Research seminars

2023 events

The University of Leicester Centre for Medieval Research is pleased to announce this Autumn Term’s schedule of Tuesday Research Seminars from 5.00 to 6.00pm, centred on the theme of ‘War, conflict, martial display and defence’

7 November – Frontier? Who Says? (Early) Medieval Classifications and Exploitations of Frontier Spaces in Iberia and Elsewhere, Dr Jonathan Jarrett (School of History, University of Leeds)

14 November – Warhorse. A Medieval Revolution? Equestrian Landscapes, Material Culture and Zooarchaeology in Britain, AD800-1600, Prof Oliver Creighton (Dept of Archaeology, University of Exeter)

21 November – Appetite for Destruction? The Role of Castle Slighting in the Middle Ages, Dr Richard Nevell (Dept of Archaeology, University of Exeter; Wikipedia)

28 November – Musical Warfare: Crusade Songs and Arabic anti-Frankish Poetry, Kate Arnold (Nottingham Trent University); Writing War and Conflict in Historical Fiction, James Aitcheson (Department of Culture and Media, Sheffield Hallam University)

5 December – Kings, Conflict and Peacemaking in Medieval Norway, Harriet Clark; Longphuirt, Wintersetlu, and Gorodišče: A Comparison of Viking Overwintering Sites, William Pidzamecky (both with the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age, University of Nottingham)

12 December – Winning the Information War: Acquiring and Sharing Intelligence in Europe, 700-1200, Dr Jenny Benham (School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University)

Join the events via Microsoft Teams
 

2022 events

In cooperation with the Northern Network for the Study of the Crusades (NNSC) 

Slavery and Slave Trade in the Later Medieval Mediterranean: A Round Table Discussion

Date: 25 January 2022
Chair: Professor Em. Norman Housley (Leicester)
Contributors: Dr Hannah Barker (Arizona State), Dr Erin T. Dailey (Leicester), Ariana N. Myers (Princeton), Dr Craig Perry (Emory) 

• Join the event via Microsoft Teams

Society for the Medieval Mediterranean Local and Global Perspectives webinar

The Mediterranean Diet: New Perspectives on the Foodways of the Medieval Mediterranean

Chair: Dr Caroline Goodson (Cambridge)
Speakers: Dr Michelle Alexander (York), Dr Tarek Oueslati (Lille), Dr Daniel Fuks (Cambridge)

• Register for the event

Whose Middle Ages?

A panel discussion about the use, abuse, and reinventing of the Middle Ages in modern times

Contributors: Dr Mike Horswell (Royal Holloway), Dr Jose Carvajal Lopez (Leicester), Dr Jan Vandeburie (Leicester) 

• Join the event via Microsoft Teams

2020/21

Spring term theme - Imagery, signs, messages

• 23 February 2021: Christopher Rouse (M4C PhD Candidate, School of History, University of Birmingham)
• 16 February 2021: Elisabeth Magin (M3C PhD, Schools of History/Archaeology, University of Nottingham) - From Object to Screen: Deciphering Runic Voices
  Jasmin Higgs (M4C PhD PhD Candidate, School of English, University of Nottingham)
• 9 February 2021: Dr Anna Gannon (History of Art Department, University of Cambridge) - Early Anglo-Saxon Reliquary Boxes: a license to heal?
• 26 January 2021: Dr Heather Pulliam (History of Art, University of Edinburgh) - Time, Motion and Bodies: Reframing Ireland's High Crosses

2018/19

Summer term theme - Medieval Plague, Pestilence and Mortality

• 14 May 2019: Dr Chris Callow (University of Birmingham) - Plague in a Cold Climate: The Black Death and Icelandic Exceptionalism
• 30 April 2019: Steve Baker and Deirdre O’Sullivan (University of Leicester) - Plague and Mortality in Medieval Leicester: The Archaeology of Waterside and St Peter’s Church
• 26 March 2019: Dr Hugh Willmott (University of Sheffield) - Plague at the Abbey: Excavation of a 14th-century Mass Grave at Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire

Spring term theme - Medieval travel and travellers

• 26 February 2019: Dr Nick Millea (Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford) - The Gough Map: getting about in medieval Britain
• 12 February 2019: Prof Chris Dyer (University of Leicester) - Were medieval roads better than ours?
• 29 January 2019: Prof Chris Woolgar (University of Southampton) - Elite and royal households and travel in medieval England

Autumn term theme - Late Antique and Early Medieval Royalty

• 20 November 2018: Dr Samuel G. Ottewill-Soulsby (University of Cambridge) - The Elephant in the Room: Harun al-Rashid and the Carolingians
• 6 November 2018: Dr Andy Merrills (University of Leicester) - The Men Who Would be King: Moorish Rulers in Late Antiquity
• 23 October 2018: Dr Erin Dailey (University of Leicester) - The Slave Queens of the Merovingians: (Un)Freedom, Gender, and Political Agency in Early Medieval Francia

2017/18

Summer term theme - Texts, Textiles and Teaching: Reading Medieval Narratives

• 22 May 2018: Dr Joanna Martin (University of Nottingham) - Editing the Findern lyrics
• 8 May 2018: Dr Michael Lewis (The British Museum, Portable Antiquities) - Myths and mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry
• 24 April 2018: Dr Ben Parsons (University of Leicester) - Coming of age, coming to blows: Punishment, masculinity and maturity in medieval education

Spring term theme - The Islamic World

• 20 March 2018: Dr Jose Carvajal Lopez (Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester) - Islamisation and trade in the Arabian Gulf in the age of Muhammad and Charlemagne
• 6 March 2018: Professor Marijke van de Veen (University of Leicester) - Fact or fiction? The Islamic agricultural revolution
• 20 February 2018: Dr Jan Vandeburie (History, Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester) - 'The Pope and the Prophet': Western knowledge of Islam and perceptions of shared sacred space in the 13th century

2012/13

• 20 May 2013, MRC Seminar: Steve Ling (History) - Reforming or Forming the Regular Clergy: The Eighth and Ninth Century Regulation of Canons.
• 3 May 2013, Digital Humanities Seminar: Dr Orietta Da Rold (English) - Digital Encounters and Cultural Exchanges: Medieval Manuscripts Online
• 2 May 2013, MRC Research Seminar: Daniel Reynolds (University of Birmingham) - "The Jerusalem above wept for the Jerusalem below": the sack of Jerusalem (614 AD) in Melkite liturgical memory

2009/10

• 15 October 2009: Gareth Williams (British Museum) - The Conquest of the Northern Danelaw in the light of the Vale of York hoard

2008/09

• 25 March 2009: PJC Field (University of Wales, Bangor) - The Holy Grail and Sir Thomas Malory: How to Talk about Things that Words Can’t Describe
• 11 March 2009: Sarah Macmillan (University of Birmingham) - "Þe spaces of time": Mystical Space and the Canonical Hours
• 4 February 2009: Mary Swan (University of Leeds) - Post-Conquest Interactions: Old English Texts and their Twelfth-Century Users

2007/08

• 3 March 2008: Alfred Hiatt (University of Leeds) - Reading medieval maps
• 28 February 2008: Denis Renevey (University of Lausanne) - Out of Darkness, or Why and How the Fifteenth-Century Middle English Doctrine of the Heart Matters
• 28 January 2008: David Clark (University of Leicester) - Self-abuse: Blurring/Defining Sexual Difference in Medieval Texts