Wednesday, February 27, 2008

MAKING SENSE: CONSTRUCTING MEANING IN EARLY ENGLISH

MAKING SENSE: CONSTRUCTING MEANING IN EARLY ENGLISH
edited by Antonette diPaolo Healey and Kevin Kiernan.
Publications of the Dictionary of Old English 7
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 2007).
xii, 138 pages. ISBN 978-0-88844-907-8
Available from the PIMS website(www.pims.ca)for $24.95(softcover).
Phone 416-926-7144
Fax 416-926-7258

The five essays in this volume discuss texts either from the Old
English period or from the transitional twelfth century, and
each explores, from differing perspectives, how today's
readers make sense of, or construct meanings from, early
English documents.

The volume includes:
Roberta Frank, "F-Words in Beowulf"
Joyce Hill, "Dialogues with the Dictionary: Five Case Studies"
Allen J. Frantzen, "Sin and Sense: Editing and Translating
Anglo-Saxon Handbooks of Penance"
Kevin Kiernan, "Remodeling Alfred's Boethius with the tol ond
andweorc of Edition Production Technology (EPT)
Malcolm Godden, "King Alfred and the Boethius Industry

From word to dictionary, from Beowulf to Boethius, from prose and
verse to prose-and-verse, from Latin sources and resources to
Old English transformations, from glosses to commentaries
to canon formation, from consuetudinaries to penitentials,
from manuscripts to electronic and print editions, these five
essays reflect the direct and round-about paths scholars take
to understand and elucidate our culturally distant primary materials.
FWD from Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks

The registration form for Dumbarton Oaks 2008 Byzantine Symposium TRADE
AND MARKETS IN BYZANTIUM is now available on the DO website.

http://www.doaks.org/byz_2008_symposium_synopsis.html

Ex Libris Conference

49th Annual RBMS Preconference
Rare and Special Bytes: Special Collections in the Digital Age
June 24-27, 2008 | Los Angeles, California
Hosted by UCLA and the Getty Research Institute

Register and book your hotel room early, the last two RBMS
Preconferences have sold out!

Registration is now open for the 49th Annual RBMS Preconference.
Digitization is a hot topic in all libraries, but has unique
implications for special collections repositories. We face increasing
pressure to provide digital objects for the classroom and for
researchers, yet mass digitization is generally not an option. This
preconference will explore a wide range of exciting and vexing issues
pertaining to the digitization of special collections, including the
selection of materials, improving access, copyright and licensing, and
the use of digitized materials. Full-day workshops will be offered on
Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) and the Descriptive Cataloging of
Rare Materials (Books).

For program, registration, and housing information, please visit:
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/RBMS/index.htm
Bookmark this page!

A limited number of scholarships are available for first-time
attendees. Late registration charges apply after May 21.

We look forward to seeing you in Los Angeles!

Kris Kiesling, 2008 RBMS Preconference Program Chair
Elmer L. Andersen Director of Archives and Special Collections
Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections Advancement
305 Andersen Library
University of Minnesota Libraries

Events Around Boston Coming Up

* New
** Details Modified

EVENTS IN AND AROUND BOSTON

*18 February-8 June: Exhibition: "Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics
from the Roman Empire." McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. This
exhibition presents the reconstruction of an ancient mosaic floor
from a synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia (the ancient town of Naro,
later called Aquae Persianae by the Romans). The mosaics, along with
contemporary jewelry, coins, marble statues, ritual objects, and
textiles from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection shed light on the role
of synagogues in the Diaspora during Late Antiquity, the development
of Jewish art in the Roman period, the importance of female patrons
in the ancient Jewish community, connections among early Christian,
Jewish, and Pagan symbolism in this period, and the relationship
between ancient and modern understanding of the synagogue as an
institution. The works of art in the exhibition reveal a society
where Jews were more integrated and accepted than ancient texts would
suggest. This exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum and made
possible by the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund.
Presentation at the McMullen Museum is underwritten by Boston College
with major support from the Lassor and Fanny Agoos Charity Fund.
Additional funding has been provided by the Patrons of the McMullen
Museum. Exhibition page at
www.bc.edu/artmuseum/exhibitions/archive/tree-off-paradise. Two hours
free parking available in the Commonwealth Garage. For directions see
www.bc.edu/artmuseum. The exhibition runs through 8 June.

Monday, 25 February, 4:15 p.m.: Falk Eisermann (Director,
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, Staatsbibliothek, Berlin) "Secrets of
Success. Printers and their Patrons in 15th Century Leipzig."
Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar, Harvard University;
Houghton Library Workshops in the History of the Book. Lamont Forum
Room, Lamont Library, Harvard University.

Monday, 25 February, 7:30 p.m.: Dallas G. Denery II (Bowdoin College)
"Protagoras and the Fourteenth-Century Invention of Epistemological
Relativism." The Boston Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy Lecture
Series, Boston College, McGuinn Third Floor Lounge, McGuinn 321,
Chestnut Hill MA. Visitors Parking:
http://www.bc.edu/Offices/Transportation/Visitor.Html Contact:
geesh@bc.edu

Monday, 25 February, 7:30 p.m.: Elizabeth Fentress (International
Association of Classical Archaeology) "Sea Roads and Cargoes." Tufts
University, Cabot Auditorium, Medford, MA. Sponsored by the
Department of Classics, Tufts University. Underwritten and funded by
the family and friends of Miriam S. Balmuth.

Tuesday, 26 February, 7:30 p.m.: Elizabeth Fentress (International
Association of Classical Archaeology) "Oxcarts and Periodic Markets."
Tufts University, Braker Hall 001, Medford, MA. Sponsored by the
Department of Classics, Tufts University. Underwritten and funded by
the family and friends of Miriam S. Balmuth.

Wednesday, 27 February, 7:30 p.m.: Elizabeth Fentress (International
Association of Classical Archaeology) "Trading in People." Tufts
University, Braker Hall 001, Medford, MA. Sponsored by the Department
of Classics, Tufts University. Underwritten and funded by the family
and friends of Miriam S. Balmuth.

*Thursday, 28 February, 5:00 p.m.: Rita Copeland (University of
Pennsylvania) "Medieval Intellectual Autobiography: the Case of
Guido Faba." English Medieval Doctoral Conference, Harvard
University. Harvard University, Warren House, Kates Room (201), 12
Quincy St, Cambridge, MA.

*Thursday, 28 February, 5:30 p.m.: Susanna Caroselli (Luce Visiting
Professor in Scripture and Visual Arts, Department of Religion,
Boston University, and Professor of Art History, Messiah College)
"The Moralized Bible: Life's Little Royal Instruction Book." In the
early 1200s a group of lavishly illuminated Bibles was produced in
Paris for members of the royal house of France. Unlike most
illustrated Bibles or typological manuscripts, these so-called
moralized Bibles paired images in which biblical episodes were
interpreted and applied to the conduct of modern life. Such lessons
had as their object not the cultivation of a devout personal life,
but the execution of significant royal policies, from issues as large
as the treatment of the Jews of France to matters as specific as the
orthodoxy of philosophers of the University of Paris. This lecture
analyzes imagery from the earliest moralized Bible, Codex
Vindobonensis 2554, examines the messages conveyed by juxtaposition
of text and image, and speculates on the identity of those who would
dare to instruct a king. Boston University School of Management, 595
Commonwealth Avenue, room 412. For more information please visit
www.bu.edu/luce or contact Program Coordinator Christine
Hutchison-Jones at 617-358-1754 or crissy@bu.edu.

Thursday, 28 February, 7:30 p.m.: Elizabeth Fentress (International
Association of Classical Archaeology) "Trading Enclaves through the
Middle Ages." Tufts University, Braker Hall 001, Medford, MA.
Sponsored by the Department of Classics, Tufts University.
Underwritten and funded by the family and friends of Miriam S.
Balmuth.

Thursday, 6 March, 6:00 p.m.: Mitchell Merback (DePauw University;
Fellow 2007-08, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study): “Blood, Soil
and Water: Topographies of Cult and Memory in the Renaissance
Altarpiece." Harvard University, Sackler Museum, Room 318. This talk
is part of the Department of History of Art and Architecture's
Graduate Student Lecture Committee 2007-08 lecture series.

More MLA CFP

Please also note this call from the Division on Language Change:


The MLA Division on Language Change invites papers for three sessions
at the Modern Language Association convention in San Francisco,
December 27-30, 2008. We invite papers that deal with the following
topics: language change and online discourse, language change in
progress, language change and literary texts, new directions with
electronic text databases. Papers may be on any aspect of language
change at any linguistic level (phonological, morphological,
syntactic, pragmatic, semantic, stylistic) in any modern language in
any period. Papers on such topics as attitudes towards change,
pedagogical approaches to language change, and theories of change are
also welcome. Papers must take no more than 20 minutes to present, in
order to leave ample time for discussion of all papers in each
session. All persons presenting papers at the MLA convention must be
current members of the MLA. Please send abstracts of no more than 300
words to Michael Adams, Department of English, Indiana!
University (adamsmp@indiana.edu) no later than March 15.




*************************************
Felicia Jean Steele
Assistant Professor
Department of English
The College of New Jersey
PO Box 7718
Ewing, NJ 08628-0718
steele@tcnj.edu

MLA CFP

Access the MLA Call for Papers at the MLA website:

Shifting Frontiers

The Eighth Biennial
SHIFTING FRONTIERS IN LATE
ANTIQUITY CONFERENCE
" Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity "
Indiana University

Bloomington, Indiana
April 2-5, 2009

The Society for Late Antiquity announces that the Eighth Biennial
Conference on Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity will be held at
Indiana University and will explore the theme "Shifting Cultural
Frontiers in Late Antiquity" [ca. 200 - 700 AD]. The confirmed
plenary speakers will be Professors Jas Elsner (Corpus Christi,
Oxford) and Seth Schwartz (Jewish Theological Seminary).

Beneath the familiar political and religious narrative of late
antiquity lies a cultural history both more complicated and more
fascinating. Late antiquity was a time of intense cultural
negotiation in which new religious communities and new populations
sifted through existing modes of cultural expression, adopting many
elements for themselves and turning others aside. This conference
seeks to understand how cultural transformation occurred amidst the
political and religious disruption that can seem characteristic of
late antiquity. To this end, we seek contributions that explore
three distinct areas of late antique cultural history: 1) the
interaction of "high" and "low" culture, 2) the impact of changing
and collapsing political centers on their peripheries, and 3) the
emergence of hybrid literary, artistic, and religious modes of
expression. Possible contributions to these areas may highlight the
permeable division between elite and vernacular culture, the ease
with which cultural memes were transmitted across geographic and
linguistic boundaries, the adaptability of established cultures to
new political and social realities, and the degree to which newcomers
were integrated into existing cultural communities.

As in the past, the conference will provide an interdisciplinary
forum for ancient historians, philologists, Orientalists, art
historians, archeologists, and specialists in the early Christian,
Jewish, and Muslim worlds to discuss a wide range of European,
Middle-Eastern, and African evidence for cultural transformation in
late antiquity. Proposals should be clearly related to the conference
theme. They should state both the problem being discussed and the
nature of the new insights or conclusions that will be presented.

Abstracts of not more than 500 words for 20-minute presentations
may be submitted via e-mail to Prof. Edward Watts,
shifting.frontiers.8@gmail.com (Department of History, Indiana
University, Ballantine Hall, Rm. 828, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue,
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, USA). The deadline for submission of
abstracts is October 15, 2008. The submission of an abstract carries
with it a commitment to attend the conference should the abstract be
accepted.


Distributed with the usual apologies for multiple postings.

-- Edward Watts
Associate Professor
Department of History
Indiana University
Ballantine Hall, Rm. 828
1020 East Kirkwood Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
phone: 812-855-6882

New Book

Pons-Sanz, Sara M. Norse-Derived Vocabulary in Late Old English Texts: Wulfstan's Works, a Case Study. North-Western European Language Evolution, Supplement Series vol. 22. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2007.


Looks to be quite interesting..............

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

This Week's News

Medieval British map retains mysteries

Science: Islam's forgotten geniuses

Ancient city from Byzantine period discovered in Turkey

Ancient glass mosaic restored in Israel

Viking burial site found


ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND EARLY BURIAL GROUND IN DONCASTER

Digging in for history

Tunnel Mystery

Medieval pottery to go on display

Revamp of hall includes new museum


WAS ARTHUR PART OF BRIGG ROUND TABLE?

Archaeologists get to work at Clitheroe Castle

Hope of finding first King’s home







Feb 11

Birthdays:
530 BCE Aristides the Just of Athens
1466 Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII of England

Deaths:
680 Caedmon
731 Pope Gregory II
821 St. Benidict of Aniane
824 St. Pashal I, Pope
1250 William de Sonnac, 18th Master of the Templars
1503 Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII of England

Events:
1115 WELFESHOLZ (defeat of Holy Roman Empire's army)
1252 Marriage of Ottakar I, King of Bohemia, to Margaret, widow of
King Henry VII of Germany
1398 The English translation of "de proprietatibus rerum"
encyclopaedia
1495 Charles VIII, King of France, enters Naples
1498 Savonerola resumes preaching in defiance of his excommunication


Feb 12

Deaths:
1209 Philippe de Plessiez, 13th Master of the Templars
1242 Henry VII, King of Germany
1294 Kublai Khan

Events:
881 Coronation of Charles III "the Fat," last Emperor of the Franks
1111 Henry V, uncrowned Holy Roman Emperor, kidnaps the Pope
1424 Marriage of James I of Scotland to Jane Beaufort
1429 Sir John Falstaff defeats French

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

New Book

For further details, please point your browser at: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/bookprinter.asp?isbn=9780300119336

Writing the Map of Anglo-Saxon England
Essays in Cultural Geography

* Nicholas Howe

Eminent Anglo-Saxonist Nicholas Howe explores how the English, in the centuries before the Norman Conquest, located themselves both literally and imaginatively in the world. His elegantly written study focuses on Anglo-Saxon representations of place as revealed in a wide variety of texts in Latin and Old English, as well as in diagrams of holy sites and a single map of the known world found in British Library, Cotton Tiberius B v. The scholar’s investigations are supplemented and aided by insights gleaned from his many trips to physical sites.

Symposium at Leeds

Propaganda, Piety and Polemic:

Hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England



A one-day research symposium at the University of Leeds

hosted by the School of English and the Institute for Medieval Studies



10 April 2008



10.00 a.m. coffee

Programme begins at 10.30 a.m

1.00-2.00 p.m. lunch

Programme ends no later than 4.30 p.m.


Organiser: Professor Joyce Hill j.m.hill@leeds.ac.uk

Venue: Leeds Humanities Research Institute, 29-31 Clarendon Place (on main campus)

http://webprod2.leeds.ac.uk/campusmap/detail.asp?ID=546


Approaches to the campus by all routes and forms of transport can be found by following the links on http://webprod2.leeds.ac.uk/campusmap/index.asp





The symposium on 10 April will examine hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England, illustrating its contemporary uses and the way in which attitudes to and understanding of hagiographical texts have changed in the period of modern scholarship. The papers will range across the Anglo-Saxon period and will cover material in Latin and Old English.



The speakers are Joyce Hill (Leeds), Clare Lees (King’s College London), Rosalind Love (Cambridge), Winfried Rudolf (Oxford), and Alan Thacker (Institute of Historical Research London).


There will be opportunity for some questions after each paper, and there will be a round-table discussion at the end of the day.



Postgraduate students are most welcome.



Anyone who wishes to attend is requested to complete the registration form below, and return it to Professor Hill, at the School of English, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT by 20 March 2008.

Translating the Middle Ages CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS

“TRANSLATING THE MIDDLE AGES”

AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
SPONSORED BY THE PROGRAM IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES
AND CENTER FOR TRANSLATION STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
OCTOBER 28 and 29, 2008

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: 15 APRIL 2008



We invite submissions for papers on the theory and practice of translation
in the Middle Ages, including textual and visual translation. Who
translates what, how and why, and to what effect? Papers may address, for
example, genre and translation (poetic translations, romance, hagiography,
chronicle, scientific, or biblical texts—what gets translated), the
cultural context of translation (patronage, circulation, gender, canon
formation—who translates for whom), or the practice of translation in the
Middle Ages (dictionaries, the transition from manuscript to print, the
voice of the translator—how is translation performed in the Middle Ages).
**The scope is interpreted broadly to include Europe, Iceland, Byzantium
and the Islamic Mediterranean.** Featured speakers include Christopher
Kleinhenz, Brian Merrilees, Rita Copeland, Jeanette Beer, Lars Boje
Mortensen, Catherine Batt, and Aden Kumler.

An evening event will focus on translations of medieval texts and culture
by two renowned contemporary authors who will read from and discuss their
work: W. S. Merwin, poet and translator of Dante’s Purgatorio and former
U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, translator of Dante’s Inferno.

Participants will submit completed papers by October 1 to be circulated to
the other members of their panel. Selected papers will be published in a
volume.

Deadline for receipt of abstracts (300 words): April 15. Notification of
acceptance by May 15.
Send abstracts and inquiries to:

Karen Fresco
Director, Program in Medieval Studies
kfresco@uiuc.edu

Locating the Voice: Expressions of Identity in the Middle Ages

Call for Papers

Locating the Voice: Expressions of Identity in the Middle Ages

Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield

14th - 15th June 2008

We invite postgraduate students and early career researchers working in any
field of Medieval Studies to submit abstracts for an interdisciplinary
conference at the University of Sheffield, organised by medievalists
in the Department of French and hosted by the Humanities Research
Institute. We welcome papers which approach issues in the
interpretation of expressions of identity in medieval culture.
Suitable topics may include, but are not limited to:

Textual transmission: distinguishing voices in manuscripts
Musical voices; polyphony
Language; dialect; linguistic diversity
Regional/national identities; constructions of identity
The unsaid
The voice of authority; the voice of dissent
Gendered voices
The voice of God
Reconstructing voices
Oral tradition/ folklore
Locating the voice through new technology

We are delighted to confirm that our keynote speaker will be
Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Brown.

Please send proposals of no more than 250 words for a twenty minute
paper in English with your name, institution and contact details
either by e-mail to voicesconference@sheffield.ac.uk or by post to
the address below by 28th March 2008.

Voices conference
c/o Department of French
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN
UK

For further information, please contact the organisers (Lorna Bleach,
Katariina Närä, Siân Prosser, Paola Scarpini) at the e-mail address
above.

Pratt on Alfred Book

The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great. By David Pratt. Cambridge:
CUP. 2007. xvi + 413pp. ISBN 978 0 521 80350 2. Also available as an e-book
and in Kindle format.

This book is a comprehensive study of political thought at the court of
King Alfred the Great (871-99). It explains the extraordinary burst of
learned activity focused on inventive translations from Latin into Old
English attributed to Alfred's own authorship. A full exploration of
context establishes these texts as part of a single discourse which placed
Alfred himself at the heart of all rightful power and authority. A major
theme is the relevance of Frankish and other European experiences, as
sources of expertise and shared concerns, and for important contrasts with
Alfredian thought and behaviour. Part I assesses Alfred's rule against West
Saxon structures, showing the centrality of the royal household in the
operation of power. Part II offers an intimate analysis of the royal texts,
developing far-reaching implications for Alfredian kingship, communication
and court culture. Comparative in approach, the book places Alfred's reign
at the forefront of wider European trends in aristocratic life.

Contents
1. Introduction
Part I: the West Saxon political order
2. Resources and extraction
3. Royal lordship and secular office-holding
4. Royal lordship and ecclesiastical office-holding
5. The articulation of power under King Alfred's predecessors
6. The impact of the vikings
Part II: Alfredian discourse and its efficacy
7. The field of Alfredian knowledge
8. The construction of Alfredian discourse
9. Alfredian technology: books and aedificia
10. The Hierdeboc as a treatise of power
11. The Domboc as a reorientation of royal law
12. Tribulation and triumph in the first fifty Psalms
13. The search for a satisfactory consolation
14. Seeing God as he is
15. Conclusion

Grad Student Conference

Here be Monsters: Beasts, Beastliness and Hybridity
> in the Long Middle Ages
>
> 3rd Annual Medieval Studies/Pearl Kibre Medieval
> Study
> Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
>
> March 28, 2008: CUNY Graduate Center, New York
> In the middle ages, beasts decorated the margins of
> manuscripts,
> offered symbolic import in tales and fabliaux, were
> classified
> scientifically, kept as part of real households, and
> reached legendary
> proportions as part of travelogues. In religious and
> secular thought,
> animals – whether anthropomorphized or in
> interaction with humans –
> often figured as the other which could mark or blur
> the limits of the
> human or the familiar.
> We invite papers from graduate students in all
> academic disciplines
> that address the role of beasts, beastliness,
> monstrosity and hybridty
> from late antiquity through the early modern period.
> How do these
> concepts intersect? How were ideas about animals
> constructed? How did
> these various constructions inform concepts of
> monstrosity, race,
> religion, and social mores?
> Topics may include but are not limited to:
> Fabliaux
> Chivalric animals
> Transformations and Metamorphoses
> Limits of the human
> Monstrous or hybrid humans
> Temporal Hybridity
> Dragons and other mythic beasts
> Quests for beasts
> Heraldric animals
> Monsters in travelogues
> Monsters in marginalia
> Monsters elsewhere
> Bestiaries
> The motif of the Hunt
> Devils, Devilishness and Devilry
> Theatre of Beasts and Festivals
> Concepts of medieval beasts in other eras
> Beasts and sexuality
> Taming and Falconry
>
>
> Please submit abstracts of 250 words to
> medieval.beasts@gmail.com by
> February 14, 2008.
>
> Professor Susan Crane of Columbia University will
> deliver our keynote
> address. "A Taxonomy of Creatures in the
> Second-Family Bestiary"
> proposes a new way to read bestiaries such as the
> well-known Book of
> Beasts translated by T.H. White. The bestiaries'
> attentiveness to
> animals and their concern for spiritual teaching
> converge in a world
> view that is taxonomic: their classification of
> animals expresses a
> theory of creation's logic.
>

Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies: Easter Conference 2008

Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies: Easter Conference 2008

LEADERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH

Programme
Wednesday 26 March
Dr Alexander Rumble, Introduction to the Conference

Allan McKinley, ‘Building up a Church: the Early Bishops of Worcester c.660-860’

Alex Burghart, ‘Canterbury and Kingdoms: the Political Pontificates of Wulfred and Ceolnoth 825-838’

Dr Martin Ryan, ‘Ecclesia senescit? Archbishop Ecgberht and the Church of Northumbria in the Eighth Century’

Dr Christopher Grocock, ‘Abbot, Father, Leader, Saint: the Treatment of the Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Saints in Harley 3020’

Dr Cassandra Green, ‘Spiritual Labour: Suckling from the Male Breast’

Professor Gale Owen-Crocker ‘Portraits of Anglo-Saxon Church Leaders: Image Making’

Thursday 27 March
Professor Joyce Hill, ‘Wulfsige [of Sherborne]’s Reforming Text’

Stephen Matthews, ‘When did St Oda become a Monk?’

Dr Debbie Banham, ‘Æthelwold, Sign Language and the Benedictine Ideal’

Abdullah Alger, ‘Ælfric and his Classroom: Punctuation for Latin or English Learning and For What Purpose?’

Dr Kathryn Powell, ‘Ælfric, the Vikings, and an anonymous preacher in CCCC 162’

Francisco Alvarez Lopez, ‘Oswald of Worcester: the Benedictine Reform that Never Was?’

Dr Dominik Wassenhoven, ‘The Role of Bishops in Anglo-Saxon Succession Struggles, 955-978’

Alex Burghart: Session on PASE (The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England database)

Conference Dinner

Friday 28 March
Professor Nicholas Higham, ‘Bede and the Early English Church’

Professor Nicholas Brooks ‘Reconsidering St Aldhelm’

Dr Alexander Rumble, ‘From Winchester to Canterbury: Ælfheah and Stigand, Bishops, Archbishops and Politicians’

Dr David Hill, ‘Archbishop Sigeric’s Journey to Rome’

Ben Snook ‘Creative Historiography amongst the Leaders of the 10th Century Benedictine Reform’

Professor Donald Scragg ‘The Ownership of the Royal Psalter’

For further information and registration, email: susan.d.thompson@manchester.ac.uk
Or write to Easter Conference, Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, SAHC, University of Manchester, M13 9PL

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Patristics Carnival Up

Patristics Carnival Up

The Week's News

Black Death not indiscriminate killer

AND

Black Death targeted the weak


Doctor writes about medieval murder



Gold ring treasure found in field


A Byzantine Encyclopaedia of Horse Medicine: The Sources, Compilation
and Transmission of the Hippiatrica.


TRAVELING EUROPE IN STYLE WITH AUCKLAND DINGIROO, DARK-AGE TOURIST AND
CRITIC OF FOOD AND DRINK: MYSTICS, HERMITS,AND PROPHETS



Bones found as site is cleared


Visitors flock to castle after TV exposure

CASTLE SHOULD BECOME 'A UNIQUE ATTRACTION'

UNVEILING OF PAST GLORIES

Medieval treasure at centre of ownership row


TREASURE LINK THEOR
Y


Dig at homes site uncovers skeletons of eight monks


Minister rules out 'nonsense' chessmen bid


Experts unearth medieval Berlin under car park


More on the Lewis Chessman bruhaha:

Burning issue: Should the Lewis chessmen be brought back to Scotland?


Squabble after ancient seal find






Feb 4
Saints:
846 St. Joannicius
869 - Saint Cyril, Greek missionary to the Slavs
1189 St. Gilbert of Sempringham

Deaths:
211 Septimus Severus of Rome
708 Pope Sisinnius
855 Rabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mainz, dies
1498 Antonio Pollaivolo, sculptor

Events:
362 Roman Emperor Julian promulgates an edict that recognizes equal
rights to all the religions in the Roman Empire.
900 Coronation of Louis, "the Child," King of Germany
960 The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song
1194 Richard I, King of England, freed from captivity in Germany
1454 Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act
of disobedience to the Grand Master.



Feb 5
Saints:
251 St. Agatha - the model wife, patroness of Malta
348 St. Abraamius, bishop of Arbela, martyr
525 Avitus of Vienne, son of Isychius

Birthdays:
976 - Sanjō, Emperor of Japan

Deaths:
995 - William IV, Duke of Aquitaine

Events:
1205 Alexius V declared Eastern Roman Emperor
1265 Election of Pope Clement IV


Feb 6
Saints:
679 St. Amand of Maastricht

Deaths:
891 Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople
1215 Hojo Tokimasa
1378 Jeanne de Bourbon, wife of Charles V of France
1497 Jean d' Ockeghem

Events:
337 Election of Pope Julius I
743 Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik, 10th Moslem caliph, dies at about 52
1190 Jews of Norwich, England are massacred
1481 First Auto-da-Fe of the Spanish Inquisition

Feb 7
Saints:
St. Theodore the General (Stratelates)

Birthdays:
1478 Sir Thomas More


Events:
421 Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
457 Leo proclaimed Eastern Roman Emperor
1301 Edward I revives the title Prince of Wales, confers it on his
son
1313 Robert, "the Bruce," captures Dumfries, Scotland


Feb 8
Saints:
412 St. Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople

Birthdays:
1191 Yaroslav II of Russia
1291 King Afonso IV of Portugal
1405 Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last reigning Emperor of the
Byzantine Empire
1487 Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg

Deaths:
1204 Alexius IV Angelus, deposed Eastern Roman Emperor
1250 Robert I of Artois, French crusader
1250 AL MANSURA; death of Fakhr ad-Din
1250 William II Longespee
1265 Hulagu Khan, Mongol ruler
1296 King Przemysł II of Poland


Events:
1250 7th Crusade defeated by Baibars
1254 William of Rubrick records the use of oracles among the Mongols
1492 Charles VIII of France enters Paris



Feb 9
Saints:
St. Apollonia
St. Teilo of Llandaff

Birthdays:
1119 Constantine Palaeologus

Deaths:
720 Umar II
1011 Bernard I, Duke of Saxony
1088 Muiredach MacRory (Marianus Scotus), Abbot of Ratisbon
1199 Minamoto no Yoritomo, Japanese shogun
1450 Agnès Sorel, mistress of King Charles VII of France

Events:
474 Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire
1098 Ridwan fails to relieve the Crusader's Siege of Antioch)
1119 Coronation of Pope Calixtus II in France
1292 First Scottish Parliament assembles at Scone
1401 Burning of a Mr. Sawtre as a Lollard heretic
1458 Marriage of Mathias I, King of Hungary, to Catherine of Bohemia


Feb 10
Saints:
Clare of Rimini

Birthdays:
1499 Thomas Platter, Swiss humanist

Deaths:
543 St. Scholastica
1126 William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
1162 Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem
1221 Muhammad Ala-ed-Din, Shah of Khwarizm
1242 Emperor Shijō of Japan
1278 Margaret II of Flanders
1471 Fredrick II

Events:
1258 Mongols sack Baghdad
1306 Murder of the Red Comyn
1354 1355 - The St. Scholastica's Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
1480 The Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado occupies his Palace in Kyoto
1494 Founding of Aberdeen University
1495 Sir William Stanley, English lord chamberlain, executed



Blog of the Week: Got Medieval Muses on Medieval Warm Period in the News


Quote of the Week:
A Translation of O Mea Cella by Alcuin from
http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120A/Alcuin.html

MY cell, my dearly lovely dwelling, farewell for ever, my cell. The trees stand all round you with their murmuring branches, a copse forever laden with flower-bearing leaves. All your fields will bloom with health-bringing herbs, which the hand of the physician plucks to cure the sick. Streams with blossoming banks gird you round, and there the cheerful angler stretches his nets. Thy cioisters smell of apple-trees in the gardens, and white lilies mingle with little red roses. Every kind of bird strikes up his matin song and by his singing praises God who made him. Once the kind voice of the master was heard in you, reading the holy books with devout lips. In you from time to time the holy praise of the Almighty rose from peaceful voices and hearts. My cell, I weep for you now in tearful songs, and I groan as I bewail my misfortune; for you have suddenly fled from the poets' songs and an unknown hand now possesses you. No longer now will Flaccus or the poet Homer or the youths come and sing under your roof. Thus suddenly does all the beauty of the earth come to an end, and all things are swept away one after another; nothing lasts for ever, nothing indeed is immutable. Dark night overwhelms even a holy day. Cold winter swiftly cuts off the beautiful flowers and a most bittcr wind ruffles the calm sea. The devoted youth who once chased Stags across the fields now leans on a stick, a tired old man. Wretched that we are, why do we love you, O world, as you flee from us? You flee from us, falling all the time and on every side. Keep on fleeing if you wish. Let us love Christ always and let the love of God possess our hearts for ever. May he defend His faithful servants from the dread enemy and snatch our souls away to heaven. Let us praise and love him equally with our whole heart; in his mercy he is our glory, our life, and our salvatlon.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Congress Program

The 2008 Congress Program appears to be up and running.