Sir Frank Stenton (1880–1967), The Anglo-Saxon Coinage and the Historian

Dr Rory Naismith writes:

Sir Frank Stenton was professor of history at the University of Reading, and a leading scholar of Anglo-Saxon history in the twentieth century. He is best known as the author of Anglo-Saxon England, still widely regarded as the leading survey of the subject. Stenton possessed an abiding interest in the conjunctures between Anglo-Saxon history and numismatics, and served as founding chairman of the British Academy's Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles committee (1956–66).

On 28 April 1958, Stenton addressed the British Numismatic Society on the points of contact between numismatics and history in the study of Anglo-Saxon England. Dr Stewart Lyon made a recording of this lecture (approximately 75 minutes in length), which has now been digitized and made available as an MP3 on the British Numismatic Society’s website. An annotated text adapted from this recording is included in a posthumous collection of Stenton’s papers, Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, edited by Doris Mary Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 371–82.

Modern Poets on Viking Poetry - A Reading

Rebecca Merkelbach, a PhD student in ASNC, writes:

The evening of Friday 26 April marked the high point and conclusion (at least of the Cambridge part) of Dr Debbie Potts' project ‘Modern Poets on Viking Poetry’. Members of the department and the public gathered in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio to listen to eleven pieces written by poets from a variety of backgrounds and ages. They had all been working with skaldic verses, composed between the 10th and 14th century, and translated for the project by scholars of Old Norse. Debbie Potts introduced each of the original verses, which were then beautifully read by Orri Tómasson, transporting emotion across centuries and languages (as one of the poets remarked).

Some of the poems we heard were translations of, some reactions to, and some inspired by the form or content of the original skaldic verse. Especially topical was Lucy Hamiton's ‘Ring of Brodgar’, a response to a lausavísa by Þjóðólfr Arnórsson – a number of members of the department have visited this sight only ten days ago. Rebecca Perry's interesting, feminist interpretation of ‘The Waking of Angantyr’, which she entitled ‘how the earth increases’, fitted in very well with this week's CUSU Women's Campaign's ‘I need feminism because...’ photos. Anna Robinson's translation of Kormákr Ögmundarson's verses turned them into dialogue between the poet and Steingerðr, the object of his desire, now herself transformed into a subject. Probably the most emotionally charged compositions of the evening were the poems after Egill Skallagrímsson's ‘Sonatorrek’ which framed the interval. Chrissy William's ‘The Bear of the Moon’ beautifully caught the immense grief of the original, while at the same time contrasting it with dense poetic language. The film poem ‘Sonatorrek’ by Alastair Cook, featuring ‘The Lost Boy’ by John Glenday, transposed the metre and imagery of the original to the pointless deaths of World War I, commemorating Glenday's uncle who died in November 1918. It can be watched on the project's website.

All poems were incredibly powerful and inspired pieces of art, taking a lost poetic tradition and transforming it into something new, translating it into our time while also keeping the beauty of the old. Not only did the project offer an opportunity for creative dialogue between poets and scholars. The evening also sparked several new ideas for projects among the graduate students of the department, and we hope that we will hear more of them in the coming months.

2013 H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture

The twenty-fourth H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor John Blair (University of Oxford), on the subject of:

The British Culture of Anglo-Saxon Settlement

The lecture will take place on Thursday 14th March at 5pm in Room GR.06/07 of the English Faculty Building, West Road, Cambridge. The lecture will be followed by a wine reception. All welcome.

Report of Quiggin Lecture 2012

Helen Oxenham, a doctoral student in ASNC, writes:

One of the highlights of the ASNC year is always the annual E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture, begun in 1993, to commemorate Edmund Crosby Quiggin, the first teacher of Celtic at the University of Cambridge.  This year's lecture was as highly-anticipated, well-attended, and fascinating as usual.  On the 29th November at 5pm, the ASNC department was very pleased to welcome Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, to speak on the subject of ‘Marriage, Law and Tochmarc Emire (‘The Wooing of Emer’)’.

The lecture began with a summary of the tale of Tochmarc Emire – a tale in which the hero Cú Chulainn pledges fidelity to Emer, and then proceeds to break his pledge with multiple women, while Emer remains faithful – and then moved on to an analysis of the surviving manuscript sources for the various sections and versions of the tale.  Then came the main body of the lecture, which focused on the connections between the earliest versions of Tochmarc Emire (dating to between the eighth and the eleventh centuries) and the early Irish legal material.  Professor Ó hUiginn argued convincingly that Tochmarc Emire can be viewed as a negative exemplary tale through an analysis of certain legal prescriptions.  The legal text Cáin Lánamna, for example, carefully regulates a wide range of types of sexual union, both permanent and transitory.  Cú Chulainn, however, enters an unregulated union with Aífe, a female warrior, which ultimately leads to him killing his own son.

The combined use of a vernacular prose tale and the early Irish legal texts threw new and interesting light onto the ways in which such tales might be analysed within their early medieval context, the underlying messages being given greater resonance and meaning through this wider understanding.

It is traditional at the Quiggin Lectures that questions be reserved for the time at which the visiting speaker has a glass in hand, so after the launch of the pamphlet for the previous year’s lecture (Professor Odd Einar Haugen on The Orthographic Reform of the Old Icelandic First Grammatical Treatise) the assembled audience moved out of the lecture room for a feast of wine and canapés, to continue discussion and bombard Professor Ó hUiginn with questions. We look forward to seeing this lecture in print about this time next year.

Dreams and Nightmares: Festival of Ideas

Dr Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Lecturer in Scandinavian History, who organised the ASNC contribution to the Festival of Ideas, reports:

If I say so myself, ASNC’s event for the Festival of Ideas was a great success. The theme of the Festival this year was ‘Dreams and Nightmares’, so ASNC organised a series of short talks and recitations dealing with ‘Dreams and Nightmares in Early Britain and Ireland’. The event was held in the Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio, rather than the usual lecture room, and this contributed to the theatricality of the presentations, as did six metre-high panels designed and painted by current ASNC students, which illustrated scenes of dreams, visions, and monsters from the various ASNC literatures. The three-hour programme began with Prof. Paul Russell discussing ‘Dream narratives in Old Welsh and Old Irish’, followed by students reading passages of these texts in the original. The studio quickly filled to capacity in the first half hour and stayed that way until the end. From the Celtic languages the focus turned to the Germanic side of things with Dr Richard Dance explaining where the words dream and nightmare come from and reading the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. 

Richard Dance explicates Old English 'dream' and 'nightmare'

(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)

Three students read appropriate passages from Beowulf, and then Old Norse texts dealing with dreams and nightmares were read by Orri Tómasson (our teacher of Modern Icelandic) and Vicky Cribb (a postgraduate at ASNC) and explicated by Dr Judy Quinn. Dr Rory Naismith continued the English part of the programme by exploring the symbolism of the monsters and beasts that appear on Anglo-Saxon coins, and Dr Quinn capped off the event by discussing the Old Norse dreams and nightmares in compelling detail. 

Adam Kirton, a current ASNC undergraduate, reads Old English

(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)

The audience’s level of interest was evident not only in their attendance but also in the spontaneous question-and-answer sessions that happened after every talk. The audience’s attention was grabbed as well by the signs directing the public to the event, for student volunteers outside the building had them attached to swords, spears, and axes, and the student doorwarden keeping order in the hallway outside the drama studio was kitted out in authentic period costume. The audience was requested to fill out comment cards as they left, and most of those gave the event the highest rating. ASNC once again ably communicated the attraction and interest of our field, supported by the volunteer efforts of the many students who helped in advance and on the day.

ASNC undergraduate Becky Shercliff reads Old Irish

(photograph by Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson)

E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture 2012

The 2012 E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn, Professor of Modern Irish at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. The title of his lecture is:

Marriage, Law and Tochmarc Emire ('The Wooing of Emer')

The lecture will take place at 5pm on Thursday 29th November in Room GR 06/07 of the English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge, and will be followed by a wine reception. All welcome.

Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875-1920) was the first teacher of Celtic in the University of Cambridge. His extraordinarily comprehensive vision of Celtic studies offered an integrated approach to the subject; his combination of philological, literary and historical approaches paralleled those which his older contemporary, H.M. Chadwick, had already demonstrated in his studies of Anglo-Saxon England and which the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic continues to seek to emulate.

The Churches of Pictavia, and other Hughes-related matters

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, in association with Hughes Hall, was delighted to welcome Dr Alex Woolf, of the University of St Andrews, to deliver the 2012 Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture on Monday 30th April. To a packed audience, on a lovely sunny evening (after several days of relentless rain), Alex gave a succinct, engaging and up-to-date overview of scholarship on the nature and structures of the Church in the Pictish kingdoms up to the end of the ninth century. Having brought the audience into his intellectual fold, he then proceeded to make some very stimulating - and, to my mind, convincing - arguments regarding some sources for the iconography of late Pictish ecclesiastical art, and we certainly look forward to seeing those arguments developed in print next year.

 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 197B - a Northumbrian gospel-book whose stylistic influence is visible on many Pictish inscribed stones (image courtesy of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College)

And speaking of things in print, we were pleased on Monday evening to celebrate the publication of two previous Hughes Memorial Lectures, in the presence of their authors, namely Professor Marie Therese Flanagan (Queen's University, Belfast), Reform in the Twelfth-Century Irish Church: A Revolution of Outlook? (the 2010 Hughes Memorial Lecture), and Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards (University of Oxford), St Patrick and the Landscape of Early Christian Ireland (the 2011 Hughes Memorial Lecture), which are now available to buy from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic for the princely sum of £5 each.

Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture 2012

The 2012 Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture will be delivered by:

Dr Alex Woolf

(University of St Andrews)

on the subject of:

'The Churches of Pictavia'

Monday 30th April, 5.45pm

The Pavilion Room, Hughes Hall, Cambridge

All welcome. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.    

H. M. Chadwick memorial lecture 2012

The twenty-third annual H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture will be delivered by:

Professor Michael Lapidge

Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge

on the subject of:

'H. M. Chadwick: A Centennial Commemoration'

  

The lecture will take place on Thursday 15th March at 5.00pm, in The Riley Auditorium, Gillespie Building (off Memorial Court), Clare College, Cambridge (please note the change of venue from previous years). All welcome. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in Clare College.

Seachtain na Gaeilge, Cambridge, 5 - 17 March 2012

Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson announces a series of public events, exhibitions and lectures, celebrating Irish in Cambridge:

5 MARCH (Monday, 5pm):  Irish Poetry Reading, Biddy Jenkinson

Seachtain na Gaeilge will open with a reading by the Irish poet Biddy Jenkinson, who has been praised by Professor Ciaran Carson (Queen’s College, Belfast) as ‘one of [Ireland’s] greatest writers in any language’. Ms Jenkinson will introduce the background and content of each poem in English.  The poems will be read in Irish.  The Poetry Reading will take place in the English Faculty (9 West Road) in Room G-R05.  A wine reception will follow in the ASNC Common Room.  The reading is free of charge and open to students, staff and the general public.

Biddy Jenkinson brings a distinctive style and purpose to her writing, and her highly regarded collections of verse include Baisteadh Gintlí (1987), Uiscí Beatha (1988), Dán na hUidhre (1991), An Grá Riabhach (1999), Mis (2001), Rogha Dánta (2000) and Oíche Bhealtaine (2005).  She is also the author of prose works, including An tAthair Pádraig Ó Duinnín—Bleachtaire (2008).  

8 MARCH (Thursday, 5.30pm):  Dánta agus Ceol ‘Poems and Music’ / Irish films

Modern Irish language students will present Irish poems and traditional Irish songs in the ASNC Common Room (2nd floor, English Faculty, West Road). 

The performance will be followed by a showing of the short Irish film Lipservice and the RTE documentary Oileán Eile ‘Another Island’ (1985), which presents the literary and cultural legacy of the Great Blasket Islands through archive footage of daily life, an examination of the island autobiographies (Tomás Ó Criomhthainn’s An tOileánach and The Autobiography of Peig Sayers) and accounts by well-known scholars who visited the island, including Robin Flower, Carl Marstrander, Kenneth Jackson and George Thompson.

 The Blasket Islands

13 MARCH (Tuesday, 1-3pm):  Exhibition of Irish and Irish related manuscripts, Parker Library, Corpus Christi College (*Registration required)

More than thirty items of Irish interest from the Parker Library’s world renowned collection will be on display. Students, staff and members of the public are invited to register for a guided viewing of these exquisite examples of Irish insular art, decorated initials, glossaries, saints’ lives, prophesies, chronicles and charters dating from the 8th to the 16th century.  Highlights of the exhibit include the Hymn on St. Patrick attributed to Saint Secundias (Seachnall) or Saint Colmán Elo, the only extant copy of the canons of the ‘First Synod of Patrick’, the first European description of a giraffe (written by an Irish monk!), one of the earliest maps of Ireland, and the first printed piece of Irish anywhere in the world: the bardic poem Tuar feirge foighide Dé, composed by Philip Bocht Ó hUiginn in 1571. Two tours (1-2pm and 2-3pm) will be conducted on 13 March.  To register please contact Dr Denis Casey: dc399@cam.ac.uk. 

The Parker Library exhibit has been organized by Dr Denis Casey, Teaching Associate in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and Postdoctoral Fellow of the Society for Renaissance Studies, and Dr Christopher de Hamel, Donnelly Fellow Librarian at the ParkerLibrary

The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

picture courtesy of the Parker librarians

15 MARCH (Thursday, 5pm):  Public Lecture: 'H.M. Chadwick: A Centennial Commemoration'

Professor Michael Lapidge, Fellow of Clare College, will deliver the 23rd Annual H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture in the Riley Auditorium, Gillespie Building (off Memorial Court), Clare College, Queen's Road, Cambridge.  The lecture will be followed by a reception in Clare College at 6pm.

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.

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.

Festival of Ideas

On Saturday 29th October, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will be holding a series of short public lectures on the theme of 'War and Peace in the Early Middle Ages' as part of Cambridge University's Festival of Ideas. Speakers will include Prof. Simon Keynes, on recent archaeological evidence for violence towards Vikings in Anglo-Saxon England, and Dr Judy Quinn on the valkyrie in Old Norse literature. This event is free, and open to all (suitable for ages 14+), but pre-booking is required. For details, see the Festival of Ideas website.

Viking-Age execution site in Dorset, picture from BBC News website

Report of Chadwick Lecture

Dr Jonathan Jarrett, of the University of Oxford, has an interesting report on his blog of Prof. Wendy Davies's 2011 H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture, which she delivered in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic on 17th March.

Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture

On Monday 9th May, Prof. Thomas Charles-Edwards, Jesus Professor of Celtic, University of Oxford, will deliver the 2011 Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture on:

'St Patrick and the Landscape of Early Christian Ireland'

Lives of St Patrick, from the late-seventh century onwards, are rich in information about the political and ecclesiastical landscape—about small kingdoms and large, about ‘seats of kingship’ and local churches. Occasionally they touch upon the major places of pre-Christian Ireland as these were understood in the Christian period. The latter are ubiquitous in early Irish narrative literature and then in the Dindshenchas ‘place-history’ of Middle Irish. The lecture will discuss the relationship between Patrick’s places and those believed to be the central places of pre-Patrician Ireland.

This lecture will take place at 5.45pm in the Pavilion Room, Hughes Hall, Cambridge. All welcome.

Seachtain na Gaeilge in Cambridge

Seachtain na Gaeilge, 2011
5 - 17 MARCH

As part of the celebration of 'Seachtain na Gaeilge', a two-week festival which promotes Irish language and culture in Ireland and abroad, the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic will host the following events in the English Faculty Building, Sidgwick Site, 9 West Road.

9 MARCH (Wednesday), 5pm, English Faculty Board Room

Dr. Tim Robinson, Parnell Fellow
The 'Geophanic' Language of Ireland: A Discussion on the Value of Irish Placenames

Tim Robinson, author of several books on the landscape of Connemara and the Aran Islands and creator of beautifully detailed maps, will consider the importance of place in Ireland and the consequences of the loss of place in the modern world. All are invited to come and examine Dr. Robinson's maps of Connemara and participate in an informal discussion on the value of place--a topic thoughtfully probed by Robinson in his
recent Parnell lecture.


10 MARCH (Thursday), 5pm, ASNC Common Room

Dánta agus Ceol/ Poems and Music
Irish Film: 'KINGS'

A group of students from Modern Irish language courses will read selected Irish poems, perform traditional music and present a photographic travel account of the Irish landscape.

Student performances will be followed by a showing of 'KINGS', an Irish language film (with subtitles) and winner of five Irish Academy Awards. The film explores the lives of six men who left their homes in Connemara in 1977 with hopes of a better life in England.

Colm Meaney in Kings (image from Alt Film Guide www.altfg.com)

17 MARCH: H. M. Chadwick Lecture, 5pm (G-R 06/ 07)

Professor Wendy Davies (University College London) will present the annual H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture: Water mills and cattle standards: probing the economic comparison between Ireland and Spain in the early middle ages

Irish Manuscripts:
The Chadwick lecture will be preceded by a viewing of medieval Irish manuscripts at St. John's College. Places for the viewing are limited; to book please contact Denis Casey (dc399@cam.ac.uk).

These events will be followed by refreshments. All are welcome to attend.

2010 Quiggin Memorial Lecture

This is a reminder that the 2010 E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture will take place today at 5pm in Room GR.06/07, English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge.

Prof Liam Breatnach, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, will speak on: 'The early Irish law text senchas már and the question of its date'.

All welcome.

Public lecture in ASNC

On Thursday 2nd December, at 5pm, Professor Liam Breatnach, of the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland, will deliver the 2010 E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture, in room GR.06/07, English Faculty Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge.

The title of his lecture will be: 'The early Irish law text Senchas Már and the question of its date'.

Edmund Crosby Quiggin (1875-1920) was the first teacher of Celtic in the University of Cambridge. His extraordinarily comprehensive vision of Celtic studies offered an integrated approach to the subject; his combination of philological, literary and historical approaches paralleled those which his older contemporary, H.M. Chadwick, had already demonstrated in his studies of Anglo-Saxon England and which the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic continues to seek to emulate.

The E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lecture, established in 1993, is delivered by a scholar who is invited to Cambridge for the occasion, on aspects of philology and the textual culture of the Celtic and Germanic languages and literatures taught in the Department.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception. Everyone welcome.

Dates for your diary

Dr Elizabeth Boyle writes:

The new academic year began on Tuesday 5th October, and we were delighted to welcome many new faces (as well as many familar ones) to ASNC, including twenty-five new first year undergraduates, a dozen new M.Phil. students, four new doctoral students, and our new lecturer in Modern Irish, Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson, an expert on the poetry of Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, who has previously taught Irish at Harvard University and the University of Utrecht.

In the year ahead there will be, as usual, a number of major public lectures in ASNC. Details will follow in due course, but the dates to remember are:

• 2nd December, the 2010 Quiggin Lecture, to be delivered by Prof. Liam Breatnach, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
• 17th March, the 2011 Chadwick Lecture, to be delivered by Prof. Wendy Davies, University College London
• 9th May, the 2011 Kathleen Hughes Memorial Lecture, to be delivered by Prof. Thomas Charles-Edwards, Jesus College, Oxford

We look forward to seeing many of you there.