Category: News

Watch the Performance here

Location: Front Quad

Performers: Angels of Oxford

Cast

God the Father – Megan Bruton

God the Son – Carys Howell

God the Holy Spirit – Helen Dallas

Seraphyn – Matilda Houston-Brown

Lucifer – Antonia Anstatt

Cherabyn – Chloe Fairbanks

Angelus Deficiens – Wren Talbot-Ponsonby

Crew

Director – Carys Howell

Dramaturg – Matilda Houston-Brown

Producer – Antonia Anstatt

Text

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.

2. Adam and Eve

Watch the Performance here

Location: Front Quad

Performers: Oxford Medieval Germanists

Cast

Cherub – Carl Haller von Hallerstein

The Lord – Wilfred Lamont

Adam – Henry Nobes

Raphael – Timothy Powell

Michael – Rahel Micklich

Gabriel – Henrike Lähnemann

Eve – Courtney McNeil

Lucifer – Monty Powell

Belial – Graham Salter

Satan – Laurentien Jungkamp

Serpent – Liv Brown

Crew

Director – Timothy Powell

Text

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.

3. The Flood

Watch the Performance here

Location: Front Quad

Performers: The Travelling Beavers

Cast

God – George Rowe

Noah – Oli Hardy

Noah’s Wife – Alice Walton

Ham – Ellie Hall

Shem – Gabriella Berkeley-Agyepong

Japhet – James Lewin, Adam Szep

Ham’s Wife – Madeleine Bainbridge

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.

4. Abraham and Isaac

Location: Front Quad

Performers: Shear and Trembling

Cast

Abraham – George Eustace

Isaac – Emily Porter

Angel/Servant – Hanyue Wei

Crew

Director – Miriam Waters

Script Adapter – Miriam Waters

Costume Designer – Emily Porter

Text

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.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

5. The Annunciation

Location: Statue of St Edmund in the garden

Performers: Low Countries Ensemble

Cast

God – Oscar de Wit

Gabriel – Johanneke Sytsema

Mary – An Van Camp

Narrator – Irene Van Eldere

Crew

Director – Irene Van Eldere

Script Adapter – Godelinde Gertrude Perk

Text

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.

6. The Nativity

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 16^th 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, 16^th-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.

7. The Wedding at Cana

Location: Churchyard

Performers: Pusey House

Cast

Angel – Elliott Clark

Bride – Matti Veldhuis

Bridegroom – Ashby Neterer

Jesus – Phillip Quinn

Mary – Ruth Danstål

Master of the Feast – Alex Christofis

Unruly Guest – Nathan Brown

Servants – Natalie Tiede, Richard Garrard

Crew

Director – Phillip Quinn

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.

8. The Crucifixion

Location: Grassy Mound

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’.

9. The Lamentation

Location: Churchyard

Performers: St Edmund Consort

Cast

John – Carlos Rodríguez Otero

Mary – Montgomery Powell

Mary Magdalen – Henrike Lähnemann

Mary, Mother of John – Rebecca Schleuß

Jesus – Lucian Shepherd

Rector – Andrew Dunning

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 15^th 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.

10. The Harrowing of Hell

Watch the performance here and here

Location: Churchyard and Crypt

Performers: The Choir of St Edmund Hall

Cast

Angelic Hosts – Choir of St Edmund Hall

Adam – Shaw Worth

Eve – Molly Bray

Text

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.

11. The Resurrection

Location: Churchyard

Performers: St Stephen’s House

Cast

Pilate – Oliver Baldwin

Caiaphas – Lizzy Flaherty

Annas – Edward Parker-Sunderland

Centurion – Felix Trimbos

Mary 1 – Sofia Radaelli

Mary 2 – Danielle Duncan

Mary 3 – Amy Taylor

Angel – Ewan Gillings

Soldier 1 – Tobias Thornes

Soldier 2 – Ben Almond

Soldier 3 – Jonathan Thompson

Soldier 4 – Madeleine Ridout

Text

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.

12. The Martyrdom of the Three Holy Virgins

Location: Grassy Mound

Performers: Clamor Validus

Cast

Emperor Diocletian/Dulcitius’ Wife – Jialin Li

Agape – Laura Laube

Chionia – Abigail Pole

Irena – Loveday Liu

Governor Dulcitius – Andrew “Stilly” Stilborn

Count Sisinnius – Laurence Nagy

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.

13. The Last Judgement

Location: Far Side of Churchyard

Performers: MSt English (650–1550)

Cast

Jesus – Alicia Camacho Fielding

Lucifer – Daniel Pereira

Archangel Michael – Jasmine Webster

Angel Gabriel – Alice Watkinson

Demons – Leslie Shen, Lauren Allsopp, Olivia Cook

Crew

Director – Emma Nihill Alcorta

Writer – Ruby Whitehouse

Producer – Alice Watkinson

Text

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.

Medieval Matters TT25, Week 1

medieval matters, trinity 25

28/04/2025

08:59

Comments Off on Medieval Matters TT25, Week 1

Medieval Matters, News

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.

Week One of Trinity term brings a full list of events for you all to enjoy. The full Medieval Studies booklet is available here and always updated on the Oxford Medieval Studies blog – to which you are all invited to contribute! A special call-out to current Oxford Graduate students: please see the opportunities at the end of the booklet for a) the role of Social Media Officer (deadline Friday of week 2 – read the blogpost by our outgoing Social Media Officer Ashley Castelino about what the role entails) and b) for Small Grants (deadline Friday of week 4).

Monday

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 – 5pm in person & 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

Medieval Matters Week 0 Update

Mysteries2025-Programme-A4 Download

21/04/2025

18:35

Comments Off on Medieval Matters Week 0 Update

Around Oxford, events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities

medieval matters

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.

Medieval Matters HT25, Week 8

10/03/2025

07:37

Comments Off on Medieval Matters HT25, Week 8

events, Medieval Matters, News, opportunities

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 21^st 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, 24^th-26^th September 2025). More info here.
The Sorrowful Virgin workshop takes place at St Hughs, 24 March 2025
CfP for ‘Outsiders – Insiders’ (University of Reading), 2nd April 2025
The next deadline for OMS Small Grants applications is Friday of 4th Week.

Until next term,

Tristan

Medieval Matters HT25, Week 7

hilary 25, medieval matters

02/03/2025

17:07

Comments Off on Medieval Matters HT25, Week 7

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

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.
Two jobs have opened for applications: an Associate Professor in Byzantine History and an Associate Professor in Medieval Latin Mansucript Studies.
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 21^st 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, 24^th-26^th September 2025). More info here.
Registration for the conference Byzantium and its Environment – 27th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society on 1/2 March now open
For all Graduate Students (Master & DPhil): fully funded Wolfenbüttel Summer School on Late Medieval Manuscripts (in English). Apply by the end of February. Call for Papers the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
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
CfP for ‘Outsiders – Insiders’ (University of Reading), 2nd April 2025
OMS Small Grants are no longer open for applications – deadline was Friday of 4th Week. If you missed it, contact Lesley Smith.

Medieval Matters HT25, Week 6

hilary 25, medieval matters

24/02/2025

00:39

Comments Off on Medieval Matters HT25, Week 6

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

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 21^st 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, 24^th-26^th September 2025). More info here.
Registration for the conference Byzantium and its Environment – 27th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society on 1/2 March now open
For all Graduate Students (Master & DPhil): fully funded Wolfenbüttel Summer School on Late Medieval Manuscripts (in English). Apply by the end of February. Call for Papers the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
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
CfP for ‘Outsiders – Insiders’ (University of Reading), 2nd April 2025
OMS Small Grants are no longer open for applications – deadline was Friday of 4th Week. If you missed it, contact Lesley Smith.

Medieval Matters HT25, Week 5

16/02/2025

18:58

Comments Off on Medieval Matters HT25, Week 5

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

Week 5 rolls around – stave off the blues with an extensive course of medieval events. The full booklet, as always, can be found here.

Events

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, Weston Library. Jo Edge will be speaking on ‘Working with divinatory texts and manuscripts’.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Michael Eber (Oxford/Cologne) will be speaking on ‘Re- and mis-gendering St Marina*us in high medieval Italy’.

Tuesday

Europe in the Later Middle Ages – 2pm, Dolphin Seminar Room, St John’s College. Aleksander Parón (Warsaw) 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.
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. Teresa Barucci (Magdalen) will be speaking on ‘European Vernaculars at the Medieval University of Paris’.
Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Mary Franklin-Brown, (University of Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘Oath, Song, and the Making of Community in Medieval France’.
CMTC “Work in Progress” colloquium – 5:15pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College.
Lectures of Medieval Poetry – time and place TBD (email organiser). Ramunė Markevičiūtė (Freie University of Berlin) will be speaking.

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 will be speaking on ‘Manuscript Structures’.
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
Oxford University Numismatics Society – 4pm in the Ioannou Centre/Faculty of Classics’ Lecture Theatre. Dr. Mike Shott (Oxford): “Cuneator ad Rex; Quid tibi vis hic..?”. Design features in the Long Cross issues of Henry III; a research project’.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Olivia Ramble (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Of Scripts and Scribes: Investigating Practices of Writing in Late Antique Iran’.
Slade Lecture Series – 5pm at St John’s College. ‘Gaps in Origins’. Check this page for recordings or to check whether places have become available.
Medieval English Research Seminar – 5.15pm, Lecture Theatre 2, St. Cross Building. Amy Faulkner (UCL) will be speaking on ‘Expecting the Worst: Beowulf and the End Times’.
Principal’s Research Seminar at St Hilda’s College – 5.30pm, the Pavilion, St Hilda’s College. Professor Wakelin’s title is ‘The everyday creatives’. For more information and to book click on link. All are welcome.

Thursday

Medieval Anglo-Jewish Texts and History – 9:30 am – 5.00 pm, Catherine Lewis Lecture Theatre (Clarendon Institute). This group convenes once a term to read together unpublished Hebrew and Latin documents from Medieval England as sources for the history of the Jews before the expulsion of 1290.
Medieval Hebrew Reading Group – 10am in the Clarendon Institute.
Magna Carta 1225: New Discoveries & Repercussions – 12pm in the Blackwell Hall, Weston Library. Dean Irwin will be speaking on ‘Magna Carta and Jewish communities’.
Middle English Reading Group – 4pm, Beckington Room, Lincoln College. The text this term will be the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde.
Germanic Reading Group ‒ 4pm on Teams. Extracts from Chaucer showing switches between London and Northern dialects (Simon Horobin leading). Please contact Howard Jones to request the handout and to be added to the list.
Ford Lecture – 5pm in the Examination Schools. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be giving the fifh of her lectures, titled ‘“Lette Frenchmen in their Frenche endyten”(Thomas Usk, c.1384-87): French in the Multilingual Fourteenth Century;.
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. Umberto Bongianino (The Khalili Research Centre) will be speaking on ‘The Pink Qurʾān: a reverse biography’.

Friday

The Human Remains Digital Library (HRDL) Launch – 10am online. More information here.
Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. This week, Alyssa Steiner (BL) will speak on the extensive Ship of Fools collection of Francis Douce.
Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 2pm in the Horton Room. Come along or contact Matthew Holford in beforehand if you have a manuscript to discuss!
Old Frisian Taster Session – 2pm in the Taylor Library, room 2. Johanneke Sytsema will be speaking on ‘Strong Verbs Across English, Frisian, Dutch, Low German, High German, an introduction to the crucial place of Frisian in the history of Germanic Languages’.
Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm. This week, the group will be visiting the The Queen’s College Library.
Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.
“The Jewish Recipes in a 13^th C Andalusian Cookbook” by Hélène Jawhara Piñer will be on Zoom at 5 pm Wednesday 19 February. Event details and the link to register is here.

Opportunities

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 21^st 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, 24^th-26^th September 2025). More info here.
Registration for the conference Byzantium and its Environment – 27th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society on 1/2 March now open
For all Graduate Students (Master & DPhil): fully funded Wolfenbüttel Summer School on Late Medieval Manuscripts (in English). Apply by the end of February. Call for Papers the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
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
CfP for ‘Outsiders – Insiders’ (University of Reading), 2nd April 2025
OMS Small Grants are no lo open for applicationsnger – deadline was Friday of 4th Week. If you missed it, contact Lesley Smith.

Medieval Matters HT25, Week 4

09/02/2025

17:29

Comments Off on Medieval Matters HT25, Week 4

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

Welcome to Week 4. Please find below the events and opportunities for this week: the full booklet, as always, can be found here. A reminder: the deadline for the OMS Small Grants scheme is this friday – don’t miss out!

Events

Monday

French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am in the Weston Library. Those interested should email Laure Miolo.
Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – CANCELLED
Medieval Archaeology Seminar – Institute of Archaeology Lecture Room, 3pm. Wendy Scott will be speaking on ‘The Lenborough hoard’.
Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Ian Haynes (Newcastle/All Souls) will be speaking on ‘Visualising the Lateran Patriarchium: Recent research by the Rome Transformed Project’
Centre for Reception History of the Bible Lecture – 5pm at Trinity College. Rachel Cresswell will be speaking on ‘Quoting Scripture with Anselm of Canterbury: Anselm’s Bible and Why it Matters’.
Old Norse Reading Group – 5.30, English Faculty Graduate Common Room. This term we will be reading Hrafnkels saga.

Tuesday

The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
Europe in the Later Middle Ages – 2pm in the Dolphin Seminar Room, St John’s College. Caitlin John (UCL) will be speaking on ‘Moving Between the City and the Cemetery: Funerary Processions in Late Medieval Cairo and Paris’.
Medieval Church and Culture – 5.15pm (coffee from 5pm) in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Machester College. Emily Guerry (St Peter’s) 11 will be speaking on ‘Gauthier Cornut and the Invention of the Cult of the Crown of Thorns in Paris’.

Wednesday

Medieval German Graduate Seminar on ‘Geistliche Spiele’ – 11.15am in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall, on the Mühlhauser St. Katharinenspiel and other topics. 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. Martin Kauffmann will be speaking on ‘Decoration’.
Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online.
Brepols are running a short online webinar introducing their International Medieval Bibliography, on the 12th Feb at 4pm. This is a great chance to get to grips with this useful resource, and is especially recommended for MSt/ MPhil students.
Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Jonathan Shepard (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Soft Power, Old and New: Debating the Byzantine Commonwealth’.
Slade Lecture Series – 5pm at St John’s College. ‘Gaps in Space’. Book a place.
Medieval English Research Seminar – 5.15pm, Lecture Theatre 2, St. Cross Building. James Sargan (University of Georgia) will be speaking on ‘Reading Early Middle English Books’.

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.
Ford Lecture – 5pm in the Examination Schools. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne will be giving the fourth of her lectures: ‘That each may in his own tongue … know his God’ (Grosseteste, in French, 1230s): Bible Translation in Medieval England’.
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5pm at St Catherine’s College. Anne-Orange Poilpré (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) will be speaking on ‘Figuring the Body of Christ inside the Word of God: Carolingian Gospel Books and their Images’.
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. Anna McSweeney (Trinity College Dublin) will be speaking on ‘Making medieval Spain: carpentry practices in Nasrid Granada and the Alhambra.
Celtic Seminary – 5.15pm online. Iwan Edgar will be speaking on ‘Llysieulyfr Salesbury ac enwau planhigion cysylltiedig 1400–1700’.

Friday

Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided. As a Valentine’s Day special, Niko Kontovas will present queer love in poems from Persian and other Eastern manuscripts, not to be missed!
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 – 5pm online. Reading Group: Interpretation and Meaning.

For your Calendar

“The Jewish Recipes in a 13^th C Andalusian Cookbook” by Hélène Jawhara Piñer will be on Zoom at 5 pm Wednesday 19 February. Event details and the link to register is here.

Opportunities

Register now for the workshop on 21^st 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, 24^th-26^th September 2025). More info here.
Registration for the conference Byzantium and its Environment – 27th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society on 1/2 March now open
For all Graduate Students (Master & DPhil): fully funded Wolfenbüttel Summer School on Late Medieval Manuscripts (in English). Apply by the end of February. Call for Papers the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
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
CfP for ‘Outsiders – Insiders’ (University of Reading), 2nd April 2025
OMS Small Grants are open for applications – deadline Friday of 4th Week

From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey: a new manuscript witness to Anglo-French cultural exchange

09/02/2025

13:57

Comments Off on From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey: a new manuscript witness to Anglo-French cultural exchange

events, News

Friday 21 March 2025 11am–5pm

The Bodleian Libraries have recently acquired a previously unknown manuscript from the library of Humfrey Duke of Gloucester. First written and illuminated in Paris towards the end of the 13th century, the manuscript is an early example of the translation of the New Testament into French. Owned by Jean le Bon, King of France, in the middle of the 14th century, by the early 15th it was in England and came into the hands of a series of Lancastrian royal princes. This symposium provides a first opportunity to explore this outstanding arrival and to point the way for future research. Coffee and tea will be provided. This symposium will be followed by a drinks reception in Blackwell Hall.

Speakers:

David Rundle, University of Kent
Emily Guerry, University of Oxford
Daron Burrows, University of Oxford
Laure Rioust, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Laure Miolo, University of Oxford
Jean-Patrice Boudet, Université d’Orléans

Book a place here

Title image: Bodleian Library, MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1, fols. 72v-73r.

Medieval Matters H25, Week 3