Women Medievalists on Medieval Women: A “State-of-the-Field” Symposium and Reception

Events

Women Medievalists on Medieval Women: A “State-of-the-Field” Symposium and Reception
March 20, 2024
5:30 PM ET
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th St, NYC

Join The American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) and scholars of medieval studies for a “state-of-the-field” symposium at the Grolier Club to discuss current scholarship by female-identifying medievalists on subjects related to the lives, patronage, and creative practice of medieval women.

This symposium celebrates the British Library’s longstanding support for scholarship on women’s experiences during the early modern period, notably and upcoming Library exhibition on medieval women, and the Library’s Joanna and Graham Barker-funded Medieval and Renaissance women digitization project (which successfully concluded in 2023 with the digitization of 93 volumes, 219 charters, and 25 rolls connected to the lives of European women between the years 1100 and 1600 C.E.).

The symposium will be moderated by Martha Driver.

Speakers include:
Cynthia Hahn
Marlene Hennessy
Kristen Herdman
Katherine Hindley
Nicole Lopez-Jantzen
Kavita Mudan Finn
Nicole Rice
Kathryn Smith

For further details and to register, go to this site here.

CFP: New England Medieval Consortium 2024: “Books and Transgressions”

CFPs

New England Medieval Consortium 2024: “Books and Transgressions”

9 November 2024
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA
local organizing committee: Tina Montenegro and Eric Weiskott

This conference will provide an opportunity for medievalists working across a range of disciplines and geographic areas to join in conversation about premodern cultures of the book, boundary-crossing, and the law and other normative cultural expressions. Given this year’s conference location at a Jesuit, Catholic university, and our keynote speakers, we particularly (but not exclusively) invite submissions focused on regions other than England, including the Middle East; language traditions other than English; and religious cultures.

Please send abstracts of 300 words for 20-minute papers to
medieval2024@gmail.com by 15 June 2024.

For full conference details, download flyer here.

The Medieval Hospital: New book by Nicole Rice

New Books

Nicole Rice’s original study analyzes the role played by late medieval English hospitals as sites of literary production and cultural contestation. The hospitals of late medieval England defy easy categorization. They were institutions of charity, medical care, and liturgical commemoration. At the same time, hospitals were cultural spaces sponsoring the performance of drama, the composition of medical texts, and the reading of devotional prose and vernacular poetry. Such practices both reflected and connected the disparate groups—regular religious, ill and poor people, well-off retirees—that congregated in hospitals. Nicole Rice’s The Medieval Hospital offers the first book-length study of the place of hospitals in English literary history and cultural practice. Read more in the flyer below and at the book’s page at the University of Notre Dame’s press (here).

Just out: Women’s Libraries, by S. C. Kaplan

New Books

women's libraries promo

Women’s Libraries in Late Medieval Bourbonnais, Burgundy, and France: A Family Affair by EBS member S. C. Kaplan’s book is now out from Liverpool University Press! Read all about it at the Press’s website (and get a 20% discount on it if you for purchase it from that site!).

Found leaf, found books

Old Books

Another leaf of the Beauvais Missal has turned up! Read all about it in the Huffington Post (here). In the photo, note the label giving its date as 1285, describing it as an “illuminated manuscript on vellum,” and then giving its price as $75.00 (!?). As the article notes, the lucky purchaser’s queries about the leaf led to Lisa Fagin Davis’s getting wind of it and identifying it as having once been a part of the Beauvais Psalter. It has now been virtually re-united with other leaves at Davis’s Reconstructing the Beauvais Missal site (find it at the top of the “Recently Added Items” column).

In related news, a “forgotten archive” of medieval manuscripts and print books was recently discovered in the Ropemakers’ Tower of St. Margaret’s Church in the Romanian town of Mediaș. As EBS member Antony Henk sums it up, “This find includes 139 printed books dating to between 1470 and 1600, two manuscripts from the early 16th century and about sixty charters and other documents dating to between the 14th and 16th centuries, along with MS fragments kept inside parish records. The earliest of these dates from the Carolingian era.” Read more here.

In Memoriam: Anne F. Sutton

In Memoriam

The Early Book Society will miss Dr Anne F. Sutton, who died on Saturday 18th June 2022 in her hometown of Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk). In spite of her declining health, she had been able to remain at home until very near her death, where she was able to enjoy the company of visitors, telephone calls, letters and cards from her friends and well-wishers from around the world.

Anne’s contribution to scholarship is truly outstanding. She was a highly regarded scholar and a prolific writer, and the recent publication of her book The King’s Work: The Defence of the North Under the Yorkist Kings, 1471–85 (Donington, 2021) has not only been well received, but it also brought her much pleasure.

Medieval scholarship has lost a truly gifted and remarkable historian, one who didn’t suffer fools gladly, but who provided great hospitality, encouragement and friendship to others. Anne was a private person with great dignity and presence, but she also had a wonderful sense of humour and enjoyed nothing better than being with her friends and talking about King Richard and the events of the fifteenth century. She had a formidable memory and was able to find connections that others could not. She was one of a kind, and, although she will be deeply missed, her publications will remain a mainstay of scholarship for many years to come.

— Christian Steer
Read more at the website for the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust (here).

Just out: Patterns of Plague, by Lori Jones

New Books

EBS member Lori Jones announces the publication of her book, Patterns of Plague: Changing Ideas about Plague in England and France, 1348–1750, which discusses various aspects of plague tractates including their transition from MS to print, shifting emphases, and their use of images. Members interested in receiving a discount are asked to contact Lori directly at ljone041@uottawa.ca.

Follow this link to publisher’s site.

Second Ian Doyle Memorial Lecture: April 6

Events

The long-postponed second Ian Doyle Memorial Lecture will be given in conjunction with the Medieval Insular Romance Conference, to be held in Durham, UK, from 5th-7th April.  The lecture will be given by Tony Edwards and will take place on Wednesday, 6th April, at 4:30pm in Elvet Riverside 140.  Tony’s title is ‘Ian Doyle and the Study of Middle English Manuscripts’.  A reception will be held on the Tunstall Gallery, University College, afterwards.