Vlaamse Werkgroep Mediëvistiek

Hierbij vindt u de call for papers voor de GOLIATH-workshop die dit najaar (vrijdag 29 november 2013) wordt georganiseerd aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. De workshop zal gaan over het maatschappelijk appel van de dichter van middeleeuwen tot vroegmoderne tijd. Voorstellen (ca. 300 woorden) voor een korte lezing (precieze lengte wordt nog bekend gemaakt) kunnen voor 15 september 2013 gestuurd worden naar: Johan Oosterman (RU Nijmegen): j.oosterman@let.ru.nl of Kornee van der Haven (UGent): cornelis.vanderhaven@ugent.be.

In bijlage gaat de aankondiging voor de Achtste Landschapscontactdag op 4 oktober 2013. Het thema dit is jaar is “Landbouw en Landschap”.

In het najaar organiseert de VWM in samenwerking met verschillende partners een driedaagse workshop over het gebruik van computationele technieken in het historisch onderzoek: “Historical Documents, Digital Approaches”. Hierbij vindt u de brochure met meer informatie. Deze workshop is een organisatie van de volgende partners: The Ghent Center for Digital Humanities, de departementen Geschiedenis, Taal en Communicatie, Slavistiek en Oost-Europakunde van de UGent en het Henri Pirenne-instituut voor mideeleuwse studies. De workshop gaat door aan de UGent van 5 tot 7 september 2012.

This Autumn School is organized for MA and PhD-students in Medieval Studies (art history, history, philosophy, literature, music…) who are required to work with documents in medieval languages. By offering intensive courses in Old and Middle French and in Medieval Latin, the Autumn School wants to remedy the fact that instruction of historical languages is becoming rather marginalized at many universities, while familiarity with this linguistic heritage remains of prime importance to new generations of medieval scholars.

The Autumn School starts with two days of parallel courses in Old and Middle French and in Medieval Latin, taught by a leading expert in the field. These two days consist of both teaching sessions and of workshops in which students are trained to analyze primary texts. On the second afternoon, students are invited to work with primary texts from their own research in specialized workshops. On the third day of the course, a symposium is organized in which, for each language, four case  studies will illustrate some recent approaches in research on medieval sources. In the space of three days, students will thus acquire a basic knowledge of either Old and Middle French or Medieval Latin
as well the skills to implement this knowledge in their own research projects.
For the course in Old and Middle French, no previous knowledge is required, though a basic familiarity with modern French is deemed necessary. For the course on Medieval Latin, students need to have already a basic knowledge of (classical) Latin grammar and vocabulary. Both courses are delivered in English. Since both courses are taught at the same time, participants can enroll for only one language.

Teaching staff:
For Old and Middle French: Thelma Fenster (Fordham University, NY), with the collaboration of Alexander Roose and Jan Dumolyn (both from Ghent University)
For Medieval Latin: Justin Stover (University of Oxford) and Julian Yolles (Harvard University), with the collaboration of Frédéric Van Vosselen and Els De Paermentier (both from Ghent University)

PROGRAMME

MONDAY 21 OCTOBER 2013
Ghent, Blandijnberg 2, Faculty Room (110.009) and
Meeting Room English (130.037)

PARALLEL SESSIONS FOR OLD AND MIDDLE FRENCH
AND FOR MEDIEVAL LATIN

• 8.30 – 9.00: registration in Faculty Room
• 9.00 – 10.45: session 1
• 10.45 – 11.00: coffee break
• 11.00 – 12.45: workshop 1

lunch

• 13.45 – 15.30: session 2
• 15.30 – 15.45: coffee break
• 15.45 – 17.30: workshop 2

TUESDAY 22 OCTOBER 2013
Ghent, Blandijnberg 2, Faculty Room (110.009) and Meeting Room English (130.037)

• 9.00 – 10.45: session 3
• 10.45 – 11.00: coffee break
• 11.00 – 12.45: workshop 3

lunch

• 13.45 – 15.30: session 4 (parallel sessions within each course: one for literary texts, one for administrative documents)
• 15.30 – 15.45: coffee break
• 15.45 – 17.30: workshop 4 (parallel sessions within each course: one for literary texts, one for administrative documents)

WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2013
Ghent, Blandijnberg 2, Meeting Room English
(130.037)

• 8.50 – 9.00: registration for new participants
• 9.00 – 9.10: Welcome

SESSION on Medieval Latin
Chair: Els De Paermentier

• 9.10 – 9.50: Julian Yolles, Harvard University – Latin literature in the Crusader States (1099-1187)
• 9.50 – 10.30: Wim Verbaal, Ghent University – Latin Fiction
• coffee break
• 10.50 – 11.30: Michele Campopiano, University of York – Cathedral of texts. Dealing with a twelfth century compilation and its textual transmission (Guido da Pisa, 1118-1119)
• 11.30 – 12.10: Jeroen Deploige, Ghent University and Mike Kestermont, University of Antwerp – Stylometry Applied on Medieval Latin. An Analysis of Collaborative Authorship in the Twelfth Century

lunch (not provided by the organizers)

SESSION on Old and Medieval French
Chair: Jan Dumolyn

• 13.30 – 14.10: Christopher Fletcher, University of Paris I – How to explore the conceptual structures of later medieval Anglo-French texts using PALM and TXM?
• 14.10 – 14.50: Jelle Koopmans, University of Amsterdam – What can administrative sources tell us, and what do they hide?
• coffee break
• 15.10 – 15.50: Marie-Madeleine Castellani, University of Lille 3 – Rutebeuf’s translation of the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
• 15.50 – 16.30: Godfried Croenen, University of Liverpool – Froissart, c’est un monde: Jean Froissart and the tradition of late medieval French prose chronicles

Each paper includes a presentation (30 min) and a discussion (10 min)

16.30 – 18.00: informal drinks reception

APPLICATION
The application deadline for the entire course (three days) is August 31, 2013. There will be a maximum of 20 participants per language course. Applications should be sent to Martine.DeReu@UGent.be and must contain the following information: language course applied for, university where your MA or PhD will be obtained, mother tongue, level of
English, level of French (for those applying for Old + Middle French), research topic for your master’s or doctoral thesis.

Interested students and scholars not enrolled in the course can attend the sessions on Wednesday for free; they are kindly asked to register before October 1, 2013 with Martine.DeReu@UGent.be.

ACCOMMODATION AND TRANSPORT
Participants need to provide for their own accommodation and transport. Useful information can be found on the following websites:
for accommodation:
www.vjh.be/gent.htm (Youth Hostel)
www.visitgent.be
www.gent-hotels.eu/en
www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/belgium/ghent/
www.hotelspecials.be/be/oost-vlaanderen/gent.html
for trains:
www.b-rail.be/nat/E/

MEALS
Lunches on Monday and Tuesday will be organized by the H. Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies. Evening meals and lunch on Wednesday are not provided by the organizers.

REGISTRATION FEE
There is a registration fee of 100 EUR for those who want to attend the entire course (three days). This fee is to be paid – after confirmation has been received of acceptance in the summer school – into the account of Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 25, B-9000 GHENT. Account details: IBAN: BE59-3900-9658-0026 – SWIFT: BBRU BE BB
900. The VAT-number of Ghent University is BE 0248.015.142. The bank transfer should mention “Historical Languages 2013”. Payment of this fee is considered as confirmation of registration.
The registration fee is waived for MA and PhD students from Ghent University, from the Onderzoeksschool Mediëvistiek (Netherlands) and from the University of Oxford.
Students and scholars attending only the sessions on Wednesday are not required to pay a registration fee.

This project is organized by the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent University and funded by the Ghent Doctoral School for Arts, Humanities and Law, by the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, by the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature and by the Ghent educational project internationalisation@home.

Organizing committee
Jeroen Deploige (Ghent University, chair of the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval History)
Helen Swift (University of Oxford, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages)
Jan Dumolyn (Ghent University, Department of History)
Wim Verbaal (Ghent University, Department of Literature)
Maximiliaan Martens (Ghent University, Department of Art History)
Martine De Reu (Ghent University, coordinator of the MA in Historical Linguistics and Literature)

More information

European Urban History Conference 2014 Lisbon, Portugal (3-6 September 2014)

To this day, relatively little is known about the functioning of religious spaces in late medieval European cities and how this changed in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation era. Yet, much suggests that the churches of the urban parishes and the various ecclesiastical institutions are important constituents of the socio-cultural organization of the medieval and post-medieval city. On the one hand, churches and churchyards were a cornerstone for urban community building. Together with markets, they formed the primary locus of the urban public sphere and collective religious experiences were closely linked to the ideology of the city as a spiritual community sanctioned by God. On the other hand, churches also functioned as the stage for individual actions that were charged with religious and social meaning, ranging from individual prayer over the establishment of a private altar or funerary monument to the disputes on the seating order during mass. Through a combination of papers from various disciplines, this session would contribute to the charting of both the complementarity and the tension between the use of church spaces for individual and communal enterprises in the cities of Western Europe.

During the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the European urban network formed the stage of far-reaching transformations, in which some cities rose and others declined, and in which opportunities for upward social mobility shifted from one urban group to another. The first aim of this session would be to assess how and to what extent those social dynamics were negotiated within the spatial setting of the urban church. Secondly, there is the equally important issue of continuities and discontinuities in the uses of sacral spaces in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation era, not only in the light of the theological discussions on the validity and functioning of ecclesiastical infrastructure, but also in relation to the changing conceptions about the social order in the Early Modern Era and the processes of inclusion and exclusion it engendered.

Both lines of enquiry would be pursued through the perspective of material culture studies. First, attention would go to “embodied piety,” that is, devotion as an individual experience that was mediated to physical objects (e.g. the lighting of candles, the kneeling for religious diptychs and statues). Secondly, special attention would go to commemorative monuments as attempts to imprint the public sphere in a durable manner (e.g. funerary monuments, memorial plaques).

This session encourages a wide range of contributions from various disciplines (social and cultural history, religious history, archaeology, art history, material culture studies and so on). Possible questions that are relevant to this session are:

1. How and to what extent did the various urban ecclesiastical spaces – parish churches, cloisters, hospitals, chapels and so on – function as arenas for social mobility and the structuring of social hierarchies?
2. To what extent was the use of those religious spaces by individuals, families or networks for representational strategies compatible with the idea of religious spaces as cornerstones for community building, and how did this change over time? Tied to this, is the present-day conceptual repertoire of scholars adequate to interpret the various functions of those spaces as attested in the textual and material sources?
3. How was the urban church as a material space shaped and reshaped with the rise of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the recalibration of the relations between religious institutions and the urban authorities as well as the princely government?
4. Which trajectories of change can be distinguished for the outlined questions within Western Europe and which factors explain those processes of differentiation and their timing?

Organizers

Frederik Buylaert (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (Ghent University, Belgium)
Koen Goudriaan (Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Submission of papers

Please submit an English-language abstract of maximum 300 words on the website of the European Association for Urban History: http://www.eauh2014.fcsh.unl.pt)

Deadline: October 15, 2013

The participants will be notified about their paper proposal by December 15, 2013.

LITURGY IN HISTORY

International Study Day

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

We are delighted to announce a call for participants for ‘Liturgy in History’, an international study day for graduate students and early career researchers at Queen Mary’s Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.

Liturgy in History:  a full-day workshop exploring liturgy in practice in
the medieval and early-modern periods.

When: Tuesday 19th November, 9:30 – 17:00 (lunch provided)
Where: Queen Mary, Mile End Campus, room tbc

Three speakers – Professor Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen), Professor Emma Dillon (King’s College London) and Dr. Beth Williamson (University of Bristol) – will guide participants through the structure and formulae of liturgical sources. The musical, visual, architectural and performative aspects of the liturgy will all be carefully considered and approaches to liturgy re-interrogated. The day will culminate in a trip to a nearby renaissance church which will help situate them in their context. We would be delighted to welcome international participants and students from diverse disciplines, to
reflect the multidisciplinary focus of the day itself.

If you would like to join us please email Hetta Howes (h.howes@qmul.ac.uk). Attendance will be free of charge, but places are limited to ensure discussion and participation, so it is essential that you book your place.

http://liturgyinhistory.wordpress.com/

Afgelopen vrijdag is tijdens het symposium ‘Praten als Brugman, schrijven als Herp. Minderbroeders-observanten en het culturele leven in de laatmiddeleeuwse Lage Landen’ de gelijknamige webtentoonstelling geopend. Voor wie de vrijdag de tentoonstelling heeft gemist, of alles nog eens rustig wil bekijken en lezen, volgt hier de link naar de webtentoonstelling.

De leden van de organiserend comité, Anna Dlabacova en Daniëlle Prochowski, wensen u alvast veel leesplezier.

International Conference
The Ten Commandments in medieval and early modern culture
Ghent University, Belgium
April 10-11, 2014

Key note speakers: Robert J. Bast (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Uta Störmer-Caysa (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz)

Call for Papers
The Department of Literature at Ghent University is pleased to announce that it will host an international conference on the Ten Commandments in medieval and early modern culture on April 10-11, 2014. We kindly invite paper proposals exploring this theme from any field of medieval and early modern studies. Selected papers will be published in a volume to be included in the peer-reviewed series Intersections. Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture (Brill Publishers).

The rise to prominence of the Ten Commandments dates back to the 12th century. In that period exegetes such as Hugh of Saint Victor emphasized the importance of the Decalogue as a list of moral principles. A century later the Ten Commandments permeated scholastic learning as well as catechetical teaching. They became a useful instrument for the examination of conscience in preparation for the mandatory annual confession introduced by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). By the second half of the 15th century, the Commandments were omnipresent in religious culture. Their diverse textual and visual manifestations were found in a variety of media, from manuscripts and printed books, to wall paintings and wooden panels. The prominence of the Decalogue continued amongst the Protestants, albeit with a different emphasis than in Catholic teaching.

The heterogeneity of the preserved Decalogue material inspires numerous research questions, many of which are vital and yet largely unexplored. It also poses methodological challenges to scholars who seek to explore and understand the role of the Ten Commandments within a broader context of medieval and early modern culture. Bearing this in mind, we would like to invite papers that elaborate on various aspects of textual – both Latin and vernacular – and visual manifestations of the Decalogue in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. It is particularly important that the proposed papers put emphasis on the broader cultural context in which the Decalogue functioned, as well as on the methodological and theoretical aspects of the discussed piece of research. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• The relationship (or lack of it) between scholastic and vernacular writings on the Ten Commandments. Recent research has shown that some vernacular writings on the Ten Commandments contain elaborate theological content. Which themes found their way from academic to vernacular theology? Were there independent developments within the vernacular writings on the Decalogue? In which milieus were the ‘learned’ vernacular treatises written and what was their audience?
• The Ten Commandments in various textual genres. The typological diversity of writings on the Decalogue is astonishing. These Old Testament tenets were explored in scholastic summae, catechetical mirrors and sermons, put into simple rhymes, combined with images and even interwoven into stage plays. How did different genres treat the Commandments? Was there any genre-specific emphasis on certain aspects of the exegesis of the Decalogue?
• The Ten Commandments in visual arts. The act of breaking or obeying the precepts was depicted in diverse media. Did the iconography and/or function of the Ten Commandments scenes change depending on the medium? Did the Reformation and Counter-Reformation affect the iconography of the Decalogue-scenes?
• The Decalogue in medieval and early modern popular culture. The Ten Commandments, like other tenets, penetrated popular (religious) culture. How did the abundantly preserved Decalogue rhymes, some of which could in fact be sung, and cheap prints containing a combination of text and image function? Who used them?
• The Ten Commandments in early modern theology. The Decalogue played a vital role in Protestant theology. Did the reformers postulate any major shifts in the interpretation of the Old Testament precepts? If so, did it cause any reaction by the catholic theologians?

Papers should be given in English and should be 20-25 minutes long. Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) accompanied by a brief CV before October 1, 2013 by e-mail to Marta Bigus (marta.bigus@ugent.be). Successful applicants will be notified by November 1, 2013.
We look forward to receiving your abstracts, and to a productive meeting on April 10-11, 2014. We hope that you will support our efforts by notifying your colleagues and students about the conference. You are most welcome to contact the organisers for further details.

Organising committee:
Marta Bigus, MA (marta.bigus@ugent.be)
Prof. dr. Youri Desplenter (youri.desplenter@ugent.be)
Prof. dr. Jürgen Pieters (jurgen.pieters@ugent.be)

Call for papers European Urban History Conference 2014 Lisbon, Portugal (3-6 September 2014)

Charity, poor relief and the sense of community, ca. 1200-1900

Charity, mutual aid and poor relief have all figured prominently in research on late medieval and early modern cities. Major transformations have been exposed, for the sixteenth century and the end of the ancien régime in particular. These transformations have moreover been attributed to a wide variety of, often interrelated, causal factors. Specifically, proletarianization and the disciplining of workforce, religious transformations such as the Reformation, confessionalization and secularization, and state formation and the growing importance of market forces are all considered to have transformed the structures, institutions and practices of charity, mutual assistance and poor relief. However, while all these factors potentially affect the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion involved, the community building capacity has seldom been tackled head on.

Practices of charity and alms giving as well as the organization of poor relief or mutual assistance always imply a sense of ‘community’. All assistance and relief was in one way or another reserved for a specific group considered ‘deserving’, be that co-religionists, fellow townsmen, members of a particular guild, confraternity or quarter, etc. When allocating aid or relief to one specific group, the inside group is tightened as well as its boundaries sharpened to outsiders. But, while the mechanism as such may be virtually universal, the actual definition and delineation of communities changed considerably over time and across regions and contexts. This is particularly relevant for cities, which may up to a certain degree be considered a single community from the perspective of public aid, but in reality consisted of different communities within (and indeed across) the city.

This session wants to gain deeper insight in the community building capacities and the related exclusionary mechanisms of charity, mutual aid and poor relief mechanisms in late medieval and early modern cities. Which communities were implied or shaped by the organization of public assistance and poor relief, who had access to relief systems, and what community thereby served as a frame of reference? Did the boundaries created coincide with the city, a parish, families or urban ‘corpora’ such as guilds and fraternities? Did poor relief strengthen the idea of a civic community or rather a confessional one? And last but not least: how did this change in the long run and why?

We welcome case studies cases from all over Europe and beyond, so as to get a grip on both long term transformations and a wide variety of contextual factors.

Please submit an abstract of maximum 300 words on the EUHC2014 website before 15 October 2013. More information on the European Urban History Conference 2014 and paper proposals: www.eauh2014.fcsh.unl.pt.

Hadewijch Masure
PhD in History
Centre for Urban History
University of Antwerp
S.R-A-111, Rodestraat 14
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
T: +32 3 265 40 67
E: hadewijch.masure@ua.ac.be

Professor Steven King
Professor of Economic
and Social History
School of Historical Studies
3/5 Salisbury Road
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7SR
T: 0116 252 2760
E: sak28@le.ac.uk