Conference - Saints and their several images

At the end of May and the beginning of June, I'm organising a conference in Odense on the various representations of saints in different texts and in different media. A brief description of the event itself can be found on the website of the Centre for Medieval Literature (here), the organisation funding the conference. Below you will find the programme. This is a conference that will hopefully inspire fruitful discussions and contribute to important perspectives in the study of the medieval cult of saints.

Edward the Confessor carrying Gillemichel

BL MS Egerton 745, French collection of saints, first half og the 14th century

Courtesy of British Library

Saints and their several images – programme            

International conference – May 31^st – June 1^st             

Noble Women’s Convent, Albani Torv 6, 5000 Odense C                

Day 1           

09.30 – 10.00: Registration                     

10.00 – 10.15: Welcome    

10.15 – 11.00: Keynote, Roman Hankeln (Norwegian University of Science and Technology): The forged saint and his chants: reflections of identity in text and music in honour of St. Dionysius of St. Emmeram

11.00 – 11.15: Coffee break                   

11.15 – 12.45:  Session 1 – Ireland and England         

Elva Johnston (University College Dublin): Changing Saints in the Medieval Irish Martyrologies: Patterns of Topography and Gender   

Rebecca Browett (University of London): The image of St Æthelwold of Winchester: adaptation and survival                     

Steffen Hope (University of Southern Denmark): Edward the Confessor’s three images – historiography, saint-biography and liturgy        

12.45-14.00: Lunch, including a guided tour of Odense Cathedral and the shrine of Saint Knud Rex

14.00 – 15.00: Session 2 – Scandinavia and Germany 

Sara Ellis Nilsson (Malmö University): Shifts in Perception and Veneration – the case of two regional saints from the medieval Skara Bishopric, Sweden         

Danette Brink (University of Regensburg): Alternative facts in the liturgical office: a study of St. Maximinus of Trier                                                         

15.00 – 15.30: Coffee break and discussion                 

18.00: Dinner                     


Day 2           

10.00 – 11.15: Session 3 – Rus and Byzantium                                 

Monica White (University of Nottingham): Constantine the Great in Byzantium and Rus: A Case Study       

Christian Høgel (University of Southern Denmark): On the enkomion and the office by Psellos in celebration of Symeon Metaphrastes       

Susana Torres Prieto (IE University): Hagiography beyond the Church                 

11.15-11.30: Coffee break

11.30 – 12.45: Session 4 – Central Europe                  

Grzegorz Pac (University of Warsaw): St Adalbert – two-headed bishop of two sees                

Nora Berend (University of Cambridge): The Lives of St Stephen of Hungary     
                     
12.45 – 14.00: Lunch        

14.00 – 15.00: Session 5 – Southern Europe                

Pilar Herráiz Oliva (Medeniyet University, Istanbul): St. Thomas Aquinas: from condemnation to canonisation                     

Amy Fuller (University of Nottingham): Sowing the Seeds of Empire: rehabilitating the reputation of San Hermenegildo and rewriting the history of Spain        

15.00 – 15.15: Coffee break                   

15.15 – 16.00: Discussion and closing remarks

Sea-serenade - a poem by Syl Cheney-Coker

Ever since I handed in my PhD thesis in October last year, I have been spending my leisure time reading literature from parts of the world that have nothing to do with my PhD thesis topic, as a way to unwind and avoid getting trapped in a narrow field of vision.

In the present blogpost I present to you a poem by Syl Cheney-Coker (b.1945), a poet from Sierra Leone. This poem is from the collection The Graveyard also has Teeth, published in 1980 and included in Heinemann's African Writer Series together with the collection Concerto for an Exile (1973).


Sea-serenade

I am drawn to the sea at night
as it knots my grief in circular waves
bringing its death-perfumed breath
close to my lips!
on a rock I watch a black crab move nearer by
with eight wobbling legs
under the immense pain of its life
and seeing this crab I feel I am near to my shadows
I understand them smelling their putrid souls!

now facing them pained on this volatile night
I count the thorns sprouting from my heart
for that brother who fled from his mother
on the sphinx's wing!

but in the morning at the cemetery
there will be no flowers no woman
will come to dress his wounds with a kiss
I see already the flight of the innocents
and the blood running down the eyes of the spirits
thrown above the laughing cliffs

ah to depart this comatose life swallowing the fleas
to dodge the passover hand of God
to leave consecrated bread and fasting blood
mother to you that is given the tribulations of Job
indeed! indeed! indeed!
I ask what remains of this catalepsy

only the necrology only the necrology!

A liturgical chant for Saint George

Today is the feast of Saint George, one of the most widely popular among the saints of medieval Christendom. According to his legend, he was martyred in the town of Lydda in Palestine c.303 (a year that is commonly used in the dating of martyrdoms that are more myth than history, as this is the year that marked the beginning of the Diocletianic persecutions). This martyrdom happened after he had liberated the town from a dragon, and saved the king's daughter  who had been chosen by lots to be the dragon's tribute. George did not kill the dragon right away, but overcame it and put it in chains. He then paraded the beast around the city and demanded that the citizens be baptised as Christians, and once they had received the Christian faith he slew the dragon with a sword. In both medieval and modern depictions, this narrative is typically overlooked in favour of the more chivalrous and action filled portrayal of George charging against the dragon on a horse and killing it with his spear. Saint George's martyrdom is narratologically separated from his fight with the dragon, as the capture and torture of George is overseen by the Roman prefect of the area and takes place at some later point.

St George

Limoges - BM - ms. 0002, f.129r, Graduale, Abbey of Notre-Dame, Fontevrault, c.1250-1260

Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

Saint George was venerated throughout Christendom, and in this blogpost I wish to focus on one of the chants for the liturgical celebration of his feast. The chant in question is can be seen in the pictures from this thirteenth-century graduale. Since the chant is contained in a graduale, the chant must have belonged to the celebration of the mass. Because the image is a bit small, it is difficult to assess with complete certainty what type of chant that has this beautiful initial. However, based on the incipit and the subsequent chant, I find it fairly safe to say that this is an introit for the mass. The text can be found in the common of one martyr, and the succeeding chant, Exaudi deus, is noted in the CANTUS database as an introit verse for the feast of Saint George.

The text of the introit is as follows (ortography is modernised according with the CANTUS version):


Protexisti me Deus a conventu malignantium alleluia a multitudine operantium iniquitatem alleulia alleluia

You  haveprotected me from the gathering of the wicked, alleluia, from the multitude that works iniquity, alleluia, alleluia


This text is taken from Psalm 63:3 of the Vulgata (my translation).

Chants for the mass of Saint George

Limoges - BM - ms. 0002, f.129r, Graduale, Abbey of Notre-Dame, Fontevrault, c.1250-1260

Courtesy of enluminures.culture.fr

Tyco Brahe digitised - notes on a recent digitisation project at the library of University of Southern Denmark

Although I no longer work at the university library of University of Southern Denmark, I have a backlog of things to write and talk about regarding my work there, other projects, and of course the wonderful fragments and books from their special collections. This blogpost is one such blogpost, and it is more an announcement than a blogpost in itself.

 

RARA L 31
Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

While I was finishing my own work at the library, there was another project that came to its close and was indeed finished. This was the digitisation of three books by Tyco Brahe that are found in the special collection, and one owned by Roskilde monastery. These books are Epistolarum astronomicarum libri primus, Historia coelestis, and, from Roskilde, De Nova Stella. This project was led and executed by astronomer Majken B. E. Christensen, research librarian Jakob Povl Holck, and astronomer and head librarian Bertil F. Dorch.

 

 
The project has made all these three books available for download in Pdf format, and an overview of the project can be found here (in Danish, but with links to the digitised copies) and also here (in Danish). This digitisation has allowed for primary sources to be freely available, and it has also served as a great first step in the digitisation of the material from the special collection, which will hopefully result in the digitisation of fragments and entire books from the throve of historically significant gems found in the library.

RARA L 31, col. 1

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek

 
I was also able to contribute in a small way, since the fragment that was used as a binding to the edition of Epistolarum astronomicarum was one of the fragments I had been researching. I was asked to write a short description of the fragment, and this description (in Danish) can be found here. For those not fluent in Danish, I will summarise the key points of this manuscript here.


The fragment is cut vertically from a liturgical manuscript of uncertain date and provenance (though because it was printed and bound in Denmark it is likely that the manuscript has been used in either Denmark or Norway). The original manuscript was a breviary, and the fragment contains texts for the office for Sundays in the summer season. This can be seen from the indication in the picture above, which points to "in primo nocturno antiphoni", or the antiphons for the first nocturne. This is preceded by a hymn that has traditionally - though probably erroneously - been ascribed to Gregory the Great (d.604). This hymn has a complicated history, but that might be a subject for a future blogpost.  

 RARA L 31

Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek