OMS are working towards producing an ‘Impact Booklet’, emphasising all of the wonderful things that go on throughout the year. At the moment we are searching for publications – if you have published a relevant monograph/ edited volume/ edition during the past year, please drop an email to this address with a short blurb. Also: Applications to be the next Social Media Officer still welcome; contact Henrike Lähnemann for an informal discussion of the role!
Monday
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Julia Smith (All Souls) and Ana Dias (Brasenose) will be speaking on ‘Surviving in the archives: how to make sense of early medieval relic labels’.
Tuesday
Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. (NB change of speaker). Professor Christophe Grellard (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris)) will be speaking on ‘St. Erkenwald – Orthodoxy on the Edge?’.
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Medieval Church and Culture – tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Kevin Carlson (St Peter’s) will be speaking on ‘Reorienting Towards Life: a queer, medieval phenomenology of death in an anonymous 12thc Latin poem’, and Leslie Pencheng (St Catz) will be speaking on ‘Transforming the Ineffable: metaphors in Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing’.
Wednesday
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Patrick Leuenberger will be speaking on Alexander’s horse Boucephalus. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 4: Planetary motions and horoscope.
Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 2pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Ved Prahba Shama (Independent Researcher) will be speaking on ‘Moving Beyond Knowledge in a Gendered Space’. See their TORCH website to book.
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Michael Callen (London School of Economics) will be speaking on ‘Building State Capacity in Fragile States’.
Thursday
Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Elizabeth Kelly (Independent researcher, London) will be speaking on ‘Zoomorphic incense burners of medieval Khurasan’.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group Reading Group: Connoisseurship – 5pmonline. Write to oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com for more information.
Opportunities (new additions in bold)
The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.
Deadline for Social Media Officer expanded! Calling Graduate Students. We are looking for a successor for Ashley Castelino; check out Ashley’s report (and the report of his predecessor Llewelyn Hopwood) on what the role entails. Please do send in your application to Lesley Smith and Henrike Lähnemann under medieval@torch.ox.ac.uk by Friday, 16 May 2025, 12noon, with your CV and your ideas how to built on the social media presence in the future.
Monday
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Stephen Mossman (Manchester) will be speaking on ‘Lessons for Late Medieval Literary History from Strasbourg’.
Tuesday
Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Eleni Ponirakis (University of Nottingham) will be speaking on ‘Greek Mystical Theology in Old English Texts’.
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. Umberto Bongianino (AMES) will be speaking on ‘Nuggets of Ancient Wisdom’: an early Andalusi fragment of the Almagest and its context’.
Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Phil Knox (Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘Imagining Sexual Politics in Late Medieval France: Aristotle, Giles of Rome, Jean de Meun, Christine de Pizan’.
Wednesday
Curating Medieval and Early Modern Women’s Lives Today – 11am online. Booking required.
NO Medieval German Graduate Seminar this week. Instead, Irene Van Eldere will present her project on Middle Dutch prayer books this Friday (15 May) 5pm at the Medieval Women’s Writing seminar in the Lincoln Lower Lecture Room (see below) (with the added advantage of snacks!). The Alexanderroman will then commence in week 3. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 3: The daily rotation: understanding the stereographic projection of the celestial sphere [2/2]
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Lorenzo Saccon (Wolfson) will be speaking on ‘Pro Meliori et pro Utilitate Terre: Venetian Crete and the Exploitation of the post-Byzantine Aegean’.
Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Tom Johnson (Oriel College) will be speaking on ‘Building a Church out of Herring: Doles, Shares, and Maritime Community in a Fifteenth-Century Fishing Village’. Book here.
Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Mr Ali Allawi (Former Minister of Finance, Defense, and Trade of Iraq) will be speaking on ‘Rich World, Poor World: The Struggle to Escape Poverty in Muslim Societies’.
Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures Seminar – 5.30pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Tamara Atkin (English Faculty & The Queen’s College) will deliver a paper titled ‘On Fragments’.
Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Beckington Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
Friday
Digital Byzantine Studies: Current Methods and Future Applications – 9:30am – 7:30pm in the Maison Française d’Oxford.
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Irene Van Eldere (University of Leiden) will be speaking on the Middle Dutch Books of Hours.
Saturday
Chant Workshops and a Service in Iffley Church – 11.00 – 19.00, Iffley Church. Whole day £15 (students £7.50), service FREE. See https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/events
***
Opportunities (new additions in bold)
Social Media Officer: See announcement at the start of this post and apply by this Friday!
Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
Queen Mary London New Research on Late Medieval England – more information here.
CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.
Concert: ‘The Oxford Troubadors Return to the Maison Française’
9 May, 7:00pm, Maison Française d’Oxford
We are delighted to welcome back The Oxford Troubadors for an evening of medieval and modern songs in Occitan. The ensemble will perform iconic medieval troubadour pieces, including La Sestina by Arnaut Daniel and Lo riu de la Fontana by Jaufre Rudel, as well as popular modern songs from the repertoires of Peiraguda and Nadau. Expect an interactive experience with audiences often joining in the choruses of these catchy tunes. This event is free, but registration on TicketSource is required.
Lecture: ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ by Patrick Boucheron
29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College
We are delighted to welcome Professor Patrick Boucheron for the 2025 Collège de France – Maison Française d’Oxford – Pembroke College lecture. Professor Boucheron will give a lecture on ‘The Birth of the Black Death : New Approaches in World History’. For more details and to register for this lecture, visit this page.
Masterclass: ‘Pourquoi des médiévistes? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge’
29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford
Earlier that day, Patrick Boucheron will be teaching a masterclass at the Maison Française on what medieval history teaches us. Please note that the masterclass will be given in French. Fore more details and to register for this event, visit this page.
Welcome to week 2! Please find below all of the medieval events across Oxford in the coming week.
The wonderful team behind the medieval mystery plays that took place at the beginning of this term have put together a full report of the event, which includes a number of amazing photos. A video of last week’s performance of The Netherhold Martyr is now available here.
Monday
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Amanda Power (St Catherine’s College Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Salvation, alienation and sacrifice zones from medieval to modern thought’.
Tuesday
Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Raphaela Rohrhofer (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Nothing Matters: The Contemplative Poetics of Nought in Julian of Norwich and Beyond’.
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Centre for Early Medieval Britian and Ireland Seminar ‘Sacrilizing the Everyday’ – 4pm in the Rees Davies (History Faculty).
Medieval Church and Culture – tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Shaw Worth (Magdalen) will be speaking on ‘‘Bien est avoiré sur vous le langage’: practising allegory between text and image in three manuscripts of Alain Chartier’s Livre d’Espérance, 1450–1470’. Sophie Boehler (St Hugh’s) will be speaking on ‘Seeress to Abbess: women’s evolving dreams, visions and prophecies during the Icelandic conversion period’.
Wednesday
Medieval German Graduate Seminar – NB In second week, the seminar will not take place. Instead there will be a workshop on Christiane Mariane von Ziegler, the first female German Poet Laureate, in St Edmund Hall, starting at 10am. If you are interested to participate, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 2: The daily rotation of the celestial sphere (primum mobile) [1/2].
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Christophe Jaffrelot (Kings College London) will be speaking on ‘Beyond Castes and Regions: The Socio-Economic Decline of Muslims in Contemporary India’.
Merton College History of the Book Group Lecture – 5pm, Mure Room (Merton College). Professor Orietta Da Rold (Professor of Medieval Literature and Manuscript Studies, University of Cambridge) will be speaking on “The many crafts of paper”. Attendees will have the opportunity to view medieval works on paper from the Merton Library and Archives. The talk will be followed by refreshments. All are welcome, and we would appreciate an RSVP to julia.walworth@merton.ox.ac.uk
Thursday
Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Beckington Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Richard Piran McClary (University of York) will be speaking on ‘Lajvardina: A Re-evaluation of Distinctive Ilkhanid and Golden Horde Overglaze Painted Wares’.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Upcoming
Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.
Opportunities
CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays 2025 are over – thank you to everyone who made this day possible! Read on for some pictures and impressions of a wonderful day. You can access the full programme, scroll through film stills by the camera team, and watch it on the OMS Youtube channel.
01:12 – The Fall of the Angels (Angels of Oxford) – Middle English 13:45 – Adam and Eve (Oxford German Medievalists) – Hans Sachs, German 34:56 – The Flood (The Travelling Beavers) – Middle English 55:02 – Abraham and Isaac (Shear and Trembling) – Middle English 1:11:14 – The Annunciation (Low Countries Ensemble) – Middle Dutch 1:19:26 – The Nativity (Les Perles Innocentes) – Marguerite de Navarre, French 1:45:53 – The Wedding at Cana (Pusey House) – Modern English, with Middle English archaisms 2:00:30 – The Crucifixion (The Wicked Weights) – Middle English 2:15:15 – The Lamentation (St Edmund Consort) – Bordesholmer Marienklage, Low German and Latin 2:30:53 – The Harrowing of Hell (The Choir of St Edmund Hall) – Latin Sequence 2:33:30 – The Resurrection (St Stephen’s House) – Middle English 2:55:14 – The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins (Clamor Validus) – Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, Latin and modern English 3:20:10 – The Last Judgement (MSt English, 650–1550) – Modern English
The fourth iteration of the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays took place on 26 April at St Edmund Hall. And it was a truly marvellous day! A total of 13 plays were put on by about 150 participants – actors, directors, singers, costume designers, musicians, and many more. Throughout the day, about 350 audience members popped in and out of Teddy Hall, some staying for shorter periods, others for several hours or the whole day. Audience members and participants included a wonderful range: undergraduate and graduate students and academics from within and without Oxford, a full children’s choir, tourists, and members of the public found their way to Teddy Hall and partook in the medieval shenanigans.
And what shenanigans they were! This year, we are particularly proud of the incredible diversity of languages, plays, and different approaches on display. But see for yourself … (All photo credits are at the bottom of the post)
The day started – how could it be otherwise – with a trumpet blast from Henrike Lähnemann herself (Picture 1).
Once again, we were expertly guided through the day by Jim Harris, the Master of Ceremonies. Armed with Bruce Mitchell’s doctoral gown and the ceremonial scroll (consisting of the baking roll to the chaplain of St Edmund Hall, half a coat hanger and numerous layers of paper and sellotape), he introduced each play with a modern English prologue (Picture 2).
We began at the beginning, with the creation of the world and The Fall of the Angels,performed mostly in Middle English, but with modern English elements, and in a modern office setting.
Picture 3: The Holy Trinity is being fawned over by the two good angels … but trouble awaits: the two bad angels are getting arrogant, before their inevitable ejection from Heaven.
From the angels, we moved swiftly on to humans: next was the German Adam and Eve play by Hans Sachs, featuring a particularly good use of the well (the two humps underneath the spare green coat are Adam and Eve, about to be created).
Picture 4: All could be well in Eden, if it wasn’t for Lucifer, Belial, Satan, and the Serpent conspiring.
Picture 5: Adam and Eve might have fallen into desperation, but the cast have good reason to be proud of themselves, having made it to the front page of both the Oxford Mail and Oxford Times.
Skipping a few biblical ages, we next saw the Flood, presented in the Middle English Chester version.
Picture 6: The flood has come! Luckily, Noah and his family are safe on the ark, together with the animals – expertly made and portrayed by the children of St Giles’ and St Margaret’s churches.
The Old Testament concluded with the Middle English York version of Abraham and Isaac.
Will he really do it? Abraham is getting ready to sacrifice his oldest son, Isaac (Picture 7) … but fear not! The angel of the lord approaches and shows him a sheep to sacrifice instead – the little guy, hand-crocheted by one of the cast members, rapidly became the true star of the day (Picture 8).
After a refreshing tea break, we moved from the Front Quad into the Churchyard, and from the Old to the New Testament. The fifth play of the day was the Annunciation, or rather Die Eerste Bliscap van Maria (‘The First Joy of Mary’). It was performed in Middle Dutch: a first (but hopefully not last) for the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays!
Picture 9: The angel Gabriel announces the happy news to the reading Mary.
True to the Gospels, the Annunciation was followed by the Nativity. It was a particular pleasure to welcome back Les Perles Innocentes, who travelled all the way from Fribourg to wow us with their expert performance of the Comédie de la Nativité, written by none other than Marguerite de Navarre.
Picture 10: Mary and Joseph are desperately looking for a place for Mary to give birth. – Picture 11: If the stable looked as gorgeous as the library of Teddy Hall, it surely wasn’t the worst place to be born in!
Our next play skipped ahead, showing us the grown-up Christ at the Wedding at Cana. This play was a world premiere, reconstructed from only 1.5 surviving lines in the York cycle!
Picture 12: Panic at Cana – the wine has run out at the wedding! What to do?
Picture 13: Christ is there to save the day and transforms the water into wine. The servants are amazed!
From Cana, we moved straight to Golgotha and a Middle English performance of the Crucifixion. The York Crucifixion, strangely, is a comedy, and the four soldiers crucifying Christ were accordingly equipped with ‘Cross flatpack instructions’ and giant inflatable hammers. Certainly not inflatable, however, was the cross, which was purpose-built just for this production and turned into a much-coveted prop for numerous plays.
Picture 14: The poor, overworked soldiers struggle to lift up the heavy cross.
Once the soldiers had vacated the grassy mound in Teddy Hall’s Churchyard, the mourners came: the three Marys (the Virgin, Mary Magdalen, and Mary, Mother of John) and John arrived for the Lamentation, represented by the Bordesholmer Marienklage and beautifully sung in a mixture of Latin and Low German.
Picture 15: Owe, owe nu ys he dot…
Moving directly from the cross to the crypt, we were told about the Harrowing of Hell by the Choir of St Edmund Hall through sung Latin sequences.
Hell having been harrowed, it was time for another tea break, after which we were welcomed back by the angelic hosts of the Choir (Picture 16). And then it was time for some good news: the Resurrection! Performed in the Middle English of the York version, this play truly had it all: sleeping soldiers, lamenting Marys, bickering priests, and a highly enthusiastic angel.
Picture 17: An outraged Pilate commands the soldiers to find out the truth about the rumours concerning Christ’s resurrection. At least Caiaphas and Annas, the extremely well-dressed high priests, are there to back him up. Picture 18: Mary lamenting at the tomb – thankfully, she, too, receives moral support from the angel.
Leaving the Gospels behind, we moved on to the only non-biblical story of the day: The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins by Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, performed mostly in (absolutely flawless!) Latin, with a few bits in modern English.
Picture 19: Governor Dulcitius has been ridiculed by his prisoners, the holy virgins Agape, Chionia, and Irena … his embarrassment will not go unpunished.
Picture 20: The two older sisters are burned, while the youngest is forced to watch. But never fear: all three will be rewarded in Heaven for their martyrdom.
Last, but by no means least, it was time for … the Last Judgement! Performed in a modern English adaptation of different Middle English versions, this wonderfully cheerful and funny play was the perfect end for a fantastic day.
Picture 21: Hey guys, it’s Gabe! The archangels Gabriel and Michael open Judgement day, while the soon-to-be-raised souls rest in the ditch between library wall and lawn.
Picture 22: Who will get more souls? Jesus and the angels, or Lucifer and the demons?
And … that was it! Thirteen plays, five languages, two tea breaks, and five hours later, we had travelled all the way from the Creation to Judgement Day, from Heaven to Hell, from Bethlehem to Golgotha, and from Front Quad to the far side of the library.
Our heartfelt thanks goes to everyone who made this day possible: on and off stage, casts, crews, organisers, helpers, and so many more. We are particularly grateful to Jim Harris, our Master of Ceremonies; David Maskell, who wrote the modern English prologues; and Tristan Alphey and the other helpers for their support during the day. This year’s Medieval Mystery Plays are by far the best-documented yet: Ben Arthur, James May, Archie Dimmock, and Tea Smart filmed the entire day; their recordings will be released on the St Edmund Hall Mystery Cycle page at a film launch party at the end of Trinity Term. Ashley Castelino took many fantastic pictures, and Robert Crighton and Liza Graham recorded impressions from audiences and participants for their podcast Beyond Shakespeare.
Of course, what a play really needs is its audience. We were delighted to see so many of you there, and overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback we received. Here are just some of the comments we collected in our visitor book – many audience members had their favourite play from the host of performances:
“Brilliant! Loved the Nativity especially!”
“Great job! Love the Wedding feast!”
“Terrific! Thank you very much. I particularly enjoyed Adam and Eve, and Satan with his acolytes in [the Last Judgement]!”
“Really enjoyed the camp Satan!”
“The singing [in the Nativity, Lamentation, and Harrowing of Hell] was superb. Altogether a delightful event!”
The best audience members are naturally those who were themselves surprised by how much they enjoyed themselves: one person wrote that they had a “very unexpectedly enjoyable day supporting a friend in one play, but then enjoy[ed] all the others!” Many also appreciated the use of medieval languages in keeping these plays “alive” through modern performance and praised the “pace, diversity, and inventiveness” of the troupes, the beautiful medieval setting of St Edmund Hall, and the overall “vibrant and entertaining” environment of the Cycle. One particularly nice comment described our day of performances as “full of whimsy” – made even more whimsical by the little stars they drew around their comment. Thank you very much to each and everyone of you!
Are you sad you missed out? Can you not wait to get back into medieval drama? Watch this space! The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays will be back …
Picture Credits
Pictures 2 and 8: Ashley Castelino
Picture 6: Rahel Micklich
Picture 17: Antonia Anstatt
Header and Pictures 1, 3, 4-6, 9-16, 18-22: Stills from the video recordings made by Ben Arthur, James May, Archie Dimmock, and Tea Smart.
The film crew after the day in Queen’s Lane
Medieval Mystery Plays: Documentation
That’s the summary of the Medieval Mystery Plays – read on for a more detailed documentation of what the different groups did and what each play looked like.
The Fall of the Angels as transmitted in the York Cycle. Performed in Middle English, with some Modern English elements.
Summary
It is the beginning of the world: God creates the Universe and enjoys his own might. The two Good Angels – Seraphyn and Cherabyn – glorify him, while the two Bad Angels bask in their own beauty and power. God names one of them as Lucifer, the Bringer of Light, which further inflates Lucifer’s ego. But he becomes too confident and, supported by the other Bad Angel (Angelus Deficiens), talks about becoming even higher than God himself. God expels the two Bad Angels from Heaven, causing them to fall into Hell. There, they lament their state and blame each other for their downfall. Back in Heaven, God and the Good Angels celebrate, and God creates Day and Night.
About the Performance
This group chose a modern approach to the play. They set the biblical story in a modern office, with God, split into three as the Trinity, representing the leadership board of the company, and the angels their employees. The play was mostly presented in its original Medieval English, but with a twist: after their Fall from Heaven, the two Bad Angels switched to Modern English.
Hans Sachs, Tragedia von schöpfung, fal und außtreibung Ade auß dem paradeyß (1548), adapted by Timothy Powell and Nina Unland. Hans Sachs was a famous German playwright and poet. Between 1548–1560, he wrote 40 religious comedies and tragedies. His ‘Tragedy of the creation, fall, and expulsion of Adam from Paradise’ is an example of a play at the threshold between ‘medieval’ and ‘early modern’ religious drama. It displays many features of emerging ‘early modern’ Protestant religious drama, drawing on the Latin religious dramas of Renaissance humanism, Martin Luther’s reflections on religious tragedy, and the language of Luther’s translation of the Biblical account of the creation and fall of humankind. These elements coexist and interact with numerous elements drawn from medieval mystery plays, especially the extra-biblical episodes involving the three chief devils that keep some of the more light-hearted aspects of ‘medieval’ religious drama alive.
Summary
God creates Adam, then leads him away to show him Paradise. The three angels Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel enter, praising God and the Creation. Once they have left, God and Adam return. God creates Eve, but as soon as the two first humans have left to explore the Garden of Even, three devils appear – Lucifer, Satan, and Belial. They decide to conspire against the humans and call the Snake, who convinces Eve to try one of the apples of the Tree of Life. Eve then gives an apple to Adam; horrified, the two recognise that they are naked. The three devils return and rejoice, followed by the three angles, who weep. Finally, God returns and punishes the wrongdoers: the Snake is made to slither on its belly, Eve is punished with painful childbirth, and Adam with hard manual labour. Then, they are expelled from the Garden of Eden by an angel with a flaming sword.
About the Performance
The entire performance was in Hans Sachs’ original German, except for an English Prologue and Epilogue delivered by the Cherub. The play was performed in Teddy Halls’ Front Quad, with the well serving as the space from where Adam and Eve were created. The Tree of Life was represented by the same cross which, later in the day, served as the cross on which Christ was crucified – an excellent example for the reuse of different props throughout the day. The angels and God were all dressed in liturgical vestments, enhancing their aura of sacrality.
Good Gossips – Amy Jenkins, Rowan Wilson, Siân Grønlie, George Manning
Crew
Director – Minna Jeffrey
Music and Art – St Giles’ Choir, the children of St Giles’ and St Margaret’s churches
Text
The Chester Flood play in Middle English. The Chester cycle probably originated in the later fourteenth century, although the earliest written version dates to 1422. In later years, the Chester cycle was performed on Whitsun and took three days to perform in full. The Chester play of Noah’s flood is one of several flood plays in Middle English. It was chosen by this group because it has most on the actual animals (eight stanzas) and because of the ‘Good Gossips’. It was set to music by Benjamin Britten as Noyes Fludde.
Summary
Dissatisfied with humankind, God decides to send a great flood. The only ones to be spared are Noah and his family. Noah is tasked with the building of a great ark, on which his family and two animals of every kind will survive. Noah complies and brings the animals and his family – his wife, his three sons, and one of their wives – on board, just the Earth begins to flood. The ark is on sea for a considerable amount of time, but finally, the rain ceases. God commands Noah and his family to disembark and repopulate the Earth. So far, the story is well known, but what is special about this version is the central role of Noah’s family. Especially Noah’s relationship with his ‘crabbed’ and not at all ‘meek’ wife is a topic throughout. There is also a unique scene with the ‘good gossips’: ‘gossip’ comes from Middle English ‘godsib(be)’. Originally, this referred to either godparents or godchildren, but it came to mean one’s close friends (especially women) and did not take on its current meaning of tell-tale before the mid-sixteenth century. In this play, Noah’s wife is reluctant to leave her friends behind when the flood begins, which is framed as disobedience to God – but modern audiences might feel more sympathy.
About the Performance
Although in fifteenth-century English, this play is fairly easy to understand. The group made very few changes to the language, but read the text with Modern English pronounciation.
Among the most remarkable elements of this performance were the animals, which were portrayed by the children of St Giles’ and St Margaret’s churches, who held hand-painted cut-out animals to represent the crowd on the ark. Very helpfully for the audience, the human characters all wore T-shirts with their characters’ names. This group highlighted especially that they felt that the play has a strong contemporary message, given current concerns around extreme weather events, climate refugees, and the denial of climate change, as represented by the good gossips, who ultimately do not escape the flood.
The version of Abraham and Isaac from the York Cycle, performed in Middle English. Specifically, taken from Clifford Davidson’s edition of the York Mystery Cycle, which closely adheres to the text in British Library, MS. Add. 35290.
Summary
To test the faith of his loyal servant Abraham, God sends an angel who commands Abraham to sacrifice his youngest and favourite son, Isaac. Despite his sorrow, Abraham resolves to follow the command. He takes Isaac up a hill under a pretense. Once there, he reveals the truth to his son, binds his hands, and gets ready to sacrifice Isaac, who accepts his fate. At the very last moment, the angel of God re-appears and stops Abraham, commending him for his obedience to God and showing him a sheep to sacrifice instead.
The York version of Abraham and Isaac diverges from other iterations of the story by having a grown-up Isaac, who is ‘thirty year and more sumdele’ – around thirty years old, the same age that Christ was believed to have been when he was crucified. The York Abraham and Isaac therefore brings the play closer to the story of the Passion, anticipating the climax of the cycle of performances. Rather than a helpless child, Abraham is asked to kill a son whom he has raised and with whom he has grown old, a strong young man who could overpower his father if he chose to fight back. This also emphasises Isaac’s own acceptance of his fate and his obedience to both God and his father.
About the Performance
This group chose to have the actor playing the angel double as a servant. As a result, God’s messenger appears to watch over – or perhaps spy on – Abraham and Isaac as they go to the mountain to perform the sacrifice. The group got particularly creative with their costumes, drawing on traditional shepherds’ clothing from a variety of times and places and showing the angel as both a messenger and a symbol. A special highlight was the sheep, which was crocheted by a member of the group and caused a round of applause upon its dramatic revelation by the angel.
Die Eerste Bliscap van Maria (The First Joy of Mary), in Middle Dutch, based on the text preserved in Brussels, KBR, MS.IV 192. From 1348 onwards, the city of Brussels held an annual procession on the Sunday before Pentecost to honour a statue of the Virgin Mary. A century after its inception, an extra element was added to the festivities: on the Grote Markt, a seven-year cycle of Bliscap, or ‘Joy’ plays was peformed. Each year until 1566, one of the seven Joys of Mary was staged and celebrated. Of the original seven plays, only two have survived, each preserved in a manuscript in the Royal Library of Belgium.
Summary
God tells the angel Gabriel that he wants to become human and sends him to travel to Nazareth, where he will find Mary. Gabriel is astonished, but complies. He greets Mary, who is reading, and announces that she, albeit a virgin, will conceive a child who shall be called Jesus and be the Saviour of mankind. Mary, too, is astonished by the concept of the immaculate conception, but Gabriel explains that her cousin, Elizabeth, although old and barren, will also conceive a child.
About the Performance
This was the first time a Dutch play was performed in the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays, and a wonderful addition to the cycle. A particular highlight was the merry angel Gabriel, whose travels from God to Nazareth were accompanied by a jingling bell.
Location: Churchyard; in front of the library entrance
Performers: Les perles innocentes
Cast
Joseph/Satan – Elisa Pagliaro
Marie/God – Aurélie Blanc
Host 1/Angel 1 – Anaïs Collonge
Host 2/Angel 2 – Antigoni Tasiou
Host 3/Angel 3 – Christina Morgan
Sophron, a Shepherd – Helene Wigginton
Elpison, a Shepherd – Carmen Vigneswaren-Smith
Philetine, a Shepherdess – Marta Folegnani
Cristilla, a Shepherdess – Inès Trouplin
Crew
Director – Elisabeth Dutton
Assistant Director – Aurélie Blanc
Musical Director – Antigoni Tasiou
Design, Props, and Costumes – Maria Papantuono
Producer – Helene Wigginton
With special thanks to Sandy Maillard (Université de Fribourg, Suisse)
Text
Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), Comédie de la Nativité de Jésus Christ, abridged and performed in the original (early 16th century) French.
Marguerite, wife of King Henry II of Navarre, sister to Francis I, king of France, and ancestress of the Bourbon kings of France, was a patron of humanists and reformers, and herself an important writer: she composed poems, a collection of short stories called the Heptameron, and the intense mystical poem Miroir de l’âme pécheresse. She also wrote a number of plays, including dramatisations of scriptural episodes.
Summary
Joseph, travelling on orders of the Emperor, is seeking accommodation for his heavily pregnant wife Mary. Three ‘Hosts’ turn them away, but they find a stable where Mary can give birth. God sends his angels to celebrate the moment of Christ’s coming to earth: the angels praise Mary and her newborn baby, and Joseph kneels and kisses him. The angels announce the arrival of the Saviour to two shepherds and two shepherdesses, who sing on their way to the stable and offer gifts to the baby of milk, a flute, and firewood. Satan appears and laments the loss of the power he has held over mankind since Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. The shepherds and shepherdesses tell him that they have met the Saviour; Satan argues that such an important person would not be found in a stable, but their faith remains unshaken. Satan, realising he cannot escape God’s power, calls on evil spirits to advise him ‘how to make shadows eclipse the sun’. God proclaims that the willing sacrifice of his son will overcome Satan, and the angels sing in praise of God.
Like the Comédie des Innocents, which les perles innocentes staged at the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays 2023, the Comédie de la Nativité is both richly theological, presenting the contrast between divine authority and evil tyranny, and deeply concerned with social justice. Marguerite shows humble people challenging corrupt and bullying powers: ordinary women defied the callous soldiers who murdered their children at a tyrant’s command; humble shepherds outface Satan himself, empowered by their newfound faith in a baby who, to their own initial wonderment, has chosen not a great hall but a humble stable as his first home. Once again, Marguerite gives particular emphasis to female characters, portraying female as well as male shepherds, and emphasising the faith, strength, and wisdom of the Virgin Mary.
About the Performance
Just like their previous performances at the Medieval Mystery Plays, this performance of Les perles innocentes, who travelled from Fribourg just for the Cycle, was once again wonderfully rich and detailed. Performed in perfect, but easily understandable, 16th-century French, their staging included such details as the three Hosts looking like proper concierges, and the angels sang beautifully in between the spoken passages. They also built on the Marguerite de Navarre’s emphasis on strong women by having an all-female cast.
Script Writer and Adapter – Phillip Quinn, with help from Elliott Clark
Text
The Wedding at Cana was included in the York Medieval Mystery Cycle, but the original text has unfortunately mostly been lost. The script used for this performance was an original composition in Modern English (with some Middle English archaisms), written by Phillip Quinn with help from Elliott Clark and based on the one and a half known lines of the York version.
Summary
When the wine runs out at a wedding in the little Galilean town of Cana, Mary asks Jesus to step in. After some hesitation, his ultimate response is to perform the first miracle of his earthly ministry: transforming several large jars of water into fine wine. In doing so, he heralds the coming of the Kingdom of God and foreshadows the consummation of history in the heavenly banquet at which he himself will be the bridegroom.
About the Performance
Despite its foreshadowing of the Crucifixion at the end and the seriousness of Christ’s miraculous power, the Wedding at Cana is an entertaining story, and this performance brought the hilarious elements out in full. Featuring perplexed servants, drunken wedding guests, the happy couple, and a proud-mother-moment for Mary, it elicited many laughs from the audience.
Performers: The Wicked Weights (Lincoln College Players)
Cast
Soldiers – Jess Hind, Molly Milton, Kyra Radley, Alys Young
Christ – Petru Badea
Crew
Directors – Paul Cooley, Molly Milton
Stage and Script Adapter – Paul Cooley, Molly Milton
Costume Designer – Maureen Abrokwa
Props Designer – Tallula Haynes
Music and Marketing – Anja Woosnam
Administration and Assistance – Rebecca Menmuir, Alison Ray
With special thanks to:
Mike Hawkins (Lincoln College Head Gardener) for creating a crown of thorns
Jonny Torrance (Lincoln College Chaplain) for building a cross
Lincoln College JCR for providing funding
Text
The York version of the Crucifixion (Middle English). The group used a manuscript version which was updated to sound more familiar to the modern English-speaking ear but kept as much of the original language and rhyme-scheme as possible to remain close to the original version of the play. Jesus’ speeches were entirely translated into modern English from the original Middle English, adding a sense of gravity that is wholly unique to this particular edition of the play.
Summary
The play depicts the well-known story of Christ’s crucifixion, but with a twist: despite the undeniable seriousness of the situation, the focus is not on Christ and his suffering, but on the four somewhat inept soldiers who are responsible for nailing him to the cross and erecting it. Throughout the play, they bicker with each other over trivial matters whilst Christ endures his cruficixion with solemnity and without objection. The comedic dynamic between the soldiers contrasts heavily with Jesus’ wholly serious speeches and thus creates a tense atmosphere which toes the line between dark comedy and an exploration of the mundane cruelty of the process of the crucifixion. This invites the audience to consider their own inaction during Christ’s passion.
About the Performance
The Wicked Weights were named after a particularly iconic line in the York Crucifixion. They are a group of Lincoln College undergraduates studying English and were supported by various members of college. A particular highlight of this performance was the towering cross, purpose-built for this day by Jonny Torrance, the chaplain at Lincoln College. Other comedic elements were added to the already surprisingly funny play through prop and costume choices – for instance, the soldiers all had giant inflatable hammers, and were reading their Scripts from ‘Cross Flatpack Instructions’.
With special thanks to Fr Andreas Wenzel, the chaplain of St Edmund Hall, for permission to use the vestments.
Text
The Bordesholmer Marienklage, in Low German and Latin. The Bordesholmer Marienklage is a remarkable dramatic dialogue from the late 15th century, written for performance at the Augustinian monastery of Bordesholm in Northern Germany by Provost Johannes Reborch. It consists of sung and chanted text for a cast of five: Christ, John, and the three Marys.
The sung dialogue is taken from the liturgy, including verses from the Stabat Mater, to which are added Middle Low German adaptations of the same, sung to similar melodies. The bulk of the action takes place in chanted Middle Low German rhyming verse. A particular feature, unique amongst German Marian Laments, is the survival of detailed instructions which specify that the work should be performed either on Good Friday or on the preceding Monday, and that it should be ‘neither a play nor amusement, but lamenting and wailing and devout compassion for the glorious Virgin Mary’. It was therefore intended to form a part in the monastery’s liturgical life during Holy week; moreover, these instructions and the ‘personae’ throughout continually insist on the necessity of the audience’s participation, through compassion, in Mary’s suffering. It should be performed either in front of the church choir, or – if the weather is fair – outdoors. The ‘personae’ should wear liturgical vestments and Jesus and John ‘dyademata de papiro’ – paper crowns, and that of Jesus was to be decorated with crosses.
Summary
After Christ’s crucifixion, the three Marys – the Virgin, Mary Magdalen, and Mary, mother of John – as well as St John the Evangelist, lament Christ’s death at the cross. At the end, Christ is taken from the cross and laid on the ground.
About the Performance
Complying with Johannes Reborch’s detailed instructions, the five figures in this performance all wore liturgical vestments from the St Edmund Hall chapel, as well as paper crowns (courtesy of Christmas crackers). Singing their lament in front of the cross from the preceding Crucifixion play, this was a wonderful contrast to the entertaining Crucifixion, emphasising the women’s grief after Jesus’ death.
Latin Sequences. Sequences, complex liturgical songs with a strong poetic and narrative function, are among the most recent, and therefore truly medieval, sung elements of the Christian liturgy, staging particularly in the Easter Night the fundamental miracle of salvation history, Christ overcoming death.
The version used for these sequences was taken from the Handbook of the Provost of the Cistercian convent of Medingen, like Bordesholm located in Northern Germany. It is kept in the Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturgy. e. 18.
Summary
Christ descends into Hell, where he brings salvation to the captive souls there, before overcoming death and rising again.
About the Performance
The Choir of St Edmund Hall picked up seamlessly from the previous Lamentation. Accompanying Christ into hell (the crypt underneath the Teddy Hall Library), they sang the Cum rex gloriae, which tells of the host of angels breaking into hell. There, they were greeted with an Advenisti (you have arrived!) by Adam, Eve, and all the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament. Following this sequence, there was a short tea break, marking the significant turning point in the narrative that is Christ’s overcoming of death. After the tea break, the choir opened the third part of the Cycle with the Victimae paschali laudes, in which Mary Magdalen reports her experience of the empty tomb to the apostles.
The York verison of the Resurrection (Middle English). The play fits in well with the liturgical traditions of Easter Sunday. Particularly the Angel’s song and the meeting between the Angel and the three Marys, the so-called Visitatio Sepulchri, is a common theme. It appears that this section of the play reproduces a piece of liturgical drama in use at the time. On the other hand, the representation of Pilate and the High Priests is unusual, drawing on speculations in the apocryphal writings, texts which seek to fill in the imaginative gaps left in the Biblical narrative: what did they really think, and what did they do next?
Summary
The York version of the Resurrection of Christ focuses not on Jesus himself but on three sets of characters who represent three sets of responses to the mystery of Easter Sunday. The play begins and ends with Pilate and the High Priests. To begin with, they are pleased with how the crucifixion went, but the Centurion arrives and tells them of strange occurrences which suggest all is not as it seems. To make sure Jesus stays dead, they set a guard of soldiers to watch the tomb. At the tomb, the soldiers are contrasted with the Marys, who bring oils to anoint the body and are confronted with the empty tomb. An angel arrives and tells them that Jesus is risen and now in Galilee, to which they respond with faith, hope, and love. Meanwhile, Pilate and the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas conspire to cover up the embarrassing and disturbing fact of the empty tomb with a story that the soldiers were overpowered by Jesus’ disciples, who stole the body away. The ironic framing invites the audience to question whose account they believe: is it all ‘fake news’, or is he risen indeed?
The dramatist’s range covers pious devotion, political conspiracy, and the everyday reactions of the soldiers who represent the everyman. Faced with the life-changing reality of the empty tomb, they display the full range of responses from pretending nothing has happened to embracing the truth come what may. The piece is character-driven, often emotive, and finally supremely ironic, drawing the audience in.
About the Performance
The York Resurrection, like the Crucifixion, brings out the human element surrounding the biblical narrative, reflecting the worries of the soldiers at the tomb and the High Priests. The players from St Stephen’s House chose to lean on the already existing comedic elements, turning this into a genuinely hilarious production – complete with gorgeously dressed and very camp High Priests who hand-fed Pilate grapes, and a comforting angel delivering tissues to the weeping Virgin Mary.
Soldiers – Hillary Chua, Ivana Kuric, Alex Marshall
Angels – Elizabeth Crabtree, Marisia Czepiel
Crew
Director – David Wiles
Stage Manager – Elizabeth Crabtree
Musician – Jessica Qiao
Text
The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins, by Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, performed in a mix of Latin and a new translation. Hrosvitha was an aristocratic tenth-century canoness, and her six plays are a bridge between the classical and medieval worlds. She had a ribald sense of humour and a strong feminist agenda – even this play, despite its serious plot, is a comedy with many hilarious elements. Latin was a language that Hrosvitha used in daily life, and this group sought to discover her unique style, midway between poetry and prose.
Summary
The Roman Emperor Diocletian insists that the three virgin sisters Agape, Chionia, and Irena renounce their Christian faith and marry members of his court. When they refuse, he orders them imprisoned. Governor Dulcitius, seeing their beauty, tells his soldiers to lock the sisters in the kitchen so that he can visit them. That night, Dulcitius embraces the pots and pans in the dark kitchen, thinking they are the women. He leaves covered in soot, and the soldiers think he is possessed. Not realising this, Dulcitius goes to the palace, where he is beaten and ridiculed. In retaliation for his embarrassment, he commands that Agape, Chionia, and Irena be stripped in public, but the soldiers are unable to remove the robes from the women’s bodies. Eventually, Emperor Diocletian orders Count Sisinnius to punish the sisters. Sisinnius orders Agape and Chionia burned alive – their spirits leave their bodies, but their bodies and clothes miraculously are not burned. Despite her sisters’ death, Irena continues to refuse to renounce her faith. She manages to escape the soldiers and stands on top of a mountain. The soldiers are unable to reach her there, so Sisinnius orders one of the soldiers to shoot her with an arrow. She dies, but her spirit is lifted to heaven.
About the Performance
This performance was unique among the mystery plays in several respects. It was the only play performed partly in Latin, and superbly so – the interspersing of Latin with English parts made it easy to follow the story, and the Latin elements gave an indication of how Hrosvitha of Gandersheim had written the play. The players consisted of both students and members of the Iffley community, making this a production spanning a large range of ages and backgrounds. The performance also included music played on a violin, which gave it a wonderfully emotional note. The group chose to perform the play in modern dress, in order to suggest that the impulses driving early martyrs have not vanished in the modern world. For the research behind this production, see David Wiles ‘Hrosvitha of Gandersheim: The Performance of her Plays in the Tenth Century’, Theatre History Studies 19 (1999), pp. 133-150. The group’s name, Clamor Validus, means ‘Forceful Shout’, Hrosvitha’s Latinisation of her Saxon name.
A modern English adaptation of the Middle English The Last Judgement, drawing from the Chester, N-Town, and Towneley cycles.
Summary
It’s the end of the world. God and the angels recall the Creation and the history of humankind. Then the final reckoning comes: the angels call up the dead souls from their graves. One by one, they praise God (the good souls) or lament their own wicked deeds (the bad souls). Jesus, as king of heaven, judges them. He praises the good souls, who ascend singing into heaven, and scolds the bad ones, who are dragged to hell by Lucifer and the demons.
About the Performance
Performed in modern English and with plenty of ingenious staging choices – highlights included the guitar-playing archangel Gabriel, the dead souls popping up from the ditch next to the church, the gummy worms sewn to their clothes, and a hungover Lucifer being roused by his demons to get ready for Judgment Day –, this performance was a wonderful end to the day. After the Jesus-related plays, TheLast Judgement picked up some of the characters who had appeared in the Old Testament plays earlier that morning, including God, Lucifer, and the archangels, which demonstrated the cyclical nature of world history as presented in the Bible.
Let us begin by toasting the great success that was the Medieval Mystery Plays! I’m sure you will all join me in thanking the great host of people that made the day possible, not least of all the many actors, musicians, directors, and props-people who put on such a spectacle. Particular thanks must go to the organisers – Antonia and Sarah – and, of course, the wonderful Henrike. A full report of the day will be available soon on the OMS blog, so watch this space.
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Graeme Ward (Tübingen) will be speaking on ‘Biography, Textual Authority, and the Transformation of the Carolingian World’.
Tuesday
Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. Helen Appleton (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Salvation and the Land in the Old English Andreas’.
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. This week is the MMC Social – everyone welcome to meet old friends and make new ones.
Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Tina Montenegro (Boston College) will be speaking on ‘vategories of Knowledge: from Rhetoric to Theology through Brunetto Latini’s Tresor’
Wednesday
Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11.15am in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Theatre. The first week will be a shortish planning meeting. The topic for this term are ‘Alexanderroman’. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 1: Introduction to the relationship between astronomy and astrology from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre.
Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Chris Dyer (University of Leicester) will be speaking on ‘Winchcombe Abbey and 2,000 Peasants: Documenting a Crisis, 1340-1381’. Book here.
Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Sevket Pamuk (Bogaziçi University) will be speaking on ‘Political Economy and Economic Institutions of the Ottoman Empire in Comparative Perspective’.
Thursday
Environmental History Working Group – 12:30 in the Colin Matthew Room, History Faculty. Thomas Laskowski (MPhil Islamic Studies and History) will be speaking on ‘Writing the Environmental History of the Medieval Islamic East’.
Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Beckington Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
Henry Bradshaw Lecture – 5pm in the Collier Room (Regent’s Park College). Helen Gittos will be speaking on ‘Christianity Before Conversion: The Archaeology of Liturgy’
Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pminperson & online(Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College). Saudamini Siegrist (NYU graduate) will be speaking on ‘Julian of Norwich and Modern Philosophy’. registration details via their website.
O’Donnell Lecture – 5pm in Lecture Theatre 2 of the English Faculty. Ronald Hutton (Bristol) will be speaking on ‘The Morrigan Revisited’
Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm. Merton College Library Visit. Previous experience of handling medieval manuscripts is desirable. Limited places, write to the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group email by 30/04/2025
The Netherhole Martyr – A Dramatic Reading – 6pm at St Edmund Hall. This semi-staged reading of the play by Good Friends for a Lifetime (Maeve Campbell, Minna Jeffery and Lily Levinson) celebrates its recent publication by Strange Region Press. The event is free to attend and no booking is required. The event will begin with drinks at 6pm, followed by a performance in the Crypt that will last until ca. 8pm.
Opportunities
CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
With full term about to begin, I have three exciting developments for you all.
First, a final reminder that the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays take place on the 26 April (this Saturday) from 12 noon at St Edmund Hall. The incredible booklet can be found at the end of this post, which illustrates just how many of our community are involved, and the feast of entertainment available on the day. See you all there!
Second, the first draft of the termly OMS booklet can be found here. If you have submitted an event, please cast a quick eye over the information to ensure that it is correct. If you are yet to submit your events but woul like them to be included, please do so ASAP.
Finally, OMS is seeking a new Social Media Officer. The Social Media Officer is in charge of connecting all of Oxford’s medievalists via the OMS Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts and also occasionally posting on here, the OMS blog. You will be responsible for posting across these platforms to advertise OMS events, opportunities and news. Familiarity with social media advertising is beneficial but not essential: this is an ideal way to gain technical know-how about social media, advertising and marketing that can be used in your academic career and beyond. The post usually comprises an hour or two a week. You can read a retrospective of the current Officer Ashley here. Those interested should reply to this email address before Saturday, where there will be the chance to shadow.
We have made it to 8th week, and the sun has come out in celebration. The full booklet of weekly events, as always, can be found here. A few brief notes to begin:
Please take a moment to fill in a short survey exploring the possibilities of turning the Bodleian’s TEI-encoded medieval manuscript catalogues into accessible tabular formats such as CSV. Posted by Seb Dows-Miller and Matthew Holford for a new DiSc-funded project within the Bodleian Libraries.
The 2025 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference programme has now been released, and can be found here. The OMGC2025 will be followed directly by the Medieval Mystery Cycle on 26 April! Join us on Thursday for a brainstorming session if you want to get involved.
Monday
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2.15 in the Horton Room. Lucio del Corso will be speaking on ‘Greek papyri in the Bodleian Library. A tale of lost texts and forgotten books’.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Daisy Livingston (Durham) will be speaking on ‘How to qualify as a notary in the early-16th century Mamluk Sultanate’.
Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30, English Faculty Graduate Common Room. This term we will be reading Hrafnkels saga.
Tuesday
Europe in the Later Middle Ages – 2pm in the Dolphin Seminar Room, St John’s College. Katy Beebe (North Texas) will be speaking on ‘Movement in the Mind: A Typology, Critique, and New Interpretative Model of Imagined Pilgrimage’.
Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2pm, Weston Library.
EMBI Lecture – 4pm in the Gillis Lecture Theatre, Balliol College. Sue Brunning (British Museum) will be speaking on ‘Silk Roads at the British Museum: A co-curatorial journey’.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Maria Czepiel (University of Warwick) will be speaking on ‘Hebraist Erudition in Spanish Renaissance Biblical Poetry’.
Wednesday
The Medieval German Graduate Seminar on ‘Geistliche Spiele’ – 11.15am in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall will conclude with a presentation by Irene Van Eldere on Middle Dutch texts: the Annunciation play which she is staging for the Medieval Mystery Cycle and on the prayerbook project in Leiden
History and Materiality of the Book Seminar – 2pm in the Weston Library, Horton room. Matthew Holford and Laure Miolo will be speaking on ‘Text Identification’.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Michael Featherstone (Oxford) & Juan Signes Codoñer (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) will be speaking on ‘A Team of Palace Historians: the Final Redactions of Theophanes Continuatus and the De Cerimoniis’.
Thursday
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute.
Middle English Reading Group – 4pm, Beckington Room, Lincoln College. The text this term will be the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde.
Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music- 7pm online. Paul Kolb (University of Leuven) will be speaking on ‘Contextuality and Irregularity in Late-Medieval Mensural Notation’.
Preparatory Meeting for the Medieval Mystery Cycle – 5pm at St Edmund Hall in the Principal’s Lodgings. Anybody welcome who would like a site-visit, meet other actors, directors, and survey the costume stock in Henrike Lähnemann’s office.
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm at St Catherine’s College. Eleanor Townsend (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘All the werkemanship and masonry crafte of a frounte’: The problem of the Jesse reredos in St Cuthbert’s, Wells’.
The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15pm in the in the Ioannou Centre/Faculty of Classics’ Lecture Theatre. Edward Zychowicz-Coghill (King’s College London) will be speaking: title TBC.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. A special treat to end the term: the German Blockbook Apocalypse will be out, combined with the performance of an extract from the Towneley Last Judgement Play.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Deadline today for The Ashmolean’s Krasis Scheme: ‘a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme’. You can find out more about this wonderful opportunity here.
Opportunities
Eruditio Nummorum: Symposium on Coins in Honour of Hugh Pagan (29th March) – more info here.
Postdoctoral fellowship opportunity at the university of Notre Dame (deadline 31 March) – more information here.
The Oxford-Bloomsbury Fantasy Summer School (23–25 September 2025, Exeter College) is welcoming expressions of interest. More information can be found here.
CfP for ‘lluminating Nature: Explorations of Science, Religion, and Magic’ (21-22 July 2025 at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Durham Castle).
Register for ‘History, Eugenics, and Human Enhancement: How the Past Can Inform Ethical Debates in the Present’ (24 March 2025, 9am – 5.30pm).
Register now for the workshop on 21st March From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humphrey to celebrate the arrival of the French New Testament which was recently recognised to have been owned by Humfrey, duke of Gloucester. The event is free (including tea and coffee).
CfP for the 35th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (University of Málaga, 24th-26th September 2025). More info here.
The Sorrowful Virgin workshop takes place at St Hughs, 24 March 2025
Welcome to week 7: the full booklet, as always, can be found here. A few important points to draw your immediate attention to:
Although the Ford lectures have now finished (watch them here), Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be hosting an informal seminar discussion covering the topics she has discussed over the term- All Souls Old Library, 5pm on Thursday 6 March.
A preparatory meeting for all those who are involved in the Medieval Mystery Cycle (or are still looking for ways to get involved!) takes place on Thursday 8th week, 5pm, at St Edmund Hall. More info here
Monday
French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3pm in the Institute of Archaeology. Helena Hamerow will be speaking on ‘Feeding Medieval England: A long ‘agricultural revolution’’.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Simon MacLean (St Andrews) will be speaking on ‘Listing royal lands in the Carolingian Empire’.
Tuesday
Europe in the Later Middle Ages – 2pm, Dolphin Seminar Room, St John’s College. Sylvia Alvares Correa (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Sacred Connections: The Eleven Thousand Virgins and Family Networks in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries’.
The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Lecture of Medieval Poetry – 5pm, Location: t.b.d. Zuzana Dzurillová (Czech Academy of Sciences) will be speking on ‘Late Byzantine Romance. On the Wings of Repetition’.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. Carolyn LaRocco (St John’s) will be speaking on ‘The Cult of Saints in Visigothic Iberia’.
Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Charles Samuelson (University of Colorado, Boulder) will be speaking on ‘Consent in Old French Narratives of Female Martyrdom’.
Wednesday
Medieval German Graduate Seminar on ‘Geistliche Spiele’ – 11.15am in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall. Contact Henrike Lähnemann if you would like to be added to the teams group.
History and Materiality of the Book – 2pm in the Visiting Scholars Centre. Matthew Holford and Laure Miolo will be speaking on ‘Medieval Libraries and Provenance’.
Germanic Reading Group ‒ 4pm on Teams. Extracts from Old Icelandic/Old Norse showing biblical style in sagas and saga style in Bible translations.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Tommaso Giuliodoro (Durham University) will be speaking on ‘New Approaches to the Byzantine Army of North Africa in the 7th Century: Organisation, Strategies, and Challenges’.
Daisy Black, Medieval Storytelling Performance of Yde and Olive: A Medieval Lesbian Romance – 7pm in the Chapel at University College.
Thursday
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute.
Middle English Reading Group – 4pm, Beckington Room, Lincoln College. The text this term will be the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde.
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be hosting an informal seminar discussion covering the topics she has discussed over the term- All Souls Old Library, 5pm on Thursday 6 March.
The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15pm in the in the Ioannou Centre/Faculty of Classics’ Lecture Theatre.
Zeynep Aydoğan (Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno) will be speaking on ‘Epicscapes of medieval Anatolia: geographical imagination and identity in Anatolian Turkish frontier narratives’.
Compline in the Crypt at 9.30pm: The St Edmund Consort is singing Latin Compline with some Reformation period settings in the crypt of St-Peter-in-the-East, the library church of St Edmund Hall. Everybody welcome with the only caveat being uneven steps and limited space.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. This week, Péter Tóth, Curator of Greek Manuscripts, will bring out some special papyri for International Women’s Day!
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm in Merton College, Mure Room. Nancy Thebaut (Art History Department and St Catherine’s College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Learning to Look: (Mis)reading the Visitatio sepulchri, ca. 900-1050’.
Upcoming
Alyce Chaucer Festival – Ewelme, 16th-18th May 2025. More info here.
The Reading Medieval History Postgraduate Research Forum is inviting registration for their upcoming conference – more info here.
Opportunities
The Ashmolean’s Krasis Scheme: ‘a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme’. You can find out more about this wonderful opportunity here (deadline 14 March).
CfP for ‘lluminating Nature: Explorations of Science, Religion, and Magic’ (21-22 July 2025 at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Durham Castle).
Register for ‘History, Eugenics, and Human Enhancement: How the Past Can Inform Ethical Debates in the Present’ (24 March 2025, 9am – 5.30pm).
Register now for the workshop on 21st March From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humphrey to celebrate the arrival of the French New Testament which was recently recognised to have been owned by Humfrey, duke of Gloucester. The event is free (including tea and coffee).
‘Transcribing Old and Middle French (1300-1500)’ – a short online course from the University of London, 10th-11th March. More info here.
CfP for the 35th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (University of Málaga, 24th-26th September 2025). More info here.
The Ashmolean is looking for a University Engagement Lead. This is a parttime fixed term role to research and possibly pilot opportunities for University Engagement. This is a good role for someone that knows the students in Oxford and is looking at a parttime role – and, obviously, loves museum collections! Full job description
The CfP for the ‘Sorrowful Virgin’ is now closed; contact Anna Wilmore if you missed the deadline or simply would like to take place in the workshop at St Hughs, 24 March 2025
Welcome to week 6: the full booklet, as always, can be found here. This week features the last of the Ford Lectures: Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be giving a lecture entitles ‘“Et lors que parlerez anglois /Que vous n’oubliez pas le François” (manuscript dedication, c. 1445): Off-shoring French?’. Of special interest to many of you will be the Ashmolean’s Krasis Scheme: ‘a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme’. You can find out more about this wonderful opportunity here.
Errata or changes to announcements will be corrected in the google calendar and on the blog post, so please check these regularly.
Monday
French Palaeography Reading Group – 10.30pm in the Horton Room. Malatenia Vlachou (IRTH, Paris) will talk about An Interpretable Deep Learning Approach for Palaeographical Description and Analysis. All Welcome!
Medieval Archaeology Seminar – Institute of Archaeology Lecture Room, 3pm. Gabor Thomas, Roland Smith, and Darko Maricevic will be speaking on ‘Old Windsor: A Reassessment’.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Alexandra Sapoznik (KCL) will be speaking on ‘Economic and Cultural Connections within Mediterranean Ecosystems’.
Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30, English Faculty Graduate Common Room. This term we will be reading Hrafnkels saga.
Tuesday
Europe in the Later Middle Ages – 2pm in the Dolphin Seminar Room, St John’s College. Aleksander Paroń (Warsaw/Wrocław) will be speaking on ‘Nomads or ‘Nomads’? Considerations on the Mode of Life of Medieval Populations of the European Steppe *** This meeting is online, but will take place at the normal time in the Dolphin Room ***
Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2pm, Weston Library.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. Alex Peplow (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Depicting the Unfamiliar: Scorpions in Northern Europe’.
Wednesday
Medieval German Graduate Seminar on ‘Geistliche Spiele’ – 11.15am in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall, on the ‘Wiener Susannaspiel’ (Das leben der heyligen frawen Susanna). Contact Henrike Lähnemann if you would like to be added to the teams group.
History and Materiality of the Book Seminar – 2pm in the Weston Library, Horton room. Laure Miolo will be speaking on ‘Calendars and Time-reckoning’
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Andy Hilkens (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) will be speaking on ‘Dialogue and Debate between Syriac and Armenian Miaphysites in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’.
Slade Lecture Series – 5pm at St John’s College. ‘Gaps in Artefacts’. Book a place.
Medieval English Research Seminar – 5.15pm, Lecture Theatre 2, St. Cross Building.
Cathy Hume (University of Bristol) will be speaking on ‘Biblical poetry and its place in medieval English culture’
Thursday
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute.
Middle English Reading Group – 4pm, Beckington Room, Lincoln College. The text this term will be the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde.
Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music- 7pm online. Helen Coffey (The Open University) will be speaking on ‘Music for Dancing in the Empire of Maximilian I’.
Ford Lecture – 5pm in the Examination Schools. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be giving the final of her lectures: ‘“Et lors que parlerez anglois /Que vous n’oubliez pas le François” (manuscript dedication, c. 1445): Off-shoring French?’
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm at St Catherine’s College. Ana Días will be speaking on ‘Painting the Apocalypse in Medieval Iberia: The Making of the Beatus Illuminations’.
The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15pm in the in the Ioannou Centre/Faculty of Classics’ Lecture Theatre. Sinem Eryılmaz (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) will be speaking on ‘Knowledge and its transmission in Ottoman manuscript culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: observations and propositions’.
Tolkien and the Organ – 7pm, Exeter College Chapel.
Friday
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Upcoming
Dr Daisy Black’s medieval storytelling event in week 7 (5th March, 7pm, Univ chapel):Yde and Olive. Book tickets here.
Opportunities
The Ashmolean’s Krasis Scheme: ‘a unique, museum-based, interdisciplinary teaching and learning programme’. You can find out more about this wonderful opportunity here.
CfP for ‘lluminating Nature: Explorations of Science, Religion, and Magic’ (21-22 July 2025 at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Durham Castle).
Register for ‘History, Eugenics, and Human Enhancement: How the Past Can Inform Ethical Debates in the Present’ (24 March 2025, 9am – 5.30pm).
Register now for the workshop on 21st March From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humphrey to celebrate the arrival of the French New Testament which was recently recognised to have been owned by Humfrey, duke of Gloucester. The event is free (including tea and coffee).
‘Transcribing Old and Middle French (1300-1500)’ – a short online course from the University of London, 10th-11th March. More info here.
CfP for the 35th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (University of Málaga, 24th-26th September 2025). More info here.
The Ashmolean is looking for a University Engagement Lead. This is a parttime fixed term role to research and possibly pilot opportunities for University Engagement. This is a good role for someone that knows the students in Oxford and is looking at a parttime role – and, obviously, loves museum collections! Full job description
The CfP for the ‘Sorrowful Virgin’ is now closed; contact Anna Wilmore if you missed the deadline or simply would like to take place in the workshop at St Hughs, 24 March 2025