Journal: Journal of Urban Archaeology

Urban societies world-wide have created a remarkable and immense archaeological record, and the Matériel yielded from urban sites, ranging from remote sensing to micromorphology, can tell us much about cultural constructions, environmental issues, and social evolution. Up to now, however, this material has often been discussed within the framework of different regional and topical approaches, despite the fact that scholars working in urban areas often face similar questions about societies, and draw on common theories, methods, and benchmark studies.

The Journal of Urban Archaeology (JUA) is the first dedicated scholarly journal to recognize urban archaeology as a field within its own right. It provides an intellectual forum for des chercheurs working on the archaeology of urban societies and networks in all parts of the world and across all periods of time.

The journal is published twice a year.

Learn more about this new fascinating journal at their website.

Seminar: ‘Bohemond’s Enigma: Crusader Architecture in Norman Italy’, Dr Clare Vernon, 10 June 2020

When: 10 June 2020, 16:50 — 18:30
Venue: Online, Link to be provided

Book your place now

This talk is part of a series of Murray Research Seminars on Medieval and Renaissance Art, in which scholars present their current research for discussion. The Italo-Norman nobleman Bohemond I, became Prince of Antioch during the first crusade. He died at home in southern Italy in 1111 and was buried in an opulent chapel at the cathedral of Canosa di Puglia. The chapel is a mysterious building that continues to perplex scholars. This paper will explore the patronage and possible architectural model in the Holy Land, as well as the iconography of the bronze doors and the meaning of the inscriptions.

Contact name: Laura Jacobus

More information here.

New Publication: Stone Fidelity: Marriage and Emotion in Medieval Tomb Sculpture, by Jessica Barker

With 33 colour and 63 black & white illustrations, it’s a beautiful study of “double tomb” effigies in the Middle Ages. Pioneering investigation of the popular “double tomb” effigies in the Middle Ages. Medieval tombs often depict husband and wife lying side-by-side, and hand in hand, immortalised in elegantly carved stone: what Phiilip Larkin’s poem An Arundel Tomb later described as their “stone fidelity”.

This first full account of the “double tomb” places its rich tradition into dialogue with powerful discourses of gender, marriage, politics and emotion during the Middle Ages. As well as offering new interpretations of some of the most famous medieval tombs, such as those found in Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, it draws attention to a host of lesser-known memorials from throughout Europe, providing an innovative vantage point from which to reconsider the material culture of medieval marriage. Setting these twin effigies alongside wedding rings and dresses as the agents of matrimonial ritual and embodied symbolism, the author presents the “double tomb” as far more than mere romantic sentiment. Rather, it reveals the careful artifice beneath their seductive emotional surfaces: the artistic, religious, political and legal agendas underlying the medieval rhetoric of married love.

Dr Jessica Barker is a Lecturer in Medieval Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Published with the generous financial assistance of the Henry Moore Foundation.

Order the book here.

Register for vIMC: deadline 26 June 2020

You can register online for virtual IMC 2020 here.

We are pleased to confirm that there will be no charge for the first 1,500 registrations thanks to a discount provided by our registration gateway provider. After this, it will cost £5.00 to register. This small fee covers the costs we incur for processing your registration via our registration provider.

Please note that the registration deadline is 26 June 2020. Any registrations received after this deadline are accepted at the discretion of the IMC organisation and may be subject to additional late fees. Registrations during the virtual Congress will not be possible.

Find out more information here.

CFP: BAA Post-Graduate Conference, deadline 31st July 2020

Abstract deadline: 31st July 2020

BAA Post-Graduate Conference, Saturday 28th November 2020
The Gallery at Alan Baxter, 77 Cowcross St, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 6EL / potentially virtual

The BAA invites proposals by postgraduates and early career researchers in the field of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology.

Papers can be on any aspect of the medieval period, from antiquity to the later Middle Ages, across all geographical regions.

The BAA postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for postgraduate students and early career researchers at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present and discuss their research, and exchange ideas.

Proposals of around 250 words for a 20-minute paper, along with a CV, should be sent by 31st July 2020 to postgradconf@thebaa.org

Please share our call for papers with your department, fellow lecturers, and of course, students! Click here for a PDF of our Call for Papers.

* Depending on the COVID-19 pandemic, this conference will either take place virtually or in London – this decision will be made nearer the time. *

Call for Submissions: Metropolitan Museum Journal

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection. There are two sections in the Journal: Articles and Research Notes. Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly-argued scholarship. Research Notes typically present a concise, neatly bounded aspect of ongoing investigation, such as a new acquisition or attribution, or a specific, resonant finding from technical analysis. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure. 

The deadline for submissions for Volume 56 (2021) is September 15, 2020. 

The process of review is double-blind. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Journal Editorial Board, composed of members of the curatorial, conserva­tion, and scientific departments, as well as external reviewers.Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear both in print and online, and are accessible via MetPublications and the Journal‘s home page on the University of Chicago Press website. For more information, please visit these sites:

Submission guidelines: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct
Send materials to: journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org
Inspiration from the Collection: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
View an online sample issue here

Seminar: ‘The Patrons of the Percy Psalter-Hours’, Dr Eleanor Jackson

Tuesday 9 June 2020, 5.30pm

Speaker(s): Dr Eleanor Jackson is Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. She completed her PhD at the History of Art Department at the University of York in 2017.

In March 2019, the British Library acquired a late 13th-century book of hours of the Use of York known as the Percy Hours. This would be exciting enough on its own, but the British Library also holds its long-separated other half, the Percy Psalter, with which it originally formed a single-volume psalter-hours. This acquisition allowed the Library to reunite the two manuscript halves in the same institution for the first time in around 200 years.

The Percy Psalter-Hours is one of a relatively small number of devotional books for the laity surviving from 13th-century England, and probably the only example from York. It provides rare insight into a period of great change in book culture, when devotional books for the laity were growing in popularity and regional workshops for commercial book production were emerging around the country.

Despite its significance, the question of the manuscript’s patronage has never been satisfactorily answered. Scholars have long recognised that the original owners should be identifiable based on the portrait of a knight and lady with coats of arms on the Beatus page. While scholarly opinion has generally settled on Henry de Percy (d. 1314) and his wife Eleanor FitzAlan (d. 1328) as an approximate fit for the heraldry, there are serious problems with this identification. This paper, still a work in progress, presents a new identification of the patrons for your opinions and feedback.

The meeting will be held by Zoom. To join the meeting please sign up on this Google Form. Registration closes at 10am on the day itself. Participants will receive an email containing a link to the meeting once registration has closed. If you have any queries, please email hanna.vorholt@york.ac.uk.

All Welcome! 

Location:  Online via Zoom

Organiser: Centre of Medieval Studies and the History of Art Department’s Medieval Art and Medievalisms Research School at the University of York

New Publication: ‘Category Crossings: Bruno Latour and Medieval Modes of Existence’, Romanic Review

Duke University Press is please to announce that the latest issue of Romanic Review, “Category Crossings: Bruno Latour and Medieval Modes of Existence,” is free to read online for the next three months (beginning May 6, 2020). Published by Columbia University, Romanic Review is a journal devoted to the study of Romance literatures that has been in publication since 1910.

Continue reading “New Publication: ‘Category Crossings: Bruno Latour and Medieval Modes of Existence’, Romanic Review”

New Publication: Christ on the Cross, edited by Shirin Fozi and Gerhard Lutz

Volume 14 in the series Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, this publication provides a comprehensive view of the first generation of monumental crucifixes to appear in medieval Europe, which balances examinations of the history, theology, styles, and material properties of these evocative objects.

Continue reading “New Publication: Christ on the Cross, edited by Shirin Fozi and Gerhard Lutz”

Exhibition: The Ministry of Works collection: Photographs and images from the Conway Library

The Courtauld has created a new online exhibition of photos from the Conway library, including a set of extraordinary photos taken in the aftermath of WWII. Medievalists will find much of interest here, including this striking photo of Private William Scollie of Chicago examining art works in the Siegen caves near Cologne in April 1945.