Call for Papers for Panel

NEW APPROACHES TO MEDIEVAL OFFICE LITURGY

Leeds International Medieval Congress (6-9 July 2026)

Thematic Focus: ‘Temporalities’

Due by 31 August 2025

The past decades have seen exciting developments in medieval liturgical scholarship, moving beyond analysis of texts to examining liturgical practices as diverse, lived, localised, and contested devotional frameworks. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours: the cycle of daily prayers structured around the eight canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) central to the spiritual, intellectual, temporal and communal life of the medieval Christian world.

This panel invites proposals for 15-20 minute papers on any aspect of Medieval Office Liturgy, especially those that address new perspectives, methodologies, or understudied sources.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Office Manuscripts

• Intersections with visual and material culture

• Lay experiences of the Divine Office

• Liturgical Reform

• Performance Practices and/or Prescriptions

• The Liturgy of the Hours in Medieval Literature

• Temporality and the Canonical Hours

• Saints lives, cults and offices

Please send an abstract of up to 250 words and short biography including your affiliation(s) to Rhiannon Warren (rlow2@cam.ac.uk) by the 31st of August 2025