Medieval Art Research

Lecture: ‘Speculative Geometry and the Opening Page of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, by Arthur Bahr, University of Wisconsin, 17:00-18:30 CST

Weapons and wounds feature prominently in the first illustration of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which depicts the Green Knight’s entry, challenge, and beheading in a single tableau. As this talk will show, these weapons are more than thematic; they also help create a complex set of embedded triangles whose angles and sight-lines preview the poem to come. This is significant because the first page of the poem, which appears opposite this illustration on folio 91/95r, is like none other in the manuscript—especially its large, eleven-line gap at the top of the page. Although not representationally illustrative like its facing page, the anomalous text-block of 91/95r nevertheless illustrates the perceptual challenges posed by Sir Gawain’s literary and numerical structures. The 90/94v+91/95r opening thus previews and enacts, in miniature, the challenges and delights of the poem it introduces. Read closely, and speculatively, it offers additional interpretive tools with which to chase the endless, gordian knot of Sir Gawain.

The lecture will be preceded by a graduate student and faculty workshop at 14:00 CST. Please contact Professor Lisa Cooper (lhcooper@wisc.edu) to participate.

Co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Medieval Studies Program, the Anonymous Fund, and the Department of English.

Lecture: ‘New Directions in Manuscript Studies: The Digital and Manual Future’, by Professor Elaine Treharne, 9 November 2022, 16:00-17:30 EST

Elaine Treharne is Senior Associate Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education, Roberta Bowman Denning Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University, where she teaches Manuscript and Archival Studies, and Early British Literatures. She co-directs Stanford Manuscript Sciences, and she is currently working on the fourth edition of Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2023) and a revised edition of Neil Ker’s Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Early English. Her most recent books include Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book (OUP, 2021) and, with Orietta Da Rold, The Cambridge Companion to British Medieval Manuscripts (Cambridge: 2020).

Professor Treharne’s talk is titled “New Directions in Manuscript Studies: The Digital and Manual Future.”

Abstract: This is a critical moment. Millions of manuscript images are available online in repositories across the world, but what differences do they and could they make to contemporary knowledge and understanding of textual cultures from the past? Some inherited research that provides the basis of manuscript history is limited, partly because of what was available to scholars; partly because of previous scholars’ own, sometimes biased, worldviews; and partly because of the tools they had to hand. What kinds of new discoveries, then, might be facilitated by the mass digitisation of manuscripts and through new computational and digital methods and tools. More, what further limitations exist for the work (some of it manual) that is yet to be done?

The event will be held virtually via Zoom. Please register at this link.

New Publication: ‘Horizons médiévaux d’Orient et d’Occident: Regards croisés entre France et Japon’, ed. Atushi Egawa, Marc Smith, Megumi Tanabe, and Hanno Wijsman

This volume contains fifteen articles from the international symposium “Cultural exchanges in the Middle Ages: from dialogue to the construction of cultures”, held 18th and 19th November 2017 at the Yamato-Bunkakan museum in Nara, the former capital of Japan, at the initiative of the network of medievalists Ménestrel. At the end of a long joint work, it restores the experience of a meeting in polyphonic mode, resonating past and present cultures, intertwining historical themes and historical voices from the extremities of Eurasia.

Medieval cultures are compared by two main perspectives, determined by the scale of distances. On the one hand, a history of more or less close exchanges and interactions, extended by forms of mutual knowledge which, with geographical distance, tend towards the imaginary. On the other hand, between the ends of the world deprived of direct contact, a comparative approach that brings to light intriguing similarities and differences.

Bringing together and interweaving very diverse themes – war, languages, emblematic, religions, sciences, art and book collections, travels and knowledge of the world – this volume opens up new avenues in political and social history as well as in history. art or texts. Happily crossing disciplinary boundaries, it above all calls for an open dialogue between the traditions of historiographical thought.

To purchase, visit Editions de la Sorbonne.

Fellowship Opportunity: Research Fellowships for Graduate Students, Beinecke Library, Yale University (Deadline 1 December 2022)

The Beinecke Library at Yale University offers, on a competitive basis, fellowships to support graduate students to pursue onsite research with the collections for one to four months. We welcome applications from students enrolled in graduate programs at Yale and at any other university or college, locally or globally. The fellowship program aims to facilitate research by the broadest possible group of students, regardless of institutional association, race, cultural background, ability, sexual orientation, gender, or socioeconomic status.

Students applying for a fellowship should be at an advanced stage in their research or prospectus development and propose a fully conceptualized project related to their degree program. Applications from students utilizing traditional methods of archival and bibliographic research are encouraged as are applications from students who wish to pursue creative, interdisciplinary, and non-traditional approaches to conducting research in the collections.

Applicants must be enrolled in a graduate degree program (PhD, MFA, MA, MPhil, MBA, etc.).

Fellowships will be awarded in the amount of $5,000 per month for up to four months of research depending on the research needs of the project. An additional modest travel budget may be awarded if the project would benefit from research at another repository with vital complementary materials; this research would take place directly following the fellowship period at Yale. Fellows’ funding will be awarded at the beginning of the fellowship. All fellows are responsible for reporting their fellowship to their home institution and for paying any taxes related to the receipt of their fellowship.

This is a residential fellowship and fellows are expected to spend the majority of their time in the reading room. Fellows are meant to participate in the intellectual life of the university and are encouraged to participate in the activities of library.

The application form is located on Interfolio and must be completed in its entirety to be considered. Click here to view the application.

The application opens on August 19, 2022

The application closes on December 1, 2022 at 11:59pm EST

Applicants will be notified of all decisions by March 1, 2023

Fellowships must be taken between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024

Please Note: All graduate student fellows are responsible for reporting their fellowship to their home institution and for paying any taxes related to the receipt of their fellowship. Students enrolled in Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences or in one of Yale’s professional schools should check with their advisor about their eligibility and funding implications before applying for a fellowship.

All materials must be received by the deadline. Applications from previous recipients of a Beinecke fellowship will be considered only in exceptional circumstances. Applicants are required to submit the following materials

An application form
A curriculum vitae (3 pages max)
(Optional) A travel budget for up to $5,000 additional funding for travel and accommodations to do research in other repositories beyond Yale. Please upload this document under “Additional Documents” in the Interfolio application.
A research proposal (1,200 words max) that outlines:

o Significance of collections research to your project

o Value of the project to your field

o Feasibility of completing the scope of research proposed within the fellowship period

A detailed list of materials to be examined during your fellowship, including call numbers, collection names, and any other bibliographic information available. If you anticipate consulting oversize materials (broadsides, posters, maps, etc.), please indicate those clearly in your list
Two confidential letters of recommendation, including one from your academic advisor or equivalent

To assist with your application, most of the holdings of the Beinecke Library are described in Orbis, the online catalogue of Yale University Library, or in Archives at Yale. Applications for pre-prospectus applicants can be found here. Applications for graduate and professional students can be found here.

If you have any further questions, please contact Allison Van Rhee at allison.vanrhee@yale.edu.

Call for Papers: Vagantes 2023, Harvard University, 16-18 March 2023 (Deadline 28 November 2022)

The 22nd Annual Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies invites abstracts from current graduate students and recently graduated MA students from all discipliners for papers on any topic related to the long Middle Ages and its study. The organizers welcome abstracts for traditional 20-mintute conference papers, as well as performances or presentations that utilize other forms of media (artistic collaborations, digital humanities projects, etc.). We also particularly encourage relevant presentations from students in the fields of historical preservation, museum studies, or library and information sciences.

Submissions should consist of a paper title, an abstract of 300 words, and a 1-page CV (including the applicant’s preferred name and pronouns), and should be submitted as a single PDF by Monday, November 28, 2022 to vagantesboard@gmail.com.

Lecture: ‘From Archive to Repertoire in Late Medieval Women’s Caregiving Communities’, by Sara Ritchey, University of Wisconsin, 11 November 2022, 17:00-18:30 CST

Drawing on a range of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century French and Latin sources, including saints’ lives, charters, psalters, devotional miscellanies, drama, and poetry, this talk will survey the performance of healthcare that religious women (primarily beguines and Cistercians) provided in hospitals, leprosaria, infirmaries, and bedsides. It speculates on how textual knowledge in these communities was augmented through oral elaboration and suggests ways that medievalists can recuperate submerged healthcare knowledge and practices from manuscript vestiges.

The lecture will be preceded by a graduate student and faculty workshop at 14:30. Please contact Sarah Friedman (friedman23@wisc.edu) to participate.

Co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Medieval Studies Program, the Anonymous Fund, and the Department of History.

New Publication: ‘The Bologna Cope: Patronage, Iconography, History, and Conservation’, ed. M.A. Michael

This second volume in the series Studies in English Medieval Embroidery is dedicated to the Opus Anglicanum Cope of St Domenico, Bologna now housed in the Museo Civico Medievale. Essays are by the Director, curators and conservation staff of the Museo Civico in collaboration with new archival research by leading scholars in the field of textiles and the production of medieval liturgical vestments. It is edited by Dr. M.A. Michael, head of the Opus Anglicanum Project at the University of Glasgow.

This volume presents the first detailed investigation of the iconographical cycle depicted on the cope and provides new evidence for dating which places the Bologna Cope within the short-lived patronage of Pope Benedict XI before 1304. A comprehensive investigation of the archival materials relating to the Cope and its rediscovery in the 19th century is also accompanied by a detailed historiography of the literature and exhibition history of the cope and an account of the challenges faced during its recent conservation.

Table of Contents

Massimo Medica — A King’s Gift to a Pope: Benedict XI and the Bologna Cope

M.A. Michael — The Cultural Context of the Bologna Cope: The Design and Production of Opus Anglicanum Liturgical Vestments in England

Franco Faranda and M. A. Michael — The Iconography of the Cope of San Domenico in Bologna

Giancarlo Benevolo — The San Domenico Cope in the Inventories of the Sacristy and Convent of the Friars Preachers, Bologna: 14^th –19^th centuries

Silvia Battistini — An Historiography of the Bologna Cope

Marta Cuoghi-Costantini — Textiles and Embroidery in Italy between 1200 and 1300

Manuela Farinelli — The Conservation of the Bologna Cope

Silvia Battistini — The Bologna Cope (Catalogue description)

Bibliography
Glossary
Index

To order, visit Brepols.

Job Opportunity: Post-Doctoral Fellow in Medieval Studies, ANR CiSaMe Project (Deadline 15 December 2022)

The person recruited will join the ANR CiSaMe project (Circulation of Medieval Knowledge in the 12th Century) for an initial period of 12 months, renewable once, and will contribute to the creation and exploitation of a database constituted from an essentially manuscript corpus of works from the legal, philosophical and theological traditions of the 12th century. It must have scientific expertise in medieval textual and intellectual traditions. Technical expertise in digital humanities is highly desirable. The candidate will work within the UMR DRES of the University of Strasbourg.

The person recruited will join the ANR CiSaMe project (Circulation of Medieval Knowledge in the 12th century) for an initial period of 12 months, renewable once. The project aims to re-evaluate the circulation of knowledge in the 12th century (law, theology, philosophy) through the implementation of a method based on digital humanities and the exploitation of a database constituted from the transcription of a vast corpus of manuscripts and OCRized published works. The person recruited will assist the project coordinator, Raphaël Eckert, in the first phase of the project, which consists
of creating the database from 12th century scholarly manuscripts (in particular legal and theological). He/she will especially contribute to the selection and collection of the manuscripts; to the collection of information on the manuscripts and their history; to the transcription of the manuscripts (in particular with the help of an automated transcription/HTR software); to the creation of an XML/TEI database and of the tools necessary for its exploitation (with the assistance of a dedicated computer scientist). He/she will participate in the dissemination of the results (publications, conferences) and will be associated with the project coordination meetings. The person recruited will work within the UMR DRES of the University of Strasbourg, in the premises of the Maison interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme d’Alsace (MISHA). He/she must have a mastery of medieval Latin and paleography, scientific expertise in medieval textual and intellectual traditions, and preferably technical expertise in digital humanities. He/she must hold a doctorate in History, Legal History, History of Theology or History of Philosophy (or even Philology or Classics). He/she must have worked on intellectual history or the history of textual traditions in the Middle Ages. He/she should have a good knowledge of Latin paleography and, if possible, codicology. He/she should preferably have experience in digital humanities, if possible in both automated transcription (HTR) and encoding (XML/TEI). The working and communication language can be French or English.

The person recruited will work at the DRES premises in Strasbourg. The function cannot be carried out in teleworking on a principal basis. Some travel, financed by the CiSaMe project, is to be expected (consultation of manuscripts; libraries; meetings; conferences). The remuneration is between 2271 € and 2952 € gross, depending on the experience of the person recruited.

The candidate must hold a doctorate in History, Legal History, History of Philosophy, History of Theology or even Philology or Classics for less than two years, in the field of intellectual history or the history of medieval textual traditions. A good knowledge of paleography is required and, if possible, of codicology. Skills in digital humanities (XML/TEI encoding, HTR) are highly desirable.
A good command of medieval Latin, as well as a good command of French and/or English are required. Interested candidates should send to the project coordinator by email (raphael.eckert@unistra.fr): a CV in French or English and a letter of motivation. The deadline to submit is 15th December 2022. Interviews will be held in late 2022 or early 2023 by videoconference.

Online conference: British Archaeological Association Post-Graduate Online Conference, 22-23 November 2022 amended programme

We are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. The British Archaeological Association postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.

This year the conference will take place online via Zoom across two days.

Use this link to register for the conference.

NB: *amended programme* Unfortunately Christina Tasiadami (MA Student in Byzantine Archaeology, University of Ioannina) will no longer be able to present the following paper: The iconography of angels from the ancient world to the Byzantine period.

Conference Programme

Tuesday 22nd November 2022

1:30 pm (GMT) Welcome

Panel 1: Images and Devotion

1:30–2:50 pm (GMT)

Anastasios Kantaras (Doctor of the School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
The apotropaic function of the cross in Byzantine epigrams: some representative cases

Harriet Johnson (Chaplain, St Augustine’s College of Theology, London)
The Turbulent Priest and the Mystery Baby: A devotional reading of the ‘Peterborough’ Becket reliquary

Emma Louise Leahy (Doctoral candidate in History of Europe, Sapienza Università di Roma)
Archangels in Orthodox Iconography: Development of the Archangel Cult and Church Decoration in Bulgarian Lands

End of first day

Wednesday 23rd November 2022

Panel 2: Networks of artists and materials

2:30–3:50 pm (GMT)

Elvin Akbulut Daglier (Independent Researcher)
Mosaic makers in Late Antique Anatolia

Michela Young (PhD student, University of Cambridge)
For a Vallombrosan artistic network in fifteenth century Florence and beyond

Rafaël Villa (PhD candidate, University of Geneva)
Rediscovered artists of the Norman stained glass from the late Middle Ages preserved in England

3:50 – 4:00 pm (GMT) Break

Panel 3: New considerations of the visual material

4:00–5:30 pm (GMT)

Abigail Brown (MA History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Some Oak Sculptures in St Mary’s Hall: Art, Display and Identity in Late Medieval Coventry

Francesco Capitummino (PhD student, University of Cambridge)
New light on the paschal candelabrum of the Cappella Palatina

Lorenzo Mercuri (PhD student, University of Rome “La Sapienza”)
The Eglise Du Temple Of Paris And The English “Round Churches Movement”: New archaeological updates and missing data for a phenomenology of architectural reproduction “ad instar Sancti Sepulcri”.

Isabelle M. Ostertag (PhD student, University of Virginia)
Tower of Ivory: The Sculptural Program of the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral and Digital Modeling

5:30 pm (GMT) Closing remarks

End of conference

Download a PDF version of the conference programme here Download

Conference: ‘Translating Science’, 15th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, University of Pennsylvania, 10-12 November 2022

In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the 15th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age.

Translating Science considers the networks of exchange, transmission, and translation of natural knowledge evident in manuscript culture in the pre- and early modern periods. We will examine in particular the role of the manuscript book in the translation of natural knowledge across linguistic, regional, disciplinary, and epistemic boundaries. How did scholars, physicians, or philosophers use glosses, diagrams, or other elements of mise-en-page to convey information? What does the manuscript record reveal about the diffusion and conservation of knowledge? How does the materiality of the book itself drive the movement and development of scientific knowledge? What was the role of the scientific manuscript in the era of printed books? The symposium is organized in partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The program will begin Thursday evening, November 10, 5:00 pm , at the Free Library of Philadelphia in the Rare Book Department, with a reception and keynote address by Elly R. Truitt, Associate Professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania. The symposium will continue November 11-12 at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

The symposium will be held in person with an option to join virtually. Registration is free and open to the public.

Advance registration required. To register, visit https://www.library.upenn.edu/event/translating-science.