Category: opportunities

Medieval matter HT26 Wk 5

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16/02/2026

08:51

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

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Welcome to Week 5.

Apart from the Medieval Studies Lecture this Thursday, I would like to highlight a new CfP: Forgotten Libraries: Lost, Dispersed, and Marginalised Manuscript Collections: The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) is pleased to invite Oxford-based researchers to participate in the workshop Forgotten Libraries to be held at The Queen’s College (Oxford) on Tuesday 16 June. 

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Jay Rubenstein (University of Southern California) will be speaking on “Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and the Wages of Sin”.

Tuesday

  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Maria Fusaro (Exeter) will be speaking on ‘Maritime Risk Management and Aequitas: the long life of the principle of General Average’
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Maghrib History Seminar- 5:00, The Queen’s College. Prof. Cyrille Aillet (Université Lumière Lyon 2)  will be speaking on “Ibadism and Medieval Maghrib: a View from Within”
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Luisa Ostacchini (Jesus) will be speaking on ‘(Re)working Miracles: translating Gregory the Great’s Dialogues in Old English literature’.
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5:15, Maison Française d’Oxford. Fran Charmaille (Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge) & Gareth Evans (St John’s College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Trans Studies and Medieval Literatures’. (joint seminar with Medieval English)
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Andrew Honey will be discussing Bindings.
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, Seconde Part, ll. 772-1287 .
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Arietta Papaconstantinou (Aix-Marseille) will be speaking on ‘Dependent Labour in the Late Antique Near East’
  • Maison Française d’Oxford lecture series – 5:00, at the Maison. Antoine Destemberg will be speaking on ‘‘Is medieval biblical exegesis a form of totemism? An examination of analogical-social thinking in Moralised Bibles’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar- 5:30, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Dr Tugba Bozcaga (Kings College London) will be speaking on ‘Imams and Patrons: Service Provision by Islamic Non-State Actors’.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Environmental History Working Group – 12:30–2:00pm, Humanities Centre History Hub Room 20.421. Louis James Henry (PhD Medieval Environmental History, University of Stavanger, Visiting Student at KCL) will be speaking on “Timely Courts and Immediate Responses: Waste Management as a Temporal Issue in Late Medieval England”.
  • Pop-up display – ‘What do Christ Church’s newly acquired Hebrew books tell us about the College in the 17th century?’ – 12:00 – 2:00,  Christ Church Upper Library. More info here.
  • OMS Lecture -5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, Oriel College. Dr Nicolas Vernot (Guest Researcher, CY Cergy Paris University) will be speaking on ‘Heraldry and Magic’.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanities Centre and Online). Sarah Zeiser (Harvard) will be speaking on ‘Finding allegory, history, and a complicated timeline in the harvest quatrain of Rhygyfarch ap Sulien’.
  • Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15. Email Harriet Carter for location.
  • Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures – 5:15, Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Hana Navratilova (Harris Manchester College/ AMES, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Meidum: landscape, pyramid, graffiti, and political memory’
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Umberto Bongianino (Khalili Research Centre) will be speaking on ‘Wall painting in the Islamic West and the aesthetic of naqsh’.
  • Latin Compline in the Crypt with the St Edmund Consort – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week is ‘The Bible in Latin: Old Latin and the Vulgate’. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer at Péter Tóth.
  • Pop-up display – ‘What do Christ Church’s newly acquired Hebrew books tell us about the College in the 17th century?’ – 12:00 – 2:00,  Christ Church Upper Library. More info here.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 3:30, Weston Library. Workshop with Laure Miolo: Observing and Measuring the Heavens: Manuscripts, Instruments, and Astronomical Practice in the Middle Ages. Limited places. The deadline to register has passed. Write to Oxford Medieval Manuscript group if you want to go on a waiting list. 
  • Postponed: the Wikipedia Editathon planned for today has been postponed to Trinity Term.

Opportunities and Reminders

Medieval Matter HT26, Week 4

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08/02/2026

16:04

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

,

Welcome to Week 4. An updated version of the OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term. For your diary: The 2026 OMS Lecture will take place on Thursday 19 February 5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner. Tony Hunt’s memorial service is will be held on 16th May, 2.30, St Peter’s College Chapel (booking etc in due course).

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2:15, Weston Library. Emily Guerry (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Bodleian’s Gaignières Collection: A paper museum for Gothic tombs’.
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3:00, Archaeology Faculty. Matthew Johnson will be speaking on ‘New World Settlement and the English Middle Ages’.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Cordelia Heß (Aarhus) will be speaking on “Medieval Racism? Social Practices in Colonial Contact Zones in Greenland and Sápmi (900-1500)
  • General Linguistics Seminar – 5.15, Humanities Centre 30.400. Henrike Lähnemann will be speaking on The nuns’ language: Latin-German code-mixing in the Lüne letters
  • Theory and Play: Comparative Medievalisms – 5.15, Lady Margaret Hall. Selections from: Anandavardana’s Dhvanyaloka (9th century CE, tr. The Light of Suggestion); Mechthild of Magdeburg’s Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (13th century CE, tr. The Flowing Light of the Godhead); Cywydd Ymry

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Kirsty Bolton (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Power and conversion in middle English romance’.
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Simon Egan, Queen’s University Belfast will be speaking on ‘God forebede that a wylde Yrishe wyrlynge shulde be chosene for to be there kynge’: Gaelic Recovery in a North Atlantic Context, c.1350-c.1550′
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Clément Salah (Queen’s) will be speaking on ‘Materialising Translation: manuscripts and the movement of knowledge in tenth-century North Africa’.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, MacGregor Room, Oriel College. Patric Dickinson, CVO (Clarenceux 2010-21) will be speaking on ‘Symbolism in Heraldry: Mysterious or Manifest?’
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Céline Delattre and Robert Minte will be speaking on ‘Inks and Pigments’
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, First Part, ll. 127-771 
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Pamela Armstrong (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Excavations of the Church of St Polyeuktos at Sarachane Revisited’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar: ‘Hajj the Art of Pilgramage’ – 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.
  • John Lydgate Book Club – 5:15pm. All Souls College, Hovenden Room. Mary Wellesley will speak on Lydgate and devotion.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College. Pilgrims and Travellers, including extracts from the works of Egeria, Margery Kempe and Lady Nijo.
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanties Centre) and Online. Llion Wigley (University of Wales Press) will be speaking on ‘Ynysoedd Gobaith: Adeiladu Iwtopia yng Nghymru’r Ugeinfed Ganrif’.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. BOOK LAUNCH — Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court.
  • A Medieval Saint in the Modern World: Oswald of Northumbria in Words and Music – 6:15, The Chapel at King’s College London.
  • Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. Translations of the Bible in the Eastern Mediterranean: Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Arabic. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact Péter Tóth
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • EMBI ‘Databases: A Skills Workshop’ – 4.00, Humanities Centre, History of Art Seminar Room.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, Sir Howard Stringer Room at Merton College, Emma J. Nelson (No take-backsies? Gerald of Wales and the Boundaries of Book Donation) and Elliot Cobb (Miraculous and Marginal Women in the Metz Psalter-Hours).

Opportunities and Reminders

Medieval Matter HT26, Wk 3

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02/02/2026

08:26

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The OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term. The 2026 OMS Lecture will take place on Thursday 19 February 5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner. Also: OMS sends condolences to our colleague Anna Abulafia (former Professor of Abrahamic Religions) for the death of her husband, Prof. David Abulafia FBA

Events

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Anna Molnár (Reading) will be speaking on “Nuns’ Financial Literacy and the Private Banking Activities of Female Religious Organisations in the Later Middle Ages”

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Joe Stadolnik (University of Chicago) will be speaking on ‘Bad books in medieval Bristol: alchemy, liturgy and Thomas Norton’s ordinals’.
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Tom Johnson, Oxford will be speaking on ‘‘He hath payd his part’: The Political Economy of Fishing Doles in Late-Medieval England’
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Eugenia Vorobeva (St Anne’s) will be speaking on ‘Devil’s Laughter, Language, and Sin in the Old Norse-Icelandic ‘Passio Domini’ Homily’
  • Medieval French Research Seminar – 5:15, Maison Française d’Oxford. Cat Watts (St Anne’s College, Oxford) will be speaking on ‘”Nothing  Of  Thine Own”: Fandom, Devilry, and Rewriting Holy Tales’ .
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:15, Weston Library. Martin Kauffmann will be discussing Decoration
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. laudia Rapp (Vienna) and Michael Whitby (Birmingham) will be speaking on ‘Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyrius of Gaza (in collaboration with Translated Texts for Historians and LUP)’
  • Islamic Studies Seminar- 5:00, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. James McDougall (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Worlds of Islam: A Global History’.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Environmental History Working Group – 12:30–2:00pm, Humanities Centre History Hub Room 20.421. Louis James Henry (PhD Medieval Environmental History, University of Stavanger, Visiting Student at KCL) will be speaking on “Timely Courts and Immediate Responses: Waste Management as a Temporal Issue in Late Medieval England”
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St Catherine’s College. Millie Horton-Insch (British Museum & Trinity College Dublin) will be speaking on “Technologies of Reproduction and Sonderauftrag Bayeux: Re-Creating the Bayeux Tapestry for the Third Reich”
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanities Centre and Online). Rhiannon Marks (Cardiff) will be speaking on ‘Envisaging the end: the representation of language decline in contemporary Welsh writing’
  • Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15. Email Harriet Carter for location.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Maria Judith Feliciano (CSIC, Madrid) will be speaking on ‘the silk core, or lessons from medieval Iberian textile studies’
  • Guild of Medievalist Makers, Making Space Session  – 5:30, online. Optional theme: birds.
  • Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week is ‘The New Testament’ Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer at Péter Tóth  
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.

Opportunities and Reminders

Medieval Matters HT26, Week 2

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25/01/2026

16:16

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

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OMS is deeply saddened by the passing of Stephen Baxter (Professor of Medieval History). To view a number of touching memories of Stephen, and to contribute your own, please visit the memorial page. Further plans for remembering Stephen at St Peter’s will be announced in due course.

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Seminar in Palaeography and Manuscript studies – 2:15, Weston Library. Kees Dekker (Groningen) will be speaking on ‘Manuscripts in the hands of Franciscus Junius (1591-1677)’
  • Medieval Archaeology Seminar – 3:00, Archaeology Faculty. Jennifer Coulton (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Structural Depositions, Haunted Houses, and Domestic Protection in England c.800-1250’
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. Rob Portass (Robinson College, Cambridge) will be speaking on “Estate Management and the Beginnings of Specialised Production in Early Medieval Iberia”.

Tuesday

  • ‘A Quiet Revolution’: Engaging Heritage Audiences with West Horsley Place’s Historic Landscape – 11:00, Learning Centre (Room 00.018), Humanities Centre. Book a place.
  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Rachel Moss (University of Northampton) will be speaking on ‘Chivalry is a code for men willing to fight’: medievalism, masculinity and the modern far-right’.
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Annabel Hancock (Trinity College Dublin) will be speaking on ‘Negotiating Uncertain Waters: Trust in trade and diplomacy in the Mediterranean’
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. Natasha Bradley (Lincoln) will be speaking on ‘Trans Saints in Old Norse Translation: Marina*us the Monk and Pelagia*us the penitent in the medieval North’
  • Maghrib History Seminar – 5:00, The Queen’s College. Amira Bennison (University of Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘Power and Peace: Re-viewing the Dynastic History of the Western Maghrib through an Urban Lens’.
  • Heraldry Society – 5:00, MacGregor Room, Oriel College. Mr Mark JR Scott (Somerset Herald) will be speaking on “British Royal Heraldry: 1800-2025”.
  • Old English Hagiography Reading Group – 5:15, Jesus College Memorial Room. The first text is the anonymous Life of Saint Giles – email Luisa Ostacchini for a copy.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • History and Materiality of the Book Seminar series – 2:00, Weston Library. Andrew Honey & Matthew Holford will be discussing ‘Writing supports (parchment and paper) and manuscript structure’.
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Palyce of Honour, First Part, ll. 127-771.
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Julian Baker (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Medieval Epiros and Albania: Geopolitical and Economic Reflections in the Light of Coinage’.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 4:00, Somerville College. The Debate on Women – extracts from the works of Christine de Pizan, Teresa de Cartagena and Lady Murasaki.
  • Seminars in Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5:00, online. Kévin Roger (University of Lorraine) will be speaking on ‘Latin Motets and Literary Networks in the Late Middle Ages: Intertextuality, Rhetoric, and Digital Reading’. Discussants: Yolanda Plumley (University of Exeter) and Karl Kügle (Universities of Oxford and Utrecht).
  • Medieval Visual Culture Seminar – 5:00, St Catherine’s College. Robert Mills (University College London) will be speaking on “Wild Forms: Hermits, Saints and Rock Art in Medieval England” 
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanties Centre) and Online. Elizabeth Edwards (CAWCS) will be speaking on ‘Home Circuits: the Ladies of Llangollen, queer temporalities and Welsh landscapes’.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Joumana Medlej (Independent Scholar) will be speaking on ‘The hidden life of Kūfī scripts: practice-based insights and theories’.
  • Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall.

Friday

  • In Tesserae workshop – details TBC.
  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week ‘The Septuagint and its Transmission’. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer at peter.toth@bodleian.ox.ac.uk  
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group – 5:00, online.

Opportunities and Reminders

The OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term. The 2026 OMS Lecture will take place on Thursday 19 February 5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner.

CfP: Medieval Germany Workshop

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23/01/2026

23:01

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Call for Papers, conference, Medieval Matters, opportunities

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The deadline for proposal submissions is 15 February 2026.

29 May 2026, German Historical Institute in London
Organised by the German Historical Institute London and the German History Society

This one-day workshop on the history of medieval Germany (broadly defined) offers an opportunity for researchers from Europe and the wider English-speaking world to meet at the German Historical Institute in London. Participants will be able to discuss their work in a relaxed and friendly setting and to learn more about each other’s research.

Proposals for short papers of 10–15 minutes are invited from researchers at all career stages with an interest in any aspect of the history of medieval Germany. Participants are encouraged to present work in progress, highlight research questions and approaches, and point to yet unresolved challenges of their projects. Presentations will be followed by a discussion.

Participation is free of charge and includes lunch and dinner. The GHIL and the GHS will also provide a contribution towards travel expenses. Accommodation costs cannot be reimbursed. Support is available for postgraduate and early career researchers: up to £150 for travel within the UK (excluding London) and up to 300€ for an economy round trip from Europe. Please indicate your interest in travel support in your application.

We look forward to reading your proposals. Please send your submission—which must include a title, an abstract of c.2000 words, and a biographical note of no more than c.1000 words—to Thomas Kaal: t.kaal@ghil.ac.uk. Questions about all aspects of the workshop can also be sent to Marcus Meer: m.meer@ucl.ac.uk.

Students and researchers interested in medieval German history are also very welcome to attend and listen to the presentations. There is no charge for attendance, but pre-booking is essential. If you would like to attend as a guest, please contact Kim König: k.koenig@ghil.ac.uk.

There will be two plenary speakers as respondents, one of them Henrike Lähnemann who recently gave the annual GHIL lecture:

Medieval Matters HT26, Week 1

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19/01/2026

08:43

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

,

Welcome to Week 1. Thanks to all those who submitted their events for the upcoming term. An updated version of the OMS Booklet is linked here, and is available on the OMS website throughout the term.

For your diary: The 2026 OMS Lecture will take place on Thursday 19 February 5–6.30pm in the Old Dining Hall of St Edmund Hall. Prof. Ian Forrest (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Telling Tails: Weaponizing Gender in the Late Medieval Church‘. Drinks to follow. More information and register for dinner.

Tony Hunt’s memorial service is will be held on 16th May, 2.30, St Peter’s College Chapel (booking etc in due course).

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30, Weston Library
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5:00, All Souls College. John Sabapathy (UCL) will be speaking on “Humanism and bestiality in the land of Cockagne”.
  • Celtic Language Teaching continues throughout the week – please consult the booklet, p. 39 for a full table of dates and locations.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12:15, Room 00.079 (Humanities Centre). Stacie Vos (University of California, San Diego) will be speakin on “Norfolk Broads, or Discovering medieval women with twentieth-century collectives”.
  • Europe in the Later Middle Ages Seminar – 2:00, New Seminar Room, St John’s College. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell (Oxford) will be speaking on “Beyond the Mediterranean by land and sea: Two medieval cases in a (very) broad context”.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo.
  • Medieval Church and Culture, theme: TRANSLATION(S) – tea and coffee from 5:00, Harris Manchester College. John Mulhall (Purdue University) will be speaking on “‘Blessings on All the Prophets’: Islamic prayers in the Latin scientific translations of the twelfth century”.
  • Church Historian Pub Night – 6:00 at the Chequers Inn. Contact Rachel Cresswell

Wednesday

  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11:15, Old Library, St Edmund Hall. The first week will be a shortish planning meeting. The topic for this term is the ‘Liederbuch der Clara Hätzlerin’. 
  • Older Scots Reading Group – 2:30, Room 30.401 (Humanities Centre). Theme: ‘Palyce of Honour, Prologue, ll. 1-126’.
  • The Medieval Latin Documentary Palaeography Reading Group – 4:00, online.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5:00, Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. John Mulhall (Purdue) will be speaking on “The Republic of Translators: Translating from Greek and Arabic into Latin in the Twelfth-Century Mediterranean”.

Thursday

  • Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 11:00, Lincoln College, Beckington Room. All are welcome as we read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: bring any edition of the original text.
  • Environmental History Working Group (EHWG) – 12:30, Room 20.421 (Humanities Centre). Niklas Groschinski (DPhil History) “Environing from Below — Supplications, Denunciations, and Other Sources for Rewriting Early Modern Environmental History”
  • Celtic Seminar – 5:15, Room 20.306 (Humanties Centre) and Online. Brigid Ehrmantraut (St Andrews) will be speaking on “Death of the author? Authorship and authority in the Middle Irish classical adaptations”.
  • The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5:15, The Khalili Research Centre. Yusuf Tayara (Wolfson College) will be speaking on “Timekeeping between art and science: integrated approaches to the history of Mamluk astronomy”.
  • Old English Graduate Reading Group – 5:15. Location is variable so please email Hattie Carter or James Tittering if you’re interested. This term’s text is Apollonius of Tyre.
  • Compline in the Crypt – 9:30, St Edmund Hall. Sung by the College Choir in English

Friday

  • Medievalist Coffee Morning – Friday 10:30, Visiting Scholars Centre (Weston Library). All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
  • The History of the Bible: From Manuscripts to Print – 12:00, Visiting Scholars Centre at the Weston Library. The theme this week is ‘The Hebrew Bible”. Places are limited. To register interest and secure a place, please contact the lecturer, Péter Tóth.
  • Exploring Medieval Oxford through Surviving Archives – 2:00, Weston Library (Horton Room). Those who are interested can contact the convenor, Laure Miolo
  • EMBI ‘Databases: A Skills Workshop’ has been POSTPONED until Week 4 on 13 February, 16:00-17:15.

Opportunities (see booklet for further details)

OMS Small Grants Now Open!

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17/01/2026

09:41

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opportunities

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The TORCH Oxford Medieval Studies Programme invites applications for small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by researchers at postgraduate (whether MSt or DPhil) or early-career level from across the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford.

The scheme has a rolling deadline. Closing date for applications: Friday of Week 4 each term for activities taking place during that or the following term. An additional deadline for summer activities and Michaelmas Term is last Friday of July.

Grants are normally in the region of £100–250 and can either be for expenses or for administrative and organisational support such as publicity, filming or zoom hosting. They can also be used to support staging a play for the Medieval Mystery Cycle, e.g. for buying props or material for costumes. Recipients will be required to supply a report after the event for the Oxford Medieval Studies blog and will be invited to present on their award at an OMS event.

Applicants will be responsible for all administrative aspects of the activity, including formulating the theme and intellectual rationale, devising the format, and, depending on the type of event, inviting speakers and/or issuing a Call for Papers, organising the schedule, and managing the budget, promotion and advertising.

Applications should be submitted to Prof. Lesley Smith  using the word grant application form. Informal enquiries may also be directed to Lesley. The Oxford Medieval Studies Programme money is administered by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the money will be paid out via their expenses system.

Funded Doctoral Position: The Seven Sages of Rome

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03/01/2026

10:57

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opportunities, report

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The University of St Andrews in Scotland is currently advertising a PhD scholarship (with 3.5 years’ full funding) for the following project “How to write a global success before print: The paradigmatic case of the Seven Sages of Rome/Sindbad narrative.” Deadline for applications is Sunday 15 February 2026. More information can be found on the St Andrews website

Previous advertisment for a doctoral position in 2024: The research project “The Seven Sages of Rome Revisited: Striving for an Alternative Literary History”  invites applications for one doctoral research associate: FU Berlin advertisement of the position

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

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

SATURDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2022, THE IOANNOU CENTRE

10 am – 11.30 am

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

12 pm – 1.30 pm

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

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

5.45 pm: Evensong at New College

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

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

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

CfP: Saints Outside Hagiography

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23/11/2025

13:50

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Call for Papers, opportunities

New York, Morgan Library, M.S15. E. 53v detail

We invite expressions of interest to participate in a new series of online workshops examining how saints and holy people are represented outside the classic form of the single-text hagiography, what Thomas J. Heffernan calls the ‘sacred biography’. This group aims to bring together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture, to explore how they are constructed in other forms poetry, visual art, sermons, letters, monuments, drama, chronicles, liturgy, objects, didactic literature, and others – in an informal, work-in progress format focused on discussion of primary sources from any historical period. We envision each meeting consisting of 1-2 brief presentations, with the text or object and a short description or summary (max 500 words) circulated in advance along with one or two questions for discussion. If you have a historical source or item related to sanctity that you would like to bring to an interdisciplinary forum, please get in touch with Laura Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) and Alicia Smith (alicia.smith@uib.no) by 15 January 2026 with a brief description, your career stage and institutional affiliation if any.
Guidelines:
The chronological and geographical scope is intentionally open. We are happy to receive proposals that argue for definitions of saint / sanctity outside the mainstream
Speakers are free to contest whether a text is ‘outside hagiography’ or ‘not a classic hagiography — the goal is to study saints and the construction of saint/sanctity beyond canonical textual forms. including troubling our understanding of those forms.
If your source is not in English, you will need to include an English translation.