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Another academic year draws to a close: welcome, finally, to Week 8. The full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

Next Thursday, 19 June, 4:30-6pm, is the official launch date for the “The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays – the Film”. This is a wonderful chance to come together to celebrate the end of the year, and watch some of the excellent performances that were put on earlier in the term. At 4:45pm, the film will have its youtube premiere. You can tune in from anywhere in the world to comment; find the full schedule of when each play will start, more information, and a teaser here.

NB. If you are leaving us at the end of this year, and you would like to remain a member of this mailing list (and you are most welcome to do so), please  register here with your personal email (link always available from our homepage https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/).

Monday

• Poetry, Power, Literacy, and the Emergence of Vernacular Literatures – 9am in the Radcliffe Humanities Building, Seminar Room. The workshop is part of the activities of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World.
• French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 am in the Weston Library.
• Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Stuart Airlie (Glasgow) will be speaking on ‘Returns of the Repressed: Aby Warburg’s cultural history of Percy Ernst Schramm’. Following the talk, a special drinks reception will be held to mark Julia’s retirement. Please sign up here.

Tuesday

• The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
• Medieval Church and Culture –  tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Cassidy Serhienko (Pembroke) will be speaking on ‘‘That Fayre Lady’: women and the code of chivalry in late Arthurian romance’; Senia Magzumov (Worcester) will be speaking on ‘Imagining the Rus’ Pagan Past in the Radziwill Chronicle: a comparative study with the Litsevoi Letopisnyi Svod’.

Wednesday

• The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Lucian Shepherd and Monty Powell will present. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates for future terms, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
• Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
• Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Special OCBR lecture – Marc Lauxtermann (Exeter) will be speaking on ‘The Emergence of Fiction: Byzantium and the East’.
• Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Glaire Anderson (University of Edinburgh) will be speaking on ‘A Bridge to the Sky: Science and Arts in the Age of Ibn Firnas (d. 887)’.
• Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 5pm in the Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. The theme is ‘Letters of Friendship and Gratitude’.

Thursday

• The Oxford Medieval Mystery Plays: Film launch – 4:30pm at the Farmingdon Institute, Harris Manchester College.
• Lincoln Unlocked – 5.15pm in the Weston Library. Rebecca Menmuir will be speaking on ‘Achilles at Lincoln: Unlocking the Medieval Text of a Classical Poem’. Book here.

Friday

• Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

• British Academy talks on Anglo-Saxon and medieval Irish numismatics. More info here.
• The Latin Hymn as Scriptural Exegesis – from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages – 25–26 September 2025. Registration is free but compulsory. Futher details here: https://classics.web.ox.ac.uk/event/the-latin-hymn-as-scriptural-exegesis-from-late-antiquity-to-the-middle-ages
• Essay Prize for Review of English Studies seeking applications – more information here.
• A number of roles are available at Hamburg’s ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’: Doctoral Researchers, post-docs, and advanced post-docs.
• London Medieval Society’s 80^th anniversary colloquium on ‘Memory and Commemoration’ is being held at on Saturday 28^th June at The Warburg Institute.
• ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
• The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
• Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
• Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
• National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
• CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
• CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
• A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
• Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
• Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
• Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
• The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.

Welcome to Week 5: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

Thank you to those who have submitted their publications for the OMS impact booklet – please continue to send short blurbs to the Oxford Medieval Studies email address ASAP. Pictures also welcome!

Monday

• French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
• Medieval History Seminar is cancelled due to illness.

Tuesday

• Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty.  Rowan Wilson (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘Feeling Aliene, Now and Then: Work, Contemplation, and Alienation between Medieval Devotion and Modern Academia’, and Anine Eglund (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Speaking Dead: Conversing with the Living from Beyond the Grave in Early English Literature ‘.
• The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
• EMBI ‘Women in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland’ online exhibition – 4pm, location TBC.
• Medieval Church and Culture –  5pm in the Wellbeloved Room. Rachel Cresswell (Blackfriars) will be speaking on ‘Scripture, text and proof-text in Anselm of Canterbury’.
• Medieval French Research Seminar – 5pm in the Maison française d’Oxford. Catherine Léglu (University of Luxembourg) will be speaking on ‘ ‘The Anglo-Norman Bible (c.1350): rethinking a context’.
• Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures Work-in-Pogress seminar – 5.15pm in the Memorial Room, The Queen’s College. Laure Miolo (Lincoln College) will be speaking on ‘Predicting and observing eclipses in fourteenth-century Paris: what the manuscripts tell us’, and Shazia Jagot (University of York) will be speaking on ‘Astrolabe as archive and an archive of astrolabes: Chaucer’s astrolabe and its Islamic affordances’.

Wednesday

• The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
• The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 5: Conjunctions and eclipses.
• Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
• Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre. Rustam Shukurov (IMAFO, Vienna) will be speaking on ‘The Empire of Trebizond: The State of Research and Possible Future Directions’.
• Medieval Society and Landscape Seminar Series – 5pm in the Department for Continuing Education. Chris Briggs (Cambridge) will be speaking on ‘The Popular Classes and Royal Justice in Medieval England: Evidence from the Derbyshire Eyre of 1330-31’. Book here.
• Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Professor Blain Auer (University of Lausanne) will be speaking on ‘The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India’.
• Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar– 5pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Victoria Sands (University of Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Dormer Newdigate Family, London Charterhouse and English Reformation’.

Thursday

• Environmental History Working Group – 12:30 in the Colin Matthew Room, History Faculty. Lucia Nixon (Classical Archaeology, Senior Tutor, St Hilda’s, Co-Director, Sphakia Survey) will be speaking on ‘Toward an Archaeology of Sustainability: Resource Packages and Landscape Management in Sphakia, Southwest Crete’.
• Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
• Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
• Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 5:00pm, Pembroke College.

Friday

• Fragments of Lives. Medieval Lives in the Muniments of Magdalen, Lincoln, and Beyond – from 9am at Lincoln College. Enquiries to laure.miolo@history.ox.ac.uk.
• Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
• Medieval Manuscripts Support Group – 11:30 in the Horton Room. Readers of medieval manuscripts can pose questions to a mixed group of fellow readers and Bodleian curators in a friendly environment. Come with your own questions, or to see what questions other readers have!
• Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College and online. For more information on the texts, email Jane Bliss.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

• ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts Exploring the Potential of Large-Scale Catalogue Data – Thursday 26th June, 1–5pm, Weston Library. More information here.
• The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
• Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
• Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
• National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
• CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
• CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
• A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
• Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
• Registration for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
• Registration for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
• The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.

Welcome to Week 4: the full Medieval Studies booklet is available here.

OMS are working towards producing an ‘Impact Booklet’, emphasising all of the wonderful things that go on throughout the year. At the moment we are searching for publications – if you have published a relevant monograph/ edited volume/ edition during the past year, please drop an email to this address with a short blurb. Also: Applications to be the next Social Media Officer still welcome; contact Henrike Lähnemann for an informal discussion of the role!

Monday

• French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10:30 pm in the Weston Library.
• Medieval History Seminar – 5pm at All Souls College. Julia Smith (All Souls) and Ana Dias (Brasenose) will be speaking on ‘Surviving in the archives: how to make sense of early medieval relic labels’.

Tuesday

• Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15 in the English Faculty. (NB change of speaker). Professor Christophe Grellard (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris)) will be speaking on ‘St. Erkenwald – Orthodoxy on the Edge?’.
• The Latin Palaeography Reading Group meets 2-3.30pm. Please email Laure Miolo for more information.
• Medieval Church and Culture –  tea and biscuits from 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, with talks from 5.15. Kevin Carlson (St Peter’s) will be speaking on ‘Reorienting Towards Life: a queer, medieval phenomenology of death in an anonymous 12thc Latin poem’, and Leslie Pencheng (St Catz) will be speaking on ‘Transforming the Ineffable: metaphors in Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing’.

Wednesday

• The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets Wednesdays 11.15am–12.45pm in Oriel College, Harris Lecture Room. The topic for this term is the ‘Alexanderroman’ and this week Patrick Leuenberger will be speaking on Alexander’s horse Boucephalus. If you are interested to be added to the teams group for updates, please contact Henrike Lähnemann.
• The ‘science of the stars’ in context: an introduction to medieval astronomical and astrological manuscripts and texts – 2pm in the Horton Room (Weston Library). Session 4: Planetary motions and horoscope.
• Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – 2pm, Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College. Ved Prahba Shama (Independent Researcher) will be speaking on ‘Moving Beyond Knowledge in a Gendered Space’. See their TORCH website to book.
• Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm, online, please contact Michael Stansfield.
• Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies Seminar – 5pm in the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies. Dr Michael Callen (London School of Economics) will be speaking on ‘Building State Capacity in Fragile States’.

Thursday

• Middle English Reading Group (MERG) – 2pm in the Smoking Room (Lincoln College). Join us to read the ‘double sorwe’ of Troilus and Criseyde in a weekly reading group. We will be reading from the end of Book IV. For more information or to be added to the mailing list, please email rebecca.menmuir@lincoln.ox.ac.uk.
• The Khalili Research Centre For the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East: Research Seminar – 5.15 in the KRC Lecture Room. Elizabeth Kelly (Independent researcher, London) will be speaking on ‘Zoomorphic incense burners of medieval Khurasan’.

Friday

• Medievalists Coffee Morning – 10.30am at the Weston Library. All welcome, coffee and insight into special collections provided.
• Exploring Medieval Oxford through Lincoln & Magdalen Archives – 2pm in the EPA Centre (Museum Road) Seminar room 1. Please contact Laure Miolo for more information.
• Oxford Medieval Manuscript Group Reading Group: Connoisseurship – 5pm online. Write to oxfordmedievalmss@gmail.com for more information.

Opportunities (new additions in bold)

• The Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies – deadline May 30, 2025. More information here.
• Anglo-Israeli Archaeological Society Travel Grant – more info here.
• Call for Submissions: Taube Prizes for Student Writing in Hebrew & Jewish Studies – see blog post.
• National Archives Skills Courses – see blog post.
• CfP for ‘Staging Silence from Antiquity to the Renaissance’ – more information here.
• CfP for ‘Music and Reformation: A Symposium at Lambeth Palace Library, 16 September 2025’
• A regular pub trip is being organised on a Friday at 6pm at the Chequers, from 0th week to 8th week, for all medievalists at Oxford. Email maura.mckeon@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
• Additional spaces are available on the ‘Big Data’ and Medieval Manuscripts workshop – please sign up here.
• Registration is open for the Masterclass by Patrick Boucheron – Pourquoi des médiévistes ? Penser le contemporain depuis le Moyen Âge – 29 May, 2:30pm, Maison Française d’Oxford.
• Registration is open for Patrick Boucheron’s lecture entitled ‘The Birth of the Black Death: New Approaches in World History’ – 29 May, 5:00pm, Pembroke College.
• The Digital Medieval Studies Institute is hosting a set of workshops on digital scholarly methods specifically tailored for medievalists as part of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. More information can be found here.