Grey-zone Saints in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages The Cult of Saints is a major five-year research project, based at the University of Oxford, which is investigating the origins and development of the cult of saints in all cultural zones of ancient Christianity up to around AD 700. At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the project-team is organising a strand on grey-zone, or marginal, saints in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. A limited number of Christian heroes, mostly New Testament figures and martyrs, were renowned across Christendom. Many more struggled hard to gain a wider prominence, or even local recognition, and often remained saints only in the eyes of single partisans or restricted groups. Their sainthood was suggested but not fully accepted, or promoted but contested; their cults almost succeeded, but finally failed. Sometimes their very existence was put into question. Those interested in presenting papers on such saints and their cults, particularly if focused on the period before c.900, are requested to send title and short abstract (c. 100 words) to Bryan Ward-Perkins (bryan.ward-perkins@history.ox.ac.uk bryan.ward-perkins@history.ox.ac.uk>) or Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl>) by 20 September. Please, note that, sadly, the project is unable to fund speakers’ expenses. Clerical Income and Property in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the ‘Presbyters in the Late Antique West’ Project, based at the University of Warsaw, organises a strand on the income and property of clergy. In most literary and normative sources we usually see clerics entirely dependent on diverse types of subsidies related to their ecclesiastical office. But some casual remarks and documentary evidence show that the reality was more complicated. The actual sources of income of clerics were diverse. This session will seek to answer the following questions: · How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues? · What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity? · How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics? Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (c. 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl>) by 20 September. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers’ expenses.

Grey-zone Saints in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages

The Cult of Saints is a major five-year research project, based at the University of Oxford, which is investigating the origins and development of the cult of saints in all cultural zones of ancient Christianity up to around AD 700. At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the project-team is organising a strand on grey-zone, or marginal, saints in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. A limited number of Christian heroes, mostly New Testament figures and martyrs, were renowned across Christendom. Many more struggled hard to gain a wider prominence, or even local recognition, and often remained saints only in the eyes of single partisans or restricted groups. Their sainthood was suggested but not fully accepted, or promoted but contested; their cults almost succeeded, but finally failed. Sometimes their very existence was put into question. Those interested in presenting papers on such saints and their cults, particularly if focused on the period before c.900, are requested to send title and short abstract (c. 100 words) to Bryan Ward-Perkins (bryan.ward-perkins@history.ox.ac.uk) or Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September. Please, note that, sadly, the project is unable to fund speakers’ expenses.

Clerical Income and Property in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages

At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the ‘Presbyters in the Late Antique West’ Project, based at the University of Warsaw, organises a strand on the income and property of clergy. In most literary and normative sources we usally see clerics entirely dependent on diverse types of subsidies related to their ecclesiastical office. But some casual remarks and documentary evidence show that the reality was more complicated. The actual sources of income of clerics were diverse. This session will seek to answer the following questions:

·      How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues?

·      What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity?

·      How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics?

Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (c. 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers’ expenses.

'Living the Law in the Early Medieval World: The Contribution of Canon Law to European Culture'

Leeds International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 3-6 July 2017

At the 2017 Leeds International Medieval Congress, the 'Living the Law' network aims to organise one or several sessions, co-sponsored by Iuris canonici medii aevi consociatio (ICMAC) and the Church, Law and Society in the Middle Ages Network (CLASMA). We would like to open a call for proposals for 20-minute papers to be given at the conference, preferably in English; pre-organised three-paper sessions with a coherent theme will also be considered for sponsorship.

Proposals are welcome on any area or period of medieval canon law from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages. Scholars are especially invited to propose papers that explore the many ways in which the history of canon law sheds light on the cultural developments in western Europe after Antiquity. The papers may tackle research questions concerning the role of canon law in crucial developments that shaped western culture, such as christianisation, (ethnic) identity formation, political and patronage relationships between church and kings, appropriation of the biblical and antique past, communication across borders and cultures, the proliferation of literacy, and the production and dissemination of manuscripts. As the theme for the 2017 Leeds Congress is ‘Otherness’, proposals will also be welcome for papers concerned with the idea of canon law and ‘othering’ in any of its incarnations. 

Prospective participants are requested to send a title and short abstract (no more than 200 words, but long enough to give a good sense of the proposed topic), along with contact details, to Sven Meeder (s.meeder@let.ru.nl) before 4 September 2016.

ARCHITECTURAL REPRESENTATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES: A two-day conference at University College, Oxford 7th–8th APRIL, 2017

The architectural remnants of the Middle Ages—from castles and cathedrals to village churches—provide many people’s first point of contact with the medieval period and its culture. Such concrete survivals provide a direct link to the material experience of medieval people. At the same time, exploring the ways in which architecture was conceptualized and depicted can contribute to our understanding of the ideological and imaginative worldview of the period. This two-day conference is intended to facilitate discussion and collaboration on all aspects of architectural representation, understood broadly to encompass actual, symbolic, or imaginary architectural features, whether still standing today, observable in the archaeological record, or surviving only through depiction in literature or art. The conference is interdisciplinary in outlook, and we hope to welcome papers from across the spectrum of academic disciplines, including literature, history, art, theology, and archaeology.

We invite proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes in length focusing upon the signification, purpose, and impact of architectural representation throughout the European Middle Ages. Please submit a title and a 200-word abstract to ArchitecturalRepresentations@gmail.com by the 7th January 2017. Possible topics for investigation include, but are not limited to:

·        Architectural metaphors and imagery

·        The social and symbolic value of buildings or building programmes

·        Visual representation of architecture in manuscripts, metalwork, or sculpture

·        Architectural representations of other worlds and/or the heaven and hell

·        Architecture and the liturgy

·        Placed deposits

·        Imaginary and mnemonic architecture

·        The lifecycle(s) of buildings and other architectural features

·        Literary depictions of architecture of architectural spaces

·        Decorative schemes, architectural styles and techniques

·        Architecture and narrative

·        Architecture in the landscape

Keynote speakers:

Professor Robert Bork, University of Iowa

Dr Christiania Whitehead, University of Warwick

http://medievalarchitectureconf.wordpress.com

ArchitecturalRepresentations@gmail.com

We expect that the conference will lead to a published volume of essays intended to stimulate further work in this area. A number of bursaries for graduates and early career academics will be available, details of which will be announced on the conference website.

Medieval In the News: End of August Edition

A Feature on Christianization of Roman Coins


Anglo-Saxon Coin Found near York


A Grant to Digitally Study the Jubilees Palimpsest


A Bit on 500 Years of Bosch!


And in other Bosch news, A feature on hidden meanings in The Garden of Delights


A Nice Bit on the Origins of the Book

More on the Printing of the Voynich MSS


15th Century Chumash Restored

A Medieval Child Alarm Found


Medieval Jewelry Found in Finland


Anglo-Saxon Pendant


Early Medieval Church Floor in Turkey Uncovered


Crusader Hand Grenade!  Holy Hand Grenades!!


A Very Good Point About How We View Viking Age Women


A History of Golf--some medieval

Fragmentology: The Life and Afterlives of Otto F. Ege

International Congress on Medieval Studies (11-14 May 2017, Kalamazoo, MI)

While some manuscript fragments result from accidental damage, others are the result of purposeful destruction of a medieval book.The precise manner in which each manuscript fragment came to be is a fascinating tale, often stretching over decades or even centuries. Sometimes these histories cannot be fully reconstructed, but all manuscript fragments bear indelible marks that point to their many uses and reuses in codices, libraries, sales catalogues, and holding institutions. As such, fragments can be read as networks that help modern researchers to reconstruct the scribal, reader, and owner communities who used these manuscripts.

This session invites reflection on one particular community and its network of medieval manuscript fragments: the book-breakers of the early 20th century, for whom Otto F. Ege stands as the most notorious exemplum. As Ege's personal manuscript collection has just become available for study, this session hopes to bring new information about his work to light. Papers might discuss Ege's book-breaking and sales practices, new discoveries of Ege leaves and cuttings, the reconstitution of broken books, the market for medieval manuscripts, digital tools for the reconstruction of fragmented texts and manuscripts, and American fragment collections.

We welcome your abstracts for a 15-20 minute paper at elizabeth.hebbard@unh.edu by September 15. Please include a completed Participation Information Form with your paper proposal (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF)

--

Liz Hebbard

on behalf of

DEMMR/F Organizing Committee

https://digitalrollsandfragments.com

For the first time, the Anglo-Saxon Hagiography Society (ASHS) is sponsoring not one but two sessions at Kzoo in 2017. We’re still accepting abstracts for both sessions!

(1) Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Saints’ Lives

(2) Gender in Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Prose Saints’ Lives

Though we are always interested in the anonymous prose, notice that we have stripped our usual 'prose' distinction from the title of session #1, so any work on anonymous verse hagiography would be welcome as well.

Submit abstracts by September 15 to:
Johanna Kramer
Email: Kramerji AT missouri.edu

Meanwhile, feel free to contact either of us with questions.

Johanna Kramer, University of Missouri-Columbia
and
Robin Norris, Carleton University

Register now for the 40^th Annual Meeting of the Mid-America Medieval Association

MAMA XL

AT

EMPORIA STATE UNIVERSITY

SATURDAY, 17 September 2016

CONFERENCE THEME: OTHER WORLDS

Plenary speaker: Richard Firth Green, Humanities Distinguished Professor,

The Ohio State University

Professor Green’s plenary address will be draw from his recent work on the world of faerie and his forthcoming book, The Bonny Road: Traffic with the Otherworld in the Middle Ages.

“Other Worlds” will encompass many other worlds indeed, spiritual, supernatural, imaginary or fanciful, social, physical, metaphysical, psychological, gendered, ethnic, geographical—with Paradise, Purgatory, Hell, the past, the future, the cloister, the college, the East, Islam, Judaism, social classes other than one’s own, lands other than one’s own, Camelot, Avalon, and faerie, itself, representing only a few of the possibilities.

Mel Storm

Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism

Emporia State University

1 Kellogg Circle

Emporia, KS 66801

mstorm@emporia.edu

This is an invitation for participants in a round-table discussion on the topic of “Teaching a Diverse and Inclusive Middle Ages,” at the 52^nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11-14, 2017. I am looking for anyone with experienceteaching to and about diversity and inclusivity in courses on premodern topics. This panel discussion will address questions about how we can best serve all of our students in the classroom by responsibly including topics of study related to diverse populations in the premodern world. We will also ask how best to attract students from diverse backgrounds into courses on medieval topics, which have much to say on contemporary debates about marginalized groups and images of "the other." 

If you are interested in participating, please submit a short (200-word) proposal to me at scds@unm.edu, detailing in brief how you could contribute to this panel discussion.

Sarah Davis-Secord, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of History
MSC06 3760
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

Postmedieval is now accepting submissions for the Michael Camille Essay
Prize. The biennial prize is awarded for the best short essay (4,000-6,000
words) on the year's chosen topic submitted by an early career researcher,
including both graduate students and scholars who have received their PhD
in the past five years (as of August 31, 2016). The author of the winning
essay will receive: publication in postmedieval in early 2017, 250 US
dollars, and one year's free print and online subscription to the journal.
Runners-up, if selected, may receive one year's free print and online
subscription to the journal and may be considered for publication in the
journal'.

Please see the link below:

http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2016/03/2016-michael-camille-essay-prize.html

CFP: Teaching the Edda and Sagas in the Undergraduate Classroom (Roundtable)

by Ilse Schweitzer

Call for presenters for roundtable session at International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI (May 11-14, 2017)

In this roundtable session, participants will share short papers detailing their most innovative strategies, approaches, and experiences incorporating the medieval Icelandic Edda and sagas into university-level curricula and coursework. The Poetic andProse Edda, among the most thorough and valuable textual sources for our understanding of Norse myth, are rich with possible teaching applications, from lessons in cosmogony to poetic structure and language. Likewise, the Old Norse sagas recount, in deceptively spare style, the history of the Scandinavian conquest of Iceland and beyond, the fragile creation of a new society, and the omnipresent threat of violence and feud, set against natural and supernatural dangers. While these texts can spur dynamic and memorable class discussions, medievalists in traditional academic departments may not have regular opportunities to incorporate the Icelandic material into our syllabi. Further, as more medievalists find ourselves teaching further afield from our areas of expertise, we may be responsible for creating and covering courses in rhetoric and composition, or introductory courses in literature, history, and humanities, without much opportunity to offer a specific course in Icelandic literature, history, or culture.

Presenters may address such topics as how they have used the Edda and/or sagas in “conventional” literature courses, special topics classes, and surveys of medieval literature (which texts they have chosen to teach, and why); how these texts can be used to teach rhetoric and composition; which texts might be incorporated into an Old Norse translation course; how much historical, cultural, and legal background may be necessary in order to properly contextualize a saga for an undergraduate audience; how we can help our students to navigate the challenging linguistic and stylistic aspects of these texts; how texts can be taught in a mythology, history, or sociological course to reflect how a society defines and understands itself; how these texts can be presented in various theoretical frameworks (gender and sexuality studies, environmental studies, postcolonial studies, etc.); how teaching the Edda and sagas offer opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and research; how instructors have brought pop culture incarnations of these texts into coursework. Participants are encouraged to share assignments, syllabi, reading lists, resources, and activities with the panel and with our audience. 

To propose a short paper, send an abstract of about 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to ilse.schweitzer@arc-humanities.org by September 14, 2016. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions.

O at last Medieval in the News!

Good news to start!

Restoration on flood damaged Jorvik Center has commenced!


And Bede's World to Reopen as Jarrow Hall!!


A Less Sensational Piece on the current excavations at Tintagel


A Bit o' Fluff on Viking Vengeance, focus on "insults"ul


1000 Year Old Norse Amulet Found


Rothwell Bone Crypt Contains Remains from 1250 to 1900


Medieval Burial in Kilkenny


Suleiman the Magnificent's Tomb Discovered in Hungary


Edward I Charter Confirmed Authentic


Tudor Stained Glass Panel Stolen


Iceland Monitor on Viking Schtuff


Manchester Reviving Medieval Quarter


Derbeyshire coin hoard declared treasure


Shipwrecks off Devon, on medieval fishing boat, given protected status

Following on the success of our New Voices sessions at Kalamazoo and Leeds this past summer, Peter Darby and I are pleased to announce the CFPs for the 2017 congresses. Thank you to everyone who presented in and attended the 2016 sessions!

Call for papers: New Voices at Kalamazoo and Leeds

The International Society of Anglo-Saxonists invites submissions for its ‘New Voices in Anglo-Saxon Studies’ sessions at the 2017 International Medieval Congresses in Kalamazoo (11-14 May) and in Leeds (3-6 July 2017). The New Voices sessions are intended for all scholars new to the field of Anglo-Saxon Studies, including research students, newly-appointed lecturers, and anyone who has only recently begun to work in this area. Papers may address any aspect of the Anglo-Saxon period.

All submissions for New Voices are reviewed by the Advisory Board members of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS), who determine the ultimate selection of papers through a process of blind peer review. 

Submissions for the International Medieval Congress at Leeds should be sent by email attachment to Peter Darby (peter.darby@nottingham.ac.uk) by 9 September and include paper title, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and institutional affiliation and contact addresses. 

Submissions for the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo should be sent by email attachment to Mary Kate Hurley (hurleym1@ohio.edu) by 15 September and include an abstract of no more than 250 words as well as a completed participant information form (download here: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions).

Please feel free to contact either Peter or Mary Kate with any questions. 

--

Mary Kate Hurley

Assistant Professor

Department of English

Ohio University

SASMARS Biennial Conference 2016: Programme

As previously announced, the 23rd biennial conference of SASMARS will be held at Mont Fleur in Stellenbosch, South Africa from 26 to 28 August 2016.

“Texts and Transformations: Medieval and Early Modern Cultures”

The conference programme is now available at http://sasmarsconference2016.blogspot.co.za/

The convener for the conference is Dr Derrick Higginbotham (derrick.higginbotham@uct.ac.za). Any inquiries can be directed to him.

For the latest SASMARS Newsletter and information about previous SASMARS conferences, click onhttp://sasmarsnewsletter.blogspot.com/.

Kind regards

Leonie Viljoen

Marco Manuscript Workshop 2017
"Envisioning Knowledge"
February 3-4, 2017
Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Twelfth Marco Manuscript Workshop will be held Friday and Saturday, February 3-4, 2017, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville; the workshop is organized by Professors Maura K. Lafferty (Classics) and Roy M. Liuzza (English).

For this year’s workshop we invite papers that explore the idea of "Envisioning Knowledge." Some manuscripts contain sacred texts, brilliantly illuminated; some preserve literary treasures, adorned with elaborately decorated initials. Other manuscripts have a more practical function, from recording transactions of land or service, to collecting medical recipes or geographical lore, to marking days and years, to charting the scope of the earth or the course of the heavens. These manuscripts may have a more utilitarian appearance, but they often supplement their textual content with diagrams and illustrations, charts and maps, tables and lists. Such manuscripts preserve the beginnings of modern science, and they are important to the development of the visual display of information and the transmission of both practical and speculative knowledge. The makers of these books were inventing ways to use the visual space of the page to represent, in one way or another, some truth about the world and their understanding of it. We welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined.

The workshop is open to scholars and students at any rank and in any field who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer both practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual manuscript problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a stipend of $500 for their participation.

The deadline for applications is November 4, 2016. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page letter describing their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email to <rliuzza@utk.edu>, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430.

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please contact Roy Liuzza for more information.

ANGLO-SAXON WOMEN: A FLORILEGIUM

CALL FOR PAPERS

Co-editors:     Emily Butler (John Carroll University)

        Irina Dumitrescu (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)

        Hilary E. Fox (Wayne State University)

Project email: anglosaxonwomen@gmail.com

Abbess Hild. Empress Helen. Mary of Egypt. Juliana. Bugga. King Alfred’s
mother. Grendel’s mother. The Welsh slave of Riddle 12. The nuns of
Barking. The lamenting wife. Prudentius’ virtues and vices. The African
woman picking up gold in *Exodus*. The Geatish woman with a dark vision of
the future in *Beowulf*. What might it mean to tell the stories of
Anglo-Saxon women -- historical, fictional, allegorical -- together?

This project confronts the frequent marginalization and erasure of women by
contemporary scholarship from the historical record, and shows, by means of
brief essays, what can be gained by focusing on female figures in the past.
For example, an examination of the roles and rights of women in Anglo-Saxon
England undermines narratives of societal progress. This is especially true
in areas such as education or property rights, where women often had
greater agency in the Anglo-Saxon period than in later periods. The lives
and careers of the women featured in this collection also illustrate the
complexity of Anglo-Saxon authorship and the roles of female audiences in
male authorship, sanctity, and heroism.

We seek contributors for a collection of short, interpretive pieces
(600-800 words) on a range of women in Anglo-Saxon England. These women
include not only those long-recognized and studied, but those who occupy
the background of texts--mothers, daughters, brothel-keepers--and who may
not even have a name. The goal is the compilation of a florilegium of women
from across the textual and material record that will reveal the obvious
and obscure roles women played in Anglo-Saxon culture and their often
over-looked, yet palpably felt, presence in their texts. We hope that this
florilegium will be a resource for teachers to use in the classroom and for
students to use while selecting research topics. We also hope that it will
be a pleasure to read, both for Anglo-Saxonists and for those curious about
the field.

By September 30, 2016, email the following to anglosaxonwomen@gmail.com:

   - A list of 3-4 women on whom you would like to write, in order of
   preference
   - A short academic biography or *vita* (no more than 1 page)
   - Indication of willingness and ability to write more than one entry, if
   necessary

Article assignments will be made on a first-come, first priority basis.

The list of potential entries can be found at https://goo.gl/J3K4YY.

If any woman or female figure does not appear on this list, please feel
free to include them, along with the text in which they appear, in your
list of choices.

On Tintagel in the News.....

Dr. Goskar wrote to the EMF email list the following on this subject:

However, Tintagel has also been the subject of controversy concerning England Heritage's approach to reinterpreting the site well before this dig started. I have been observing developments and writing about them, e.g.:

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion-articles/articles/cornwall-authenticity-and-the-dark-ages-controversy-at-tintagel-castle

In addition a network of fellow medievalists, led by Dr Leonie Hicks and I, have made a formal representation to English Heritage about their own use of Dark Ages - a term they have adopted anew for some unfathomable reason. 

We wrote an open letter to EH and are in ongoing discussions with them. This is good news because initially we faced a stone wall of defence on the matter. See:

https://normanlandscapes.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/stop-the-dark-ages-2-letter-to-english-heritage/

My particular concern as both a medievalist and a heritage professional working in a Cornish context is that Tintagel is being marketed and the site used as a cash cow to generate the millions they need to sustain their new organisation. Tintagel is the 5th most visited historic site in the country and even though the Arthurian connections are so deeply tenuous, and the early medieval Cornish history so compelling, the pop Arthuriana wins out and the post-Roman Cornish history of this extraordinary site is pretty much hidden away.

Without wishing to over-burden you with extra reading, you can see more about my chronicling of this controversy on my blog:http://tehmina.goskar.com/

I'd welcome any comments you have.

I am also looking for examples of other mis-representations of medieval sites/collections so if you have any examples I'd be pleased to hear about them.

Dr Tehmina Goskar, MA AMA

tehmina@goskar.com

http://tehmina.goskar.com/