Category: Uncategorized

8th April 2017
Lecture by Ian Roberts on St Giles, Pontefract, and Wakefield Cathedral

2pm at Swarthmore

The AGM has been postponed till next month

Tuesday 7th March – 17.30

Presented by Professor Oliver Creighton

This lecture will examine material evidence for the conflict of the mid-12th century popularly known as ‘the Anarchy’, during the turbulent reign of Stephen, King of England (1135–54).

Drawing on new research and fieldwork, the lecture will provide an overview of the material record for this controversial period, covering castles, siege-castles, churches and settlements, alongside material culture including coins, pottery, seals and arms and armour, and question the ‘real’ impact of Stephen’s troubled reign on society and the English landscape.

Tuesday 21st February, 2017 – 17.30

Judith Jesch is Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is the author most recently of The Viking Diaspora (2015) and is currently working mainly on runic inscriptions and Old Norse poetry. She is also PI on the AHRC-funded ‘Bringing the Vikings Back to the East Midlands’ project, starting on 1 February 2017.

In this lecture, Professor Jesch will discuss a number of versified runic inscriptions, from ca. 400 to 1400 AD, to explore what they reveal about the forms and functions of early Scandinavian poetry outside the manuscript tradition.

Nathan Bodington Council Chamber, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds.

Saturday 11th February, 2017 2 p.m. at Swarthmore

Professor Sarah Rees Jones, of the Dept of Medieval Studies at the University of York and one of the co-authors of the York Historic Towns Atlas will give this Saturday’s talk to the Medieval Section instead of Peter Addyman who is unavoidably detained in the USA.

Sarah is a distinguished medieval historian whose recently-published book on medieval York has been very well received.

Saturday 10th December, 2016 at 2 p.m.

Interaction, Daily Life, and Socialising Spaces in Early Tudor Castles by Audrey Thorstad

Bryan posted more details last month.

Tuesday 6 December 2016 – 17.30

Emilia Jamroziak (Professor of Medieval Religious History, School of History, and Director, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds) Inaugural Lecture: The Present Mirrored in the Past: Why Interpreting Medieval Monasticism Matters

Nathan Bodington Council Chamber, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds.

Tuesday, 22 November 2016 – 17.30

Chris J. Given-Wilson (Professor of Medieval History, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews)

Nathan Bodington Council Chamber, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds.

Riches revealed: medieval archives in the collections of the YAHS a talk by Sylvia Thomas.

2pm at Swarcliffe as usual

Prof. Raluca Radulescu (Professor of Medieval Literature and Co-Director of the Institute for Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Bangor University)

Date : 4th October 2016
Time : 6pm
Location : Parkinson Building: Room 1.08.

The historical and cultural context in which vernacular chronicles were written at the end of the Middle Ages in England and the Continent was complex. Among the numerous types of extant chronicles, the Middle English Brut chronicle tradition, with more than 180 extant manuscripts, predominantly from the fifteenth century, stands out as a ‘best seller’. The Brut chronicle inherits the narrative of Britain’s origins from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, and establishes, through its continuations up to fifteenth century, a seemingly uninterrupted line of succession for the kings of England from the foundation of the ‘nation’ by Brut, the great-grandson of Eneas. Versions of the Brut chronicle are found in abridged format, be they in Latin, French or English, in other types of chronicle, such as the genealogies. Through their diagrammatic design the genealogical chronicles provided their first audiences with powerful reminders of a particular interpretation of history, especially during the Wars of the Roses, when this type of chronicle was used, it is now believed, for political propaganda purposes.

However, the use of fifteenth-century genealogical chronicles, surviving in large numbers and in both roll and codex format, extended beyond immediate political aims. The genealogical chronicles, I argue, contributed to the creation of gentry, noble and royal family history, and shaped the imaginary of the ‘English nation’. Image-making and identity-making are thus crucial to our understanding of the cultural framework in which historical writing was produced in fifteenth-century England. My talk will address, among other, the following questions: How was the land perceived and presented in the late medieval English vernacular chronicles, particularly in the Brut and genealogies? How did the audiences of these chronicles interact with the codices and/or rolls containing these historical narratives – if at all? What gaps are there in our understanding of the function of these chronicles, and what work is still needed to fill them?

Raluca Radulescu is Professor of Medieval literature and co-director of the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Bangor University, Wales. She is also general editor of the Journal of the International Arthurian Society and President of the British Branch of the same society. She has published widely on Arthurian and non-Arthurian romance, gentry culture, fifteenth-century political culture, Brut and genealogical chronicles, and the medieval miscellany. Her most recent books are Romance and Its Contexts in Fifteenth-Century England: Politics, Piety and Penitence (Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 2013) and, co-edited with Margaret Connolly, Insular Books: Vernacular Manuscript Miscellanies in Late Medieval Britain, British Academy vol. 201 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2015).