Medieval Matters: Week 0 HT 2025

Dear all,

Welcome to a new term. Please find here (https://users.ox.ac.uk/~fmml2152/medieval/MedievalBooklet-HT2025.pdf) the first draft of the OMS booklet of events. If you have submitted an event, please:

 1. Check that the information in the booklet is correct.

2. Check that it appears correctly in the google calendar on the right hand side of the page at https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/

If there are issues with either, please let me know ASAP. Until then, let me draw your attention to a number of upcoming events:

• This term we are gearing up towards the 4th instalment of the Medieval Mystery Cycle on 26 April 2025, 12noon to 5pm, in St Edmund Hall! These plays bring together amateur actors, musicians, and directors from across Oxford—and the world—to put on a fabulous afternoon of theatrical fun. Running around 20 minutes each, the plays recount different Biblical stories, from Creation to the Last Judgement, with the help of several small troupes of actors, all performed in front of an enthusiastic audience. We have by now a range of plays on offer in languages ranging from Latin via German, Dutch and French to English in various degrees of medievalness.

There is still time to sign on as actor, musician, or even as a whole group: we are still looking for further plays (anybody for Creation, Abraham, Pilate’s Wife, or Easter?). If you’d like to become involved but aren’t sure where to start, please fill out this form as soon as possible, ideally by January 24th. Comments, suggestions, or queries to Antonia Anstatt (antonia.anstatt@merton.ox.ac.uk) and Sarah Ware (sarah.ware@merton.ox.ac.uk), co-Heads of Performance. Participating in the Medieval Mystery Cycle is a great excuse to brush up on your medieval languages, practice your vocal projection, or simply get to know other medievalists.

• A particular joy is that the Ford Lectures in British History this term (Thursdays 5pm, week 1-6), will be delivered by a medievalist on the important topic of French in medieval Britain and not only that but that we are able to welcome Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, formerly York and Fordham but now for many years part of the Oxford medieval community - more on this in the draft Medieval Studies booklet on pp. 6/7.

• The Medieval Afterlives Season Workshop takes place on Tuesday 21 January, 13.00- 14.00 (with lunch provided from 12.30) in the Colin Matthews Room, Radcliffe Humanities (and online via MS Teams). As part of the preparations for annual ‘Cultural Seasons’ in the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, this is an invitation to brainstorm ideas for a Cultural Programme Season on Medieval Afterlives. The focus of the season will be on contemporary creativity, while also centering Oxford’s extraordinary medieval resources where appropriate – our manuscripts, instruments, objects, architecture, and spaces. This season might engage with novelists, poets, musicians, graphic artists, puppeteers, playwrights, actors, composers, designers, children’s book writers, textile workers, cartoonists, computer game programmers, AI technology, and more. We would like the season to be ambitious and international while also engaging grass-roots, local communities, especially schools and young people. It will be wide-ranging, inclusive, accessible, innovative, and fun. We also want to be open about the dark side of medieval appropriations in recent years, especially by the far right (see the previous TORCH OMS workshop on Medieval Studies and the Far Right), and to examine and counter these narratives. While we want to bring in high-profile writers and artists, we also want to celebrate the creativity of everyone, including students. The season would be likely to take place circa 2028. One overarching question might be whether this kind of contemporary creativity is an end in itself, or a gateway to the medieval past. Please come along to this initial group meeting for all interested parties, which will be structured around the question: What has medieval research to do with contemporary creativity? See the booklet for more details.

• Also of note for 0th week, the first meeting of the Medieval Manuscripts Support Group is at 2pm on the 17^th January in the Horton Room (Weston Library). More information can be found on our blog here: https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/2024/07/15/medieval-mss-support-group/

Best wishes,

Tristan Alphey

OMS Communications Officer and MSt Medieval Studies Mentor

A copy of the OMS booklet for this term can be found here