Online Lecture: ‘Inscribing Sacred Matter: Reading and Writing Inscriptions on Byzantine Relics’, with Brad Hostetler, 5 December 2024, 12:00 PM (EST)

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2024–2025 lecture series.

  • December 5, 2024 | 12:00 PM (EST, UTC -5) | Zoom

Byzantium was replete with inscriptions. Buildings, wall paintings, mosaics, and portable objects alike were adorned with words that labeled iconography, documented patronage, and articulated prayers. Little is known about what the Byzantines did with this rich culture of epigraphy. Did they read these inscriptions once or repeatedly, and in which contexts? This talk brings together literary and material sources that speak to the act of reading and writing inscriptions in situ, focusing on those that were attached to relics and reliquaries. Episodes from saints’ lives, miracle tales, and histories reveal the ways in which the Byzantines engaged with their epigraphic culture. Far from being a passive feature of relics, it is argued that inscriptions were an essential component to the identification and veneration of sacred matter.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/inscribing-sacred-matter

Speaker: Brad Hostetler, Kenyon College

Brad Hostetler is Associate Professor of Art History at Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio). He specializes in the art and material culture of Late Antiquity and Byzantium, with a focus on text and image relationships.

Online Conference: ‘Refinement and/or Reduction Revisited: Gothic Art, Architecture and Culture, c. 1250 to 1350’, 6 December 2024, 10am-5pm (GMT)

This one-day conference organised by the Architecture, Space and Society Centre aims at an interdisciplinary reassessment of Gothic art and architecture between c. 1250 and 1350 in a broad European perspective. In this period of increased diversity of patrons and new technical facilities, the design options for artists and architects alike extended to a virtuoso refinement across media. At the same time new modes of reduction emerged, probably originating in economic, technical or programmatic tendencies of the time. The study day – an extension of a larger international conference on his subject held at Halle University in June – will examine this paradox and its cultural context on series of outstanding examples across Europe.

Speakers:

  • Lindy Grant (University of Reading), The Aesthetics of Ascetism: Louis IX and Court Culture after the Return from the 1248-54 Crusade
  • Tim Ayers (University of York), Less is More: The Chapter House of York Minster
  • Tom Nickson (The Courtauld), Two for One: Berenguer de Montagut, Manresa, and Catalan Gothic
  • Jana Gajdošová (Sam Fogg), Transforming Tradition: The Šivetice Rotunda and its Architectural Innovations 
  • Michalis Olympios (University of Cyprus), Architecture and Ritual at the Laon Cathedral Chapels
  • Alexandra Gajewski (Burlington Magazine/Institute for Historical Research), Becoming Papal Residence: Churches and Chapels in Avignon, from John XXII to Clement VI
  • Zoë Opacic (Birkbeck), Erfordia turrita: ‘Reduktionsgotik’ and Urban Refinement in Fourteenth-century Erfurt

CFP: ‘Medieval Communities’, International Medieval Society Annual Conference, deadline 1 December 2024

The International Medieval Society invites paper proposals for their upcoming 18th annual conference (July 3-5, 2025). This year’s theme is “Medieval Communities.” Our keynotes are Sharon Farmer from the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Department of History, and Cécile Voyer from the Centre d’Etudes supérieures de civilisation médiévale, l’Université de Poitiers.

How did people in the Middle Ages define, create, and maintain a sense of community? The International Medieval Society, Paris (IMS-Paris) invites abstracts and session proposals for our 2025 symposium on the theme of Communities in Medieval France.

The word “community” may be defined as a group of people with shared characteristics, emotional values, or interests who perceive themselves as distinct from others. From communes, monasteries, and confraternities to soldiers, lepers, and the blind, medieval people formed close emotional ties and created rituals and other practices that constituted community. This symposium invites new lines of investigation that will deepen our knowledge of the medieval sense of community, broadly defined.

Proposals should focus on France during the Middle Ages, but do not need to be exclusively limited to this period and geographical area. We encourage proposals and papers from all fields of medieval studies, such as anthropology, archeology, history, economic and social history, art history, gender studies, literary studies, musicology, philosophy, etc.

Proposals of 300 words (in English or French) for a 20-minute paper should be e-mailed to imsparissymposium@gmail.com no later than December 1, 2024. Abstracts should be accompanied by full contact information and a short bio.

For more information, please visit: https://imsparis.hypotheses.org/383

The IMS-Paris is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (French/English) organization that fosters exchanges between French and foreign scholars. For more than a decade, the IMS has served as a center for medievalists who travel to France to conduct research, work, or study.

Murray Seminar: ‘The Market for Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts c. 1890-1929 and its Consequences’, with Dr Laura Cleaver, Birkbeck, 4 December 2024 (5-6.30pm GMT)

  • Location: Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, Keynes Library and Online
  • Date and time: 4 December 2024, 17:00 — 18:30 GMT

In 1904 Charles Dyson Perrins, whose fortune derived from the Lea & Perrins business that made Worcestershire sauce, bought an illuminated medieval psalter for £5,250. This was an enormous sum at the time (roughly equivalent to £500,000 today) and one of the highest prices paid for a manuscript to that date. The price was justified by the aesthetic qualities of the manuscript and the circumstances of the sale: the book was new to the market, having been in a family collection since the sixteenth century. Another factor may have been the book’s English origin. Sydney Cockerell persuaded Perrins both to buy the book and to employ him to write about it. In 1908 Cockerell included the manuscript in his landmark exhibition of illuminated manuscripts held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. The exhibition was not limited to English manuscripts, but made a ‘special effort’ to showcase English art. This paper will explore how rising prices for some manuscripts in the early twentieth century were intertwined with ideas about books as objects of national heritage, and the impact of this on the development of both scholarship and collections in Britain, Europe and America.

Laura Cleaver is Professor of Manuscript Studies at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. From 2019-2024 she was Principal Investigator of the Cultivate MSS project, funded by the European Research Council, which examined the trade in medieval manuscripts in the first half of the twentieth century. She is currently completing a monograph on the manuscript trade in Britain in the early twentieth century and its impact on the development of collections and scholarship.

Please Book Here for the In Person

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CFP: ‘Medieval Art on the Move’, PhD colloquium on medieval art, Courtauld Institute of Art, deadline 20 January 2025

The event will take place on Friday 28th March 2025 at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The colloquium looks to open new dialogues regarding the movement of medieval artworks, initiating discussions on how it affected an object’s reception.

  • Deadline for abstract submission: Monday 20th January 2025.
  • Submission guidelines: 250-word paper proposal and title, a short CV, together with their complete contact details (full name, email, and institutional affiliation)
  • Contact for inquiries: Sophia Adams (sophia.adams@courtauld.ac.uk) and Natalia Muñoz-Rojas (natalia.munozrojas@courtauld.ac.uk).
  • Find out more on the Courtauld website. 

Now entombed in airless glass vitrines, medieval objects in museums appear static and immovable. But in the Middle Ages artworks were active and mobile: they were manipulated in the hand, processed through towns, and traded or gifted across very large geographic areas. Viewers were also on the move: they carried artworks on their body or processed alongside them in religious ceremonies. Merchants, soldiers, and pilgrims travelled to new places and brought artworks home with them. This colloquium will explore medieval artworks as sites of sophisticated meaning-making through the theme of movement, on small and large scales.  Medieval works of art were often moved during ritual, and many artworks also integrated moving parts, such as wings or other hinged elements. In a broader context, artworks could travel huge distances, acquiring new significances as they transgressed political, cultural and religious borders. The Silk Roads exhibition currently open at the British Museum speaks to such journeys, presenting the people and objects travelling along overlapping and expansive networks of trade, and asking how these movements shaped meanings and cultures both along  the way and at their destinations. To that end, the colloquium looks to open new dialogues regarding the movement of medieval artworks, initiating discussions on how it affected an object’s reception.  

The colloquium will take place on Friday 28th March 2025 at the Courtauld Institute of Art’s  Vernon Square campus in London. Lunch will be provided for speakers, and the event will be followed by drinks at the Courtauld Research Forum and dinner for speakers.

We invite submissions for 20-minute papers that investigate the impact of movement on objects and their audiences. Respondents might consider themes including but by no means  limited to: 

  • The vehicles or mechanisms by which medieval objects moved across geographic and cultural boundaries, such as gifting, trade, theft, or war. 
  • Processions and ritual, versus more informal movements 
  • Distance and proximity.  
  • Motion and stillness.  
  • Intercultural exchanges and movement of ideas. 

We invite PhD candidates to submit an up to 250-word paper proposal and title, a short CV,  together with their complete contact details (full name, email, and institutional affiliation) by  20th January 2025. Please send these to both Sophia Adams (sophia.adams@courtauld.ac.uk)  and Natalia Muñoz-Rojas (natalia.munoz-rojas@courtauld.ac.uk). There may be some limited  funding to support travel and accommodation costs for those without institutional support. If  you would require funding support, please include a brief budget alongside your abstract.

Symposium: ‘Records of Care: informing approaches to the conservation of Britain’s wall paintings’, Courtauld Institute of Art, 31 January 2025 (9.30-18.30 GMT)

Hosted in partnership with colleagues at The Church of England, Icon, and English Heritage, this symposium marks the culmination of the first major phase of a grant-funded digitisation project to make the National Wall Paintings Survey publicly accessible through a dynamic new online database.

Begun by Professor David Park at The Courtauld in 1980, the Survey has grown into a vast and internationally important resource, comprising records of all known British medieval wall paintings as well as extensive material on post-medieval schemes of painted decoration. Encompassing photographic records, conservation reports, annotated publications and previously unpublished research, the archive documents the UK’s most lavish courtly and ecclesiastical murals alongside paintings in more humble contexts. Incorporating material bequeathed from the archives of some of the UK’s earliest pioneering conservators, the Survey constitutes an exceptional record of the condition of Britain’s wall paintings and forms an essential point of reference, both for scholars of art history and for those charged with the ongoing care of these works.

This interdisciplinary study day is an opportunity for those working across the field of British wall paintings to reflect upon the evolution of approaches to their study and conservation, and to explore collaborative endeavours which might better inform their future care. Comprising three sessions of short papers from a diverse and engaging line-up of scholars and heritage professionals, the day will conclude with an informal panel discussion around the theme of collaboration.

Organised by Emily Howe (Project Lead, National Wall Paintings Survey at The Courtauld) with Tracy Manning (Cathedral & Church Buildings Department, Church of England), Sarah Pinchin (Chair, Icon Stone & Wall Paintings Group) and Sophie Stewart (Collections Conservation, English Heritage).

Event information

  • Registration link
  • £15.00, concessions available
  • Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2
    • This event takes place at our Vernon Square campus (WC1X 9EW).

CFP: ‘Who Ruled the World? Queen Urraca and Her Contemporaries in the Early Twelfth Century’, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid,  3–5 March 2026 (deadline 1 April 2025)

Organizer: Therese Martin, Instituto de Historia, CSIC, Madrid
Research Grant: Intersections of Gender, Transculturalism, and Identity in Medieval Iberia: The Recycling and Long Life of Objects and Textiles (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, PID2023-151143NA-I00, 2024-2027), PI: Verónica Carla Abenza Soria, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Place: Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid


This conference marks the 900th anniversary of the death of Queen Urraca of León-Castile (born 1079/80, r. 1109-1126) by investigating issues of ruling power and its material display in the early twelfth century. Previous historiography has tended either to downplay Urraca’s seventeen-year reign or at best to compare it with that of other queens, especially Matilda of England (d. 1167), Melisende of Jerusalem (d. 1161), and to a lesser degree Petronila of Aragón (d. 1173). These reigning queens, while instructive comparisons, were born respectively in 1102, 1105, and 1136; they were from the generations after Urraca, more properly contemporaries of her son Alfonso VII (born 1105, r. 1126-1157). Therefore this conference seeks instead to call attention to rulers – male or female, of any religion – whose reigns were strictly contemporary to Urraca’s in the first quarter of the twelfth century, in order to understand how her rule played out in its day, not in hindsight.

We welcome paper proposals investigating the artworks and material culture that can be associated with early twelfth-century rulership, including coins, seals, textiles, manuscripts, metalworks, sculptures, buildings, etc., as well as written evidence. Of particular interest are studies focused on objects and texts that demonstrate cross-cultural or long-distance networks, as well as analyses of the concepts of gender and religion in the construction of power and authority in the early twelfth century. We encourage both individual case studies and larger inquiries, for Europe and beyond, that consider figures whose rulership, like Urraca’s, made an impact on the social and material culture of this period.

Paper proposals are sought on rulers and the display of rulership from Urraca’s lifetime, especially those that will contribute to clarifying the larger framework of her reign.

Send title with abstract and author bio, in English or Spanish (not more than 500 words each), and any queries, by 1 April 2025 to: Urraca2026@gmail.com 

Lecture: ‘Hands That Heal, Looks That Kill: Towards a Fabulous History of Marian Architecture’ with Matthew Reeve, Paul Mellon Centre, London, 4 December 2024 (5pm–7pm GMT)

The Virgin Mary might be said to reign over the arts of later medieval Britain. It is well established that Britain was a fertile centre for Marian devotion during the Middle Ages, with key pilgrimage sites at Glastonbury and Walsingham, and lesser centres across the British Isles. Marian devotion in Britain created new iconographies to celebrate the Virgin such as the Coronation of the Virgin, new categories of manuscript (the Book of Hours) and new architectural typologies in the Lady Chapel.

Focusing on the settings of Marian devotion and their imagery, Matthew describes them as fabulous in two senses: first, they are inspired by fabula or stories, namely the many Marian miracles that frequently informed the making and perception of Marian art and architecture; second, they are fabulous in being – technically speaking – superlatively crafted works of art. The reason for this, Matthew proposes, is found in the very character of the Virgin herself. In her miracles, the Virgin emerges not only as a miraculous fabricator of flawless art and architecture but also as a paradigm of exquisite aesthetic judgment in the later Middle Ages.

Imagined as settings to house the Virgin’s heavenly court, Marian buildings were designed as extensions of the Virgin’s own highly charismatic and overtly glamorous character as the Queen of Heaven.

Event format and access

The event starts with a presentation lasting around 40mins, followed by Q&A and a free drinks reception. The event is hosted in our Lecture Room, which is up two flights of stairs (there is no lift). The talk will also be streamed online and recording published on our website. Book tickets on the Paul Mellon website.

Professor Matthew M. Reeve FSA FRHistS is a professor of art history at Queen’s University, Canada. He specialises in later medieval art in Northern Europe with a particular focus on Britain, although he also has long-standing interests in the history of architecture in general and the history of sexuality. Working on art in all media, he has published extended accounts of Salisbury and Wells cathedrals, art and architecture in the secular world, the historiography of medieval art and the arts of Marian devotion. He has also explored the afterlife of medieval art and ideas (medievalism) in the oeuvre of Horace Walpole and the Grand Tours of Walpole and his companions, and the heritage of medievalist art and politics in Canadian art and architecture.

Book tickets on the Paul Mellon website.

Conference: The Jeweled Materiality of Late Antique/Early Medieval Objects and Texts: From Cloisonné to Stained Glass to Experimental Poetry (4th–9th Centuries), 11–12 November 2024

Center for Early Medieval Studies, Masaryk University
Hans Belting Library, Veveří 28, Brno
Organizers: Alberto Virdis, Marie Okáčová

The interface among the material, visual, and literary cultures of the long late antiquity and beyond has become a topic of scholarly interest ever since the publication of the seminal 1989 book The Jeweled Style by Michael Roberts. The topical relevance of Roberts’ original concept more than 30 years after its invention is clear from, among other scholarly endeavors, the recent edited volume The Jeweled Style Revisited (2023), which offers numerous insightful contributions on the topic. Following this fruitful line of scholarly discourse, this conference wishes to expand and collectively rethink the “cumulative aesthetics” of the long late antiquity ranging from the 4th to the 9th century offering a shared interdisciplinary platform to study late antique aesthetic developments across different media and territories by bringing together specialists from different disciplines: art history, aesthetics, classical philology, and archaeology. 

Programme conference:

conference_FINALDownload

Conference: SMA Student Colloquium 2024, University of Leicester, 4-6 November 2024

The Society for Medieval Archaeology, in association with the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, is pleased to announce this year’s annual Student Colloquium. 

Each year, the Society runs a Student Colloquium for students of medieval archaeology and its associated disciplines. It provides a platform for postgraduates and early career professionals to share their research. The Student Colloquium is organised by the SMA Student Representative, with support from the Society, and is usually hosted by the university where they are completing their studies. 

This event will include a day of conference talks, a walking tour of Medieval Leicester, and a fieldtrip to Bradgate Park and House. Please feel free to send any questions about the conference or field trips to Kate at kae7@leicester.ac.uk.

Details of the online attendance option for Tuesday 5th will be released at a later date; please fill out the registration form indicating online attendance to receive these.

Please note that registration for the Bradgate Park Fieldtrip will close on October 31st. Walking Tour & Conference Day will remain open.

Find out more about the conference on the SMA Student Colloquium website. 

Monday 4th November 2024 (in person only)

Pre-conference walking tour of Medieval Leicester led by Mathew Morris, Project Officer at University of Leicester Archaeological Services.

Meet at 13:30 at Jubilee Square (near Wygstons House), Leicester LE1 5LD (Tour finishes by 15:00)

Site visits will include Wygstons House, Castle Yard, St Mary de Castro church, Newarke Gate, Richard III’s burial place at Greyfriars, the Guildhall and the Cathedral.

Evening Meet & Greet: The Old Horse

Meet at 18:00 at The Old Horse, 198 London Road, Leicester LE2 1NE

Tuesday 5th November 2024

09:30 – 16:00: Room 2.03, Sir Bob Burgess Building, University of Leicester, LE2 6BF

  • Maren von Mallinckrodt, University of Iceland: Infant Maternal Health in Early Medieval Iceland: Evidence from Hofstaðir and Keldudalur
  • Isobel Grimley, University of Bradford: Disrupted Young Lives: Frailty in Medieval Children and Young Adults from the Multi-Period Site of St. Oswald’s Priory, Gloucester
  • Emma Louise Thompson, University of Leicester: Beaded Identities: The Constructive Powers of Jewellery in Danish Viking Age Burials
  • Adrienne Ponsford, University of York: A Brooch for Life and Death: Early Medieval Brooches and Their Contexts in Yorkshire and Humberside
  • Caroline Croasdaile, University of Oxford: The English Iconographic: Rings, Beads, Pendants, and Other Engraved Metalwork
  • Willa Stonecipher, University of Oxford: To Kill an Ampulla? Ritual Mutilation and Folded Ampullae in Medieval Britian, c.1066-1540
  • Denis Ionut Mereuta, Babes-Bolyai University: Medieval Cave Archaeology from Padurea Craiului Mountains 
  • Hadley Wehner, Courtauld Institute: Carving out New Histories of Experience and Interaction: A Study of the Medieval and Early Modern Graffiti at St. Alban’s Abbey
  • Laura Bough, University of Hull: Regenerating Meaux Abbey: Exploring the Educational Benefits and Socio-Economic Impact of Virtual Reality in recreating Meaux Abbey through its wider contexts and historical narrative (1150-1539) 
  • Kate Autumn Evetts, University of Leicester: Industrialised Horticulture & Food Security: Adapting Urban Garden Space Functionalities Through Crisis in Medieval England

Evening Dinner & Networking Social: The Marquis of Wellington

Meet at 18:00 at the Marquis of Wellington, 139 London Road, Leicester, LE2 1EF

Wednesday 6th November 2024 (in person only)

Post conference field trip to Bradgate Park and House, with a tour from Professor Richard Thomas, University of Leicester.

Depart at 09:00 from Charles Wilson Building, University of Leicester (Returning to campus by 12:00)

Bradgate Park is a medieval deer park, and Bradgate House, standing largely in ruins today, was home to the Grey family from the 15th to 19th century. Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days’ Queen, was born and raised here. The site has been extensively excavated in the last ten years through Fieldschool Projects run by University of Leicester Archaeological Services and School of Archaeology and Ancient History.