AHRC awards money for skills training in Viking Studies

The Arts & Humanities Research Council has awarded a grant of £45,000 to the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham and the Highlands and Islands for a skills training programme for PhD students and Early Career Researchers in the field of  Old Norse-Icelandic and Viking Studies: Extending Academic Research about the Viking Diaspora and its Heritage in the British Isles.

This project addresses the skills gap in the AHRC's strategic area of Heritage and engages with the emerging theme of Translating Cultures. It comprises a preparatory workshop bringing together academics, young scholars and heritage professionals, followed by a field school in Orkney, providing hands-on experience of a heritage landscape.

Call for Papers: Transmission, Translation and Dissemination in the European Middle Ages, 1000 - 1500

Closing date for proposals: 31st March 2012

Transmission, Translation and Dissemination in the European Middle Ages, 1000–1500 AD
University College Cork, Ireland
28th – 29th September 2012

The Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland, in association with Dr Elizabeth Boyle, University of Cambridge, are delighted to announce a forthcoming conference. 

Transmission, Translation and Dissemination in the European Middle Ages, 1000–1500 AD, is an interdisciplinary, international, two-day conference to be held at University College Cork on 28–29 September 2012. This conference will explore the issues of textual transmission and the movement of ideas across medieval Europe. Indeed, going beyond consideration of literary texts alone, the scope of discussions will include the transmission of images, music, scientific learning, and related areas.

Keynote addresses will be given by Dr Caoimhín Breatnach, School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics, University College Dublin, on the transmission of Latin religious texts in Ireland c. 1000 - 1500; and Dr Anthony Lappin, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, on Alchoran latinus and growing knowledge of Islam in the twelfth century.

Proposals (max. 250 words) are welcome from researchers in all areas of medieval studies. Papers should last c. 30 minutes (plus time for questions and discussion). We also welcome proposals from postgraduate students for shorter papers (c. 20 minutes plus questions). A small number of postgraduate bursaries may be available.

Proposals for papers should be emailed to: medrenforum@gmail.com no later than 31 March 2012. Registration details to follow. The call for papers is available as a PDF at this link.

This conference is being organised by the Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland in association with University College Cork and the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge. The conference is generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the School of History, and the School of English, University College Cork.

Organizing committee:
Dr Elizabeth Boyle (University of Cambridge)
Dr Ann Buckley (Trinity College Dublin)
Dr Carrie Griffin (Queen Mary, University of London / University College Cork)
Ms Emer Purcell M.Phil. (University College Cork)

In search of Carn Droma: exploring the boundaries between Picts and Gaels

Philip Dunshea writes:

‘Reconnaissance walking’ is seen by modern archaeologists as a preliminary technique before proper field-surveying gets under way: a fairly casual way of assessing whether a site is worth investigating. But for much of the twentieth century it was a big part of the business for many medievalists. The list of the great walkers is a long one but honourable mention must go to O.G.S. Crawford and Margaret Gelling. 

Gelling, a toponymist who eventually became president of the English Place-Name Society, spent countless hours bush-whacking across woodlands and fields, tracking contour lines and fluvial patterns, all in an effort to make herself as familiar with the intricacies of the English landscape as her beloved Anglo-Saxons must have been. Crawford, meanwhile, was wrapped up in what he believed was a personal crusade to survey and catalogue Britain’s heritage before it was swept away forever by modernity. Crawford knew that history and maps were inseparable, and as the Ordnance Survey’s first History Officer, he was well placed to follow this conviction. One of his lasting contributions to archaeology was in pioneering the use of aerial photography.  To both Gelling and Crawford the legacy of the past (pre-historic, Roman and medieval) was there to be read in the landscape.

Over the last few decades, in common with every other academic discipline, early-medieval archaeology and early-medieval history have become so specialised in their own right that it’s now almost impossible to maintain an expert presence in both fields.  Nowadays most historians in the ASNC line of work restrict themselves to libraries, largely because they’re dependent on work by philologists and other people who know more about the source-texts than they do. Archaeologists (or the dwindling cohort of archaeologists who don’t yet work in laboratories) have the great outdoors to themselves.   

This seems neither fair nor justified. In the early medieval period the lie of the land must have had a vastly greater impact on day-to-day life than it does for us today. In many ways the texts studied by ASNaCs are just as rooted in the physical environment as any material remains, and this was brought home by some recent work I’ve been doing on the early-medieval significance of Scotland’s watershed divide.  The research was all supposed to be focussed on a topographical feature called Druim Alban (the ‘Ridge’ or the ‘Spine of Alba’) which was understood to mark the frontier between the Picts (in the east) and the Scots of Dál Riata (in the west). In all contexts it is clear that the term refers to a mountain range – but which one?

Druim Alban (photo credit: Philip Dunshea)

Giant squid spotted in Iceland?

ASNC lecturer in Scandinavian History, Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, recently found the following notice in a medieval Icelandic annal:

1345: A strange thing appeared east in Lagarfljót and the Fljóts Dale district, and people know that it was alive. Sometimes it looked like large islands but sometimes it shoots up coils and gaps in between, and many hundreds of fathoms long. No-one knew the size of it, and neither a head nor a fishtail has been seen on it, and for this reason people do not know what [kind of a] wonder it was.

The Icelanders were familiar with ordinary fish and marine mammals, but this creature was new to them. On the basis of the reference to 'coils', Dr Rowe at first was reminded of the Loch Ness Monster, but on further reflection a giant squid seemed more likely. Dr Rowe is currently at work on producing the first English translation of the medieval Icelandic annals, and further unsual events are sure to turn up.

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_squid_logy_bay.png

Junctions and Crossroads: Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic 2012

The 2012 Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will take place on 25th February. This year's Colloquium theme is 'Junctions and Crossroads'. The keynote speaker will be Dr Barbara Crawford O.B.E., Honorary Reader at the University of St Andrews, who will speak on 'The Joint Earldoms of Caithness and Orkney'. Papers will be delivered by postgraduate students from home and abroad. Full registration details are available here - registration costs just £5 including lunch! The final programme is now available here. There will be a bookstall offering discounted titles from CUP, Yale University Press, Brepols and others.

The Colloquium will be followed by the annual Colloquium Dinner, which will be held this year at Trinity Hall. Prices are £30 for the vegetarian menu or £35 for the meat option. The full menu, including drinks reception and three courses, is attached to the registration form. All those attending the Colloquium are welcome to attend the dinner.

Outreach and widening participation

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

Applications are now open for our annual Sutton Trust Summer School in Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, which will take place on 13th-17th August. The Sutton Trust is an organisation which seeks to promote social mobility through education, and each year participants in our Summer School are given the opportunity to experience life as a Cambridge undergraduate: staying in a College, attending lectures and seminars, and receiving one-to-one or small group 'supervisions' on the languages, literatures, and history of medieval Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. More information on how to apply is available via the University's webpages.

The Summer School is only a small part of the work we do to promote wider engagement with ASNC particularly, and medieval studies more generally. In recent months, for example, I have given various lectures in Cambridge to groups of pupils visiting from Langdon School, East Ham, and from Westminster Academy; I also headed to Dormers Wells High School, London, to give lectures on medieval Irish literature to students drawn from the Borough of Ealing's 'gifted and talented' programme; and last October, I gave a lecture on the historical Macbeth as part of the University of Cambridge's 'inspiring ideas' series. In all cases, I was overwhelmed by the natural enthusiasm shown by the students for medieval studies, despite the fact that most of them had not encountered medieval history or literature as part of their school curriculum.

Giving a lecture to secondary school pupils (and their teachers) on the real Macbeth

So, if you are a Year 12 pupil who is interested in the medieval world, and who attends a state school, please consider applying for a place on the Sutton Trust Summer School in ASNC. Each year, these Summer Schools give students the confidence to apply for a place at Cambridge, or at other leading universities: it could be a life-changing experience for you too.

Cultures in Contact: Conference for Teachers interested in the Medieval World

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

On Saturday 14th January, just before the return of our students and the beginning of the new term, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic welcomed sixty school teachers, from all over the country, for a one-day conference on the theme of 'Cultures in Contact'. The conference sought to present to teachers working in a variety of disciplines (History, English Literature, Classics and Religious Studies were all well-represented), and at a variety of schools, some of the cutting-edge research being undertaken in the Department, with the general aim of drawing attention to the richness and diversity of medieval studies (now often sadly neglected in the GCSE and A Level curricula). The conference - which was fully booked well in advance (and, indeed, was over-subscribed) - featured the following papers:

Dr Andrew Bell - 'Thinking about early medieval Europe'

Dr Richard Dance - 'Roots, blends and buttocks: finding the Vikings in the English language'

Professor Simon Keynes & Dr Rory Naismith - 'Money talks: wealth and power in Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia

Dr Paul Russell - 'Reading Ovid in medieval Wales'

Dr Elizabeth Boyle - 'From Shakespeare to Tennyson: Celtic influences in English literature'

The day concluded with a Q&A session, which covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from aspects of the University's admissions process to themes which had emerged from the papers earlier that day. Having received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the teachers who participated - and having been delighted at their enthusiasm for, and interest in, all things medieval - we certainly hope to repeat the event in future years.

The Department would like to say an enormous 'thank you' to Dr Denis Casey for co-ordinating the event so efficiently, and to our departmental secretary, Mrs Jayne Riley, for her invaluable support.

ASNC-related news stories

The BBC news website today has a story about the Silverdale Viking Hoard. You can find a link to the story here. In the Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole continues his 'History of Ireland in 100 objects' with a discussion of the eleventh-century Clonmacnoise Crozier.

Varia

At the 2011 E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture on Thursday 1st December, we were delighted to launch our latest Quiggin Pamphlet, based on last year's lecture. Professor Liam Breatnach, of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, is the author of the most recent of our famous green pamphlets, entitled: The Early Irish Law Text Senchas Már and the Question of its Date, E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 13 (Cambridge, 2011). The pamphlet is available to buy from the Department for the sum of £5, including postage. And while we're advertising our publications, might we remind you that our Chadwick Lectures and Hughes Lectures are also available for purchase.

Dr Elizabeth Boyle has been awarded a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship for 'Experienced Researchers in the Historical Humanities', in the Gerda Henkel Stiftung/M4HUMAN programme. Beginning in October 2012, Dr Boyle will spend time in the Department of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork, working on a book which is provisionally titled 'The End of the World? Apocalyptic Expectation in Eleventh-Century Ireland'.

And finally, we'd like to draw your attention to some interesting archaeological finds in Scotland, made by the Rhynie Environs Archaeological Project, which will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on our understanding of early medieval Pictish society.

Public lecture in ASNC

The 2011 E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture will take place on Thursday 1st December, at 5pm, in room GR.06/07 of the English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge.

Prof. Odd Einar Haugen, of the University of Bergen, will speak on:

'So that the writing may be less and quicker, and the parchment last longer':

The Orthographic Reform of the Old Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise

An abstract is available here.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the social space of the English Faculty Building.

All welcome.