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Medium Aevum Essay Prize Prize 2025

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27/10/2024

13:27

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The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures invites graduate students from across the globe to submit to the annual Medium Ævum Essay Prize. The Prize is open to post-graduates and those recently graduated with a higher degree. The value of the prize is £500 , while entry declared proxime accessit will be awarded £100. The winning essay and other entries of sufficient quality and promise may be considered for publication in Medium Ævum.

Please submit an essay of no more than 8,000 words, on a topic in the range of interests of Medium Ævum, by 12:00 midday (GMT) Monday 2nd of December, 2024.

For more information, visit https://aevum.space/essayprize/rules.

Byzantium and its Environment – 27th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society

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25/10/2024

15:58

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We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the 27th Annual Oxford University Byzantine Society International Graduate Conference on the 1st-2nd March 2025. Papers are invited to tackle the ‘environment’ of the Late Antique and Byzantine world (very broadly defined). For the call for papers, and for details on how to submit an abstract for consideration for the conference, please see below.

In recent decades, the global community has taken more and more of an active and serious interest in the environment and climate system in which we live. Scholars of Byzantium and Late Antiquity have likewise begun to apply environmental lenses to their research, and have come away with a number of new and exciting perspectives. From scientific analysis of the climatic shifts that occurred throughout the period on both macro and micro scales, to revisionist views of already well-trodden events, these new perspectives are greatly contributing to our field.

The framework of ‘the environment’ here can be applied very broadly, touching on any aspect of the natural world, with novel and imaginative approaches to the notion being strongly encouraged. Some suggestions by the Oxford University Byzantine Society for how this topic might be treated include:

  • The Analytical – Pollen analysis, dendrochronology, ice cores, and everything in-between; the historical significance of this data and what it can tell us
  • The Political and Economic – Climate’s impact on internal and external politics, adaptions in trade and policy, effects on particular military campaigns
  • The Cultural – Changes in attitudes and output as a result of shifting climates, nature’s representation and role in literature
  • The Societal – Movement of people and changes to the social order as a result of climatic change; variations in the impact of climate change depending on class or occupation, regional adaptations to specific micro-climates
  • The Religious – Responses to unusual weather events and interpretations of changing climates by different religious communities; religious attitudes towards nature and man’s place in it
  • The Artistic and Architectural – Environmentally-focused artwork and its uses; the use of landscapes both natural and man-made; changes in design or materials in response to changing climates
  • The Archaeological – Changing use of the land during periods of climatic shift; abandonment and re-settlement due to changing weather or specific events
  • The Historiographical – How environmental factors have evolved over time in scholarship

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, with a short academic biography written in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society at byzantine.society@gmail.com by Friday 29th November 2024.

Papers should be twenty minutes in length and may be delivered in English or French. As with previous conferences, selected papers will be published in an edited volume, peer-reviewed by specialists in the field. Submissions should aim to be as close to the theme as possible in their abstract and paper, especially if they wish to be considered for inclusion in the edited volume. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.

The conference will have a hybrid format, with papers delivered at the Oxford University History Faculty and livestreamed online for a remote audience. Accepted speakers should expect and plan to participate in person.

(Photo Credit: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Photography by Neil Greentree.)

‘Epiros: The Other Western Rome’ Virtual Workshop, Friday 8th – Saturday 9th November 2024. Registration and Programme.

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22/10/2024

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This workshop was made possible through the generous support of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR) and The Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities (Torch).

Epiros Workshop Programme FinalDownload

For close to two and a half centuries, the state of Epiros represented a crucial node for an alternative socio-political network of the Balkans. Founded by the illegitimate son of the union of three imperial Byzantine dynasties, at its largest extent Epiros assumed the title of ‘Empire of the Romans’ and campaigned to the very walls of Constantinople. Defeated but not destroyed in 1230, Epiros persisted in its autonomy through the strength of its ties. Bound by either marriage or confession to Italians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Albanians, and more, Epiros continued to exist as an alternate, moved Byzantium that understood its reunification of the former provinces of the Byzantine Balkans to be a retaking and preservation of ‘the West’, a term with which it also self-identified. Transitioning in the fourteenth century to Albanian and later Italian rule, Epiros’ role as a centre of multi-ethnic exchange and independence created a legacy that exists today.

This workshop gathers leading research across multiple fields to discuss the places and peoples which were either part of or engaged with this Epirote Western Rome. Following two successful panels at Kalamazoo and Leeds International Medieval Congresses, supported by the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, this hybrid workshop calls upon scholars to present from multiple specialisms. One of the reasons Epiros and its neighbours in the period of the Principality, Empire, and Despotate have remained so poorly studied has been the reliance upon century-old editions and a reluctance to publish in translation. Therefore, we envision not only a proceedings volume from this workshop but additionally the creation of a ‘sourcebook’ for Epirote Western Rome and its surrounding states which presents both papers and the key materials for its study in English translation with critical edition as necessary.

Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElduCsrjojHNIUxUlJ-geTXPVBuiBkzywn

All timings are in the UK’s Timezone (GMT)

DAY 1 Friday, 8th November 2024

Opening address

9:00 – 9:20

Welcome from Nathan D.C. Websdale and Evan Zarkadas

Session 1 Overview: Epirote Studies

9:30 – 11:00

9:30-10:00 EFSTRATIA SYGKELLOU (Ioannina)

Medieval Epiros: Scientific Studies and Activities in Greece: An Overview

Break – 15 min

10:00-10:30 EVAN ZARKADAS (Independent)

The New Ioannites: The Influx of the Constantinopolitan Refugees in Epiros after 1204 and their Impact on Ioannina

10:30-11:00 BRENDAN OSSWALD (Tübingen)

Late Medieval Epiros: A Spatial Analysis

Session 2

The Dytikoi I: The (Post) ‘Komnenian System’

11:15 – 12:45

11:15-11.45 MICHAEL ANGOLD (Edinburgh)

The Petraliphas in Exile

11:45-12:15 NATHAN D.C. WEBSDALE (Oxford)

In Defence of Epiros: Michael Angelos and Theodore Komnenos Doukas as Traitors, Heirs, and Moses

12:15-12:45 JOHN KEE (Dumbarton Oaks)

Michael Choniates’ Letters to Epiros: John Apokaukos, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, and the end of Byzantine Aegean Greece

Break – 75 min

Session 3 The Dytikoi II: Network Analysis

14:00 – 15:30

14:00-14:30 CHRISTOS TSATSOULIS (N.H.R.F., Athens)

Towards an Edition of a Prosopographical Lexicon for Byzantine Epiros (4th-15th c.): the “Anonymoi” in Epirote Society

14:30-15:00 KATERINA KORRE (Patras)

The Vasilachi case: Observations on the Population Patterns Through the “Archontes” of the Late Medeival Epiros

15:00-15:30 ROBIN SHIELDS (Independent)

Epiros as a Breadbasket? The Extraordinary Barges Agreement of 1436 and the Wider Cereal Trade Between the Tocco Despotate and Ragusa in the mid-15th century

Session 4 The Hybrid Material Culture of Epirote Rome

15:45 – 16:45

15:45-16:10 ANDREA BABUIN (Ioannina)

The Military Element in Late Medieval Epiros through Literary, Historical and Artistic Sources of the Period

16:10-16:40 ALLISON GRENDA (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Memory, Futurity, and Subversion in Arta’s Despotic Landscape: The Case of the Church of the Parigoritissa

DAY 2 Saturday, 9th November 2024

Session 5

09:00 – 11:00

A Roman ‘Empire’ of the Balkans I: Epiros and Bulgaria

09:00-09:30 FRANCESCO DALL’AGLIO (Bulgarian Academy)

Not Just Klokotnitsa: Relations Between Epiros and Bulgaria between 1207 and 1241

09:30-10:00 KALIN YORDANOV (Bulgarian Academy)

“Totum ducatum di Finepople et quisque eum tenet”: A Key to Solving Theodore Komnenos’ Mysterious Diversion Towards Klokotnitza at the March on Constantinople in 1230?

10:00-10:30 ILIA CURTO PELLE (Princeton)

Circulation Patterns of Epirote-Thessalonican Coinage in the 13th Century

10:30-11:00 SAMUEL E.L. COWELL (Vienna)

Reevaluating the Epirote Coinage of Michael II Komnenos Doukas

Break – 30 min

Session 6

A Roman ‘Empire’ of the Balkans II: Epiros amidst its Neighbours

11:30 – 13:30

11:30-12:00 JACK DOOLEY (Royal Holloway, London)

The Orsini Family in the Aragonese Chronicle of Morea

12:00-12:30 AGON RREZJA (Zagreb)

Albanians Between the Despotate of Epiros and the Latin West in the 13th-14th Centuries

12:30-13:00 GREGORY MANOPOULOS (D.U.Th., Komotini)

Rediscovering history in early 17th century Epiros: The 14th century “Χρυσόβουλον τῆς ὑπεραγίας Θεοτόκου τῆς Πωγωϊαννῆς”

13:00-13:30 GEORGE TEREZAKIS (Tübingen)

The Transformation of Late Byzantine Epiros to Early Ottoman Sanjak of Yanya (Ioannina) (12th-16th c.): Continuity and Change

Session 7

Reassessing Social Life in the Dossier of John Apokaukos, Metropolitan of Naufpaktos (1200–1232)

14:30 – 16:00

14:30-15:00 NICK CHURIK (Princeton)

Everyday Violence in Apokaukos

15:00-15:30 IOANNIS SMARNAKIS (Aegean)

Episcopal Power and Urban Communities in the Early Despotate of Epiros

15:30-16:00 ALEKSANDAR JOVANOVIC (Fraser Valley)

Contract-Loving Communities: Imperial Bureaucratic Practices in the Provincial Society of John Apokaukos

16:00 – 16:15 Closing Remarks

Panel 34 of the bayeux Tapestry, featuring two birds.

Medieval Matters: MT 24, week 1

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13/10/2024

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First week is upon us! Welcome back, and a particular welcome to those joining us for the first time. I hope you’ve all had a chance to flick through the booklet of medieval events this term – if not, a PDF version can be found here. I’d like to draw your attention to the OMS Welcome Event this Tuesday at 5pm – I look forward to meeting lots of you there, and hearing more about the events you are running.

And: check out this handy guide to how to blog – including a call for authors for the OMS blog – by Miles Pattenden.

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Monday

  • French Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 10.30am at the Weston Library.
  • Medieval History Seminar – 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls. Edward Zychowicz-Coghill (KCL) will be speaking on ‘Writing the Conquest of Egypt: A case study in the Formation of Islamic Historical Writing’.

Tuesday

  • Medieval English Research Seminar – 12.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, St Cross Building. Amy Appleford (Boston University) will be speaking on ‘Ascetic Theory and the Impaired Christ: Peter Damian, Richard Rolle, Julian of Norwich’.
  • Latin Palaeography Manuscript Reading Group – 2pm in the Weston Library.
  • Oxford Medieval Studies Welcome Event – 5pm in the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. A welcome event for all medievalists, old and new – all those running a seminar/group are encouraged to come along to pitch their event to the community!

Wednesday

  • Reading Jews in Late Antiquity – 10am in Room 207, The Clarendon Institute, Walton St. The topic this week will be Jewish Women and Communal Roles.
  • Medieval German Graduate Seminar – 11.15am at Somerville College. The topic for this term is Konrad von Megenberg: ‘Buch der Natur’. The 1861 edition by Pfeiffer is open access online, 2003 edition by Luff/Steer is accessible via SOLO. This will be a short organisational meeting – contact Henrike Lähnemann for more information.
  • Medieval Latin Document Reading Group – 4pm on Teams. To join and/or to find out more, please contact Michael Stansfield.
  • Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar – 5pm in the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies. Alexander Sherborne (Oxford) will be speaking on ‘The Extraordinary Medieval Monuments of Georgia: A Report by the Oxford University Byzantine Society Research Trip, July 2024’.
  • Dante Reading Group – 5.30pm in Seminar Room 11, St Anne’s College

Thursday

  • Medieval Women’s Writing Research Seminar – time TBC, Online. Arnisha Ashraf (Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi) will be speaking on ‘Woman’s Body as ‘Commodity’: Matrimonial Alliances and Political Dynamics in Medieval Assam (c.1600-1800)’.
  • Greek and Latin Reading Group – 3pm in the Stapeldon Room, Exeter College. The theme this term is ‘Greek and Roman Lives’.
  • Medieval and Renaissance Music – 5pm on Zoom. Please register here.
  • ‘The Winter Sun in Capricorn: Portal Imagery in Chaucer & Chartres Cathedral’, with the American Friends of Chartres – 7:30, held Online. Tickets here.

Friday

  • Beowulf Study Day – 10pm in the Study of the Book Room, Faculty of English. Booking required.
  • Medievalists Coffee Morning 10.30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library. All welcome.
  • Middle English Reading Group – 3pm in the Beckington Room, Lincoln College. This term, the group will be reading Troilus and Criseyde – please bring a copy of the Riverside Chaucer if possible.
  • Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group – 5pm at the Weston Library. Andrew Honey will be speaking on ‘Cataloguing Medieval Bookbindings at the Bodleian: Manuscripts from Reading Abbey as a case study’. Spaces are limited: please email Elena Lichmanova by 16/10/2024.
  • Anglo-Norman Reading Group – 5pm in the Farmington Institute in Harris Manchester College.

UPCOMING

  • Tickets are still available here for the inaugural lecture of the Gad Rausing Associate Professor of Viking-Age Archaeology, held at St Cross College at 3pm on Friday 8th November. Dr Jane Kershaw will be speaking on ‘The Viking Diaspora: Causes, Networks and Cultural Identity’.

OPPORTUNITIES

T.K.A

Bayeux Tapestry, Panel 34 (Available online Discover the Bayeux Tapestry online/). The little divider chap above is from Panel 18.

Writing for Oxford Medieval Studies

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12/10/2024

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Medieval Studies at Oxford is a venerable and traditional sort of enterprise. We’re used to working with the Bodleian’s centuries-old manuscripts and its worthy, weighty tomes. But how to communicate our expertise in our areas of interest to a wider audience – and, indeed, to each other? 

We on the OMS steering group would like to encourage all of you within our community to consider writing for us here on our blog.  The OMS website exists to help us learn about the exciting research going on all around the collegiate University, as well as to bridge the gap between scholarship and public engagement.

Blogposts offer a unique platform to distil complex concepts into accessible, attention-grabbing pieces. They can showcase ongoing research, spark discussions, and even attract potential collaborators (or students) to the field. Their immediacy allows us to reach busy colleagues, to break down our proverbial ivory tower, and to respond swiftly to current events (for instance, by drawing parallels between medieval history and contemporary issues).

Writing for OMS can also be a springboard to wider engagement or to pitches to external websites and media publications such as The Conversation. 

Please get in touch to pitch your research and your ideas so that we can grow interest in our discipline and strengthen the links within it. The rest of this post sets out some ‘dos and don’ts’ for blog-posting – and, indeed, other public writing. We hope you will find them useful as you articulate your passion for all things medieval. It would be our pleasure to put that passion into print. 

Pitching:

The pitch for any piece of public writing needs to be brief and arresting. It should grab the editor’s attention. They need to see the point, and the relevance, immediately. Find the hook. Do you want to write about this subject because it is timeless or topical? Has something happened in the world that your medieval expertise can speak to? Why is your work fascinating for educated readers, or important for the advancement of knowledge or debate as a whole? 

200 words is always plenty.

Writing:

Blogposts need to be written differently from academic prose. They can be far less formal (colloquialisms and first-person speech allowed). They need a simpler readable style. Short sentences are your friend – but so too are more nuanced, complex ones, interspersed amongst them. Avoid excessive jargon and technical terms. However, don’t underestimate you readers either (many of them will be studying, or have studied, at Oxford!). Signal aims and objectives clearly in the introduction. Give concrete examples to illustrate your points. Write a conclusion with a twist.

Titles and subheadings:

Breaking up your text is always hugely helpful to readers, even in a post as short as 800 words. We all have such short attention spans these days. Titles and subheadings need to be intriguing, to draw a potential reader in. But they also need to be informative: where is this piece going? Rhetorical questions can be useful, so long as they are not overdone. A good editor will help you bring out substance even as you polish the style.

Images:

A picture can speak a thousand words. Make sure you include at least a feature image for your post’s header. However, two or three within the blogpost’s body will almost always make it better. Remember to have reproduction permissions for images that have copyright, and to caption and credit all images accurately. 

Word Count:

Oxford Medieval Studies is interested in posts between 800 and 1,500 words in length. Any shorter and you will have hardly had space to develop your thesis. Any longer and you are halfway towards that elusive academic article. As with those famed five-minute ‘elevator pitches’, less can be more when you’re trying to get yourself across.

Image: Late 15th-century miniature of the author and translator Jean Miélot (d. 1472), Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Addressing Difficult Aspects of the Medieval (ADAM)

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12/05/2024

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23rd–24th September, 2024 | St John’s College, Oxford
KEYNOTE: Professor Corinne Saunders

The inaugural ADAM workshop will bring together medievalists of all disciplines to discuss the research and teaching of ‘difficult’ or ‘taboo’ topics. We welcome applications for scholars working in any field that demands sensitivity and resilience from researchers, such as (but not limited to): gender, sexual violence, mental health, disability, and race.

The workshop exists to foster connection and conversation between researchers, to raise some of the key questions of challenging research and to create a reliable network of support. Paper sessions will be linked by group discussions, addressing topics such as: the problems of establishing new terminologies and reworking those that may be problematic; how best to deal with extant scholarship with outdated views; how to approach sensitive topics rigorously within an academic framework.

Besides these methodological aspects, we are eager to discuss pastoral issues: the potential mental toll of research on these themes; the pedagogical demands that these issues place upon tutors and supervisors; how to undertake sound scholarship when personally affected by these issues.

ADAM’s aims are to provoke academic discussion, provide scholarly resources, and to establish a community that can provide support for those working on such topics. The network will provide both a platform and a safe space for uncomfortable conversations, cultivating a greater understanding of the clear and latent difficulties of this research. It is also our intention to produce an edited collection on this topic, to which the workshop speakers will be warmly invited to contribute.

We invite abstracts for 20-minute papers from Early Career Researchers and postgraduates. Please send
abstracts of 300 words to Grace O’Duffy by 9th June, 2024.

CfP: Transgression in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

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27/10/2023

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26th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society:
Transgression in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

24th-25th February 2024, Oxford

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the 26th Annual Oxford University Byzantine Society International Graduate Conference on the 24th – 25th February, 2024. Papers are invited to approach the theme of ‘Transgression’ within the Late Antique and Byzantine world (very broadly defined). For the call for papers, and for details on how to submit an abstract for consideration for the conference, please see below.

‘Seduced by love for you, I went mad, Aquilina … she, smouldering, not any less love-struck than me, would wander throughout the house … love alone became her heart’s obsession … Her tutor chased me. Her grim mother guarded her … they scrutinised our eyes and nods, and colouring that tends to signal thoughts … soon both of us began to seek out times and places to converse with eyebrows and our eyes, to dupe the guards, to put a foot down gingerly, and in the night to run without a sound. Our fiery hearts ignite a doubled frenzied passion, and so an anguish mixed with love rages … Boethius, offering aid, pacifies her parents’ hearts with “gifts” and lures soft touches to my goal with cash. Blind love of money overcomes parental love; they both begin to love their daughter’s guilt. They give us room for secret sins … yet wickedness, when permitted, becomes worthless, and lust for the deed languishes … so a sanctioned license stole my zeal for sinning, and even longing for such things departed. The two of us split up, miserable and dissatisfied in equal measure …’

Maximianus, Elegies, 3 (adapted tr. Juster)

The Late Antique and Byzantine world was a medley of various modes of transgression: orthodoxy and heresy; borders and breakthroughs; laws and outlaws; taxes and tax evaders; praise and polemic; sacred and profane; idealism and pragmatism; rule and riot. Whether amidst the ‘purple’, the pulpits, or the populace, transgression formed an almost unavoidable aspect of daily life for individuals across the empire and its neighbouring regions. The framework of ‘Transgression’ then is very widely applicable, with novel and imaginative approaches to the notion being strongly encouraged. In tandem with seeking as broad a range of relevant papers as possible within Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, some suggestions by the Oxford University Byzantine Society for how this topic might be treated include:

·      The Literary – deviance from established genres, styles or tropes; bold exploration of new artistic territory; penned subversiveness against higher authorities (whether discreetly or openly broadcasted); dissemination of literature beyond expected limits.

·      The Political – usurpers, revolts, breakaway regions, court intrigue, plots and coups; contravention of aristocratic or political hierarchies and their expectations; royal ceremonial and its changes, or imperial self-promotion and propaganda seeking to rupture or distort the truth.

·      The Geopolitical – stepping beyond or breaking through boundaries and borders, including invasions, expeditions, trade (whether in commodities or ideas), movements of peoples and tribes, or even the establishment of settlements and colonies.

·      The Religious and Spiritual – ‘Heresy’, sectarianism, paganism, esotericism, magic, and more; and, in reverse, all discussion of ‘Orthodoxy’, which so defined itself in opposition to that which it considered transgressive; monastic orders and practices (anchoritic and coenobitic) and their associated canons, themselves intertwined and explicative of what was deemed prohibited; holy fools and other individuals perceived as deviant from typical holy men.

·      The Social and Sartorial – gender-based expectations in public and private; the contravention (or enforcement) of status or class boundaries; proscribed or vagrant habits of dress, jewellery, fabrics, etc.

·      The Linguistic – transmission of language elements across regional borders or cultures, including loan words, dialectic and stylistic influences, as well as other topics concerning lingual crossover and interaction.

·      The Artistic and Architectural – the practice of spolia; the spread and mix of architectural styles from differing regions and cultures; cross-confessionalism evident from the layout or architecture of religious edifices; variant depictions of Christ and other holy figures; iconoclasm.

·      The Legal – whether it be examination of imperial law codes and their effectiveness or more localised disputes testified to by preserved papyri, all discussion concerning legal affairs naturally involves assessing transgressive behaviour and how it was viewed and handled.

·      It could even be that your paper’s relevance to ‘Transgression’ consists in its breaking out from scholarly consensus in a notable way!

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, with a short academic biography written in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society at byzantine.society@gmail.com by Monday 27th November 2023. Papers should be twenty minutes in length and may be delivered in English or French. As with previous conferences, selected papers will be published in an edited volume, peer-reviewed by specialists in the field. Submissions should aim to be as close to the theme as possible in their abstract and paper, especially if they wish to be considered for inclusion in the edited volume. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.

The conference will have a hybrid format, with papers delivered at the Oxford University History Faculty and livestreamed for a remote audience. Accepted speakers should expect to participate in person.

OBS: ‘A Golden Collector of the Golden Age’: Charles Walker Clark (1871-1933) and his library of incunables

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06/10/2023

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When: Thursday 12 October at 5:15 p.m.
Where: Weston Library Lecture Theatre
ALL WELCOME!

Our programme of talks for 2023-2024 begins on Thursday, October 12th when William P. Stoneman, formerly Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at Harvard University’s Houghton Library, will look at incunables from the library of Charles Walker Clarke (1871-1933).

Clark has been described as “a golden collector of the golden age” but because books from his collection contain no bookplate and there was never a public sale, the extent of his collection has been lost from the narrative of institutional collection building. Bill Stoneman has documented 226 fifteenth-century books from Clark’s collection, many of them not previously identified as Clark’s, and this talk will explore this important part of a truly remarkable American library. Bill will also look at the role of Clark’s wife, Celia Tobin Clark (1874-1965), in building up a collection that has had an international impact. 

The talk, which we are hosting jointly with the Bodleian’s Centre for the Study of the Book, will take place at 5.15pm in the Weston’s Lecture Theatre and we look forward to seeing you there. We will also be streaming the talk on Zoom; if you would like me to send you the link, do please get in touch (sarah.cusk@lincoln.ox.ac.uk).

Upcoming meetings:

Thursday 23 November at 5.15 pm (Merton College T. S. Eliot Theatre Hosted jointly with Merton History of the Book Group)
The Bodleian Library and the second-hand book trade in the early seventeenth century
Tamara Atkin (Queen Mary University of London)

Thursday 18 January, 2 pm–4 pm (Jesus College Fellows Library)
Bindings from the Fellows’ Library, Jesus College (a hands-on workshop with limited space; please contact the Secretary to book a place)
Nicholas Pickwoad

Thursday 1 February at 5.15 pm (Trinity College, Garden Room)
Politics, paper, print: reflections on the book history of the Mao era
Matt Wills (Peter Harrington Rare Books)

Thursday 7 March at 5.15 pm (Lincoln College Oakeshott Room)
Greek manuscripts from the collection of Lincoln College
Georgi Parpulov

Thursday 16 May at 5.15 pm (Christ Church, Upper Library)
Title to be confirmed
Lise Jaillant (Loughborough University)

Thursday 6 June at 5.15 pm
(Balliol College, Old Common Room ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Meeting to begin at 4.30 p.m. Lecture to follow at 5.15 after a brief interval for tea)

The art of antiquarian forgery in Georgian Britain
Peter Lindfield (Cardiff University)

Medieval Matters: Week 8

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12/06/2023

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Here we are at the end of the academic year! It seems like just yesterday that I was sending the first email of Michaelmas. Thank you to everyone who has organised seminars and reading groups, given papers, hosted events and conferences, and contributed to our rich community at Oxford. It’s been the busiest OMS year on record, and it’s been so wonderful to see our medievalist community thriving. In the words of Alcuin:

Nihil laudabilis est in homine, quam sapientiae decus et caritatis affectus
[Nothing is more praiseworthy in a person than the glory of wisdom and the goodwill of love, Ep. 290]

According to this, Oxford’s medievalists are very praiseworthy indeed! We would like to celebrate our community in an annual record publication, recounting the highlights of the year. All events included in the newsletters will be included as a matter of course, but if you have published a book, held a special event, or given a special paper, or would just like to send a paragraph about your seminar/reading group, we would love to hear from you! See our blog post for more information. All submissions must be received by August 20th.

We have a bumper list of events this week. For a list of all events taking place after the end of this week, please see the end of the events section:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Celebrating OMS 2022/23: Call for Submissions: The OMS Record will be completed in time for the new academic year, both online and in (limited) print format. We welcome all submissions detailing events or book releases from the academic year 2022/23. Please send submissions to luisa.ostacchini@ell.ox.ac.uk. All submissions must be received by August 20th 2023.
  • CAT – Conversations Across Time: What do horses, medievalists, black hole orbits, boardrooms, and quantum computers have in common? Inspired by the Medieval Mystery Plays, artist in residence at the Physics Department Pam Davis has developed an art-piece ‘Conversations Across Time’ which links medieval theatre, women in science, and Quantum future. Free tickets for the performances in the unique Beecroft Building (Physics) on June 15th, 17:30-18:30, June 16th, 17:30-18:30, June 17th, 14:30-15:30, and June 17th, 17:30-18:30 available via the website https://www.citizensai.com/.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 12th June:

  •  The Byzantine Graduate Seminar will meet at 12:30-14:00 via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Jack Dooley (Royal Holloway, University of London), Between the self and the other: the case of the gasmouloi in Late Byzantium, and the respondent will be Dr Yannis Stouraitis. To register, please contact james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.   
  • The Medieval Latin Manuscript Reading Group led by Matthew Holford and Andrew Dunning is meeting as usual via Teams from 1-2pm. This term we will read some satirical poetry from a thirteenth-century manuscript, the so-called ‘Bekyngton anthology’ (Bodl. MS. Add. A. 44). Sign up for the mailing list to receive updates and the Teams invite, or contact matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or andrew.dunning@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information.
  • The Queer and Trans Medievalisms Reading and Research Group meets at 3pm at Univ College, 12 Merton St Room 2. This week’s theme is The medieval hyena: Emma Campbell, ‘Visualizing the Trans-Animal Body’. All extremely welcome! To join the mailing list and get texts in advance, or if you have any questions, email rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Medieval History Seminar meets at 5pm at the Wharton Room, All Souls College. This week’s speaker will be Emilia Jamroziak (Leeds), ‘Understanding the cult of saints in the late medieval Cistercian order‘. The seminar will also be available remotely via Teams. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.
  • The Oxford Interfaith Forum meets online via Zoom at 6pm. Professor Katherine Southwood, Senior Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum, Associate Professor in Old Testament, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Religion at St John’s College, Oxford, will be leading a session on ‘Metaphor, Illness, and Identity: Psalms 88 and 102‘ as part of the Psalms in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group.To register, please click here.

Tuesday 13th June:

  • The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar meets at the Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College, with tea & coffee from 5pm; papers begin at 5.15pm. This week’s speaker will be Peter Kidd (freelance researcher), ‘Tracing the Provenance of a Medieval Manuscript: from start to finish‘. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar! As an appetizer, have a look at the latest blog post RECEPTIO Redux.

Wednesday 14th June:

  • The Medieval German Seminar will meet at 11:15-12.45pm at St Edmund Hall Old Library. In Trinity Term, we are continuing to discuss Heinrich von Neustadt’s texts, focussing on ‘Von Gottes Zukunft’. We meet in person in the Old Library of St Edmund Hall, this week with the topic: Apocalypse! Further information and reading recommendations via the teams channel; if you want to be added to that: please email Henrike Lähnemann.
  • The Old High German Reading Group at 11-12 in 41 Wellington Square, 2nd floor (Henrike Lähnemann’s office). This week’s text will be Wessobrunner Gebet. It will be an opportunity to read and analyse some simpler OHG texts and give people the chance to read the oldest form of German if they’ve not been exposed to it before. It will be very informal, and all are welcome. Led by William Thurlwell william.thurlwell@wolfson.ox.ac.uk – contact him for updates.
  • The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield for further details and the Teams link.
  • The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar meets at 5pm at Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St. Giles. This week’s seminar will be a Special OCBR lecture by James Howard-Johnston (emeritus, Corpus Christi), ‘The Last Great War of Antiquity: Course and Consequences’. You can also join the seminar remotely via Teams, click here.

Thursday 15th June:

  • The Medieval Women’s Writing Reading Group meets at 3-4pm at Lincoln College: meet at the lodge. This week’s theme will be Hierarchies: ecclesiastical, non-ecclesiastical and “alternative” hierarchies of power used and created by medieval women. Please email katherine.smith@lincoln.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list and get texts in advance, or to find out more.
  • The Piers Plowman in Context discussion group will be led by Kantik Ghosh in the Main Quad Boardroom at Univ from 4:30-5:30pm. For this last session we will be discussing Passus XX of the B-text, in relation to some texts by Bonaventura, Aquinas, and Pecock, available online through this link. All welcome! Email Jacob Ridley (jacob.ridley@univ.ox.ac.uk) with any questions.
  • The Invisible East Group is co-hosting a webinar with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies online at 5pm. The speaker will be Prof Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge, ‘The Arabic documents from early Islamic Khurasan‘. Registration and more information at this link. 
  • The Medieval Visual Culture Seminar meets at 5.15-6.45pm at St Catherine’s College, Arumugam Building. This week’s speaker will be Sara Lipton, Stony Brook University: ‘Blood Piety and Anti-Judaism in an Early Fourteenth-century Illuminated Prayer Book from Liège‘. For further information, contact Elena Lichmanova (elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk).
  • WOOPIE (Oxford Old English Work in Progress Seminar) meets at 5.15-6.30pm in the Ferrar Room, Hertford College. This week’s speaker will be Mar Gutiérrez Ortiz (University of Seville), ‘Isidore’s Etymologies, A Source for Boniface’s Classification of Metrical Feet in the Caesurae uersuum‘.
  • The Oxford Interfaith Forum meets online via Zoom at 6pm. Professor Matthew Milliner, Senior Fellow of the Oxford Interfaith Forum, and Professor of Art History at Wheaton College, USA, will be leading a session on ‘The Tao of Mary: Images of the Virgin in the Church of the East‘ as part of the ART in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group. To register, please click here.

Friday 16th June:

  • The Medieval Coffee Morning meets as usual 10:30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre of the Weston Library (instructions how to find it) with presentation of items from the special collections, coffee and the chance to see the view from the 5th floor terrace.
  • Exhibition Launch: Early Modern Monsters At 5pm, History of the Book students from MML and the MSc Digital Scholarship are jointly launching the digital editions and a Monster Exhibition in the Taylor Institution Library, Main Hall (with the exhibition open in the Voltaire Room from now until 26 June). The focus will be on early modern monstruous birth pamphlet but there will also be medieval monsters and their modern successors to marvel at.

SUMMER EVENTS:

Monday 19th June:

  • Distance: Medieval and Modern Languages Conference will take place at 9am-6pm in the Taylor Institution Library. For the full programme, see our blog here.
  • The Byzantine Graduate Seminar will meet at 12:30-14:00 via Zoom. This week’s speaker will be Rachel Catherine Patt (Princeton University), From Pliny’s Potter to Proclus’ Vision: Tracing the Role of Pothos in Byzantine Visual Culture, and the respondent will be Dr Maria Lidova. To register, please contact james.cogbill@worc.ox.ac.uk.   
  • The Oxford Interfaith Forum meets online via Zoom at 6pm. Ilana Tahan OBE, Lead Curator of Hebrew and Christian Orient Collections, The British Library, will be leading a session on ‘British Library Hebrew Treasures Reveal Interfaith Narratives: The Sana’a Pentateuch‘ as part of the International Interfaith Reading Group on Manuscripts in Interfaith Contexts. To register, please click here.

Wednesday 21st June/ Thursday 22nd June:

  • The Joint Oxford-Princeton Conference: State Documents from the Medieval Islamicate World takes place from 21st June 8.45am to 22nd June 5pm at Trinity College, Oxford. For full details, click here. To attend the colloquium, please register using the form at this link. Participation is free of charge, but advanced registration is requested.

Thursday 13th July:

  • WOOPIE (Oxford Old English Work in Progress Seminar) meets at 5.15-6.30pm in the Lange Room, St Cross College. This week’s speaker will be Rachel Burns (Oxford), ‘“I will open my mouth in parables”: A new biblical context for early medieval English riddles’.

For those of you moving on to new things outside Oxford, I’d like to wish you luck in your endeavours on behalf of all of us at OMS. If you would like to stay in contact via the mailing list, please let me know so that I can update your details. For everyone else, I look forward to returning to your inboxes in October – I am remaining in post as communications officer for 2023/24:

Sequenti vero anno certius aliquid de nobis audies vel videbis
[You will see me next year, or hear more definite news of me, Ep. 17]

It has been an honour and a pleasure to be your guide to the year’s medieval happenings. At a time when humanities are in decline, it’s been such a joy to see our community flourishing and thriving. On behalf of everyone at OMS, I’d like to extend a huge thanks to everyone for making this such a wonderful year. Wishing you a restful and productive summer, and I will see you again in October!

[Medievalists sailing off on Summer adventures. Bon voyage, and see you next year!]
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 86 v.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Ervin Bossányi: Stained Glass Art and Linocut Workshop

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14/05/2023

17:18

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Friday, 26 May 2023, 2-4pm in the St Peter’s College Chapel

St Peter’s College is pleased to host a practical art workshop as part of a current display exploring the works of Hungarian artist Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975) in the College collections and Chapel stained glass. His artistic achievements range from paintings and friezes to stained glass windows in prestigious buildings such as Canterbury Cathedral and Washington National Cathedral in the USA.

A guided tour of the display by Dr Alison Ray (College Archivist) will be followed by a linocut workshop led by Dr Eleanor Baker and participants will produce their own linocut designs. Eleanor completed her DPhil in medieval material texts in 2022, and is currently working on a short anthology of book curses. She started linocutting as a lockdown hobby, and is inspired by late medieval woodcuts, folk horror, and the natural world. The afternoon will conclude with refreshments in the Chapel with thanks to the Revd Dr Elizabeth Pitkethly (College Chaplain).

Attendance is free, but booking is required as space is limited. Please contact Alison Ray to reserve a place by email: archives@spc.ox.ac.uk

Dr Eleanor Baker will lead the practical art workshop with a linocut activity

The ‘Ervin Bossányi: Stained Glass Artist’ display is currently running 12-26 May 2023, 10am-5pm (closed Thursdays) in the St Peter’s College Chapel. Admission is free and open to the public.