Report on the workshop for the graduate students of the MSt. in Medieval Studies: ‘Fragments and photographs: what are we doing when we try to get close to medieval people?’ which started using examples from medieval records and Ian Forrest’s account of publishing with the photographer Martin Stott https://martin-stott.com/argehane-books/bartlemas-oxfords-hidden-sanctuary/
How do you find someone who lived in a leper hospital in Oxford nine hundred years ago? Not find them in the sense of retracing their biographical data—but stepping into their world, breathing life into their form. Founded by Henry I in 1126, the hospital of St Bartholomew, known as Bartlemas, cared for countless residents over the centuries. In addition to its beginnings as a leprosarium, it has acted as an almshouse, hosted a nursery between 1956 and 2009, and now fosters a culturally-diverse community, offering occasional services in its chapel.
What would it have felt like to step through Bartlemas in 1126, the moans of the ill reverberating into the night? What would it have felt like to reach for the supposed reliquary of St Bartholomew’s skin, desperate for the certainty of healing? These are the sort of questions Ian Forrest brought to the workshop held on February 20th 2026 at the Schwarzman Centre. It was inspired by the recent book ‘Bartlemas: Oxford’s Hidden Sanctuary’ (2025), in which an essay by Prof Forrest accompanies nearly a hundred photographs by Martin Stott of Bartlemas and its surroundings.
Together, we leafed through the photographs of Bartlemas as it exists today—the chapel rebuilt in the 17th century, the garden which has likely witnessed nine hundred years of continuous tending, and Muslim men kneeling in prayer, not unlike the countless Bartlemas brothers before them. Looking through the photographs, I was struck by two overlapping impressions: on the one hand, the vibrancy of the life which has been unfolding at Bartlemas for centuries; on the other, the ghostly absence of the countless people who spent their lives here. You would almost expect their memory to have left behind some physical trace, akin to geological layers. But it did not. We are left only with sparse biographical, financial and administrative records. Do they do justice to the richness of humanity that these people had? As historians, can we do more?
We discussed whether alternative ways of ‘doing’ history might help us achieve that. We started with a recent photo of a gardener at Bartlemas, a scythe propped on his shoulder. Perhaps taking a closer look at life in such spaces today, and finding echoes of the past in it, might help us to better imagine the full life of someone who lived there long ago. Henrike Lähnemann brought to the discussion a similar approach, sharing an interview she took at a German convent tracing its origins to Medieval times. Watching the Abbess of Kloster Lüne speak, her face lit in a kaleidoscope of warm yellows, blues and greens from the stained glass above her, it was not difficult to imagine a Medieval nun stepping softly through the same light. Nevertheless, looking at the experience of a place in the present can inform, but not elucidate, that of the past.
In an effort to fill in these gaps, we can also turn to the writings or even artwork left behind. For instance, as Henrike Lähnemann pointed out, it was commonplace for medieval German nuns to not only write prayer books, but to also illustrate them. Their humanity peeks out through the careful brush-strokes and the painstaking process which merged prayer with creation, the spiritual with the material. In manuscripts from Medingen Abbey, the pieces of gauze sometimes used to veil illuminations were likely of the same material of the nuns’ headdresses. When we examine such manuscripts, in which the creator and the creation are intertwined, we are brought closer to the person behind that process.
Lastly, we discussed the potential of fiction to capture the humanity of people long gone. It could allow us to step into the life of a resident at Bartlemas in the 12th century, imagining their routine of ointments and prayer, and perhaps their moments of wavering faith. We could imagine the deep ache in the shoulders of a nun at Medingen after a day spent hunched over parchment, sharpening her quill and watching flecks of gold float in the air after an illumination. In this sense, fiction could open the possibility for a truer account of human experience than what we can glean from sparse historical records.
There is no clear answer to this dilemma. If we stick too closely to historical data, we risk losing the fullness of humanity against the hard edges of fact. If we rely too much on imagination, we risk treading too far into speculation, ending up misrepresenting the very people we sought to understand.
Perhaps there is value in the act itself of asking these questions, as Ian Forrest guided us to do. Perhaps we begin to do justice to the unreachable past simply by paying attention to it.
A report by Tamara Klarić, research intern during Michaelmas 2025 with Henrike Lähnemann
The Isar and Thames rivers have more in common than might appear at first glance: both shape the image of the cities through which they flow, and both influence the life that takes place in these cities. Munich residents enjoy walking along or swimming in the Isar or meeting there for coffee. In Oxford, too, a lot of activity takes place on the Thames and Cherwell: numerous college rowing teams train on the water, punting boats regularly pass by walkers, and on the banks you encounter rowing team coaches as well as runners and cyclists. At the same time, not only do almost 1,200 km separate these rivers, but also (university) culture and atmosphere: Munich and Oxford – both are cities renowned, innovative universities, but these are integrated into the cities in very different ways. I have been living in Munich for over two years now and if I had to describe the city, I would probably describe it as modern, dynamic and efficient. In my mind, Oxford is both traditional and vibrant, cosmopolitan and self-contained.
1 My background: “Cultures of Vigilance”
I am employed by the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1369 “Cultures of Vigilance” at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, which deals with the connection between personal attention and supra-individual goals. Specifically, we understand vigilance as “the coupling of individual attention, firstly with culturally mediated, supra-individual goals and, secondly, with concrete options for action and communication.”[1] The projects, which cover a wide range of disciplines, are divided into three thematic areas: transformations, spaces and techniques. The historical sub-project in which I am writing my dissertation is assigned to the first area. Together with my colleague John Hinderer and under the supervision of Prof. Dr Julia Burkhardt and PD Dr Iryna Klymenko, I am analysing vigilance in pre-modern Benedictine monasteries using the example of the Bursfelde Congregation. While John Hinderer is investigating how the congregations of Santa Giustina di Padova and Bursfelde sought to regulate different areas of monastic life, I am examining the “long” 16th century (approx. 1500 to 1618). My focus is on the recesses of the Bursfelde General Chapters (i.e. the written resolutions of the annual meetings of all abbots) and on the letters of the leading abbots around 1600. After suffering heavy losses due to the processes catalysed by the Reformation and after the Council of Trent, the Bursfelde monasteries found themselves in a phase of restabilisation and reconstruction during this period. The leading abbots of the congregation sought to expand their sphere of influence, which can be clearly seen from the sources: they not only provide information about how the abbots worked to (re)gain individual monasteries, but also about the strategies they developed towards external actors and the measures they took to restore internal unity. When it comes to the question of communication in times of uncertainty, I am particularly interested in the written perception of uncertainty, the resulting discourses in the correspondence, and any adaptation processes within the congregation. Underlying all of this is the vigilance of individuals and their commitment to serving the community.
The letter shown here as an example is part of a dispute between the abbots of the Bursfelde Congregation and the archbishop of Mainz over the restitution of the Johannisberg monastery in the Rheingau (Diocese of Mainz). In this letter to the Apostolic Nuncio from 1600, the Archbishop of Mainz, Wolfgang X von Dalberg (in office 1582–1601) reports on the desolate condition of the monastery. The monastery was destroyed in 1552 and dissolved in 1563 by the former archbishop, Daniel Brendel von Homburg (in office 1555–1582). Since 1596, the abbots of the congregation had been trying to bring the monastery back into their union and had also approached the Curia in this regard. The present letter is a reply from Wolfgang X to the Apostolic Nuncio, in which he defends himself against the accusations of the Bursfelde abbots, justifies the behaviour of his predecessor and describes his own: He attributes the establishment of a secular administration not only to the devastation wrought by the Margrave of Brandenburg, but also to the negligence of the former abbot and the inadequate supervision of the Bursfelde Union. He justifies the abbot’s dismissal and the temporary secular administration of the monastery as necessary measures for debt settlement and the restoration of religious life in accordance with the rules. At the same time, he rejects the accusation of having abused the monastery for his own gain and emphasises that he acted lawfully and in the interests of the monastery. Finally, he asks the Nuncio to inform the Bursfelde Union of this view and to prevent further complaints.
Vigilance is evident in several places in this letter: As the archbishop’s vigilance towards monastic conditions, it can be read as a duty of ecclesiastical authority. According to Wolfgang X, however, its absence is the central cause of monastic decline, as he describes how the abbot failed to fulfil his official duties and how the Bursfelde abbots also failed to adequately fulfil their supervisory duties. At the same time, he emphasises that he is willing to re-examine the situation at the monastery should changes become apparent – vigilance is thus understood as a continuous duty.
At the conference “Zwischen Erneuerungswunsch und Traditionsbewusstsein. Klosterreformen im Alten Reich (1400–1700)” organised by Carolin Gluchowski and Marlon Bäumer in March 2024, I met Henrike Lähnemann and applied for a research internship with her. For the Michaelmas term of 2025, I was then given the opportunity to travel to Oxford for three months through this research internship. This time was not only extremely productive for me professionally, but also personally: as a woman with a non-academic and migrant background, it had long been unimaginable for me to be able to live and work here for three months. Now I am faced with the difficulty of summarising the significance of three intense months in just a few paragraphs. It is a task that is actually impossible. However, with the help of a few photographs, I would like to try to at least come close to doing so:
2 Arrival
I decided to arrive at the end of September, two weeks before the start of the term, so that I would have some time to find my way around the city and gather my first impressions. I am very privileged to be funded by an CRC in Germany: doctoral students are not employed by the departments but are funded by the German Research Foundation and thus by third-party funds. This meant that I didn’t have to apply for scholarships to be able to afford a stay in Oxford but could be funded by my employer. And within the framework of an SFB, stays abroad are possible; in our case, they are even supported as a possible part of our doctoral programme through the integrated Research Training Group:
I was accommodated in a private house in New Hinksey, just south of the city centre. The reason for my decision was that I wanted to build a second, non-university environment for myself, where I could experience as much of everyday life in Oxford as possible. And I don’t think I could have made a better decision: my landlord, who also lives in the house and sublets two rooms to guests, is an incredibly open and friendly person who invited me to barbecues with his family and regular music evenings with his friends. Oxford quickly felt like home!
During these last warm and sunny days of late summer, I spent a lot of time exploring the city and its surroundings. The area between Oxford and Hinksey in particular, but also Christ Church Meadow, the University Parks and the paths along the Thames between New Hinksey and Iffley are ideal for walking and running. During this time, I also had the opportunity to participate in the conference “’In our own tongues’: The Medieval Vernacular Bible and its European Contexts”, make initial contacts and friendships, and got to get to know and accompany the participants of the Summer School “Opening the Archives” organised by the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. The participants’ task was to prepare the digital edition of the pamphlet “Against the attacking peasants” (Martin Luther, 1525): they created the transcriptions, a first draft of the online edition, and curated a small exhibition on the topic in the Voltaire Room of the Taylor Institution Library.
The Michaelmas term 2025 also marked the start of seminars and actual university life in Oxford: through Henrike Lähnemann, Marina Giraudeau, the other intern for the term, and I were affiliated with St Edmund Hall College, and our admission as guest members for this term enabled us to participate in MCR social events. These events, which go hand in hand with belonging to a college, are something I am not familiar with from university life in Germany: Of course, there is also the opportunity here to join a hockey or volleyball group through university sports, go to the gym or go swimming. However, such events are inter-university, as we do not have an equivalent to the colleges. On the one hand, I liked how familiar the environment was, especially for undergraduates, but at the same time, from a German perspective, it is a little strange to be accommodated in college rooms: in Germany, students are not even obliged to live in the city where they study!
Similar to my job in Munich, where I am also involved in the chair’s advanced seminar, I was allowed to participate as an intern in Henrike Lähnemann’s DPhil colloquium in Oxford, where I was able to present my own dissertation project. As an early modern historian with a background in German studies, I particularly benefited from the feedback of the other participants, as most of them have a background in medieval studies and gave me valuable advice on working with different manuscripts. The approach to vigilance being researched by the SFB also met with lively interest and opened up further perspectives: How does our view of the sources change when we look for attention or vigilance in them? What new perspectives open up for us? Where do we encounter limitations when dealing with vigilance? We addressed these and other questions in the discussion that followed my presentation.
In addition to the colloquium, I participated in the seminar “History of the Book. Method Option 2025/2026”. Under the direction of Henrike Lähnemann, we dealt with different aspects each week of the term: palaeography, book development, book production and printing, textual transmission, the function and structure of libraries, and the growing field of digital humanities are just some of the topics that were the focus of attention. The emphasis was on medieval and early modern works, in particular the aforementioned Reformation publications. What I particularly liked about it, however, was that we were able to work on this seminar very much according to the principle of show-and-tell, which meant we worked in a very practical way and very close to the sources. Henrike Lähnemann invited other academics to many of the sessions, which also brought us into contact with different areas of research and work.
This work was supplemented by the “Medieval German Graduate Seminar” which is jointly organised by the three German medievalists Henrike Lähnemann, Almut Suerbaum, and Annette Volfing, taking place in Michaelmas Term in Almut Suerbaum’s college Somerville, in which we dealt with Ulrich Richental’s Chronicle of the Council of Constance (second half of the 15th century). Here, too, we dealt with different topics each week, and the discussions on the different manuscripts and their characteristics, on the boundary between historiography and literary works, but also on the historical background were particularly beneficial for my own research. These two seminars enabled me to deepen my knowledge of medieval and early modern book production and the critical approach to manuscripts, as well as my background knowledge of the ecclesiastical political circumstances of the 15th century, which ultimately led to the Reformation and thus to my project.
3 Working with early modern printed books and their digital editions
Fig. 7: Woodcut from ARCH.8°.G.1525(28). Upon closer inspection, it is noticeable that the year 1571 is written in the upper third, not 1521.
My research internship in Oxford focused on Reformation pamphlets, especially those by Luther from 1525, which are now held by the Taylor Institution Library. The aim was to bibliographically record, describe, document and compare the copies. It was particularly interesting to see how much such a pamphlet can reveal about the history of its creation and distribution. Whether it is the mirrored year on the woodcut, which indicates that it is a pirated edition, or the condition of the paper, which allows us to make a statement about how often the pamphlet was probably read and commented on – it is hardly possible to get any closer to the history of its reception!
Here, too, it was not difficult for me to establish connections to my research topic and, in particular, to vigilance: Reformation pamphlets can be read as media of heightened attention that respond specifically to perceived grievances, threats and crises. In 1525 in particular, a year marked by uprisings, uncertainty and escalating conflicts, these prints served as normative guidance for their authors and recipients but were also an expression of a changing world. A detailed analysis of the material properties, visual language and textual exaggerations revealed the extent to which practices of vigilance were not only negotiated but also generated. In this sense, the prints can be understood as part of an early modern culture of vigilance in which attention was to be directed, judgement demanded and collective willingness to act established. Furthermore, the comparison between the corpus of letters I am working on for my dissertation project and the printed pamphlets of the Reformation period sharpened my eye for media differences in vigilance practices: while the letters primarily describe a community-oriented, internal vigilance, the pamphlets aimed at public attention. What both have in common is that they provoked reactions and processes of adaptation.
However, I particularly enjoyed working on the online edition, which allowed me to become more familiar with Oxygen and coding in TEI P5 XML. Here, I was able to adapt the translation of the online edition of the pamphlet to the print version. A major highlight of this work was the launch event for the edition on 28 November, where I had the opportunity to read aloud from “Wider die mordischen und reubischen Rotten der Pawren” together with several others.
4 Oxford, snow globes and strolls between libraries and cafés
I was very lucky to be able to experience Oxford in the run-up to Christmas. From mid-November onwards, colourful lights decorated the streets, the many windows of the cafés and shops were decorated for Christmas, and the Oxford Christmas market – which, as a German, made me feel particularly at home – opened its doors at the end of November. From there, you can go straight to Blackwell’s, Oxford’s most beautiful bookshop, and do all your Christmas shopping after work and between mulled wines. The only limit I faced here was the weight of my suitcase: 23 kg as the airline’s limit is really not much after three months in Oxford!
Someone once said to me that Oxford is a bit like a snow globe: a self-contained system, a bubble that extends mainly over the university and forms a world of its own. And that’s true, in a way. Oxford invites you to immerse yourself, drift along and forget the outside world for a while. And, similar to the snowflakes in such globes, the mentality here is not really tangible: I talked to several people about their impressions of the city, many of whom have been living here for several years. What they all had in common was that they incredibly appreciate how much the city thrives academically; it’s almost as if you can watch it grow. This is mainly because research is immensely important and the city has developed and continues to develop around it: researchers come, learn and teach, exchange ideas and leave again, but the network remains. Although the city is not that big at its core, you quickly notice how extensive the network that has formed here is and how it continues to grow. I was told that Oxford is a hub to which many people return at some point, and I like that idea. Apart from the contacts I made during my research internship, I was also able to use the time to meet up again with scientists I already knew from other contexts. So, during these months, I also had the opportunity to closely integrate my research internship with my dissertation project and work on two projects at the same time!
Just as valuable as the contacts I made and maintained are all the libraries there are to explore. Regular spots and get-togethers to work together are great, but seriously: use your reader’s card and visit as many libraries as you can! Work in them, look at the books, borrow manuscripts and take the opportunity to immerse yourself in topics that may not initially have anything to do with your field of research! This opens up so many new project opportunities, and even if you don’t have time for them, working with these sources is helpful as they may reveal new perspectives on your own projects!
In addition to the opportunity to immerse yourself in the sources, you can also take part in the “Medievalists Coffee Mornings” at the Weston Library on Fridays, where you can enjoy coffee or tea and biscuits while listening to a short lecture on selected sources from the Bodleian Collections. The speakers change, so that sources from different eras and disciplines are presented, allowing you to engage in conversation with a wide variety of scholars. A little tip: the terrace, from which you can look out over Oxford, is also well worth a visit in this context!
As a very student-oriented city, Oxford has a multitude of cafés and pubs, all of which are worth trying out. My regular haunts were Jericho, the High Street, of course, as well as the surrounding streets and the area around Cowley Road. At the same time, it should be noted that even the most beautiful cafés and pubs are only half as great without friends. The idle hours of work on the weekends, which you sometimes have to put in, are much easier to bear after a coffee together at “The Independent”, for example! What’s more, the time in between can be put to excellent use to talk to others about your own projects and possible synergies!
P.S.: Coffee stamp cards are really worth it! I collected a few of them myself at my favourite café and got a pumpkin spiced latte or two for free!
5 Farewells and Returns
The twelve weeks I spent in Oxford flew by incredibly quickly. Looking back, this time was not only marked by my own intensive research work, but also by a constant sharpening of my attention: for sources, for methodological questions and for different scientific environments and their social practices. The research internship thus offered me the opportunity to reflect on and further deepen central questions of my dissertation project in a new context. Once again, it became particularly clear to me that vigilance can be understood not only as an analytical concept, but also as an attitude that shapes one’s own everyday academic life – whether in dealing with sources, in exchanges with colleagues, or in exploring new environments. At the same time, I had the opportunity to meet many wonderful people who greatly influenced my stay in Oxford and made this time unforgettable.
What am I taking back with me to Munich from Oxford? In addition to the many books, gifts and memories, there are also ideas for further projects: whether these are ideas for creative writing or for introducing meetings such as the Medievalists Coffee Mornings into my own working environment in Munich – I am looking forward to the coming months, during which I will continue to draw on this stay!
Finally, what could be more fitting than a formal dinner at St Edmund Hall to mark the end of my stay? I was even lucky enough to be invited to the undergraduates’ Christmas dinner. Together with Marina, I had the privilege of sitting at the high table with Henrike Lähnemann, enjoying interesting conversations and experiencing the Christmas traditions of Christmas crackers and singing on chairs!
P.S.: Stamp cards are also worthwhile when it comes to farewells: I have just started a new one at my favourite café, so I definitely have to come back to Oxford! Perhaps this is my personal Oxford equivalent of the coin in the Trevi Fountain – it has worked for Rome in any case!
[1] Brendecke, Arndt: Warum Vigilanzkulturen? Grundlagen, Herausforderungen und Ziele eines neuen Forschungsansatzes. In: Mitteilungen des SFB Vigilanzkulturen (01/2020), p. 11–17, here p. 16 (my translation).
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.
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
Dusty reading rooms are hardly the place where you’d expect to find cutting-edge technology — but AI researchers and libraries have formed an unlikely symbiosis in the field of Computer Vision, a technology that transforms images into geometrical data. You’ve probably come across this branch of AI in your daily life – e. g. when parking your car with park assist, or identifying a plant via an app, or trying to track down a pair of shoes with google lens. But Computer Vision is also a real gamechanger when it comes to unveiling the History of Books. Humans mostly open books because they want to read the text that’s inside. The absence of this intent in the computational gaze allows for a different focus: Each page becomes first and foremost an image, a surface consisting of shapes and lines that can be measured and compared. Even before the digital age, bibliographers were already looking for ways to see differences between seemingly identical pages: The McLeod Portable Collator for example is a wonderfully eccentric, mechanical device that overlaid two printed pages optically. (More information on library machines can be found on the Bodleian blog)
Today, those ingenious optical tools have digital descendants: Software such as ImageCompare, developed by Oxford’s Visual Geometry Group, can compare scans of bookpages and automatically highlight even the tiniest shifts in type, punctuation, or ink. What once required hours of eye-straining concentration can now be done in seconds. Funfact: The beloved “before- after” slide feature on Instagram is only one of several options ImageCompare offers to make it easier to “spot the difference”- for example in these title pages of reformation pamphlets from 1530:
Nevertheless, these tools are not magical “brains in a box” that spit out research results, as Dr Giles Bergel, Digital Humanities Researcher in the Visual Geometry Group Oxford, puts it. They just act as magnifiers that help spotting similarities and differences in material. It’s up to humans to interpret the data: Woodcuts, for example, were often reused across countless editions of books or manuscripts at different times and places. Paradoxically, the newer looking print can sometimes be the older one. Scotland Chapbooks (https://data.nls.uk/data/digitised-collections/chapbooks-printed-in-scotland/) is capable of searching a large dataset for illustrations and visually group them together, allowing researchers to trace how a single woodcut might have changed over time — a crack deepening, a border wearing thin, holes left by a bookworm.
Research Examples
Giovanna Truong, a former History of the Book student, used ImageCompare to identify identical illustrations in two different Yiddish Haggadot-uncovering a link between the two printers of the books based in Venice and Prague.
Blair Hedges, evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University, studied the different patterns of wormholes which appear as white dots on prints and was able to attribute them to two different species of beetles. The holes in the woodcuts revealed how they were spread in Europe at the time, coincidentally strikingly in accordance to the distribution of Catholics and Protestants in Europe…
These examples show how the use of AI reveals formerly invisible patterns that can serve as clues to a book’s life and travels. And it might help to shift the image of dusty librarians and archivist trailing behind their time – as it is actually quite the reverse.
This week’s session of the History of the Book seminar at the Taylor Institution delved into the intersection of traditional manuscript study and digital encoding. Building on the introduction by Emma Huber, the session opened with an engaging overview of how XML’s TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standard provides a framework for scholars to represent texts in a structured, machine-readable way. TEI allows editors to encode not only words on a page, but also the materiality of historical documents – marginalia, corrections, scribal marks, and even traces of printing. Such precision enables digital editions to reflect the layered realities of historical sources and opens up new avenues for analysis and sharing as well as providing accessibility.
The second part of the seminar shifted from theory to practice. It was very exciting to have students experimenting with two preparatory tasks in order to get familiar with the structure of TEI. With the help of Emma Huber, students first had to solve a little puzzle, organising snippets of code to form a correct syntax to recreate the theoretical framework in order to encode two stanzas of Shakespearean poems. Students were then invited to try their hand at encoding texts themselves – using the Oxygen XML Editor – either working with a sample NHS card or a sixteenth-century Lutheran pamphlet. Those who opted for the latter (as most did) used Luther’s already encoded Wider die mordischen vnd reubischen Rotten der Pawren (Arch. 8°. G. 1525(27)) as a framework, preserved and edited as part of the digital Taylor Editions.
Within the XML file, tags capture bibliographic details, editorial notes, and links to digital facsimiles. Students in class could then simply reuse the existing XML tags to start working on their own pamphlets (a list of all Reformation pamphlets in the Taylorian), for instance the not yet digitalised Ermanunge zum fried auff die zwelff Artickel der Pawrschafft in Swaben (Arch. 8°. G. 1525(10)). Apart from a few challanges – for example deciphering certain words or especially line breaks within the manuscript – it was an intensive but quite straightforward process. As can be seen in the exemplary image below, the Middle High German text is added in a normalised form in a <p> (paragraph) tag. This process would then be repreated for each abstract. Finally, the normalised text would be translated into English, peer-reviewed and published as a Taylorian Edition.
The possibilities when encoding with XML are to a certain degree endless as there are not really any immediate boundaries, at least concerning manuscripts. Even beginners – as us students were – can get familiar with XML’s TEI standard very quickly.
Exemplary first paragraph from Arch. 80. G. 1525(10) by students: “/” do not represent line breaks but are indications used by the author.
To sum that up, the session was an experimental but also incredibly effective way to work with both manuscripts and one of the most common digital tools when encoding manuscripts. Also, it was possible to once again engage with manuscripts, which is always the best part for us literature students. Many thanks to Emma Huber and Henrike Lähnemann for the hands-on introduction to XML and the enormous help while students attempted to decipher certain parts of the manuscripts. Perhaps, a few of us students will be from this stage onwards more and more invested into Digital Humanties, trying out other programmes and digital approaches for our own repective research projects.
“OH, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice […]
– Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
Going back to Germany after my two-week adventure in Oxford, I, just like Alice, felt as if waking up from a magical dream. It is not an overstatement to say that the city has bewitched me and, trust me, you don’t have to be a huge Harry Potter geek (which I nevertheless am) to fall under its spell. No wonder the city served as inspiration for Lewis Carroll‘s most famous novel. Instead of a White Rabbit with a big pocket watch, it was Henrike Lähnemann with her trumpet whose call I followed. Prof. Lähnemann kindly invited me to the XML summer school taking place yearly at St Edmund Hall and to spend another week as her intern at the Sommerakademie of the German Scholarship Foundation
Saint Margaret’s Well in Binsey featuring as “Treacle Well“ in Alice in Wonderland
“CURIOUSER and curiouser!”
– Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
There‘s no better way to describe my time in Oxford. From the start, the theme of my visit was “Looking behind closed doors“. I arrived just in time for the Oxford Open Doors, which take place each year in September and allow the public a sneak peek into Oxford’s Colleges. For me that meant: see as much as you can within one day! I think I almost walked 40 000 steps that day, but the visual enrichment made more than up for the physical fatigue.
Shrine of St Frideswide in Christ Church Cathedral
While, outside of Open Doors, you can get into some colleges by simply asking nicely or pretending to be a prospective student, you usually need to pay an entrance fee, which can vary from £2 to up to £20, depending on the colleges prestige and their Harry Potter screen-time. The best way to get inside without having to pay is to go to a college chapel service or evensong. No one can fine you for wanting to go to church and no one will come after you if you walk the grounds a little afterwards. (As long as you don’t step on the grass!) Prof. Lähnemann took us to Christ Church Cathedral on the first day of the Sommerakademie, where we were able to enjoy all the pomp and circumstance of an Anglican church service and the angelic voices of Christ Church’s choir.
As the saying goes “When one door closes, another one opens up“, I spent my second week as part of Prof. Lähnemann’s working group “Opening the Archives“. The object was to create a digital edition of Martin Luther’s pamphlet “Wider die mörderischen und räuberischen Rotten der Bauern“ (1525), which is going to be published in November 2025 in the Reformation Series of the Taylor Editions. Together with her colleague Dr Andrew Dunning, Prof. Lähnemann gave us enlightening insights into the history of bookmaking, the collection of Reformation pamphlets in Oxford, and printing practices in the 16th century. We even dabbled a little in some printing work ourselves at the printing workshop of the Bodleian Library.
Printing Workshop in the ‘schola musicae’ of the Bodleian Library
Duke Humfrey’s Library
At the end of the week, we had not only gained a better understanding of the Reformation and the Peasant’s War, but, thanks to Emma Huber, the German subject librarian and DH lead at the Taylor Institution Library, also made our own transcription and edition as well as curated an exhibition case at the Taylorian.
One of the key lessons I learned during my time in Oxford is to approach all objects with curiosity and to look closely. There is usually a story behind the smallest and most insignificant-seeming thing – whether it be an old shoe scraper or an inconspicuous pencil marking in a book. Our little group was lucky enough to have access to those parts of the University not open to the public, but many of Oxford’s treasures are not kept under lock and key. The “Treasured“ Exhibition at the Weston Library is a great example of that. Free of charge, you can gaze at various precious specimens of the Library’s collection.
But you don‘t even always need to step inside to discover hidden treasures. Simply by walking through Oxford’s streets with attentive eyes, you‘ll see things that seem to come straight from Wonderland: Gargoyles staring down at you in no way less grotesque than Carroll’s grinning cat; or the beak heads around the entrance of St Peter-in-the-East (St Edmund Hall) and St Mary’s in Iffley, which are – to put it once more in Carroll’s words – “indeed a queer-looking party“.
Junius Manuscript at the “Treasured“ Exhibition in the Weston Library
Chevron Ornaments with beak heads at St Peter-in-the-East (St Edmund Hall)
St. Mary’s (Iffley): West entrance with Chevron Ornaments including beak heads
A Mad Tea Party
As Alice learns during her Adventures, it often is not so much about what you do, but who you do it with. It makes a huge difference if you have a tea party with a mad hatter, a March Hare, and a dormouse or with your old aunt Agatha. It’s the people that make an event unforgettable. And that summarizes my summer school experience(s) quite nicely. Especially during the first week at the XML summer school, where I, as a medieval Germanist and foreigner to the digital world, only understood about 30% of what was being taught. However, I met so many fascinating, inspiring people and had interesting discussions, in which new perspectives opened up to me. The same holds for the Sommerakademie of the German Scholarship Foundation: Young people from all different subjects and backgrounds coming together, sharing ideas, knowledge and always a good laugh. That is why I regard tea breaks, lunches and dinners as an essential part of the summer school experience. They give you the chance to connect with other people, socialise, pick up interesting conversations, and, of course, enjoy the excellent food! (In that respect Teddy Hall excelled. But you need to be quick when it comes to pudding, otherwise you might face an empty tray and ask yourself: “WHO stole the tarts?“) Staying on the topic of food and socializing, I would advise everyone to visit the Coffee Mornings at the Weston every Friday at 11:30 am. Alongside tea, coffee and biscuits there is a talk on a different topic every week, so no matter which subject you are coming from, there will be something for you. It is a great opportunity to see some of the unique holdings of Oxford’s libraries and gain an insight into current research projects at the university.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the person who most prominently shaped my Oxford experience: Henrike Lähnemann. One thing is for sure, had I been interning for another Professor, the two weeks would have been less crazy, lacked fun, less memorable. So next time you think you hear the distant call of a trumpet, follow it! It might lead you into Wonderland…
Judith Habenicht is a German and History student at the University in Heidelberg who spent two weeks in Oxford on a placement with Henrike Lähnemann
It was an exciting time being one of this years MML History of the Book students as we met up for the second time this term to have a three hour introduction to medieval Latin Palaeography. Dr Laure Miolo and Dr Alison Ray set up a programme that not only gave a well-rounded overview (even though we know that we barely scratched the surface of what there is to uncover) over everything related to palaeography, but also allowed students to examine exactly what they had just learned on the actual books.
So why would I want to study old books and their handwriting, you might ask? This question seems a little unlikely regarding the fact that you seem to have found this blog and have started to read this very entry – but surely you live a busy life and might think to yourself: “This all seems interesting, but do I really need to concern myself with this?” So here are three of the many reasons, why Palaeography is absolutely worth your precious time:
First of all, there is a lot to do! You can find a wide range of different handwriting starting with the earlier handwritings like the Capital script and the Roman cursive script and ending with the Humanistic script in the 16th century. (Medieval) Latin palaeography presents the opportunity to uncover over a thousand years of written history. So let’s start the journey with an overview over about 700 years in under two minutes, presented by Dr Alison Ray
And let me assure you, there is a lot more to unpack here. How about a roll from the early 16th century (MS. e. Museo 245) for example, that is not only impressive due to its size but also is said to have magical powers. Or how about a so-called bat book (MS. Ashmole 6), that was probably owned by a physician and that could be attached to the belt. Why is it called a bat book? Have a look
But the journey doesn’t end here as Palaeography entails much more than just the different kinds of books and handwritings. Have you ever gotten tired of looking at letters and words all day long? Well, how about looking at pictures instead, because with Palaeography you can call this research now. And unsurprisingly there is a lot of fun to have with this. How about for example the Aspremont Psalter (MS. Douce 118), where you can find a miniature of one of the illuminators, thus: a medieval selfie (see the header image of the disabled scribe with a Jew’s hat who holds the scroll ‘Nicolaus me fecit qui illuminat librum’ on fol. 142r; it is very small indeed, but the word miniature actually comes from the word minium, which refers to the type of colour that was used to outline the different pictures by the illuminator). Or in case you have ever asked yourself what your urin should and shouldn’t look like, you may (or rather may not) refer to the urin wheel depicted in an Astronomical Calendar from the 14th century (MS. Ashmole 789)
Last but most certainly not least you will not only uncover history on a great scale and be able to look at pretty and fun miniatures, but you will also get to look behind the book and uncover its sometimes very individual story. For example if you shine light on the Liber mortis et vitae (MS. Rawl. D. 403) from the late 15th/ early 16th century with a flashlight, you will find a unicorn shining through the pages. Even though this is great just for any reason, the unicorn here actually serves a function: it is a medieval watermark. So, if you ever wondered why some books have holes in their bindings (see for example MS. Bodl. 192), who the poodlemaster was or how books could be protected during travel (see for example MS. Rawl. D. 403), Palaeography will be the answer to all of your questions
To sum up, a huge thank you to Dr. Laure Miolo and Dr Alison Ray for this wonderful introduction to Palaeography and for giving us so many reasons to study this inspiring subject!
In April 2025, the Guild of Medievalist Makers was launched, co-founded by Eleanor Baker, Kristen Haas Curtis, and Laura Varnam. The Guild was the grateful recipient of an Oxford Medieval Studies Small Grant in Trinity Term 2025 to support the launch of their website and to assist with publicity materials for their first two conference appearances this summer. In this blogpost, Oxford co-founders Eleanor Baker and Laura Varnam introduce the Guild and its activities.
The Guild of Medievalist Makers is a newly formed organisation for academic and academic-adjacent creatives and makers dedicated to furthering creative-critical practice in the humanities and making space for creative play.
The Guild’s founders are medievalists who make: Eleanor Baker is a linocut artist (who produced the cord in our Guild logo, more on that below!), Kristen Haas Curtis is a cartoonist and creative writer, and Laura Varnam is a poet. We founded the Guild in order to connect with other creative medievalists, to foster future collaborations, and to promote the burgeoning field of creative criticism in the humanities.
Our mission statement is embodied by the acronym CORD: Community, Outreach, Recognition, Development. Our website fosters Community by providing a dedicated and accessible online space for medievalist creatives to find each other and for academics who might be looking for creative partners to get in touch with us.
Finally, we support the Development of members’ creative-critical skills by running online and in person events, including co-working events and workshops, as well as maintaining an online bibliography of resources and scholarship.
This summer, co-founder Laura Varnam represented the Guild at two important conferences in Medieval Studies: the Middle Ages in the Modern World at King’s College, London (https://themamo.org/) and the Gender and Medieval Studies conference at Christ Church Canterbury (https://medievalgender.co.uk/2025-canterbury/)
Laura Varnam at the Guild stall at MAMO
At MAMO, Laura ran a stall advertising the Guild and she had chats with lots of delegates about their creative-critical work in medievalism. We’re very grateful to everyone who subsequently signed up to join the Guild at MAMO! (Our sign-up page is here: https://www.guildmedmak.com/join-the-guild)
At the Gender & Medieval Studies conference, Laura also shared our newly printed Guild postcards and pin badges, and she advertised the Guild to delegates.
If you’d like to join the Guild please visit our website. And we’re very grateful once again to OMS for their financial assistance in launching the Guild!
Using Data to find Interesting Manuscripts in the Bodleian’s Medieval Catalogue
On Friday 25th July 2025, the Bodleian Coffee Morning presentation was given by Matthew Holford and Sebastian Dows-Miller, who are working on a project on the Bodleian’s western medieval manuscript catalogue data.
The purpose of the project, funded by Digital Scholarship @ Oxford, is to open up the library’s TEI catalogues for use by students and non-digital scholars by extracting the data into spreadsheets, which allow cross-comparison of over 11,000 medieval manuscripts held in Oxford’s collections.
Being able to compare manuscripts by details like their size and layout means that we can identify particularly interesting outlier manuscripts, and that was the topic of this presentation. Those present were treated to an introduction to:
MS. Lat. th. b. 4: the manuscript with the most lines per page (105+).
MS. Canon. Liturg. 28: the manuscript with the thinnest binding (9mm).
MS. Rawl. G. 26: one of just 4 manuscripts in the catalogue recorded as having 5 columns per page.
MS. Auct. F. 2. 6: the narrowest manuscript in the catalogue (that is, the one with the lowest ratio of leaf width to leaf height).
Canon Class. Lat. 84: one of the manuscripts in the catalogue with the biggest margins (that is, the lowest ratio of text to blank page).
MS. Bodl. 787 (endleaves): the manuscript unit with the greatest average height between lines.
If you’re interested, you can download the raw data by clicking here.
Watch the full recording of the talk below! The slides shown are included beneath the video.
Irene Van Eldere is a PhD candidate within the ERC-project ‘Pages of Prayer’ at Leiden University. As part of her research on early Middle Dutch Books of Hours, she spent two terms at the University of Oxford.
In the first week of my five-month research stay at the University of Oxford, I relied on the bus. Living in Iffley (about a 40-minute walk from the city centre), the bus kept me warm and dry as I settled into a new environment. Yet I began to notice something curious: the cyclists the bus passed on the way often arrived in the city centre at the same time as we did.
Before arriving in Oxford, I had, like any well-prepared PhD student, consulted the extensive (and mostly tourist-oriented) literature on the city. Jan Morris’s classic Oxford informed me that “every sensible Victorian undergraduate […] roamed the hills on his bicycle” (p. 107). Not willing to fall short of my historical predecessors, I took this to heart. My host Henrike Lähnemann had already sent me a link to a local bike rental service, and so I rented a bicycle. That decision had a significant impact on my entire stay: it offered not only convenience, but also a sense of independence.
Coming from the Netherlands, I was accustomed to wide cycle lanes and a national culture shaped around cycling. Oxford, by contrast, initially felt chaotic: buses and taxis raced past with alarming proximity, and learning how to navigate The Plain roundabout filled me with dread. However, once I had overcome those early hurdles, I discovered the joy of seeing Oxford from the saddle of a bike. From the window of a bus, the famous spires had been hidden: I knew the separate buildings, not the cityscape as a whole. Now, speeding beneath Magdalen tower, I could crane my head upwards and admire them fully.
A rare quiet moment on New College Lane
The trick to cycling in the city centre is to avoid the hustle and bustle of the High Street. From my side of town, the winding and narrow Queens Lane offered a terrific option. I would coast by the college I was affiliated with, St Edmund Hall, hear the music practice coming from The Queen’s College buildings, and finally weave around slow-moving tourists under the Bridge of Sighs, often finding myself accidentally immortalised in the background of ten different holiday snapshots. But by the end of that short stretch, I would be exactly where every medieval researcher wants to be: the library. It is there that I would thus advise you to park your bicycle: who knows, perhaps you too will discover that one manuscript which could change the course of your PhD trajectory for the better?
Presenting on manuscripts from the Bodleian Library in the Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group
You may want to escape the academic Oxford bubble for a short while. With a bike, you could reach places that remind you that medieval or early modern Oxford is not only found in its extensive library collections, but also in the surrounding countryside. You could take the Thames path to Iffley Church, with its unique Romanesque carvings, or visit the ruins of Godstow Abbey. With a sturdy bike, you could venture further, towards Blenheim Palace or the rolling hills beyond. Cycling does not only enhance your view of Oxfords medieval architecture, most of all it saves time – and everyone who has ever studied or conducted research at Oxford knows that time is the most precious commodity. For example, during Hilary Term, there were not one, but four palaeography seminars taking place, each with its own specific focus. Why wait for a bus (connection) when you could spend that time preparing a presentation on the emergence of the vernacular Book of Hours in the Low Countries or rehearsing your lines for your upcoming performance in the Medieval Mystery Cycle?
A snapshot of our performance of the Annunciation in Middle Dutch during the Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays
There are more practical advantages. Oxford is not a cheap city. Between accommodation costs, the many bookshops, and the college events, expenses can add up quickly. While you might save on lunch money because very kind-hearted peers will invite you for lunch in their colleges, renting a cheap bike still helps stretch your budget a little further.
My neglected Dutch bike upon my return: a reminder to store your bicycle properly!
Finally, there are the unexpected perks of owning a bike in Oxford. You will have the ability to stay a bit higher up than the foxes that roam the quieter suburban streets at dusk. They are, of course, more afraid of you than you are of them, but being able to speed away quickly is a reassuring feeling. And for the Oxford residents with a competitive spirit: Cambridge consistently reports higher cycling rates than Oxford (see, for example, this article in the Oxford Mail). You could help to settle the score!
Naturally, I understand that not everyone is comfortable on a bicycle. In hindsight, I realise it was perhaps only fitting that I would rent one. Working on Books of Hours and the cycles of (para)liturgical time, is it not apt that I would embrace the literal cycle as well?
