill out this Google form to receive the link. This week’s speakers are Caterina Franchi (Bologna) and Katherine Olley (Oxford) on ‘Literary Narratives: The Alexander Romance and the Adonias saga’.
  • GLARE (Greek, Latin, and Reception) Reading Group meets at 4 pm on Teams. Email john.colley@jesus.ox.ac.uk or jenyth.evans@seh.ox.ac.uk to be added to the list. This week’s reading will be Homer’s Iliad, VI.429-81.
  • The Aquinas Seminar Series continues on the theme of De Magistro: Aquinas and the Education of the Whole Person, at 4:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance here. This week’s speaker is Andrea Aldo Robiglio (K U Leuven), ‘Learning Failures and Scholarly Vices’.
  • The Old English Reading Group meets at 5:30 pm on Teams, continuing with Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica. Contact eugenia.vorobeva@jesus.ox.ac.uk for details.

FRIDAY 28 MAY

Get thee to a seminar, go!

Medieval Matters: Week 4 TT21

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17/05/2021

10:40

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Dear all,

We’ve made it to the halfway point! Now if only it would stop raining. Take shelter from the weather in a seminar or two.

Only one announcement this week – the University Bulletin is looking for research staff, especially ECRs, to write posts for the weekly Bulletin blog in which they introduce their research area and share their perspective on their field in an informal, personal way. Learn more and get in touch with the Public Affairs Directorate here.

‘Moreover, how [were seminars] created? I’m not sure if you realize this, but it was in God’s image. How can anybody dare to speak ill of something which bears such a noble imprint?’ – Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies

MONDAY 17 MAY

  • The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance by contacting james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Ben Kybett (Cambridge), ‘Themistius and the Muses: Religion, Rhetoric, and Classical Statuary in Fourth-Century Constantinople’. 
  • The Medieval Latin Reading Group meets 1-2 pm on Teams. Submit your email address here to receive notices.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5 pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Alice Spiers (St Anne’s), ‘Mechthild of Magdeburg: Mystic Writer, Political Commentator’.

TUESDAY 18 MAY

  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3:30 pm on Google Meet. Contact oxfordmedievalbookclub@gmail.com to be added to the mailing list. This week, Nicola Carotenuto will lead the club out onto Legendary Seas and talk through a selection of medieval maritime texts spanning Russia, China, Persia, and Venice.
  • The Early Slavonic Seminar meets at 5 pm on Zoom. Register here. This week’s speaker is Panos Sophoulis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), ‘“They sweep down from the mountains to despoil and ravage the land”: The Problem fo Banditry in its Medieval Balkan Context’.
  • Medieval Church and Culture returns this week on Teams, on the MCC channel in the OMS Team. The meeting begins at 5 pm and papers start at 5:15. This week’s speakers will be James Tomlinson (Magdalen), ‘The Relationship Between Music and Architecture in Late Medieval Creativity: Structure, Allegory, and Memory’ and Irina Boeru (Wadham), ‘At the Frontier of the Known World: Cartographic and Heraldic Encounters in Libro del Conosçimiento de todos los Regons et Tierras et Señorios que son por el mundo, et de las señales et armasque han’.
  • Bibitura Dantis Oxoniensis meets at 5:30 pm on Zoom (link here). This week, Nicolò Crisafi reads Paradiso 20.

WEDNESDAY 19 MAY

  • Digital Editions Live returns from 3-5 pm on Teams (join the meeting here). This week’s speakers are Mary Newman, ‘The Oldest Tupi Manuscript (MS. Bodley 617)’ and Lois Williams, ‘Cân o Senn iw Hên Feistr TOBACCO (1718), NLW. North PRINT W.s. 156’.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar, also on Teams, meets at 4:30 pm; contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk if you need the link. This week’s speaker is Tamara Atkin (Queen Mary University of London), ‘Error in the Printing House: Sixteenth-Century Scribes, Compositors, and Correctors’. 
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5 pm on Google Meet (link here). This week’s speaker is Daria Resh (NYU/Athens), ‘What is in the Bath: Pilgrims, Brides, and Baptism in the Early Byzantine Passion of Barbara’.

THURSDAY 20 MAY

  • The Early Text Cultures Astronomy and Astrology Seminar meets at 3 pm on Zoom. Fill out this Google form to receive the link. This week’s speakers are Claire Hall & Liam Shaw (Oxford) and Vanishri Bhat (Independent Scholar), discussing ‘Computational Methods’ in Ptolemy, Vettius Valens, and the Aryabhatiya.
  • GLARE (Greek, Latin, and Reception) Reading Group meets at 4 pm on Teams. Email john.colley@jesus.ox.ac.uk or jenyth.evans@seh.ox.ac.uk to be added to the list. This week’s reading will be Sallust, The War with Catiline, 52.36-54.
  • The Aquinas Seminar Series continues on the theme of De Magistro: Aquinas and the Education of the Whole Person, at 4:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance here. This week’s speaker is Adam Eitel (Yale Divinity School), ‘“Lift up your voice with strength”: The Idea of the Preacher in Thomas Aquinas’ Super Isaiam and In Jeremiam’. 
  • The Medieval Trade Reading Group also returns this week at 7 pm on Teams. To be added to the team and have access to the reading materials, email annabel.hancock@history.ox.ac.uk.

FRIDAY 21 MAY

In the hope that May showers bring June flowers (and plague-free picnics) –

Medieval Matters: Week 3 TT21

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09/05/2021

10:42

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Dear all,

Week 3 already! Term is picking up steam and hopefully the weather will involve a little bit less hail and sleet going forward.

A few announcements:

This week, on Friday 14 May at 5 pm, we have the annual O’Donnell Lecture in Celtic Studies. This year’s speaker will be John Carey, ‘The Kindred of a Child Without a Father: Merlin’s British Forebears and Irish Cousins’. Join the lecture here.

Dartmouth’s annual Zantop Memorial Lecture will be given this year by Mary Carruthers, on ‘Dante’s Intent Geometer: ‘Alta fantasia’, Vision, and Creation in Medieval Poetry’. Register for the Zoom link in advance here; the lecture will be on 18 May at 5:30 pm BST.

The History of Domestic Violence and Abuse Seminar returns this Thursday, 13 May, at 10 am on Zoom. Speakers include Jane Gilbert, Trevor Dean, Emma Whipday, Lewis Webb, and Julia Bolton Holloway. Register in advance here.

A call for papers: the brand new Oxford Medieval Commentary Network aims to establish a multi-disciplinary network for research and discussion of medieval texts concerned with the interpretation of the Bible, bringing together research on traditional commentaries as well as research on interpretations of the biblical text in a broader sense. A one-day workshop at Christ Church on 9 October 2021 will launch the network and lay out pathways for future collaboration and interchange. Proposals for presentations of 15 minutes on aspects of medieval biblical interpretation, including post-medieval responses, are welcome. Please submit your title and abstract (150-200 words) by 4 June 2021. Expressions of interest are also invited from those who wish to get involved with the network more generally. The workshop will take place in person in Oxford if circumstances permit (but may move online if necessary), and is free for all participants. To submit your proposal, express your interest, and for further information, please contact cosima.gillhammer@chch.ox.ac.uk.

Another call for papers: the Sylloge of Coins in the British Isles is running its annual Symposium on Money and Coinage on 26 July 2021, on the theme ‘The Sincerest Form of Flattery? Imitative Coinage in Britain, Ireland, and Europe’. The Symposium invites contributions of 20 minute papers exploring aspects of the imitation of coins in Europe from late antiquity to the early modern period. Submit your titles and abstracts of no more than 150 words to Murray Andrews and Fraser McNair at SCBIcoinagesymposium@gmail.com by 31 May.

Deyr fé, deyja frændr, / deyr sjalfr it sama, / ek veit einn, at aldrei deyr: / seminarir hinn Oxnaforda. [Cattle die, kin die, the self must also die, but I know one thing that never dies: seminars in Oxford.] – Hávamál, I’m pretty sure

MONDAY 10 MAY

  • The Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar meets at 12:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance by contacting james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk. This week’s speaker is Cristina Cocola (Universiteit Gent & Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), ‘Feeling Repentance in Byzantium: A Study on the Literary Sources of Katanyktic Poetry’,
  • The Medieval Latin Reading Group meets 1-2 pm on Teams. Submit your email address here to receive notices.
  • The Bodleian will hold a special seminar this week on Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools in German and English Collections to mark the 500th anniversary of the author’s death, on Zoom at 3 pm. Register here.
  • At 4 pm we have the Germanic Reading Group on Zoom, which will explore alliterative verse in a different Germanic language each week; this week, Howard Jones will lead a session on Old High German. To be added to the list, contact howard.jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5 pm on Teams. This week’s speaker is Helen Flatley (St Cross), ‘The Mozarabs and their Neighbours: Mapping Communities in Medieval Toledo’.
  • Old Norse Reading Group continues its journey through Hervarar saga at 5:30 pm on Teams. Email bond.west@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list.
  • The Decentring Dante Series returns at 6 pm on Zoom with speaker Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Princeton), on the topic ‘What Ground Do We Read On?’, celebrating the publication of The Oxford Handbook of Dante. Further information and registration here.

TUESDAY 11 MAY

  • The Medieval Book Club meets at 3:30 pm on Google Meet. Contact oxfordmedievalbookclub@gmail.com to receive notices. This week’s theme is Hagiography, with selections from the Legenda Aurea.
  • The Early Slavonic Seminar meets at 5 pm on Zoom. Register here. This week’s speaker is Liliana Simeonova (Institute for Balkan Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Science), ‘Amalfitans in Byzantium’s Cultural and Religious Life, 10-13th c.’
  • Medieval Church and Culture also meets at 5 pm on Teams, on the MCC channel. Papers start at 5:15. This week’s speakers will be Jennifer Coulton (Wolfson), ‘Tongue-Tied and Legal Loopholes: Binding Motifs in Early Medieval England’, and Florence Eccleston (Jesus), ‘The Emotional and Embodied Experience of the Seven Deadly Sins, c. 1350-c. 1500’.
  • A third seminar at 5 pm on Teams! The Medieval French Research Seminar returns for the term, with speaker Edward Mills (Exeter), ‘Why Write the Calendar in French? Computus Texts and the Languages of Medieval England’. To be added to the mailing list, contact sarah.bridge@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.

WEDNESDAY 12 MAY

  • The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets at 11:15 am on Teams, to continue discussing a variety of short texts.
  • Digital Editions Live returns from 3-5 pm on Teams (join the meeting here). This week’s speakers, on early printed holdings in the Taylorian and the Bodleian, are Agnes Hilger & Alyssa Steiner, ‘Pfaffennarr (Taylor ARCH.8o.G.1521(27) & Tr.Luth. 16 (78)’, Alexandra Hertlein, ‘Jacob Locher’s Panegyricus (Inc. e.G7.1497.2./Douce 73)’, and Sam Griffiths & Christian Tofte, ‘Marginalia in Plutarch’s Vidas Paralelas (1491)’.
  • The Medieval English Research Seminar, also on Teams, meets at 4:30 pm; contact daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk if you need the link. This week’s speaker is Paul Schaffner (Editor, MED, University of Michigan), ‘Quidels and Crotels and Glossing Tails: Attractions and Distractions of Middle English Lexicography’.
  • The Decentring Dante Series continues at 6 pm on Zoom, with speaker Lorna Goodison (Poet Laureate of Jamaica; University of Michigan), on the topic ‘Going Through Hell’. Further information and registration here.

THURSDAY 13 MAY

  • The Early Text Cultures Astronomy and Astrology Seminar meets at 3 pm on Zoom. Fill out this Google form to receive the link. This week’s speakers are Luca Beisel (Berlin/Tel Aviv) and Gonzalo Recio (Quilmes) on ‘Our Science and Theirs: Reconstructing Ancient Greek Models’.
  • GLARE (Greek, Latin, and Reception) Reading Group meets at 4 pm on Teams. Email john.colley@jesus.ox.ac.uk or jenyth.evans@seh.ox.ac.uk to be added to the list. This week’s reading will be Herodotus’ The Persian Wars, VIII.84-6, 96.
  • The Aquinas Seminar Series continues on the theme of De Magistro: Aquinas and the Education of the Whole Person, at 4:30 pm on Zoom. Please register in advance here. This week’s speaker is Rev. Prof. Michael Sherwin (Fribourg), ‘Integrated Humanities Programmes and the Renewal of Catholic Education: Thomistic Reflections’.
  • The Old English Reading Group meets at 5:30 pm on Teams, continuing with Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica. Contact eugenia.vorobeva@jesus.ox.ac.uk for details.

FRIDAY 14 MAY

Remember: contribute to an Oxford seminar, secure the glory of your deathless reputation. Have a great week!