London Chaucer Conference 2015: All The Tweets #Chaucer2015

All the tweets (in chronological order) from the Biennial London Chaucer Conference, held at Senate House Library, 10-11 July 2015. [Note: this captures only tweets using the official confernece hashtag #Chaucer2015]

Getting the Word Out: Medieval Manuscripts Now

UCL Festival of the Arts, 21 May 2015, 18:30 to 19:30 - Live tweets from public discussion on the use and abuse of digital images of medieval books: #ManuscriptsNow

ANZAMEMS 2015 - Medieval Conference in Australia

Kiera Naylor collected the tweets from the Australian and New Zealand Medieval Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference at University of Queensland in Brisbane. The conference was held from July 14-18, 2015.

Vikings, Emojis and Michaelmas: Medieval News Round-up

This week's news from the medievalverse has Anders Winroth talking about his new book The Age of the Vikings, funding for Newport's medieval ship, and Buzzfeed talking another look at medieval images.

Today (September 29th) is also Michaelmas, the Christian feast of St. Michael the Archangel. During the Middle Ages it was an important feastday.

Armour on Bodies, Divergent Bodies, and what it takes to have a volcano named after you

Our latest medieval news roundup, including a few articles, archaeology news, tweets about upcoming conferences, the next medieval TV show, and catching up on progress at Guédelon Castle:

Crusader Feces, Bat Feces, Latin swear words, and building a village - medieval news roundup

Here are some news stories from the medievalverse, and a few from beyond it...

Crusader Feces

An article in the International Journal of Paleopathology shows that many Crusaders would have been suffering from worms or other diseases. Test done by two researchers from the University of Cambridge at Saranda Kolones castle in Cyrpus showed that two species of parasite, the roundworm and the whipworm, were prevalent among the crusaders. The castle was built after the Third Crusade and abandoned in 1222.

Evilena Anastasiou and Piers D. Mitchell write that "the discovery of these parasites highlights how medieval crusaders may have been at risk of malnutrition at times of siege and famine, as these worms competed with them for nutrients."

You can read more about this story from Reuters.

The article 'Human intestinal parasites from a latrine in the 12th century Frankish castle of Saranda Kolones in Cyprus' is available here.

One stone at a time

While we have reported on groups in France and Arkansas that are building medieval castles, we now have a team of 25 workers in Germany who have just started constructing a replica of a ninth century monastic settlement and town. Bert Geuten is leading the effort to build the medieval site near the southern German town of Meßkirch in Baden-Württemberg. Because they are using authentic historical tools and techniques, it will take over 40 years before the project is complete, which will include a 2,000 seat cathedral.

They began last weekend by starting construction on a small church. “In the ninth century the monks would have built a small church first – they didn't want to wait until the cathedral was ready to be able to pray. So we're doing the same,” Geuten explained.

Click here to read the full article from The Local.

Bat Feces

Churches in England are again facing danger, but not from thieves stealing their metal or declining attendance. Instead, bats are the new threat, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph. An environmental directive from the European Union prohibits building owners from killing bats or destroying their roosts, and this is apparently leading to church interiors being contaminated with bat droppings.

Tony Baldry, a Member of Parliament who officially speaks for the Church of England, said, "the church of St Peter ad Vincula at South Newington in my own constituency has some very fine, almost unique, medieval wall paintings which seem to have been spared Thomas Cromwell's men. But having survived the ravages of the Reformation they are now threatened by bat urine. And these are irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage."

Click here to read the article from Daily Telegraph

How to Swear like a Roman

One of my daily reads The Atlantic magazine occasionally has articles related to history. Last month, they looked at ancient cursing with Futuo! How the Romans Swore. It focuses on the new book, Holy Sh*t! A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr, and explains the meaning behind Latin words such as futuo, landica, cinaedus, mingo, cacare and verecundum. You can read that article here.

What it takes to run the IMC

The International Medieval Congress is taking place at the University of Leeds from June 30th to July 4th. Over 2000 people will be attending (I wish I was there too). Anthony Lowe, event manager for MeetInLeeds is in charge of making sure everything goes smoothly “This has been three years in the planning as it is the largest conference we have hosted on the campus,” he explains to ConferenceNews. “It’s been great working with all the different departments to create a medieval campus, with special exhibitions in the university art gallery, library and academic meeting rooms, as well as themed menus and medieval street food."

He adds, “It’s going to be incredibly busy but we’re extremely well-prepared for it and will be working hard to ensure that everyone has a fabulous experience and remembers their medieval experience for many years to come. Leeds is a very attractive campus and we are looking forward to showing it at its very best.”

Click here to read the full article from ConferenceNews

Social Networking in the 1600s

Tom Standage is the author of the forthcoming book, Writing on the Wall: Social Media — The First 2,000 Years. In this article from the New York Times, he writes about how the coffeehouse was the social-networking site of the 17th century. He explains:

People went to coffeehouses not just to drink coffee, but to read and discuss the latest pamphlets and news-sheets and to catch up on rumor and gossip. Coffeehouses were also used as post offices. Patrons would visit their favorite coffeehouses several times a day to check for new mail, catch up on the news and talk to other coffee drinkers, both friends and strangers. Some coffeehouses specialized in discussion of particular topics, like science, politics, literature or shipping. As customers moved from one to the other, information circulated with them.

You can read the article here.

The Rise of the Novel

Staying in Early Modern England, Penn State News has an interesting profile of Leah Orr, a specialist in 18th-century literature. She just completed her PhD on Did the Novel Rise? Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690-1730, which "rebuts the longstanding notion that the novel as we now know it became a recognized form and rose to prominence during that time period. That conception of early fiction, she argues, is based on close readings of a few famous texts by major authors, such as Daniel Defoe and Aphra Behn, and neglects the broader literary context in which those texts were written and first read."

Click here to read more from Penn State.

Other news bits:

Medieval herb garden unveiled at Northumberland Park

Medieval Polish Treasures Revealed at Down Museum Exhibition

Rachel Koopmans wins Margaret Wade Labarge Prize for Books in Medieval Studies

Video: Students studying Archaeology at Queen's University take part in an excavation which discovers a Medieval Lime Kiln, which may have been used during the construction of Dundrum Castle.

Don’t underestimate Viking women

“To assume that Viking men were ranked above women is to impose modern values on the past, which would be misleading,” cautions Marianne Moen. She has been studying how women’s status and power is expressed through Viking burial findings. Her master’s thesis The Gendered Landscape argues that viking gender roles may have been more complex than we assume.

 Exploring new perspectives of Viking society is a theme which also will be the focus of the forthcoming Viking Worlds conference in March 2013, where Moen is a member of the organising committee.

 Our assumptions of gender roles in viking society could skew the way we interpret burial findings, Moen points out. She uses the 1904 excavation of the Oseberg long boat to illustrate the point. Rather than the skeleton of a powerful king or chieftain, the ship surprisingly contained two female skeletons. “The first theories suggested that this must be the grave of queen Åsa mentioned in Snorri’s Ynglinga saga, and that the other skeleton was her slave servant,” says Moen. Åsa Haraldsdottir was the mother of Viking king Halfdan the Black.

 However, later carbon dating revealed that the buried ship was from around 834 AD - a date which made this theory unfeasible. But the idea of a queen mother and her servant became persistent amongst archaeologists.

Click here to read this article from Science Nordic

Click here to read her thesis The Gendered Landscape: A discussion on gender, status and power expressed in the Viking Age mortuary landscape

Click here to learn more about the Viking Worlds Archaeology Conference, which will be held in Oslo

Call for Papers: 7th Annual University of North Texas Medieval Graduate Student Symposium

The University of North Texas is sponsoring the 7th Annual Medieval Graduate Student Symposium on Thursday and Friday April 11th and 12th, 2013. 

“To Move and Be Moved: Physical and Psychological Transportation and Transformations in the Middle Ages.”

Keynote Speakers 

Dr. Janet Snyder, Professor of Art History at the West Virginia University, author of Early Gothic Column-Figure Sculpture in France: Appearance, Materials, and Significance (Ashgate 2011).

Dr. Susan Boynton, Professor of Musicology at Columbia University, author of Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125 (Cornell University Press, 2006).

Call for Papers 

While we will entertain papers on any topic from any discipline of Medieval Studies—Art History, Religion, Philosophy, English, History, Foreign Languages, Music, we particularly welcome those that engage the multifaceted topic of “To Move and Be Moved: Physical and Psychological Transportation and Transformations in the Middle Ages.”

We encourage submission of papers that have been submitted and/or delivered elsewhere. Travel subvention of $300 will be awarded to the best paper. Deadline for submission of a 300 word abstract is December 1, 2012. Selected full papers will be due March 30th. Paper Abstracts of 300 words should be sent to:

Mickey.Abel@unt.edu or Dr. Mickey Abel Associate Professor, Medieval Art History University of North Texas 1155 Union Station #305100 Denton, TX 76203-5017

See http://art.unt.edu/medieval-symposium/ for more details

Moravian College hosts medieval conference for undergrads

Moravian College will host the seventh annual Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies on Saturday, December 1, 2012. Over 80 students from 34 different schools will be presenting their research, and Dr. Alfred Siewers of Bucknell University will be the plenary speaker.

 In addition to the student research presentations, there will also be an exhibit by a calligrapher and demonstrations in medieval spinning and weaving by a medieval textile specialist. The day will end with a concert of medieval and early modern music by My Lord Chamberlain’s Consort at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem.

 The Conference provides an excellent opportunity for students practice giving professional presentations and to share their research, which they have dedicated so much time and effort to, with an audience broader than their classroom. This year 12 Moravian students will be presenting papers on a wide variety of topics, including an analysis of Robin Hood films, images of disability in the Game of Thrones series, and gender roles in medieval video games. Many Moravian students and faculty will also be involved in chairing sessions, running registration, and helping with setup and cleanup.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

The Kalamazoo Diaries – new play takes on the crazy world of the International Congress on Medieval Studies

Medievalists might be cringing or laughing until they cry soon, as a new play is in the works that takes a look at one of their most famous gatherings: the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

 About seventy people got a first look at The Kalamazoo Diaries earlier this week in Toronto, Canada, when a reading of the play was staged in order to get audience feedback. The play is a sometimes serious, but often hilarious satire on what happens at International Congress on Medieval Studies, an annual conference that brings together up to 5000 medievalists to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

 The Kalamazoo Diaries is written by Natalie Fingerhut, who attended her first congress in 2006 when she began working for University of Toronto Press. Natalie calls it “the most absurd experience she has ever had,” and found it ripe material to create a satirical take on the medievalist sub-culture.


Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

UMKC conference to celebrate Medieval nuns’ literary contributions

The letter to Eadburga expressed thanks for the previous goods sent from Minster-in-Thanet and asked for yet another favor — a special copy of the Epistles of St. Peter.

 Along with Bishop Boniface’s “thank you” was a quantity of gold, to be pounded flat or powdered by the clever fingers of the monastic scribes, for gilding the hand-written book’s Latin letters. When trying to convert the “carnally minded” Germans in the early 700s A.D., it paid to be a little flashy. 

 This Anglo-Saxon bishop/missionary to the pagan tribes was not writing to a house of Kentish monks, however. Eadburga was an abbess, one of hundreds, if not thousands, of nuns involved in copying books throughout the Middle Ages. In our collective cultural misconception, fed by clever advertising (remember the “It’s a miracle” Xerox ad?), cartoons and movies (“The Name of the Rose”), this job is largely thought of as a monk’s — read, “man’s.”

 Yet cloistered women also underpinned European civilization, noted medievalist Virginia Blanton, “another part of the past which, when I was in school, did not appear in our history books.”

Click here to read this article from The Kansas City Star

Click here to visit the Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe II website

47th International Congress on Medieval Studies draws over 3000 medievalists

Over 3000 scholars, historians, writers, students and medievalists came to Kalamazoo, Michigan over the last four days, where they took part in the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Through 547 sessions, papers were delivered on a wide variety of topics, ranging from “The Trial of the Templars in Germany” to “What Can Games Teach Us and Our Students about the Middle Ages?” Some historical events celebrating anniversaries, such as the 800th anniversary of the Battle of Las Novas de Tolosa, and the 600th birthday of Joan of Arc, provided the theme for several sessions.

Noah Guynn, from the University of California Davis, told MLive.com that the congress is “the place where you see everyone from different disciplines. For medieval studies, it’s the most important conference and it always has been.”

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

International Congress on Medieval Studies coming next month

Western Michigan University will stage its 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, the largest, most comprehensive academic conference of its kind in the world, Thursday through Sunday, May 10-13. Worldwide, the congress annually attracts some 3,000 medievalists--professional academics, students and enthusiasts interested in the Middle Ages.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the event, which began as a biennial gathering in 1962 and grew to become an annual event in 1970. Now named the International Congress on Medieval Studies, it is sponsored by WMU's Medieval Institute and held primarily in venues on the University's main campus in Kalamazoo.

 The Medieval Institute, also founded 50 years ago, ranks among the top 10 North American institutes, centers and programs that focus on medieval studies. Established for instruction and research in the history and culture of the Middle Ages, its pioneering function was to introduce the first Master of Arts in Medieval Studies offered at a state-supported university in the United States.

 A half century later, WMU remains one of the few public colleges and universities in the nation with an interdisciplinary graduate program in medieval studies, with the Medieval Institute having earned a global reputation for its academic programs, medieval congress, notable research activities and longstanding scholarly publications program.

Click here to read the full article from Western Michigan University

See also our videos from last year's Congress:

Conference explores land and sea in Middle Ages

The great religious, political and economic upheaval of the early medieval era has been the topic of conversation at a meeting of international scholars at The University of Queensland this week.

 The Land and Sea in the Early Middle Ages Conference focused on the 300-1100 period and featured a range of research papers on topics including Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Arthurian travel, medieval naval warfare, rebel Roman emperors, harbours in Constantinople, and piracy.

 “The Early Middle Ages was a time of great religious, political and economic change,” said conference convener Dr Amelia Brown, from UQ's School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics. “A number of creative new political, religious and economic systems that were born in this era still flourish today. New technologies were advancing knowledge and quality of life, and many of these related to seafaring.

 “The sea allowed for intensive communication between the newly Christianised and Islamized coastal areas, in a way that continues up until now — for good (exchange of ideas, trade, knowledge) and for bad (refugees, warfare, the Crusades).”

The conference, held between April 26 and 28, explored the persistence of contact by sea across coastal and riverine landscapes from Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages, in areas ranging from Ireland to the Levant, and Scandinavia to the shores of North Africa.

“By comparing ancient and modern responses to the same landscape, we can learn about human capabilities, and answer some long-running questions about the development of religious, political and economic systems in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa,” Dr Brown said.

Click here to read this article from the University of Queensland

Click here to visit the conference website

Kalamazoo, and Tolkien Too

Every year about 3,000 medievalists descend on Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, but tucked into the over 600 sessions on every medieval topic imaginable, you can find 6 or 7 sessions on Tolkien, often referred to as “Tolkien at Kalamazoo.” You don’t have to be a medieval scholar to attend this conference, though I should say that it is meant to be a scholarly event — still, there’s lots of fun to be had, especially in the Friday night “Tolkien Unbound” entertainment, or the Saturday night dance, or in some of the gaming sessions, or dinner at Bilbo’s Restaurant.

Click here to read this article from The One Ring

Medieval Congress free to local residents registering now

Kalamazoo County residents and members of the Western Michigan University community may attend the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies for free if they register online or in person by the Wednesday, April 25, deadline for early registration.
WMU's congress is the world's largest annual gathering of people interested in the Middle Ages. This year's event will take place Thursday through Sunday, May 10-13, primarily at venues on the WMU campus in Kalamazoo. It is hosted by the University's Medieval Institute.

Organizers expect some 3,000 people to register for the 2012 congress, and those interested in attending for free are encouraged to register by the early registration deadline.

The event will include more than 550 sessions featuring the presentation of scholarly papers, panel discussions, roundtables, workshops and performances.

Click here to read this article from Western Michigan University

University of Wisconsin-Madison hosts symposium on medieval Spanish literature

The University of Wisconsin-Madison will host an international symposium to celebrate two of the greatest works of Spanish literature: the 14th-century "Book of Good Love" and the late 15th-century "Celestina."

Events will begin Sunday, April 15 and run through Tuesday, April 17, with related activities on Wednesday, April 18.

The conference will be a triple celebration: first, a commemoration of the two Spanish literary masterpieces and the scholarship of María Rosa Lida de Malkiel, one of the greatest 20th-century scholars in the field of medieval Hispanic studies, who wrote some of her most important critical work on the two texts.

Second, it will recognize UW-Madison's distinguished scholarly tradition in Hispano-medievalism, celebrating the important publications of its faculty and staff and illustrious alums. Finally, it will be a celebration of the dramatic tradition of "Celestina" on the Madison campus in three productions from the 1950s and 1970s, all directed by emeritus professor Roberto G. Sánchez.

The symposium will bring together some of the most world-renown experts in the field, including several Madison graduatess, from the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, and across the United States; members of María Rosa Lida de Malkiel's family; and UW-Madison students and faculty.

Events will include roundtable discussions, dramatic readings of the "Book of Good Love" and "Celestina" presented in English translation by UW-Madison students, and an array of conference papers and lectures. All events will be free and open to the public and will take place at several venues on campus, including the Memorial Library, the Pyle Center and Van Hise Hall.

Click here to see more details about the Symposium

Medieval and Renaissance conference returns to New College bigger, better than ever

For some, the word “Medieval” conjures mental images of kings, peasants, knights in shining armor and damsels in distress. Others may be inclined to think of watching underpaid actors joust while wearing a paper crown and eating greasy food without napkins or utensils, or perhaps a climactic scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. As for the term “Renaissance,” it might well evoke the image of a fun time at an outdoor fair, such as the one Catalyst staffer and thesis student Alexis Santos attended this week (for this writer, it primarily brings to mind the Ninja Turtles).

For the nearly-200-strong group of professors and scholars flocking to the Sudakoff Center this past weekend, however, all things Medieval-minded and Renaissance-related represented an opportunity to take center stage and demonstrate one’s impressive knowledge to a crowd of like-minded peers. Such was the concept driving the 18th Annual New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

The conference has taken place at New College every other spring semester ever since the inaugural event 36 years ago. “Lee Snyder, who was a professor of Medieval History before Professor [Carrie] Beneš and Professor [Thomas] McCarthy, started it as, basically, just a little thing to try to bring local Florida Medievalists together,” Professor of English and Conference Committee Co-Chair (alongside Beneš) Nova Myhill told the Catalyst. “It was originally something like for a day, a day and a half. As it led on, he discovered that actually, not that many people from Florida wanted to come, but people from all over the country … and also a lot of different countries wanted to come … so it just grew."

Click here to read this article from The Catalyst

St.Louis University to host Medieval Academy of America Conference this week

Saint Louis University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies will host the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America Thursday-Saturday, March 22-24.

The international meeting will feature 50 concurrent sessions from a wide range of disciplines and approaches. Plenary speakers will include:

William Chester Jordan (Princeton University and President of the MAA Fellows) - ”The Gleaners”

Caroline A. Bruzelius (Duke University) - ”Inside/Outside: Friars and the Dynamics of Urban Space”

Alice-Mary Talbot (Dumbarton Oaks) - ”Searching for Women in the Archives of Mount Athos”

Richard C. Hoffmann (York University) - ”Too Many Catches? Consumption, Habitat, Climate, and Competition in Medieval European Fisheries”

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

University of Tennessee hosts Symposium on Reading, Writing in Pre-modern World

What did it mean to read or write a book in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance? This question is at the heart of “Grounding the Book: Readers, Writers, and Places in the Pre-Modern World,” a symposium to be hosted on March 1 to 3 by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The keynote address and all lectures are free and open to the public. The symposium will be held in the Hodges Library auditorium. Parking is available at the Carolyn P. Brown Memorial University Center parking garage.

Now in its tenth year, the symposium will feature a stellar line-up of specialists in the interdisciplinary field of book history who will explore the complex interaction between pre-modern writers and readers, their books, and the places—libraries, museums, monasteries, university classrooms, the courts of patrons—where they used them.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net