Call for Session Proposals: 7th Cycle of Medieval Studies June 2021, NUME Research Group on Latin Middle Ages, deadline 4 October 2020

The conference will be held from 7th to 8th June 2021 at the ex Convento Il Fuligno, Florence, via Faenza 48n.

The goal is to offer a broad overview of the current situation of Italian and international medievalist studies. Issues which are related to many different aspects of the medieval period (V-XV century) can be addressed: history, philosophy, politics, literature, art, archeology, material culture, new technologies applied to medieval studies and so on.

Particular attention will be reserved this year to the presentation of:

  • digital / multimedia projects;
  • cooperation, development and social cohesion projects aiming to deep and spread medieval studies (associations, laboratories, study centers, etc.);
  • proposals relating to communication and teaching

We accept:

  • individual contributions or with two or more speakers;
  • contributions already structured in panels and coordinated by a referee

All contributions will be structured in specific panels.

Applications:

Participation proposals must have abstract format, written on a single pdf file in english, not exceeding 300 words.

Furthermore, 5 keywords identifying the topic will have to be reported in the same file.

Proposals must be accompanied by a short CV (no more than 1000 words), and sent by October 4th, 2020 to the e-mail address: info@nuovomedioevo.it

In the case of panels, the proposal must include a general title with a general presentation not exceeding 300 words, followed by abstracts of all the interventions (presented as in point 4).

Proposals will be evaluated by the Review Board on the basis of quality, interest and originality. The judgment of the Commission will be unquestionable.

The Commission will notify the convocation for the speakers considered suitable by November 4th, 2020. The previous membership of the NUME Association does not necessarily imply the convocation.

The selected speakers will be asked to prepare an oral intervention, accompanied by any images or videos, not exceeding 15 minutes (+5’ discussion time). Contextually, they will be asked to send a paper of their contribution for the Conference Proceedings by February 1st, 2021.

The selected speakers will be required a registration fee as follows:

  • NUME members (enrolled before June 20th, 2020): 80 EURO each
  • Other speakers: 100 EURO (+20 EURO of membership) each

The participation will entitle to 1 free copy of the Conference Proceedings.

The Conference program will be published by April 30th, 2021.

The deadlines set out in this call must be strictly observed, otherwise the contribution will be excluded from the call.

More information here.

New Journal Issue: Medievalista Journal, number 28

It is with great pleasure that we inform you that nº 28 of Medievalista Journal is available.

This issue of Medievalista brings some news.

The most decisive ones were the simplification of the title – Medievalista on-line became Medievalista -, the adoption of a new management and editing platform and another renewal of the graphics with which the magazine presents itself. Without abandoning the legacy of the past, in particular the openness to researchers from other languages and other historiographies, the current issue returns to integrate a thematic dossier on the role of ecclesiastics in the construction of medieval monarchies. It also has three other articles on different topics, all by authors from outside the peninsula, in addition to the usual headings, such as news, reviews and presentations, which have been tried to give, as will be done in the future, a more comprehensive and systematic character. .

This number has the collaboration of: Alice Borges Gago, André Filipe Oliveira da Silva, Armando Luís de Carvalho Homem, Arsénio Dacosta, Francisco Díaz Marcilla, Gilson Damasceno Linhares, Graça Videira Lopes, Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar, Isabel Cristina Fernandes, Javier Albarrán Iruela, José Carlos Quaresma, Leandro Duarte Rust, Margarida Leme, Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho, Maria João Branco, Mary Magdy Anwar, Néstor Vigil Montes, Óscar Villaroel González, Paula Pinto Costa, Thierry Pécout, Tiago Viúla de Faria, Vincent Débiais, and Xavier Costa Badia.

Journal available at https://rb.gy/heyxga

New Resource: Matthew Paris’s Clickable Map: An Interactive Claudius Map

Project Manager: Dr John Wyatt Greenlee

In the 1250s a monk at St. Alban’s abbey named Matthew Paris drew several maps of Britain, which he appended to various copies of his history of England. The official chronicler at one of the most important monasteries in the land, Paris was a well-connected man. He knew bishops and archbishops, and knew King Henry III personally. His histories of England are important, but what make them especially interesting is the artwork. Paris was not just a scribe; he was also an artists. And, towards the end of his life, he turned his hand to mapmaking.

Matthew Paris drew a number of unique maps. He drew innovative  itinerary strip maps that guided the reader from London to Rome, and maybe even on to the Holy Land. And he drew the first regional maps of Britain, made even more notable for his decision to orient them with north at the top, in an age when most maps looked eastward.

Matthew Paris’s most famous map of Britain, the so-called Claudius map (BL MS Claudius D.vi f.12v) is a complex document filled with regions, cities, monasteries, and castles. While not especially geographically accurate, the map nonetheless presents a unique cartographic perspective on medieval England, Scotland, and Wales. There’s a lot to learn from Paris’s map, but — like many medieval documents — it can be hard to read. This tool should make it easier to access Paris’s cartography.

This project presents an annotated copy of Matthew Paris’s c. 1250 map of Britain (BL Cotton MS Claudius D VI), made using Omeka’s Neatline extension.

You can zoom in and out, and drag the map around the screen. As you scroll over individual locations they will highlight, and a translation will appear in the upper left-hand corner. Clicking on a location or inscription will open a window that gives you both a translation and a transcription, as well as an image from the location. Clicking on the image will take you to a wikipedia page for the location.

Check out the clickable map here.

York on the New Resource: Matthew Paris’s Clickable Map: An Interactive Claudius Map

Virtual Church Crawls

Missing your regular fix of church crawls? We’ve assembled a list of 3D virtual tours and models of UK cathedrals for you to enjoy. Their quality varies hugely, but they’re a handy substitute for the real thing, even as places start to open up. Maybe those cathedral Twitter accounts can get competitive again, as they did a few years ago?

Let us know if you have further suggestions, or would like to create something similar for other countries (for Spain you can look at the ARTES website). British Art Studies also have some helpful reflections by medievalists on the use of digital models and reconstructions.

Mapping Gothic (now with English sites): https://mcid.mcah.columbia.edu/art-atlas/mapping-gothic/map

Bristol cathedral: their own virtual tour or on GoogleEarth

Canterbury cathedral: https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/virtual-tour/

Chester cathedral: https://spinoo.uk/locations/chester/chester-cathedral-360-virtual-tour/

Exeter cathedral: http://www.peterstephens.co.uk/content/virtual-tours/exeter-cathedral/virtualtour.html

Gloucester cathedral: http://www.photosbykev.co.uk/panoramas/St_Peters_v3/360pano.html

Hereford cathedral: https://www.nikreations.co.uk/indie360/hereford/

Lichfield cathedral: https://www.lichfield-cathedral.org/visit-the-cathedral/a-virtual-visit

Lincoln cathedral crazy vaults, and a tour of the cathedral on GoogleEarth

Norwich cathedral cloisters: https://www.ggs.co.uk/photography-video/virtual-360-tours/norwich-cathedral-cloisters/, and a GoogleEarth tour of the cathedral

Rochester cathedral: https://www.rochestercathedral.org/virtual-tour

Salisbury cathedral and west front: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/west-front-to-salisbury-cathedral-8246ec6775f04c9f8ecb9bf8aa137f4f and https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/salisbury-cathedral-2017-8537e3e239384145b072b8bdd5152163 

https://historyview.org/library/salisbury-cathedral/

Southwark cathedral: https://www.stgeorgescathedral.org.uk/about/virtual-tour/

Westminster Abbey: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/westminster-abbey-da63c961c9614cc9b36aae2bf2ed88d7 and https://www.westminster-abbey.org/learning/virtual-tours

Winchester cathedral on GoogleEarth

New Publication: Sephardic Book Art of the Fifteenth Century, Edited by Luís U. Afonso and Tiago Moita

The current volume presents ten different studies dealing with the final stages of Hebrew book art production in medieval Iberia. Ranging from the Farhi Codex, copied and illuminated in the late 14th century, to the Philadelphia Bible, copied and illuminated in Lisbon in 1496, this volume discusses a wide scope of topics related with the production, consumption and circulation of medieval decorated Hebrew manuscripts. Among the issues discussed in this volume we highlight the role played by three distinct artistic languages (Mudéjar, Late Gothic and Renaissance) in the shapping of 15th-century Sephardic illumination, the codicological specificity of some solutions in terms of layout and the relation between the layout of these manuscripts and Hebrew incunabula, the use of geometric decoration in scientific diagrams, or the afterlife of these manuscripts in Europe and Asia following the expulsion of the Jews from Iberia.

Table of Contents

Calligraphy and Decoration in the Farhi Codex (Sassoon coll. Ms 368, Mallorca, 1366–83) — Katrin Kogman-Appel

From Castile to Lisbon: The Sephardic Biblical Codex and Mudejar Visual Culture, Mid-Thirteenth to Late Fifteenth Centuries — Sarit Shalev-Eyni

Typography, Layout and Decoration: The Printed Hebrew Book in the Iberian Peninsula and its Origins in Illuminated Manuscripts — Shalom Sabar

Some Sephardic Bibles from the Fifteenth Century in the Bodleian Library — Maria Ortega Monasterio

Shirat ha-Yam and Page Layout in Late Medieval Sephardic Bibles — Javier del Barco

The Portuguese Hebrew translation of Gerard de Solo’s Commentary to Book IX of Rhazes’s Almansor and the Manuscript at Reynolds-Finley Historical Library (Birmingham, Alabama) — Tiago Moita

Mudéjar Decorations within Calendrical, Geographical, and Mathematical Tables and Diagrams in a Fifteenth-Century Sephardic Manuscript of Isaac Israeli’s Yәsōd ʿŌlām from the British Library (MS Add. 15977) — Ilana Wartenberg

Manuscripts and Evidence of Jewish Astrology and Medicine in Fifteenth-Century Portugal: An Overview — Helena Avelar, Luís C. Ribeiro

Wandering Books: The Migration of Fifteenth-Century Sephardic Manuscripts and their ‘New Life’ Outside Iberia — Andreina Contessa

Jewish Networks, Books and Early Protoglobalisation: Investigating the Route of BNF Hébreu 1314–1315 — Luís U. Afonso


The Editors:

Luís U. Afonso is Professor of Art History at the University of Lisbon. He is author of several studies on Portuguese Late Medieval and Renaissance art.


Tiago Moita has recently concluded his Ph.D. at the University of Lisbon on 15th-century Portuguese Hebrew illuminations.

More information and order here.

259 p., 3 b/w ills, 111 colour ill., 220 x 280 mm, 2019
ISBN 978-1-909400-59-7, Hardback

New Publication: Romanesque Saints, Shrines and Pilgrimage, edited by John McNeill & Richard Plant

The 23 chapters in this volume explore the material culture of sanctity in Latin Europe and the Mediterranean between c. 1000 and c. 1220, with a focus on the ways in which saints and relics were enshrined, celebrated, and displayed.

Reliquary cults were particularly important during the Romanesque period, both as a means of affirming or promoting identity and as a conduit for the divine. This book covers the geography of sainthood, the development of spaces for reliquary display, the distribution of saints across cities, the use of reliquaries to draw attention to the attributes, and the virtues or miracle-working character of particular saints. Individual essays range from case studies on Verona, Hildesheim, Trondheim and Limoges, the mausoleum of Lazarus at Autun, and the patronage of Mathilda of Canossa, to reflections on local pilgrimage, the deployment of saints as physical protectors, the use of imagery where possession of a saint was disputed, island sanctuaries, and the role of Templars and Hospitallers in the promotion of relics from the Holy Land.

The book will serve historians and archaeologists studying the Romanesque period, and all those interested in material culture and religious practice in Latin Europe and the Mediterranean c.1000–c.1220.

Table of Contents

The Lazarus Mausoleum at Autun Revisited – Neil Stratford

A re-præsentatio of Royal and Holy Bodies: The Monumental Tombs of Vienne Cathedral in their Liturgical Settings – Barbara Franzé

Heribert and Anno II of Cologne: Two Saintly Archbishops, their Cult, and their Romanesque Shrines – Susanne Wittekind

The Canonisation of Bernward and Godehard: Hildesheim as a Cultural and Artistic Centre in the 12th and 13th Centuries – Gerhard Lutz

A Garland of Saints: Romanesque Verona and the Evocation of Rome – Meredith Fluke

The Geography of Death: Tombs of Saints and Nobles in the Lands of the Canossas – Arturo Carlo Quintavalle

A Satirical Itinerary of Holy Bodies? Recommendations from The Pilgrim’s Guide – Rose Walker

The Pilgrimage Church of St Martin at Tours: The Building Project of the Treasurer Hervé (c. 1001–1022) and its Context – Richard Gem

Saint Martial of Limoges and the Making of a Saint – Claude Andrault-Schmitt

Local Hero: Saint Eusice at Selles-sur-Cher – Deborah Kahn

Extra-Mural Developments: The 11th-Century Reconstruction of St-Eutrope at Saintes – John McNeill

Stone, Image, Body: Constructing the Memory of Saint Dionysius in Regensburg – Michele Luigi Vescovi

Byzantine Echoes at the end of the 11th Century in the Kingdom of Aragon: Sancho Ramirez and the Relics of Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki, Fact or Historiographic Fiction? – Marta Poza Yagüe

Inventing a New Antiquity: The Reliquary-Altar Depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Saturninus at Saint-Hilaire d’Aude – Manuel Castiñeiras

With Faithful Mind: The Pilgrimage to Santo Domingo de Silos – Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo

Bradanreolice, Burryholms, and Barry Island: Saints, Shrines and Island Pilgrimage Centres in the Severn Estuary – Jeremy Knight

Leo on the Margins? Reform, Romanesque, and the Monastery on Inishark Island, Ireland – Ryan Lash

Three Hungarian Shrines from 1083: Canonisation, Politics, and Reform – Béla Zsolt Szakács

The Royal and Christlike Martyr: Constructing the Cult of Saint Olav, 1030–1220 – Øystein Ekroll

The “Forest of Symbols” on the Romanesque Bronze Doors at Gniezno Cathedral Church – Tomasz Węcławowicz

Images in the Bayeux Tapestry and Rodes Bible: Reliquaries, Models,and Meaning

Montserrat Pagès i Paretas

Templars, Cults, and Relics: The Cleveland Reliquary of the True Cross – Gaetano Curzi

Templars, Hospitallers, and Canons of the Holy Sepulchre on the Way of Saint James: Building at the Service of Lay Spirituality – Javier Martínez de Aguirre

You can order the book here.

Find out more information here.

Fellowships: Princeton Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowships, 2021–2024, deadline 4 August 2020

The Princeton Society of Fellows, an interdisciplinary group of scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and selected natural sciences, invites applications for the 2021–2024 fellowship competition.

Three three-year Postdoctoral Fellowships will be awarded:

  • Two Open Fellowships in the Humanities and Social Sciences (OPEN): Open to all disciplines represented in the Society of Fellows. The fellowships’ responsibilities include both research and teaching, one course each semester in the first and second years, one course in the third year. The fellows will either participate in team-taught courses or offer self-designed courses in the host department and/or in an interdisciplinary program. In addition, fellows normally take on some advising in their specialty or related areas.
  • One Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (HUM): This fellowship is sponsored jointly by the Humanities Council and the Society of Fellows, and it is open to candidates in humanities disciplines represented in the Society. The fellowship’s responsibilities include both research and teaching, one course each semester in the first and second years, one course in the third year. In the fall semester of the first two years, the fellow will join a faculty team to teach in the Humanities Sequence, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. In the spring semester of the first year, the fellow will offer a self-designed course in the host department and/or an interdisciplinary program. In the spring semester of the second year, the fellow will teach an interdisciplinary course in Humanistic Studies. This course might take a more intensive look at materials from “Approaches to Western Culture” or offer an interdisciplinary approach to the fellow’s own area of expertise. The fellow will be called upon to lead or contribute to occasional activities designed to build a sense of community among undergraduates in the Humanistic Studies Program. The program offers local and international field trips, an undergraduate society, workshops and other opportunities.

Applicants already holding the Ph.D. degree at the time of their application must have received their degree between January 1, 2019 and August 4, 2020. Priority will be given to applicants who have received no more than one year of research-only funding past the Ph.D. degree. 

Applicants who are ABD (All But Dissertation) at the time of their application: Applicants who do not meet the August 4, 2020 deadline for receipt of their Ph.D. but are expected to have fulfilled all conditions for the degree, including defense and filing of dissertation, by June 15, 2021, may still apply for a postdoctoral fellowship provided they have completed a substantial portion of their dissertation (approximately half).

If you have already applied to the Princeton Society of Fellows, you may not apply a second time. We therefore recommend that applicants wait until they have completed a substantial portion of the dissertation (approximately half) before applying.

Candidates for/recipients of doctorates in Education (Ed.D. or Ph.D. degrees), in Jurisprudence, the DMA, and candidates for/recipients of Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University are not eligible to apply.

CFP: Women Worth Remembering: Female Models from Antiquity in the Visual Arts, c. 1350-c. 1650, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting (Dublin, 7-10 Apr 21), deadline 2 August 2020

Antiquity has long offered a repository of exemplary models to look at, stories of notable figures whose lives and deeds provided examples of good or bad moral behaviour, and therefore guidance as to what emulate or avoid. This is particularly true in the late medieval to the Renaissance and early modern period, when attention was first drawn to Famous Women – rather than to Illustrious Men alone – and a flourishing visual tradition established around them, stemming from Boccaccio’s ‘De mulieribus claris’ and Christine de Pizan’s ‘Livre de la Cité des Dames’. Figures as different as Penthesilea, Cleopatra, Lucretia, and Judith, among others, came to play particularly potent roles in European art from the mid-14th to the mid-17th century; their stories featured in a vast and varied corpus of paintings, manuscript and book illustrations, sculptures, tapestries, and a number of decorative objects in domestic interiors such as marriage chests and maiolica.

This panel seeks to explore the impact that these models from antiquity had on the developing notion of female identity between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. It also aims to investigate more extensively the related iconographic tradition which, despite several recent scholarly publications and exhibitions, remains unevenly explored.

Proposals are invited to discuss examples of the visual reception of Famous Women in European art from c. 1350 to c. 1650, and to assess the kind of contribution these figures made to the formation of female identity in the period. While the panel focuses chiefly on figures from Greco-Roman myth and history, contributions on Famous Women from the Hebrew and Christian tradition (e.g., Biblical heroines and saints and martyrs) are also welcome. Paper topics might include but are not limited to: the visual tradition connected to collections of lives of women and educational treatises (e.g., Boccaccio, Christine de Pizan, Eustache Deschamps, Jacopo Filippo Foresti); case studies of medieval and Renaissance appropriations of Famous Women; the querelle des femmes; virtues and vices exemplified by representations of Famous Women.

Please submit proposals to Claudia Daniotti (Claudia.Daniotti@warwick.ac.uk) by 2 August 2020. They should include a paper title (max. 15 words), an abstract (max. 150 words), relevant keywords, a brief CV (max. one page, including your full name, affiliation, email address, and degree completion date, past or expected), and an indication of any audio/visual requirements you may have.

Call for Speakers: ICON Scotland Take 5: 5 speakers | 5 talks | 5 minutes (20 August 2020), deadline 31 July 2020

Following on from our successful ‘Knowledge Exchange’ webinar, Icon Scotland are pleased to invite contributions to our first ‘Take 5’ webinars. The one-hour online event will feature 5 x 5-minute presentations followed by a Q&A session.

We are inviting contributions from across the heritage conservation sector: whether it’s a case study you’d like to present, a project you are working on, or some research or training you have done during the lockdown. It’s fine to present a ‘work in progress’ and it can be a great way to get ideas and suggestions from colleagues.

We are asking for:

A 5-minute talk with an accompanying PowerPoint presentation to share visual content with the event attendees. The presentations will be conducted via Zoom and a moderator will be on hand to introduce the presentations and handle the question and answer portion of the event as an informal and friendly discussion.

If you would like to give a presentation at this event please send your name and the title of your talk to scotland@icon.org.uk by 31st of July.

The webinar is planned to take place on Thursday the 20th August via Zoom.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in contact!

More information here.

New Publication: Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650, by Jyoti Gulati Balachandran

Narrative Pasts retrieves the social history of a Muslim community in Gujarat, a region that has one of the earliest records of Muslim presence in the Indian subcontinent. By reconstructing the literary, social and historical world of Sufi preceptors, disciples, and descendants from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the book reveals the importance of learned Muslim men in imparting a distinct regional and historical identity to Gujarat. The prominence of Gujarat’s maritime location has often oriented the study of Gujarat towards the commercial world of the western Indian Ocean world. Narrative Pasts demonstrates that Gujarat was also an integral part of the historical and narrative processes that shaped medieval and early modern South Asia. Employing new and rarely used literary materials in Persian and Arabic, this book departs from the narrow state-centered visions of the Muslim past and integrates Gujarat’s sultanate and Mughal past to the larger socio-cultural histories of Islamic South Asia.

Dr. Jyoti Gulati Balachandran is Assistant Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. A historian of medieval and early modern (c. 1200-1800) South Asia, Balachandran received her doctoral degree at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is interested in social and cultural histories of Muslim communities in Gujarat and the wider Indian Ocean world. Her research has appeared in the Indian Economic and Social History Review and she has contributed several articles to the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

You can pre-order the book here.