OXFORD MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS GROUP LECTURE SERIES

PIGMENTS AND ILLUMINATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES (PRACTICE-BASED)

Sara Charles (University of London)

FRIDAY 10 MAY 2024 (3RD WEEK, TRINITY TERM)

REGISTER BY 1 MAY 2024

To register: click here

This is a new seminar series whose goal is to foster a community at Oxford University, and beyond, of those who study medieval manuscripts. With a particular focus on illuminated manuscripts, we will be discussing the most exciting recent research in this field; sharing our own projects and ideas in a supportive and friendly environment; learning from seminars given by experienced colleagues; and examining medieval manuscripts together during library visits.

Seminars will take place on Fridays at 17:00, at Merton College, unless otherwise specified.

To subscribe to our mailing list, participate in library visits, propose a presentation of your research for work in progress meetings, or submit any queries, please write to: mailto:elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk

For more information about the other lectures, click here.

HOSTED BY THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, BAA, AND CRSBI

AFTERLIVES: REUSING THE PAST

A DAY OF SHORT PAPERS TO CELEBRATE THE LIFE OF JILL FRANKLIN

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON, BURLINGTON HOUSE PICCADILLY LONDON W1J 0BE UNITED KINGDOM

30 APRIL 2024

Places are free to students, but students must first register by sending an email to: conferences@thebaa.org

To purchase tickets (£15), go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-day-of-short-papers-to-celebrate-the-life-of-jill-franklin-tickets-859591169327

10.00-10.30 – Registration and Coffee

SESSION 1: 10.30-12.30

Bob Allies, Something in the air: the poetics and pragmatics of the pre-existing

A reflection on how, over the course of the last forty years, an appreciation of the potential of the pre-existing has consistently informed and shaped the work of our practice, together with some observations on the extent to which the climate emergency is now provoking a fundamental shift in the architectural profession’s attitude towards the recycling of materials and the reuse of buildings.

Eric Fernie, Enlarging English Medieval Great Churches

A common feature of English medieval great churches, especially cathedrals built in the Norman period, is the later rebuilding and enlarging of their eastern parts, with examples ranging from Canterbury to Ely and York. The purpose of the paper is to ask what this tells us about the financial resources needed to pay for the work, whether there was an increase in the power of the patrons or because of a wider increase in the size of the economy.

Nicola Coldstream, A village that moved: the early adventures of Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire

A late Romanesque capital built into an eighteenth-century gateway is among the few surviving remains of the early village site of Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire. This paper discusses the original location of the capital and considers reasons why the village was moved.

John McNeill, A Norman Doric Cloister in the Aeolian Islands

The abbey of San Bartolommeo on Lipari was founded before 1088 by Roger I, count of Sicily, occupying an ancient Greek walled enclosure above the most important harbour in the Aeolian islands. Despite its replacement in the 16th century, the monastic church can be shown to have been aisleless and cruciform. To its south is the residue of a cloister made up, for the most part, of cut-down Doric columns and capitals. Usually dated to the 1130s, when its abbot was granted the title of bishop and San Bartolommeo became a monastic cathedral, the cloister seems more likely to date from the late 11th century, and to have formed a part of the original monastic complex. As a spolia curiosity off the north coast of Sicily, it is without rival.

David Robinson, The Augustinian Canons in the Twelfth Century: Reflections on an Architectural Identity

Our friend and much-missed colleague, Jill Franklin, devoted considerable energy to the occurrence and meaning of the aisleless cruciform church in Romanesque Europe. Jill’s interest in this particular form of building began in earnest with her contextual study of the Augustinian cathedral priory at Carlisle, delivered at the BAA annual conference held in that city in 2001. From there, Jill went on to write a number of extremely thought-provoking papers considering the twelfth-century churches of the Augustinian canons in general. Indeed, for many years, and almost single-handedly, Jill sought to give the early canons something of an architectural voice. This paper will offer a review of Jill’s important findings, assessing her contribution in a marginally wider overview of Augustinian architecture in England and Wales.

Questions/Discussion

12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch

SESSION 2: 1.30 – 3.15

Richard Halsey and Sandy Heslop, The Church of All Saints, West Acre (Norfolk)

The parish church of All Saints West Acre stands immediately east of the ruins of the gatehouse of the adjacent Augustinian priory of St Mary, suppressed at the Dissolution. Existing discussions of its architecture imply that All Saints is a medieval building restored or upgraded in the post-Reformation period. We propose instead that it is a new building of c.1637 constructed at the behest of Sir Edward Barkham in large part out of fragments of moulded stones, freestone rubble and flint taken from the demolished priory, the site of which he owned. Indeed, it is likely to have been designed deliberately to reuse available features. Its Laudian date (Laud was archbishop 1633-45) suggests the possibility that it deliberately harks back to pre-Reformation parish worship located within an aisle of the destroyed monastic church.

Christopher Wilson, Salvage from a Mighty Wreck: A Clearstorey Window from Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire

Not hitherto recognised as an instance of the post-Suppression salvage of monastic fabric is some incongruously ambitious stonework incorporated into the exterior of the parish church of c. 1500 at Northwich, 4 km from the site of Vale Royal Abbey. Begun in 1277 by Edward I, Vale Royal’s church was by far the largest built for the Cistercian Order in England, and work surged ahead until 1290, when Edward suddenly withdrew his support. In 1353 a new chapter opened under the patronage of Edward Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (the Black Prince). In June 1359 he and the abbey contracted with a master mason for a French-style circuit of chapels whose plan was partly uncovered by excavation in 1958. Two years later a hurricane blew down the entire central vessel of the nave. What happened after the completion of the radiating chapels has always been unclear, but the evidence of the Northwich stonework indicates that the choir was completed in fine style. The only documented fact about the choir, generated by the famous heraldic dispute between Sir Robert Grosvenor and the Scropes of Masham, is that the Grosvenor arms decorated its interior. Joining up the available dots outlines a collaborative project due to the Prince of Wales (and, from 1363, of Aquitaine) and the Cheshire gentry comrades who played a major role in the dramatic expansion of English territory in south-west France during the 1350s.

Ron Baxter, The Early Days of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

Officially the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture began in 1988 when George Zarnecki and Neil Stratford approached the British Academy and asked for a grant to start up a project to record all the stone sculpture produced between 1066 and 1200. In fact, George had clearly been thinking about it for several years, and contacted Jill Franklin much earlier than this, as a kind of pilot study. This talk will give a brief history of the early days of the Corpus with special reference to Jill’s work in Norfolk.

Richard Plant, Anglo-Saxon Roods in Romanesque Contexts

The survival of pre-Conquest sculpture as part of the fabric of later churches in England is peculiar. Apart from attesting the long-standing tradition of stone sculpture in the Atlantic Islands the re-setting of images of the Crucifixion in later walling raises a number of questions about how they would have been understood and used by later viewers. This paper will look at the instance in Langford in Oxfordshire, and especially at Romsey in Hampshire, where the reused crucifix is placed next to the entrance from the cloister into the church, suggesting a particular devotional focus on this earlier image.

Stephen Heywood, 'Let's Pretend!' The decoration of the north transept and the reused throne at Norwich Cathedral

Jill worked on the architectural sculpture of Norwich Cathedral and successfully analysed the meaning and place of the extraordinarily accomplished sculpture. This short paper touches on the earlier or at least less skilled sculpture and the deliberate archaising in reusing forms believed to be indicative of pre conquest date and the believed actual re use of St Felix’s throne recovered from Elmham which achieved relic status.

Questions/Discussion

3.15 – 3.45 – Tea

SESSION 3: 3.45 – 5.00

Lindy Grant, ‘Lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui’: Abbot Suger, buried capitals, and the laying of foundation stones

Recent excavations under the north-west tower at the Abbey of Saint-Denis have brought to light a set of capitals used as rubble in the foundations, adding to the capitals already extracted and now in the town museum. They are figural and narrative, if rustic in handling. Where were these capitals from, and by how long do they predate Suger’s new west front? I will suggest that they have parallels with work in Norman contexts in the late 11th century, including the figured archivolt panels from Montivilliers, so brilliantly discussed by Jill in her paper for the British Archaeological Association Rouen Conference. But how should we read the burial of these capitals in Suger’s west front: as rejection of old-fashioned sculpture, or as precious stones providing a solid foundation – that the house of the lord should be ‘bene fundata…supra firmam petram’, as the liturgy for the consecration of an altar has it? And how widespread were liturgical ceremonies for the laying of foundation stones? Suger appears to have invented his own to lay the foundation stones of his new choir in 1140.

Agata Gomølka, Idolising stone: the case of the Konin pillar

The Roadside Pillar of Konin (Greater Poland) is one of the most original monuments of the Romanesque period. An inscription on the pillar proclaims its date, states it function, and names its patron. The pillar was one of the final commissions of the formidable royal fixer and castellan Piotr Włostowic (d. 1153). Piotr’s life and deeds, along with his extensive patronage of buildings and furnishings, were widely celebrated by contemporaries. The Konin pillar is the only surviving secular monument associated with Włostowic. Yet what is it? Is it a reused pagan monolith? This has been the consensus among most scholars. Or is it something else? Is it a tribute to a very tradition of spolia? This paper will seek to offer some answers.

Tessa Garton and Rose Walker, Andalusi ivories and metalwork re-imagined in the North for female saints

The re-use of Islamic ivory caskets decorated with courtly imagery as containers for the relics of Christian saints in northern Spain has been interpreted both as triumphalist and as a recognition of the aesthetic qualities of Islamic culture. The re-use of similar imagery on capitals in the sanctuaries of Romanesque churches suggests the assimilation and re-interpretation of this imagery for a Christian context. Likewise, metal objects were sometimes repurposed as reliquaries. Within church treasuries, as at Oviedo, they could even inspire the revival of a cult.

Paul Williamson, Late Antique ivory carvings, their reuse and afterlife

The ivory carvings of Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period owe their survival to reuse and transformation. Some secular carvings - including several consular diptychs - were incorporated into Christian settings such as reliquaries and pulpits, while others provided the raw materials for recarving in the Carolingian and later periods. This paper will explore the phenomenon of ivory reuse with a selection of case studies, some well-known, others less so.

Questions/Discussion

5.00 – Drinks

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE JEWELED MATERIALITY OF LATE ANTIQUE/EARLY MEDIEVAL OBJECTS AND TEXTS: FROM CLOISONNÉ TO STAINED GLASS TO EXPERIMENTAL POETRY (4TH–9TH CENTURIES)

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, NOVEMBER 11–12, 2024

CENTER FOR EARLY MEDIEVAL STUDIES, MASARYK UNIVERSITY, BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC

ABSTRACTS DUE BY 30 APRIL 2024

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 visual–verbal dialectics of this period of geopolitical and cultural transformation, as manifested in various instances of spoliation, patterns of fragmentation, and a preoccupation with (exquisite) detail in different cultural media, were subsequently studied especially by Jaś Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato. 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 A Late Antique Poetics? The Jeweled Style Revisited (2023), which offers numerous insightful contributions on the topic across different genres, regions, and temporal contexts.

Following this fruitful line of scholarly discourse, we wish to expand and collectively rethink the “cumulative aesthetics” of the long late antiquity ranging from the 4th to the 9th century by examining material artefacts and literary texts which are, in one way or another, rooted in what came to be called the “jeweled style”. The aim of the conference is to offer a shared interdisciplinary platform to study late antique aesthetic developments across different media and territories (esp. late Roman and Merovingian Gaul, the British Isles, the Italian peninsula, Hispania, West Asia, and Northern Africa). By bringing together specialists from different disciplines, including, but not limited to, art history, aesthetics, classical philology, and archaeology, we would like to consider complementary methodological perspectives on the phenomenon of jeweled aesthetics in late antique art and beyond with a particular focus on the following topics:

• the birth of so-called mosaic windows composed of fragmented quarries of colored glass, a direct ancestor of medieval stained-glass windows;

• the image-fragmentation processes at work in parietal mosaics and opus sectile;

• the development and diffusion of objects made in the cloisonné style featuring precious gems, glass, and enamels;

• the tradition of illuminated manuscripts featuring letters formed from animal figures, human forms, or “aniconic” motifs, typical of Merovingian and Insular book painting but also existing in other contexts;

• the “material” work with language (incl. stylistic features, genre mixing, etc.) in late antique authors such as Optatian, Ausonius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Venantius Fortunatus, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, Hrabanus Maurus, and Sedulius Scotus;

• the phenomena of (not only) so-called Hisperic aesthetics, such as multi-mediality, conceptual ambiguity, and meta-textual/meta-visual self-referentiality, across different spheres of late antique/early medieval cultural production;

• the applicability of the concept of the “jeweled style” and fragmented aesthetics to the artistic cultures of West Asia (from late Sasanian to early Islamic) and the respective material production (e.g. silverware, mosaics, textiles, architectural decoration).

The conference will be held under the auspices of the project “Fragmented Images. Exploring the Origins of Stained-Glass Art” (GA23-05243S) funded by the Czech Science Foundation. Conference participants will have their travel expenses and accommodation costs fully or partially reimbursed.

Submit paper abstracts of about 300 words by 30 April 2024 to alberto.virdis@mail.muni.cz and marie.okacova@mail.muni.cz. Acceptance notification will be sent by 15 May 2024.

For a PDF of the call for papers, click here.

Conference papers will be considered for publication in the Convivium Supplementum series, indexed in WoS and Scopus and published jointly by Masaryk University and Brepols. The deadline for submitting complete papers is 31 March 2025, and the issue will be published by the end of 2025.

Organizers: Alberto Virdis, Marie Okáčová

CALL FOR PAPERS

XIV INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR “THE MEDIEVAL IMAGE: HISTORY AND THEORY”

MARGINALIA, FRONTIERS OF CONNECTION

7-9 AUGUST 2024 UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO

DUE BY 30 APRIL 2024

Margins are not mere blank spaces: they can bear various marks of the actions of manuscript producers and consumers. In them, for example, the coloration of the parchment becomes more evident, and sometimes holes for ruled lines can be seen. More importantly, annotations and images of various kinds may have been included there. The margins thus could function as spaces of multiple exchanges both within and outside of the book.

However, margins are not exclusive to manuscripts: they can be physical spaces on a geographical scale or in an architectural sense, as well as symbolic spaces. Travelers, the hungry, prostitutes, lepers, and other marginalized individuals inhabit the margins of the city, not only subverting social norms [1] but also reinventing them, becoming vehicles for the circulation of cultural practices between the center and the periphery and among different peripheral regions. They constituted spaces for the production of counter-hegemonic discourses and resistance [2], while simultaneously producing, disputing, and defining the center as a “social field” [3]. As borders of connection, margins were the first territory to be reached by famine, epidemics, outsiders, and commercial exchanges. It was the space where intentional marginalized individuals – such as the pauperes Christi – could build connections with unintentional marginalized individuals – such as the pauperes inviti.

[1] HOOKS, Bell. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, n. 36, p. 15-23, 1989.
[2] BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. São Paulo: Papirus, 1996.
[3] SCHMITT, Jean-Claude. A história dos marginais. In: LE GOFF, Jacques. A História Nova. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1990. p. 261-290.

OBJECTIVE

The Seminar “Marginalia, Frontiers of Connection” aims to be, through the study of images and their modes of production in the Middle Ages, a space for discussion about margins and marginality as connected frontiers. The event will welcome papers that analyze strategies of connection between center/periphery and among different peripheral spaces, as well as the center-margin dichotomy. The fundamental question to be addressed is: How did the margins both produce and reveal spaces of connection in the Middle Ages?

CALL FOR PAPER SUBMISSIONS

Paper proposals must be submitted to the email lathimm.usp@gmail.com by April 30th, 2024. Written as expanded abstracts, they are to be published in a specific booklet, having to include a title, a summary of 5,000-7,000 characters (with spaces), 3 keywords, an indication of 4 essential bibliographic references, and the intended axis for the presentation.
Presentations can be delivered in Portuguese, English, or Spanish. The minimum academic level required for paper submissions is to be a Master’s graduate student.
Based on a specific or comparative case study, all presentations should aim to answer the same question: How did the margins produce spaces of connection in the Middle Ages? Presentations will be arranged into three axes, as detailed below:

• MARGINAL TERRITORY: the margin as space

  • Marginal regions on maps or georeferencing data in digital maps.

  • Manuscript margins as spaces of creativity or interaction with center-page contents or other works.

  • Studies on illuminations, ornamented margins, glosses, or doodles.

  • Frames, binding, and/or architectural features with supportive functions and their interactions with the image.

  • Images of travelers, modes of transportation, informal trade, and commercial routes in spaces of marginality.

• MARGINAL NONCONFORMITY: the margin as strangeness

  • Marginal/dissident iconographies.

  • Survivals of Antiquity in the Middle Ages.

  • Images of marginalized groups: sick or disabled individuals, gender and sexual minorities, prostitutes, drunkards, wanderers, the poor, the famished, charitable institutions, or of voluntary poverty.

  • Tools, practices and evidence regarding fixing material defects in image production (cuts, holes, scars, etc.).

• MARGINAL SUBVERSION: the margin as dispute

  • Images of groups in dispute against hegemonic powers: enslaved individuals, minorities, and political oppositions.

  • Heretical movements, religious disputes, criminalities, and the justice system.

  • Images and revisions/notes in manuscripts supplementing/altering the content of the center of the page.

  • Graffiti, iconoclasms, scrapings, erasures subverting the content of the text/image.

SCHEDULE
Proposal submission until April 30th, 2024.
Announcement of approved submissions and program details by May 10th, 2024.
Publication of the abstract booklet by July 31st, 2024.
Event to be held from August 7th to 9th, 2024.

PARTICIPATION MODALITIES
The event will take place in person at the Nicolau Sevcenko Auditorium – Department of History – FFLCH, USP, São Paulo. In-person attendance is mandatory for researchers in Brazil. Remote participation will be allowed only for researchers in other countries. Questions, clarifications, and requests for remote participation should be sent to the email lathimm.usp@gmail.com.

ORGANIZATION
Laboratory of Theory and History of Medieval Media (LATHIMM-USP).
Thematic Project “A Connected History of the Middle Ages: Communication and Circulation from the Mediterranean Sea” (FAPESP 21/02912-3).
Supplementary aide:
Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo

CHAMADA DE TRABALHOS

XIV ENCONTRO INTERNACIONAL “A IMAGEM MEDIEVAL: HISTÓRIA E TEORIA”

MARGINALIA, FRONTEIRAS DA CONEXÃO

7 A 9 DE AGOSTO DE 2024, UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO

ATÉ 30 DE ABRIL DE 2024

O núcleo USP do LATHIMM (Laboratório de Teoria e História das Mídias Medievais), em parceria com o Projeto Temático "Uma História Conectada da Idade Média: Comunicação e Circulação a partir do Mediterrâneo", organiza o XIV Encontro Internacional "A Imagem Medieval: História e Teoria": MARGINALIA, FRONTEIRAS DA CONEXÃO, entre os dias 7 e 9 de agosto na Universidade de São Paulo.

Margens não são meros espaços vazios: nelas podem se inscrever as mais variadas marcas de produção e consumo de um manuscrito. É nelas, por exemplo, que a coloração do pergaminho fica mais evidente e onde por vezes podem ser vistos os furos para o raiado. Mais importante ainda, lá podem ter sido incluídas anotações e imagens de vários tipos. As margens serviriam, portanto, como espaço de múltiplas trocas internas e externas ao livro.
Mas as margens não são exclusivas aos manuscritos: elas podem ser espaços físicos em escala geográfica, arquitetônica ou mesmo simbólica. À margem da cidade, por exemplo, habitavam viajantes, famélicos, prostitutas, leprosos e outros marginais que não apenas subvertiam os padrões sociais [1], mas os reinventavam, tornando-se veículos de circulação de práticas culturais entre centro e periferia e entre diferentes regiões periféricas. Elas também constituíam espaços para a produção de discursos contra-hegemônicos e de resistência [2], ao mesmo tempo que produziam, disputavam e restringiam o centro como “campo social” [3]. Enquanto fronteiras da conexão, as margens eram o primeiro território a ser alcançado pela fome, pela peste, pelos forasteiros e pelas trocas comerciais, era o espaço onde os marginalizados intencionais – como os pauperes Christi – construíam conexões com os marginalizados não intencionais – como os pauperes inviti.
[1] HOOKS, Bell. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, n. 36, p. 15-23, 1989.
[2] BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. São Paulo: Papirus, 1996.
[3] SCHMITT, Jean-Claude. A história dos marginais. In: LE GOFF, Jacques. A História Nova. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1990. p. 261-290.

OBJETIVO

O Encontro “Marginalia, Fronteiras da Conexão" busca ser, por meio do estudo das imagens e de seus modos de produção no Medievo, um espaço de discussão sobre as margens e a marginalidade como fronteiras de conexão e de encontro. Serão acolhidos trabalhos que analisem as estratégias de conexão entre centro/periferia e entre diferentes espaços periféricos, bem como a dicotomia centro-margem. A questão fundamental a ser respondida é: Como as margens produziam e davam a ver espaços de conexão no Medievo?

SUBMISSÕES DE PROPOSTAS DE COMUNICAÇÃO

As propostas de comunicação devem ser enviadas para o e-mail lathimm.usp@gmail.com até o dia 30 de abril de 2024. Os resumos expandidos, a serem publicados em um caderno específico, devem conter título, resumo de 5.000-7.000 caracteres (com espaços), 3 palavras-chave, indicação de 4 referências bibliográficas essenciais e eixo pretendido para a comunicação. As comunicações podem ser feitas em português, inglês e espanhol, e a titulação mínima para proposição é a de mestrando.

Todas as comunicações deverão buscar responder, a partir do estudo de caso realizado, à mesma questão: Como as margens produziam espaços de conexão no Medievo? As comunicações serão alocadas em três eixos, como sugerido abaixo:

TERRITÓRIO MARGINAL: a margem como espaço
- Regiões marginais na cartografia. Georreferenciamento de dados em mapas digitais.
- As margens dos manuscritos como espaços de inventividade ou interação com o centro da página ou com outras obras. Estudo de iluminuras, margens ornamentadas, glosas ou garatujas.
- Molduras, encadernação e/ou arquitetura com função de suporte e suas interações com a imagem.
- Imagens de viajantes, meios de transporte, comércio informal e rotas comerciais em espaços de marginalidade.

DESCONFORMIDADE MARGINAL: a margem como estranhamento
- Iconografias marginais/dissidentes. Sobrevivências da Antiguidade no Medievo.
- Imagens de grupos marginalizados: enfermos, portadores de deficiência, minorias de gênero e sexuais, prostitutas, bêbados, andarilhos, pobres e/ou famélicos, instituições de caridade, pobres voluntários, etc.
- Soluções para defeitos materiais na produção de imagens (cortes, furos, cicatrizes, etc.).

SUBVERSÃO MARGINAL: a margem como disputa
- Imagens de grupos em disputa contra-hegemônicas: escravizados, minorias e oposições políticas. Movimentos heréticos, disputas religiosas, criminalidades e sistema de justiça.
- Imagens e revisões/notas em manuscritos concorrendo/alterando o conteúdo do centro da página.
- Grafites, iconoclastias, raspagens, rasuras subvertendo o conteúdo do texto/imagem.

CRONOGRAMA

Envio de propostas até 30 de abril de 2024.
Divulgação dos aprovados e da programação até 10 de maio de 2024.
Publicação do caderno de resumos até o dia 31 de julho de 2024.
Encontro entre os dias 7 e 9 de agosto de 2024.

MODALIDADES DE PARTICIPAÇÃO

O Encontro ocorrerá no formato presencial no Auditório Nicolau Sevcenko – Departamento de História – FFLCH, USP, São Paulo, sendo obrigatória a participação presencial para pesquisadores que se encontram no Brasil. A participação à distância será permitida apenas para pesquisadores que se encontram em outros países. Dúvidas, esclarecimentos e pedidos de participação à distância devem ser enviados ao e-mail lathimm.usp@gmail.com.

ORGANIZAÇÃO

Laboratório de Teoria e História das Mídias Medievais (LATHIMM-USP).
Projeto Temático “Uma história conectada da Idade Média: comunicação e circulação a partir do Mediterrâneo” (FAPESP 21/02912-3).
Apoio: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo.

EXHIBITION CLOSING

CHAUCER HERE AND NOW

ST LEE GALLERY, WESTON LIBRARY

BODLEIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, UK

8 DECEMBER 2023 - 28 APRIL 2024

Misogynist. Feminist. Conservative. Radical. Respectful. Irreverent. Monocultural. Multicultural. Imperial. Domestic. English. European. Catholic. Protestant.

Chaucer Here and Now presents Geoffrey Chaucer as you haven’t seen him before. Not as the “Father of English Literature”, but as a dynamic, global author, whose works have been reworked and reinterpreted over time and around the world. Each generation reinvents Chaucer, taking inspiration from his work, and finding new meanings.

Drawing on material ranging from the earliest known manuscript of The Canterbury Tales to contemporary adaptions in theatre and film, this exhibition explores the many creative responses to Chaucer and asks why this medieval author still fascinates so many people today.

Come and reinvent Geoffrey Chaucer for yourself.

This exhibition is curated by Professor Marion Turner, JRR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford.

Free and no ticket required.

For more information about the exhibition, click here.

RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES LECTURE

ON ALBRECHT DÜRER: A PUBLIC CONVERSATION

SUSAN DACKERMAN & ULINKA RUBLACK

MON, 22 APRIL 2024 · 4:30 PM—6:00 PM

010 EAST PYNE, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, NEW JERSEY

Join us for a public conversation between these two early modern historians as they discuss their shared subject.

Susan Dackerman is the author of the forthcoming Dürer’s Knots: Early European Print and the Islamic East (Princeton University Press, Sept. 2024).

Ulinka Rublack is the author of Dürer’s Lost Masterpiece: Art and Society at the Dawn of a Global World (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Light Reception to Follow

Co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Archaeology

For more information about the event, https://renaissance.princeton.edu/event/on-albrecht-durer-a-public-conversation/

CALL FOR PAPERS

MOVING PICTURES, LIVING OBJECTS 

ICMA SPONSORED SESSION AT CAA (COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION)

NEW YORK CITY, 12-15 FEBRUARY 2025

DEADLINE: 22 APRIL 2024 AT 17:00 GMT

Organisers: Prof. Heather Pulliam, University of Edinburgh Prof. Kathryn Rudy, University of St. Andrews

Many premodern objects require human interaction to animate them and reveal their contents: turning the pages of manuscripts, moving the hinged limbs of figurative sculpture, unrolling scrolls, or opening screens. Others involve the dynamic effects of natural light. Like films or music, many medieval works invite sequential viewing that incorporates repetition and revelation. In art historical research, images do not merely illustrate arguments, they evidence them as much as written text does. Art historians abandoned their slide projectors long ago and have recently embraced e-publishing, but static imagery remains the dominant format for illustrating conference talks and academic publications. However, static images fail to capture aspects of performance essential to the function and meaning of many medieval objects. This session proposes to experiment with a shift in format, one that uses videos or the many tools now available for the analysis of artworks: rotational 3D scans, IIIF, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and 3D reconstructions. The session will be the first on premodern art to be exclusively illustrated with moving pictures, testing the boundaries of performativity and reception and questioning how we analyse, discuss, illustrate, and display artworks. This conversation is timely, as we move away from art histories that prioritised European fine art—traditionally static and displayed in galleries—to a more inclusive and diverse definition of art.  We are planning a special-issue journal on this theme, illustrated by moving images. 

The 90-minute session will consist of an introduction by the session organizers; 5 speakers each presenting a 5-minute video and a 7-minute analysis/discussion; and a Q&A.

To apply to be one of the speakers, please send a 250-word abstract to Heather Pulliam h.pulliam@ed.ac.uk and Kathryn Rudy kmr7@st-andrews.ac.uk with ‘ICMA-CAA Abstract’ in the subject line. Deadline: 22 April at 17:00 GMT. In your abstract, be sure to tell us why the academic argument you are making can only be illustrated by moving images.

The ICMA through the Kress Foundation is able to offer reimbursements for domestic travel to New York for up to $600; overseas travel for up to $1200. For the full description of qualified travel expenses, please check the full Kress Travel Grant site: https://www.medievalart.org/kress-travel-grant.

EARTH DAY LECTURE AT THE MET CLOISTERS—TAMING MEDIEVAL NATURE

THE MET CLOISTERS, FUENTIDUEÑA CHAPEL

20 APRIL 2024, 2:00-3:00PM

Gregory Bryda, Assistant Professor, Art History, Barnard College
Shirin Fozi, Paul and Jill Ruddock Associate Curator, Department of Medieval Art, The Met Cloisters

Trees are not only a material resource for the making of art, but a potent symbol in Christian iconographies of the Late Middle Ages. Join medieval scholar Gregory Bryda and Met curator Shirin Fozi for a conversation on the significance of trees and their role in the economy, religious devotional practice, and environmental politics of late medieval Germany.

Presented in observance of Earth Day.

Free with Museum admission, though advance registration is required. Please note: Space is limited; first come, first served.

For more information and to reserve tickets, https://engage.metmuseum.org/events/education/talks/cloisters/free-talks/fy24/earth-day-lecture-cloisters/

4TH ANNUAL HELEN DAMICO MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

38TH SPRING LECTURE SERIES

THE MIDDLE AGES ON SCREEN

15-18 APRIL 2024, 5:30 PM EACH NIGHT

INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL STUDIES, COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, ALBUQUERQUE, NM

"The Middle Ages on Screen" the 4th Annual Helen Damico Memorial Lecture Series and the 38th Spring Lecture Series hosted by UNM’s Institute for Medieval Studies, will offer a compelling four-day event that will span the fields of Art History, Literature, History, and Contemporary Media, Art, and Culture. It will be taking place April 15-18, 2024 in Woodward Hall 101 each evening beginning at 5:30 pm.  For the most convenient parking, we suggest the Cornell Structure or the meter parking in Lot A.

More information about the lecture Series will be available here and here.

4TH ANNUAL HELEN DAMICO MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES

38TH SPRING LECTURE SERIES

THE MIDDLE AGES ON SCREEN

15-18 APRIL 2024, 5:30 PM EACH NIGHT

INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL STUDIES, COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, ALBUQUERQUE, NM

"The Middle Ages on Screen" the 4th Annual Helen Damico Memorial Lecture Series and the 38th Spring Lecture Series hosted by UNM’s Institute for Medieval Studies, will offer a compelling four-day event that will span the fields of Art History, Literature, History, and Contemporary Media, Art, and Culture. It will be taking place April 15-18, 2024 in Woodward Hall 101 each evening beginning at 5:30 pm.  For the most convenient parking, we suggest the Cornell Structure or the meter parking in Lot A.

More information about the lecture Series will be available here and here.

MEDITERRANEAN ART HISTORY SUMMER SKILLS SEMINAR

MEDITERRANEAN ART HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION

17—20 JUNE 2024
LED BY DR. KAREN ROSE MATHEWS, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

REGULAR APPLICATION PERIOD ENDS 15 APRIL 2024

This online Summer Skills Seminar provides participants with an overview of key concepts and methodologies in the study of Mediterranean art history. The course will address the themes of mobility, connectivity, and encounter in relation to the visual culture of peoples and territories across the sea. Participants will acquire an art historical tool kit to assist them in conducting their own research on the visual culture and artistic production of the medieval Mediterranean.

For more information, please see the link below:
https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-mediterranean-art-2024

CALL FOR PAPERS

MEDIEVALISMS AREA

SOUTHWEST POPULAR / AMERICAN CULTURE ASSOCIATION (SWPACA)

2024 SWPACA SUMMER SALON, VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

JUNE 20-22, 2024

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: APRIL 15, 2024

Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/

The Medievalisms area invites paper and session proposals on any and all topics relevant to medievalism, which is described by Tison Pugh and Angela Jane Weisl in Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present (2013) as “the art, literature, scholarship, avocational pastimes, and sundry forms of entertainment and culture that turn to the Middle Ages for their subject matter or inspiration, and in doing so…comment on the artist’s contemporary sociocultural milieu” (1). Medievalism can be approached in many ways, including in terms of media (e.g., literature, architecture, cinema, music, games), chronology (e.g., Early Modern, Romantic, Victorian), geography, and from any number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., cultural studies, media studies, race and ethnic studies, gender and queer studies). Presentations that engage with current conversations in the field are particularly welcome.

Examples of topics relevant to the Medievalisms area include (but are not limited to):

· Literary Medievalisms

· Cinematic Medievalisms

· Medievalisms in Art, Architecture, Music, and Performance

· Medievalisms in Gaming, LARPing, and Role-Playing

· Medievalisms of Place and Space

· Gender, Sexuality, Race, Ethnicity, Class, etc. in Medievalisms

· Global Medievalisms

· Queer Medievalisms

· Political Medievalisms

· Medievalisms in the Classroom

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at https://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/ Registration information for the conference will be available at https://southwestpca.org/.../conference-registration.../

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Only one proposal per person, please; no roundtables.

If you have any questions about the Medievalisms area, please contact its Area Chair, Amber Dunai, at adunai@tamuct.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

CALL FOR APPLICANTS

MEDITERRANEAN ART HISTORY: AN INTRODUCTION

MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES SUMMER SKILLS SEMINAR

17—20 JUNE 2024, REMOTE

LED BY DR. KAREN ROSE MATHEWS, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

DUE BY 15 APRIL 2024

This online Summer Skills Seminar provides participants with an overview of key concepts and methodologies in the study of Mediterranean art history. The course will address the themes of mobility, connectivity, and encounter in relation to the visual culture of peoples and territories across the sea. Participants will acquire an art historical tool kit to assist them in conducting their own research on the visual culture and artistic production of the medieval Mediterranean.

PROPOSED PROGRAM

Monday, 17 June 2024: Who?—People
10am-12pm & 1-3pm MDT (12-2pm & 3-5pm ET)

1. Patrons, artists, merchants, and producers
2. Patronage, production, dissemination of artworks, and reception theory

Tuesday, 18 June 2024: What?—Things
10am-12pm & 1-3pm MDT (12-2pm & 3-5pm ET)

1. Materials, aesthetics, and symbolism
2. Theoretical approaches to objects and things

Wednesday, 19 June 2024: Where?—Places
10am-12pm & 1-3pm MDT (12-2pm & 3-5pm ET)

1. Sense of place and space in the Mediterranean
2. Mediterranean spaces: Case studies

Thursday, 20 June 2024: How?—Routes, Vectors, and Means of Communication
10am-12pm & 1-3pm MDT (12-2pm & 3-5pm ET)

1. Mediterranean environment: Motivations and vectors of exchange
2. Approaches to medieval Mediterranean visual culture

Application period: 15 April 2024
Acceptance/Stand by Notifications: 21 April 2024

For more information about the program, please see the link: https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-mediterranean-art-2024

CONFERENCE

BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID

ROMANESQUE AND THE MONASTIC ENVIRONMENT

VALLADOLID, 8-10 APRIL 2024

A Three-Day International Conference in Valladolid on the relationship between material culture and monasticism during the 11th and 12th centuries. There is also an opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings. For a booking form send an email to conference@thebaa.org

The British Archaeological Association will hold the eighth in its biennial International Romanesque conference series in conjunction with the Universidad de Valladolid on 8-10 April, 2024. The theme is Romanesque and the Monastic Environment, and the aim is to examine the design and functioning of monastic space as found in the Latin West between c.1000 and c.1200. The Conference will be held at the University of Valladolid with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings on 11-12 April.

While a particular approach to monastic planning can be observed in Carolingian Benedictine circles in the early 9th century – one in which ranges were organized on three sides of a garden with the church on a fourth – the extent to which this arrangement was widely adopted before the second half of the 11th century is unclear. Nor was it the only type of monastic plan in circulation. Semi-coenobitic orders had little use for ranges, even if the adoption of a garden surrounded by covered walks on four sides became more or less de rigeur in Latin monastic planning by c. 1100. When cloisters, chapter-houses, refectories, dormitories and work-rooms were established with clear relationships to each other and to the monastic choir, it becomes possible to speak of a core precinct, but what of other facilities, or precincts; infirmaries, outer courts, cemeteries, kitchens, gatehouses, and monastic choirs?

Speakers include Dustin Aaron, Verónica Abenza, Kirk Ambrose, Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Peter Scott Brown, Eric Cambridge, Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Mañuel Castiñeiras, Kathleen Doyle, Barbara Franzé, Alexandra Gajewski, Richard Gem, Cecily Hennessy, Wilfried Keil, Nathalie Le Luel, Javier Martínez de Aguirre, John McNeill, Juan Antonio Olañeta, Julia Perratore, Neil Stratford, Béla Zsolt Szakács, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo, Rose Walker, Tomasz Weclawowicz and Angela Weyer.

CONFERENCE (8-10 APRIL)

The conference will open at 09.30 on Monday, 8 April with lectures in the University of Valladolid’s Palacio de Congresos Conde Ansúrez. Teas, coffees and lunch will be provided on all three days, in addition to dinner on two evenings. The conference will also include an evening reception. More information will be provided in the joining instructions.

Participants will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. Valladolid is well provided with hotels and bed and breakfasts, and the conference organisers will send a list of hotels and B&Bs when they acknowledge receipt of your booking form.

VISITS (11-12 APRIL)

We will also organise two days of visits to Romanesque sites for those who wish to stay on. These will include major surviving Romanesque monuments in Salamanca along with Santa Maria la Mayor in Toro, and a special out-of-normal-hours visit to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos.

SCHOLARSHIPS

A limited number of scholarships for students are available to help cover the cost of the conference. Please apply by 31 January 2024, attaching a short CV along with the name and contact details of one referee. Applications should be sent to: jsmcneill@btinternet.com or fbanos@fyl.uva.es

It would not be possible to mount this conference without John Osborn, and the British Archaeological Association wishes to take this opportunity to thank him for the boost to Romanesque scholarship afforded by his great generosity.

Conference Convenors: Fernando Gutiérrez Baños and John McNeill

Conference Secretary: Kate Milburn

For more information, https://thebaa.org/event/romanesque-and-the-monastic-environment-valladolid/

IN FOCUS GALLERY TALK

MEDIEVAL FRENCH ARTIST’S CIRCUMCISION

ELLIOT MACKIN

MONDAY, 8 APRIL 2024, 3:00-3:30PM

BARNES FOUNDATION, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Elliot Mackin, a doctoral candidate in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania, leads an in-depth discussion about the medieval painting Circumcision. The talk takes place in Room 4.

In Focus Gallery Talks are 30-minute discussions held in the Barnes collection galleries presented in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s history of art graduate program. In Focus talks provide new interpretative approaches and intensive focus on individual works in the collection.

Mackin is a doctoral candidate in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently writing his dissertation, “Seeing Christ Queerly: Beauty, Power, and the Passion of Christ in Byzantine Art.” Mackin‘s In Focus talks look at medieval art in the Barnes collection and explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, religion, and power.

For more information about the event, click here.

CONFERENCE

BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID

ROMANESQUE AND THE MONASTIC ENVIRONMENT

VALLADOLID, 8-10 APRIL 2024

A Three-Day International Conference in Valladolid on the relationship between material culture and monasticism during the 11th and 12th centuries. There is also an opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings. For a booking form send an email to conference@thebaa.org

The British Archaeological Association will hold the eighth in its biennial International Romanesque conference series in conjunction with the Universidad de Valladolid on 8-10 April, 2024. The theme is Romanesque and the Monastic Environment, and the aim is to examine the design and functioning of monastic space as found in the Latin West between c.1000 and c.1200. The Conference will be held at the University of Valladolid with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings on 11-12 April.

While a particular approach to monastic planning can be observed in Carolingian Benedictine circles in the early 9th century – one in which ranges were organized on three sides of a garden with the church on a fourth – the extent to which this arrangement was widely adopted before the second half of the 11th century is unclear. Nor was it the only type of monastic plan in circulation. Semi-coenobitic orders had little use for ranges, even if the adoption of a garden surrounded by covered walks on four sides became more or less de rigeur in Latin monastic planning by c. 1100. When cloisters, chapter-houses, refectories, dormitories and work-rooms were established with clear relationships to each other and to the monastic choir, it becomes possible to speak of a core precinct, but what of other facilities, or precincts; infirmaries, outer courts, cemeteries, kitchens, gatehouses, and monastic choirs?

Speakers include Dustin Aaron, Verónica Abenza, Kirk Ambrose, Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Peter Scott Brown, Eric Cambridge, Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Mañuel Castiñeiras, Kathleen Doyle, Barbara Franzé, Alexandra Gajewski, Richard Gem, Cecily Hennessy, Wilfried Keil, Nathalie Le Luel, Javier Martínez de Aguirre, John McNeill, Juan Antonio Olañeta, Julia Perratore, Neil Stratford, Béla Zsolt Szakács, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo, Rose Walker, Tomasz Weclawowicz and Angela Weyer.

CONFERENCE (8-10 APRIL)

The conference will open at 09.30 on Monday, 8 April with lectures in the University of Valladolid’s Palacio de Congresos Conde Ansúrez. Teas, coffees and lunch will be provided on all three days, in addition to dinner on two evenings. The conference will also include an evening reception. More information will be provided in the joining instructions.

Participants will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. Valladolid is well provided with hotels and bed and breakfasts, and the conference organisers will send a list of hotels and B&Bs when they acknowledge receipt of your booking form.

VISITS (11-12 APRIL)

We will also organise two days of visits to Romanesque sites for those who wish to stay on. These will include major surviving Romanesque monuments in Salamanca along with Santa Maria la Mayor in Toro, and a special out-of-normal-hours visit to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos.

SCHOLARSHIPS

A limited number of scholarships for students are available to help cover the cost of the conference. Please apply by 31 January 2024, attaching a short CV along with the name and contact details of one referee. Applications should be sent to: jsmcneill@btinternet.com or fbanos@fyl.uva.es

It would not be possible to mount this conference without John Osborn, and the British Archaeological Association wishes to take this opportunity to thank him for the boost to Romanesque scholarship afforded by his great generosity.

Conference Convenors: Fernando Gutiérrez Baños and John McNeill

Conference Secretary: Kate Milburn

For more information, https://thebaa.org/event/romanesque-and-the-monastic-environment-valladolid/

GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY AWARDS
DUE SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59 PM ET

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) wishes to announce its annual Graduate Student Essay Award for the best essay by a student member of the ICMA.  The theme or subject of the essay may be any aspect of medieval art, and can be drawn from current research.  Eligible essays must be produced while a student is in coursework.  The work must be original and should not have been published elsewhere.  We are pleased to offer First Prize ($400), Second Prize ($200), and Third Prize ($100).

We are grateful to an anonymous donor for underwriting the Student Essay Award competition. This member particularly encourages submissions that consider themes of intercultural contact — for instance, between Latin Christendom and the Byzantine realm; among Jews, Muslims, and Christians; or the dynamics of encounters connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. These are not requirements, however, and the awards will be granted based on quality of the papers, regardless of topic.

The deadline for submission is SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59pm ET. The winners will be announced at the Spring Board Meeting in May. Recipients will be asked to forward their winning essay to the donor that underwrites the Student Essay Award competition.

Applicants must submit:

1. An article-length paper (maximum 30 pages, double-spaced, not including footnotes) following the editorial guidelines of our journal Gesta. A title page with essay title, author name, contact information, and affiliation must be included.

2. Each submission must also include a 250-word abstract written in English regardless of the language of the rest of the paper.

3. A curriculum vitae.

NOTE ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please submit PDF files when appropriate with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHabstract.pdf, SMITHessay.pdf, SMITHcv.pdf

All applicants must be ICMA members.
All submissions are to be uploaded HERE.

Email questions to Ryan Frisinger at awards@medievalart.org. The winning essay will be chosen by members of the ICMA Grants and Awards Committee, which is chaired by our Vice-President.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

CURATOR OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS

BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON

DUE BY 7 APRIL 2024

The British Library holds an internationally renowned collection of manuscripts relating to the ancient and medieval world. As Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, with a special responsibility for Classical, Biblical and Byzantine manuscripts, you will use innovative and traditional ways of interpreting and presenting these collections through online resources and engagement with academic and general users. You will also use your specialist knowledge to support the development, management and promotion of the ancient and medieval collections.

With a post-graduate degree, or equivalent, in a relevant subject, you will have extensive experience of research in Classical, Biblical and/or Byzantine Studies. Strong knowledge of Classical Latin and Ancient Greek, excellent written and oral communication skills in English, and the ability to promote the collections to a wide range of audiences are essential.

As one of the world's great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation's intellectual memory for the future and make it available to all for research, inspiration and enjoyment. At present, we have well over 170 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We make our collections and programmes available to all. We operate the world's largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future by anyone, anywhere.

In return, we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits. Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes a minimum of 26.6% (this may be higher dependant on grade. Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.

Location: St Pancras
Hours: Permanent - Full time
Grade: B
Salary: £33,600
Closing date: 7 April 2024
Interview date: 29 April 2024

We are unable to provide sponsorship under the UK Skilled Worker visa for this role, as it does not meet the eligibility criteria required for this immigration route.

To apply and for more information, https://www.vercida.com/uk/jobs/curator-of-ancient-and-medieval-manuscripts-british-library-st-pancras

ICMA-KRESS EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT GRANT
Deadline for applications: Sunday 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59pm ET

Upload materials HERE

Thanks to the generosity of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, ICMA members are eligible to apply for an ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant of $5,000 to support research and/or interpretive programming for a major exhibition at an institution that otherwise could not provide such financial support. Members from all geographic areas are welcome to apply.

As an organization, the ICMA encourages scholars to think expansively, exploring art and society in “every corner of the medieval world,” as characterized in our mission statement. With this grant, we hope to encourage colleagues to develop innovative exhibition themes or bring little-known objects before new audiences. We also aim to enhance the impact of exhibitions by supporting related lectures or symposia.

ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant can be used to fund travel in the research and preparation stages of an exhibition and/or to underwrite public programming once a show is installed. This grant is designed to assist with an exhibition already in the pipeline and scheduled by the host museum.

We ask applicants to upload to the ICMA submission site:

• Applicant’s cv

• Description of the exhibition and its goals, including an overview of the structure of the exhibition – themes and estimated number of objects in each section of the show – and dates of the exhibition

• Statement of other sources of funding both secured and provisional, with specifics on the amounts already awarded and expenses to be covered by secured and provisional funding

• Sample wall panel for a subsection of the exhibition and sample labels for 3-4 examples of works in the show

• If the applicant seeks funds to travel to see objects for inclusion in the exhibition, a list of institutions to be visited, names of contacts at each, and key objects (with accession numbers) to be inspected

• If the applicant seeks funds for exhibition programming, specific information on gallery talks, public lectures, or symposium, with anticipated names of speakers and estimated dates

• Letter of support from the Museum Director or Curator with whom the applicant is working, confirming that the exhibition will be mounted

• If funds will be used toward a lecture or symposium connected to an exhibition, letter of support from institutional administrator/s (Dean, Provost, or Museum/Gallery Director) confirming that space at the organizer’s institution will be made available for the event/s

Applications will be reviewed by the ICMA Grants & Awards Committee and approved by the ICMA Executive Committee. The recipient will be announced in May 2024. An update report from the recipient will be due in late Summer 2024.

Questions can be addressed to Ryan Frisinger, Executive Director, at awards@medievalart.org

Upload materials HERE

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

TRAVELLING TO THE EAST: MARCO POLO AND THE MENDICANT FRIARS

DOMINICAN STUDY INSTITUTE

ISTITUTO DI STUDI ECUMENICI "SAN BERNARDINO", BIBLIOTECA MONUMENTALE, SESTIERE CASTELLO 2786 - 30122 VENEZIA, ITALY

FRIDAY 25 - SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2024

DUE BY 7 APRIL 2024

Marco Polo, whose seven centuries since his death (1254 - 1324) will be celebrated in 2024, can be considered, in his own right, a privileged witness of fruitful intercultural relations between the Western and Eastern worlds. According to St. Augustine, the world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page of it. The Venetian traveller was undoubtedly an extraordinary reader of the book of the world: a man of wonder and curiosity....

His voyage, very long in time and space (three and a half years, between 1271 and 1275, and a distance of some 12,000 kilometres), crosses mythical lands, of different cultures and religions, from Venice to Xanadu (China): through Armenia, the Iranian plateau and the mountains of the

steppes and the inhospitable deserts of the Taklamakan and the Gobi. If the outward journey was almost entirely by land, the retum to Venice (24 years after departure) will be mainly by sea: through the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Bay of Bengal, Ceylon, the Arabian Sea, the Persian

Marco Polo with his accounts arouses curiosity, great wonder. Although he is a typical western man and Christian educated, he observes facts and situations without too many prejudices and cultural blocks, even if there is a certain hostility towards Muslims, probably to be found in a historical-political context characterised by the Crusades.

Marco's voyage, with his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo Polo, becomes much more than a simple and never-ending commercial voyage: it is an epic in which various actors join in, often by small strokes, including rehgious and ccelesiastical tigures, an expression of the Pope of Rome's desire to understand the real extent of those 'borders of the world', towards which the missionary mandate of evangelical memory was oriented.

Undoubtedly, members of the Order of the Black Friars (Dominican Preachers), already well present in Marco Polo's Venice, were among these ecclesiastical avant-garde wished by the pontiff.

However, Fra Francesco Pipino, a Dominican friar who translated Marco Polo's Il Milione into Latin between 1302 and 1315, partly condensing it and providing it with a new prologue, was not Venetian.

Pippin, for this translation, perhaps the best known of all, did not however use the original text, but had recourse to a Venetian vulgarization. There was probably another Dominican Latin version of 1l Milione, as can be deduced from archive documents showing links between the Venetian traveller and the Dominicans of the Serenissima. Members of the Order of Preachers, they advocated the spreading of the text in their preaching and teaching, not only in Italy, but also in France and England, combining approaches based on codicology, diplomatics, history, philology, religion and art history.

During the two days that will take place in Venice on 25 and 26 October 2024, the aim is to celebrate the story of Marco Polo through a multidisciplinary approach that sees Polo as the most famous figure but also covers themes and characters equally worthy of in-depth study. The papers will be divided into three sections: the first will be of a historical-philological nature and the history of thought (The Dominicans and Marco Polo); the second dedicated to the discovery of the literary genre linked to the journey, with particular reference to the missionary one (The Periegetic and the Missions to the East); and finally a third section focusing on artistic aspects and cultural exchanges (The East of Silk and the Arts, Maps and Polo's Iconographies).

Subjects of specific interest for the thematic sections:

• Dominican manuscripts and scriptoria between Venice, Padua and Constantinople, locations of Dominican Studiorum

• Mendicant Friars Narrators, between chronicle and apologetics

• Travel narratives and geographical knowledge at the end of the Middle Ages

• The reception and diffusion of travel texts from antiquity, in the medieval period, between fiction and reality

• Travel and otherness: encounter-clash between cultures and religious traditions

• Between West and East: exchanges and identity claims among Christian communities in constant interaction

• Marco Polo's Iconographies

• The depiction of the Mendicant Friars and the mediated image of the Bast

• Oriental souvenirs: trade between Europe and the Far Bast (the role of the missions)

Scholars and young academies are invited to send, by 7 April 2024, the title of their contribution and an abstract of at least 1500 characters, with a short CV to the following email address: dosti.marcopolo@gmail.com

Proposals in Italian, English and French are accepted.

The Scientific Committee reserves the right to allocate some of the contribution proposals directly to the collection of proceedings to be published by the Institutum Historicum Ordinis Praedicatorum.

The Conference Scientific Committee

STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS
DUE SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59PM ET

Applicants submit materials HERE.
Thesis advisor submit letter of recommendation HERE.

The ICMA offers grants for graduate students in the early stages of their dissertation research, enabling beginning scholars to carry out foundational investigations at archives and sites. Winners will be granted $3,000, and if needed, officers of the ICMA will contact institutions and individuals who can help the awardees gain access to relevant material. Three grants are awarded per year, and they are designed to cover one month of travel. 

The grants are primarily for students who have finished preliminary exams, and are in the process of refining dissertation topics. Students who have already submitted a proposal, but are still very early on in the process of their research, may also apply.  

All applicants must be ICMA members.

Applicants must submit:

1. Outline of the thesis proposal in 800 words or less.

2. Detailed outline of exactly which sites and/or archives are to be visited, which works will be consulted, and how this research relates to the proposed thesis topic. If you hope to see extremely rare materials or sites with restricted access, please be as clear as possible about contacts with custodians already made.

3. Proposed budget (airfare, lodging, other travel, per diem). Please be precise and realistic. The total need not add up to $3,000 precisely. The goal is for reviewers to see how you will handle the expenses.

4. Letter from the thesis advisor, clarifying the student’s preparedness for the research, the significance of the topic, and the relevance of the trip to the thesis.

5. A curriculum vitae.                  

Upon return, the student will be required to submit a letter and financial report to the ICMA and a narrative to the student section of the Newsletter.

Applications are due by SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59pm ET. The ICMA will announce the winners of the three grants at the Spring Board Meeting in May.

NOTES ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please upload PDFs when possible (.jpg, .png also accepted) with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHcv.pdf, SMITHbudget.pdf, SMITHthesis.pdf, etc.

Similarly, please notify the thesis advisor to name the file as STUDENT LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHletter.pdf

Applicants submit materials HERE.
Thesis advisor submit letter of recommendation HERE.

Email questions to Ryan Frisinger at awards@medievalart.org. The winning applications will be chosen by members of the ICMA Grants and Awards Committee, which is chaired by our Vice-President.

STUDENT RESEARCH GRANT
DUE SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 11:59PM ET

This grant of $500 is intended to encourage an early-stage graduate student (someone enrolled in a post-baccalaureate graduate program, who may have received a MA or MPhil, or who is otherwise pre-ABD) to pursue research on cross-cultural visual connections involving art produced in parts of the medieval world that until recently have been studied separately. To be eligible, applicants must be involved in research on the connections between art of at least two of the following broadly-defined regions:  

• Africa

• Asia

• Europe and Byzantium

• North Africa, the Middle East, and the Near East

Funds awarded could be used to defray expenses of attending or presenting at a conference or visiting a museum, archive, or site. Applicants must be members of the ICMA (information on memberships can be found here).
 
We are grateful to Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Clemson University, for underwriting this grant. The grant recipient is to send their winning application directly to Robert E. Jamison as soon as the award is announced.

The deadline for submission is MONDAY 7 APRIL 2024, 10am ET.  The winners will be announced at the Spring Board Meeting in May. Recipients will be asked to forward their winning application to Robert E. Jamison.

 
Applicants must submit: 

1. Description of the project to be undertaken, in 400 words or less.

2. Proposed budget.  Please be precise and realistic: if the budget exceeds $500, state how you will cover the remaining portion of the cost.

3. A curriculum vitae.            

NOTE ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please submit PDF files when appropriate with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHdescription.pdf, SMITHbudget.pdf, SMITHcv.pdf

All applicants must be ICMA members.
All submissions are to be uploaded HERE.


A parallel grant is available via The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Technology, Science, and Art (AVISTA).  Students may apply for both the ICMA and the AVISTA grants but would be eligible to receive only one of the awards. 

Email questions to Ryan Frisinger at awards@medievalart.org. The winning application will be chosen by members of the ICMA Grants and Awards Committee, which is chaired by our Vice-President.

CALL FOR PAPERS

EMBODIED PREACHING: MULTISENSORIAL PREACHING PERFORMANCES IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

PADUA, 24-25 OCTOBER 2024

ORGANIZED BY ZULEIKA MURAT, PIETER BOONSTRA AND MICOL LONG

DEADLINE 5 APRIL 2024

The crucial importance of preaching in medieval Europe has long been acknowledged, not only for religious culture, but also for cultural, political and social history, art history and history of material culture. An interconnected pan-European phenomenon, to be effective preaching needed to be at the same time tailored to local tastes and conventions, shaping the message to the circumstances at hand. With the term “preaching” we understand the public performance of a speech believed to be divinely inspired and meant for religious and moral education. Most importantly, medieval preaching was not the static transfer of a text from preacher to audience: rather, it was an inherently dynamic and interactive activity, involving multiple actors through time and space, communicating religious knowledge within embodied and spatialized networks. The conference will focus on the multisensorial dimension of preaching, which goes beyond the content and style of the textual sermon, to include the personal appearance of the preacher, their voice and gestures (the “embodied” dimension), the material environment in which the preaching took place (the “embedded” dimension) and the use of “special effects” (such as sounds or fire) and objects as an integral part of the performance.

The role played by the material environment in which the preaching took place has received little attention, and mostly with reference to memory (Carruthers 1998, Bolzoni 2002). It has been pointed out that some late medieval religious leaders (such as Bernardino of Siena) referred in their speeches to specific elements of the material environment in which they were preaching (for example, artworks), presumably to help keep awake the attention of the audience and to “anchor” the teaching to material elements which could be seen by individuals on a daily basis. However, much remains to be done to understand whether and to what extent the specific material environment affected the overall experience of preaching (open vs closed space, specific environments such as churches, saint’s tombs, graveyards, squares and so on). Preachers operated amidst a visual network of objects and spaces, against a background of paintings, sculptures, and other images present within the same space where they performed, giving opportunity for the sermon to connect, contrast, or compete for attention. This also raises the question to what extent preachers adapted their preaching to the particular environment and planned the setting in which the preaching had to take place.

A further element that deserves to be considered is that, as an act of communication, preaching was not a one-way interaction: the audience, through their attitude, verbal and non-verbal reactions to the preaching played an active role which affected the experience both of the individuals gathered to listen and of the preacher. Based on this, we propose to approach preaching an interactive performance where multiple actors and multiple elements played a role. For this purpose, we will approach audiences using the notion of “socio-sensory environment”, and assuming the existence of specific sensoria depending on social, cultural and geographical factors. Preaching relied on the various senses to be properly understood and make a lasting impact: the oral and aural performance of the sermon took place within a visually accessible space, with the preacher using both voice and body (gestures, facial expressions) to convey a message. From the sermon text, listeners are often invited to fully employ their senses as well and to imagine themselves present at religiously significant moments: to see the scene before their eyes, to hear what was occurring, to smell, taste, and feel, their internal or imaginary senses giving rise for meditation and devotion. Meanwhile, the experiences of pleasant or unpleasant smells or feelings of cold, heat, or discomfort can also be investigated from a sensory perspective.

With a primary focus on Western Europe from the 12th to the 15th century, this conference aims to explore preaching in an innovative and holistic way, by considering the multisensorial dimension of the transmission and reception of the word of God in whichever form, verbal or non-verbal. By emphasising the range of activities aimed at communicating religious knowledge and devotional practice, and the multisensorial nature of such activities, this conference will explore new aspects of the multifaceted experience of medieval preaching.

We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers in English. Scholars may address the topic with a broad approach but always considering the role of all the senses in the performance and reception of preaching. Paper topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• The role played by objects in the experience of preaching: for example objects and artworks used by preachers, devotional or practical items or other objects, such as hand warmers, used by the audience

• Unconventional ways of preaching reliant on the senses, for example through music or theatrical performances

• The role played by the senses in the experience of preaching, including smell, taste, and the interior senses (such as thermoception or proprioception)

• The link between preaching and art or architecture, including when preaching outside of the church

• How preaching was experienced differently by different audiences, including audience responses and interactions during preaching

• Sermons or preaching that encompass discussions of physicality, embodiment, or materiality

Please send a title and abstract of no longer than 300 words, together with a short CV and personal data (max. 300 words), to the following emails: zuleika.murat@unipd.it; pieterhendrik.boonstra@unipd.it; micol.long@unipd.it

The language of the conference is English.

Deadline: 5 April 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be given by 26 April 2024.

Selected papers will be invited for publication in a collective volume.

This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement nr. 950248, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova (https://sensartproject.eu/).

For a PDF of the Call for Papers, click here.

For more information, click here.

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR PANEL

CARVING COLLECTIVE PRACTICE: WORKING AGAINST MONOLITHIC SCHOLARSHIP ON STONE

IONA: ISLANDS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC CONFERENCE (KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, 26-28 JUNE 2024)

RUN BY MEG BOULTON, MEG BERNSTEIN, JILL HAMILTON CLEMENTS & CAROLYN

DUE FRIDAY, 5 APRIL 2024

We are seeking participants for Thinking with Stone, an interdisciplinary, experimental roundtable exploring collaborative methods and conversational approaches to studying stone in the medieval period. We welcome five- to ten-minute presentations on ideas for a work in progress on a stone object or structure, a particular methodological approach to stone, or new pedagogical ideas for engagement with stone. The session provides a forum for collaborative development of these projects in a way that looks outside traditional modes of single-authored expertise. Send your CV, project title, and short abstract (200 words) describing your project to the Google form linked (click here).

Thinking with Stone is Session III of a three-part series at IONA 2024 on Carving Collective Practice, which all are welcome to attend. Session I: Viewing Stone is a site visit and discursive workshop on early medieval stone sculpture, introducing questions about these multivalent and polyvocal monuments that will be further explored in Sessions II and III. Session II: Handling Stone is an immersive and interactive lab on the haptic qualities of stone. Used as we are to thinking about stone monuments as things not touched or moved, this hands-on lab focuses on the physical, material, and tactile properties of stone as a worked substance that was handled, carved, and subject to changes from weather and use.

Questions may be sent to jelements@uab.edu.

For more about IONA, click here.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN GLOBAL HISTORY OF ART

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, IRELAND

DUE BY 4 APRIL 2024 12:00PM IST/7:00AM ET

The School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin seeks to appoint an Assistant Professor in Global History of Art, based in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. Candidates can have expertise in any period from early modern to contemporary but, preferably, their research will encompass global histories of art. Candidates must demonstrate an ability to incorporate collections in Ireland in their teaching and research. It is also desirable that candidates should have experience of working with museum collections. The primary purpose of this post is to contribute to teaching and research in history of art and to undertake administrative activities in the Department and School. The successful applicant will have a proven ability or evidence of potential to establish a strong record of research and publication in the history of art and will be expected to contribute to both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in this field and to interdisciplinary curricular teaching, supervision, and mentoring.

The successful candidate will be expected to take up post on 1 August 2024 or as soon thereafter as possible.

For more information about the position, https://my.corehr.com/pls/trrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form

CALL FOR SESSIONS

MARY JAHARIS CENTER SPONSORED PANEL, 50TH ANNUAL BYZANTINE STUDIES CONFERENCE

DUE 3 APRIL 2024

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for Mary Jaharis Center sponsored sessions at the 50th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in New York City, October 24–27, 2024. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 3, 2024.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1400 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/50th-bsc

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

CALL FOR PAPERS

UNRULY ICONOGRAPHIES? EXAMINING THE UNEXPECTED IN MEDIEVAL ART

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, NEW JERSEY, 9 NOVEMBER 2024

ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHY DUE BY 1 APRIL 2024

Modern study of medieval iconography inevitably entails grappling with exceptions and the rupture of expectations. No sooner might scholars settle on an expected visual formula—Cain killing Abel with his farmer’s hoe, Saint George riding his snowy steed—than we’re pulled up by an image that flouts those rules. In the fifteenth-century Alba Bible, Cain sinks his teeth directly into his brother’s neck, arguably in reference to Jewish exegesis, while in some Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons of St. George, a small boy carrying a cup rides with the saint, inspiring a semi-serious modern tradition concerning George’s love of coffee. Other iconographic traditions seem to emerge out of the blue, as did the distinctive type known as the Virgin of Humility, which flowered suddenly in Mediterranean cities in the 1340s. Such unruly iconographies both intrigue and disappoint us: they engage yet disobey our expectations, and we are left to wonder why.

The culprit in such cases is less often a rogue medieval work of art than the rigidity of modern scholarship. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the assumption that medieval iconographic norms were formulaic, authoritative, and above all universally obeyed still shapes the way modern scholars analyze the imagery they study. Even after the poststructuralist turn, art historians have continued to wrestle with expectations deeply embedded in the discipline: that medieval artists preferred to copy or turn to text rather than to innovate; that unprecedented iconography must be based on a lost original; that patrons or learned advisors must have directed artists’ work; that traditions translated smoothly across media, formats, and contexts; that all viewers read and understood the images they saw in the same way. Underlying many of these assumptions has been a wider one: that the ideas of greatest value must be tracked to artists rooted in cosmopolitan centers, rather than to artists and works of art that circulated freely throughout their peripheries.

The conference “Unruly Iconographies? Examining the Unexpected in Medieval Art” aims to open a new conversation about medieval images that don’t follow the rules. We call for papers, drawn from any area of the medieval world broadly defined, that ask both speakers and audience to rethink the unspoken paradigms that have decided which iconographic motifs are canonical and which are “singular,” “exceptional,” or even “mistakes.” At the broadest level, we seek to problematize the binaries on which these paradigms were founded: tradition versus invention, canon versus exception, and center versus periphery. At a more specific one, we invite deeply researched case studies whose particularities can lead scholars to a more effective, contextually sensitive, and historically informed approach to the study of images and image-making in the Middle Ages.

“Unruly Iconographies?” will take place on November 9, 2024 at the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University, following the Weitzmann Lecture by Dr. Brigitte Buettner, held on November 8 and hosted by Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology. It also will constitute the first of two internationally linked events, the second of which will be a site-based seminar at the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” in Naples in June 2025. Whereas the Index conference will consider broadly disciplinary questions about methodology, theory, and models, the Naples conference, hoped to be the first of several site-based conferences of this kind, takes southern Italy as a laboratory for exploring the relationships between iconography and place within a geographically expanded Middle Ages, focusing on the potentials and limits of the study of iconography in southern Italy. Details about this conference will be available in Summer 2024.

Submissions for the Princeton-based conference are invited by April 1, 2024. They should include a one-page abstract and c.v. and be sent to fionab@princeton.edu. Travel and hotel costs for the eight selected speakers will be covered by the Index. Speakers will be informed of their selection no later than May 1, 2024.

For more information, https://ima.princeton.edu/2024/02/15/call-for-papers-unruly-iconographies-examining-the-unexpected-in-medieval-art/

CALL FOR PAPERS

VELUM TEMPLI. VEILING AND HIDING THE SACRED

2ND COLLOQUIUM ON ART AND LITURGY CÁDIZ

FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS. UNIVERSITY OF CÁDIZ, SPAIN, 17-19 OCTOBER 2024

ABSTRACTS DUE BY 1 APRIL 2024

The veiling or hiding of the sacred has been a constant feature of Christian worship since its late Antique origins. With powerful precedents in the temple of Jerusalem, as well as in paganism, it is a characteristic that tends to be associated with Eastern Christianity and its iconostasis. However, it was also practised by the Latin church, in whose early Christian basilica the vision of the altar of the Eucharistic sacrifice was already limited and dosed. This ritual attitude, which continued throughout the Middle Ages and even beyond, took the form of veils and curtains suspended from the pergolas or beams that divided the presbytery from the rest of the nave, or using the tetravela that ran along the rails of the baldachins that covered the altars.

Guillaume Durand, in the 13th century, describes in detail the practices that were established at that time, including the great velum templi of Gallican origin, a piece that would be kept for centuries during Lent as a living vestige of this liturgical practice. Several examples of notable antiquity have survived, as does the memory of its use.

Closely related to this, the veneration of sacred images was also marked by a desire for safe preservation, as can be inferred from the design of medieval tabernacles and winged altarpieces. Both took part in the wish to protect physically the paintings and sculptures and a desire for gradualness in the vision of the mystery of the sacred that the images themselves embody. In Spain, the extraordinary development of the altarpiece required bold, eyecatching solutions for its concealment, such as the enormous doors of some Aragonese examples or the woven twills which, when unfolded, are a sort of trompe l'oeil of the work they conceal.

Relics, sacred vessels and even the consecrated Host itself have also been the object of ritually regulated display and concealment, depending on the feasts of the liturgical year or the specific moment of the sacred ceremony taking place in the church. To satisfy this need for visual preservation, reliquary cabinets, the curtains of expositors and tabernacles or chalice veils were created during the Middle Ages, among other pieces of furniture that have also undergone formal and ornamental reformulations during the Renaissance, the Baroque and later.

Through the diachronic and transhistorical study of the phenomenon of display and concealment, this 2nd International Meeting on Art and Liturgy of the University of Cadiz aims to recover for the History of Art the memory of these singular works within the context of the cultic functionality with which they were conceived, where they also acted as vectors of ephemeral transformation in the visual appearance of the temples. For this purpose, renowned specialists such as Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, Josefina Planas Bádenas, Antonio Sántos Márquez and Héctor Ruiz Soto, among others, will take part.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite the academic community to submit abstracts in Spanish, English, Italian and French consisting of a 500-700 word summary highlighting the innovative nature of the paper together with the chosen session and a brief curriculum vitae before 1 April 2024 to the following address: arteyliturgia@uca.es The organising committee shall acknowledge receipt of submissions and select those considered most closely aligned with the meeting objectives, responding before 15 May 2024. Following peer review, these will be published in a monograph. Texts should be sent by 15 November 2024.

PAPERS AND COMMUNICATIONS WILL BE DELIVERED IN FOUR SESSIONS

SESSION I. RITUAL OCCULTATION IN LITURGICAL, LITERARY AND GRAPHIC SOURCES.

Testimonies of synods and councils, rubrics in missals, references in customary books, testimonies in travel books. Graphic sources: paintings, drawings, engravings, manuscript illumination and historical photography.

SESSION II. VEILS AND ALTAR CURTAINS IN THE CONTEXT OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY.

Velum templi, Velum quadragesimal, lateral curtains, etc. Origins, typological evolution and local particularities.

SESSION III. THE VEILING OF CROSSES, IMAGES, RELICS AND SACRED VESSELS.

Liturgical, devotional and conservation aspects. Reliquary cabinets, display ceremonies.

SESSION IV. FROM THE MEDIEVAL OPEN TABERNACLE TO THE GREAT BAROQUE ALTARPIECES.

Functional principles and devotional implications.

SPEAKERS REGISTRATION

Speakers: 40 €

Speakers members of CEHA: 20 €

In both cases, the registration includes a copy of the book with the proceedings of the Meeting. After acceptance, speakers will have until 15 June 2024 to pay the registration fee via bank transfer to the University of Cádiz account (Banco de Santander: IBAN ES48 0049 4870 8529 1609 2739; SWIFT: BSCHESMM).

IMPORTANT: The concept of the transfer should be ARTEYLITURGIA followed by the speaker’s SURNAME and NAME. The speaker should send a copy of the bank transfer receipt via email to arteyliturgia@uca.es

For more information: https://arteyliturgia-uca.weebly.com/

For a PDF of the Call for Papers which contains more information: https://arteyliturgia-uca.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/0/5/140580493/cfp_ingl%C3%A9s.pdf

CALL FOR PAPERS

XVE RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES DES JEUNES BYZANTINISTES

BYZANCE EN SES MARGES : CENTRES, PÉRIPHÉRIES, CONTOURS

BYZANTIUM WITHIN ITS MARGINS: CENTRES, PERIPHERIES AND OUTLINES

PARIS 4-5 OCTOBER 2024

ABSTRACTS DUE BY 31 MARCH 2024

La montagne, la croix, les bourreaux : tout, dans la célèbre miniature du Psautier Khludov, nous transporte “au-dehors”. Aux portes de la ville, à la lisière de la société, la Crucifixion évoque encore, au souvenir des iconoclastes, les contours mouvants du dogme chrétien. De cette remarquable mise en abyme où l’image, depuis les marges auxquelles elle semble reléguée, surplombe le texte pour en mieux tempérer l’ascendant, émane pourtant une vague confusion : lequel, de l’écrit ou de l’enluminure, se tient au centre de la page – s’il en est un ?

Des marges du psautier à celles de Byzance, il n’y a qu’un pas. Microcosme par excellence, le livre illustré nous invite à étendre, à l’échelle d’un monde, cette notion ambivalente.  À l’image du tracé mouvant des frontières, la tension qui se noue entre le texte et la miniature affleure, sous de multiples aspects, à travers la carte : entre la capitale et les provinces, l’empire et ses vassaux, le prince chrétien et ses voisins.

Telles régions limitrophes s’affirment, avec le temps, comme des centres incontestables du pouvoir – la Serbie et la Bulgarie, l’Épire et Trébizonde : et voici Byzance devenue marge. Telles autres, plus éloignées de Constantinople – culturellement, spirituellement –, maintiennent avec elle des liens ténus pour mieux se définir : ainsi de l’Arménie, de la Sicile, de la Rus’ de Kiev et même de l’Éthiopie, autant d’autres Byzance(s) en-dehors de Byzance.

En réduisant à l’espace urbain les enjeux territoriaux de l’empire, en les transposant aussi à l’espace ecclésial, le même paradigme nous incite à en déceler les axes et les seuils. Les murs de la ville et ses édifices, l’architecture et le décor des églises, les lieux de pèlerinage et les nécropoles élaborent et refondent, constamment, la notion de liminalité.

Le Christ supplicié, de même que l’iconoclaste sacrilège, esquisse la norme sociale : l’hérésie, comme le calvaire, retranche, exclut, marginalise. Mais les franges de la société byzantine, qui dépassent de loin les projections modernes, façonnent une mosaïque nuancée dont bien des composantes, souvent négligées – femmes, criminels, ascètes –, nous engagent à repenser la cohérence.

Moines et monastères revendiquent leur marginalité autant qu’ils l’idéalisent : tant leur implantation, aux abords ou en plein cœur de la ville, que la reconnaissance sociale dont ils jouissent, semblent contredire la réclusion à laquelle ils prétendent. L’exil lui-même, souvent amer, maintient plus que jamais son objet au centre des égards : éloigné, on le surveille ; il écrit, revient parfois.

Penser Byzance, enfin, exige la distance et le décentrement du regard étranger. Chroniqueurs arméniens, latins et syriaques, émissaires arabes et mongols ont porté sur l’empire, sa culture et ses rites, un œil attentif, parfois acéré, que les historiens ne sauraient mésestimer. Notre discipline elle-même n’y échappe en rien : ultime soubresaut du monde gréco-romain, interminable Bas-Empire ou prélude à la Turquie ottomane, l’histoire byzantine fut, elle aussi, longtemps perçue comme marginale – l’une de ces inévitables transitions indispensables à la chronologie.

Les centres, les normes, les limites : tout restait alors à définir à qui voulait que la culture byzantine devînt enfin l’objet d’une étude autonome. Aujourd’hui, la délicate tension entre le centre du monde et les marges de l’empire témoigne des avancées de la recherche comme des écueils auxquels elle est confrontée. Telle est l’ambition des XVe Rencontres internationales des étudiants du monde byzantin : aborder Byzance en ses marges, depuis ses marges, en tant que marge.

Les communications pourront s’inscrire dans les thématiques suivantes :

– marges territoriales, frontières et espaces de transition
– peuplement des marges et déplacements de populations
– place des femmes, des enfants, des esclaves, des individus en dehors des normes de genre
– maladies, infirmités, handicaps, mort
– controverses religieuses, hérésies, excommunications et anathèmes
– institutions monastiques
– manifestations de la marginalité : costume, pratiques alimentaires
– Byzance vue de l’extérieur

Les interventions, d’une durée de vingt minutes, pourront être données en français ou en anglais. Les propositions de communications (250 à 300 mots), ainsi qu’une brève biographie incluant l’institution de rattachement, le niveau d’études actuel (master, doctorat, post-doctorat) et le sujet de recherche, devront être envoyées à l’adresse aemb.paris@gmail.com, au plus tard le 31 mars 2024.

Les Rencontres se tiendront en présentiel, à Paris, les 4 et 5 octobre 2024. La prise en charge des frais de transports par l’AEMB est envisageable pour les candidates et candidats ne pouvant obtenir de financement de la part de leur institution d’origine. Les candidates et candidats retenu.es devront adhérer à l’AEMB.

Pour plus d'informations: http://www.aembyzantin.com/xve-edition-4-5-octobre-2024/

A mountain, a cross, an executioner: everything in the well-known miniature of the Chludov Psalter carries us “outside”. At the gates of the city and on the margins of society, the Crucifixion also recalls, through the memory of Iconoclasm, the shifting outlines of Christian dogma. From the margin where it is seemingly relegated, the image overlooks the text to better mitigate its authority. Yet, in this remarkable mise en abyme, a sense of confusion remains: which of the written word or the image holds centre stage – if there is any?

There is but one step from the margins of the psalter to those of Byzantium. As a quintessential microcosm, the illuminated manuscript invites us to extend this ambivalent notion to the scale of a world. Like the shifting lines of a border, the tension emerging between the text and the miniature likewise surfaces in varied ways across the map: between the capital and its provinces, the Empire and its vassals, the Christian prince and his neighbours.

Thus, some borderlands emerge over time as centres of power in their own right – Serbia and Bulgaria, Epirus and Trebizond – occasionally turning Byzantium itself into a margin. Others, further removed from Constantinople geographically, culturally or spiritually – nevertheless maintain subtle ties with it to better define their own identity, such as Armenia, Sicily, Rus’ and even Ethiopia – all in a way Byzantium(s) beyond Byzantium.

By scaling down the territorial questions of the Empire to urban space, or transposing them onto the space of the church, the same paradigm invites us to retrace their axes and thresholds. City walls and structures, church architecture and decoration, pilgrimage sites and necropoleis constantly reshape and redefine the notion of liminality.

Both the Torture of Christ and the sacrilege of iconoclasm suggest a social norm: heresy, like Calvary, excludes, cuts off and marginalises. Yet the fringes of Byzantine society, which go far beyond contemporary projections, compose a nuanced mosaic whose many elements, often overshadowed – women, criminals, ascetics –, call upon us to rethink the cohesion of the whole.

Monks and monasteries proclaim their marginal status as much as they idealise it: both their location, on the fringes if not within the heart of the city, as well as the social recognition they receive seemingly contradict the reclusion they claim to seek. Exile itself, though bitter, keeps its object surely within the line of sight: the exile is watched when far away, writes back and sometimes returns.

To consider Byzantium, lastly, requires the distant and decentred gaze of foreign eyes. Armenian, Latin and Syriac chroniclers, Arab and Mongol emissaries turned a careful, sometimes cruel eye on the Empire, its culture and rites, which historians would be wrong to ignore. The discipline of Byzantine history itself has long been relegated to the margins of the field, as a necessary but uninteresting transition, with Byzantium variously held as the last jolt of the Greco Roman world, the exhaustingly long final breath of the Late Roman Empire or the prelude to Ottoman Turkey.

Centres, norms, limits: everything remained to be done for the partisans of an autonomous study of Byzantine culture. Today, the delicate tension between the centre of the world and the margins of the Empire reflects both the advances and the pitfalls faced by academic inquiry. Such are the aims of the XVth Rencontres : to consider Byzantium within its margins, from its margins and as a margin.

Papers may concern the following themes:
• Territorial margins, borders and spaces of transition
• Settlement of margins and population transfers
• The situation of women, children and slaves
• Definitions and transgressions of gender norms
• Disease, disability, infirmity and death
• Religious controversies, heresy, excommunication and anathema
• Monastic communities
• Visible forms of marginality such as dress and foodways
• Byzantium as a margin

Papers, with an expected duration of 20 minutes, may be presented in French or English. Proposals for presentations (250-300 words), as well as a brief biography including the candidate’s affiliation, their current level of study (master, doctoral, post-doctoral) and their area of study should be sent to aemb.paris@gmail.com by March 31, 2024, at the latest.

The conference will be held in-person in Paris on October 4-5, 2024. Participants’ travel costs may be covered by the association if they are unable to receive funding from their institutions. Selected candidates will be asked to register as members of the association.

For more information: http://www.aembyzantin.com/xve-edition-4-5-octobre-2024/

CALL FOR PAPERS

CERÆ, AN AUSTRALISAN JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES, VOLUME 11

METAMORPHOSIS, TRANSFORMATION, AND TRANSMUTATION

DUE 31 MARCH 2024

Shifting - or transforming - between states of being is a feature of human and animal societies as well as of the wider living world and the cosmos. This act of shifting is experienced through both natural and unnatural processes and can be seen in all areas of life, from the reproductive cycles of organisms, to epochal changes undergone by entire societies, and everything in between. But transformations can also refer to distortions of reality, both deliberate and accidental, magical or real, as much as they can reflect genuine changes to an individual, an institution, a landscape, or even a society. Understanding how one thing becomes another was arguably a feature of much of medieval and carly moder intellectual history - from Isidore to Aquinas, Albertus Magnus to Descartes and Newtown - and whole schools of thought could be founded and even wars fought over the differences.

Topies may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Agricultural/environmental transformations;

• Political and economic transformation/metamorphosis;

• Alchemy/medicine/science;

• Shifting between states such as life stages, death or rites of passage:

• Literary and historiographical transformation;

• Magical, mystical, and shapeshifting transformations;

• Spiritual transformations:

• Metamorphosis in relation to animals and plants;

• The body as a site of transformation.

There is no geographic or disciplinary limitation for submissions, which can consider any aspect of the medieval or early modern world or its reception.

We invite submissions of both full-length essays (5000-8000 words) and varia (up to 3000 words) that address, challenge, and develop these ideas. Cera particularly encourages submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers, and there is a $200 AUD annual prize for the best postgraduate/ECR essay. Please visit our website (www.ceraejournal.com) for further details on the submissions process.

The deadline for themed submissions is 31 March 2024.

For a copy of the Call for Papers, click here.