Annual Lecture and General Meeting

The Medium Ævum Lecture has taken place every year since 1958, delivered by a distinguished medievalist following the Society's Annual General Meeting. Since 2012, the Lecture is hosted by a different institution each year, from around the United Kingdom.

Events List

authors event title venue daterange weblink
James J. Murphy Rhetoric in Fourteenth Century Oxford New Room, Magdalen College
Alfred Ewert The Twelfth Century Renaissance in French Literature New Room, Magdalen College
K.B. McFarlane The Lollard Knights New Common Room, Merton College
Eugène Vinaver Tradition and Design in Twelfth-century French Romance Upper Bursary, Merton College
Nora Chadwick The Earliest Records of the British Heroic Age Upper Bursary, Merton College
R.W.V. Elliott By Hylle and by Vale in the Gawain Country Merton College
Ian Michael
Private Book-Collecting in Spain from St Isidore (570-636) to the Marquis of Santillana (1398-1458)
Magdalen College
E. Talbot Donaldson Approaches to Chaucer Balliol College
Stephen White Justice and Judgement at the Court of King Arthur: The Trial of Guinevere St. Hilda's College
Robert B. Patterson
The Countesses of Gloucester and the status of women in Norman and Angevin England
Merton College
David Rees Language and National Identity in the British Isles 1100-1400 University College
J.J.G. Alexander Anglo-Saxon Illumination and the Continent in the 11th Century Taylorian Institute
Alastair Minnis Towards a History of Medieval Theory and Criticism Lady Margaret Hall
Giles Constable Petrarch and Monasticism Merton College
Michael Lapidge Byrhtferth and his Books Magdalen College
Marie Thérèse d'Alverny Dante and Wisdom Magdalen College
G.R. Evans Literal and Metaphorical in the Bible Lady Margaret Hall
T.B.W. Reid The Right to Emend Merton College
Dennis Green
On Recognising and Failing to Recognise Signals to Irony and Fiction in Court Literature
Summer Common Room, Magdalen College
E.F. Jacob A Mediaeval Bishop of Norwich: Dr Thomas Brouns Magdalen College
Damasus Trapp Thomas More and the Visual Arts Lady Margaret Hall
Sarah Kay
The Place of Thought in Late Medieval Didactic Literature: The Case of Christine de Pizan
Mansfield College
Colin Hardie Allegory in the Divina Commedia: the Epistle to Cangrande St. Peter's College
Linda M. Paterson Editing Medieval Lyric Poetry: Marcabru's D'aisso lau Dieu St. John's College
Leslie Seiffert
God's Amnesty: Hartmann's Gregorius and the Vie du Pape Saint Gregoire
Lady Margaret Hall
Anne Hudson Robustissimus Antichristi Achilles: Thomas Netter, Wyclif and the Lollards Balliol College
F.P. Pickering Medieval Patterns of History Merton College
C. David Benson Images and Audience: Piers Plowman and Wallpainting Lady Margaret Hall
Peter Dronke The Writings of Marguerite Porete
Mary Carruthers
Learning to Read the Hard Way (Peter of Celle: "On Afflication and Reading")
Balliol College
David Luscombe The pseudo-Denys in the West Merton College
Patrick Boyde Blossoming Garden & Circling Melody: a reading of Paradiso XXIII Lady Margaret Hall
Douglas Gray Tribute to Professor Jack Bennett
Margaret Bent The Musical Stanzas in Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames Balliol College
K. Ugawa
Peasant Holding and Inheritance Custom in Medieval England: A Comparative Study
Merton College
Alexander Murray Excommunication and Conscience in the Middle Ages Lady Margaret Hall
Henry Mayr-Harting The Bamberg MSS of c.1000AD and the God of the World
Maurice Keen Medieval History: Angevin England through Medieval Eyes Balliol College
Beatrice White Medieval English Literature: Heads and Tales Merton College
Jill Mann The Owl and the Nightingale Lady Margaret Hall
Dominica Legge William Marshall and Arthur of Britanny: A Detective Story Merton College
Peter Dronke Imagery of Dance in Early Medieval Europe Balliol College
Rachel Bromwich Dafydd ap Gwilym: a Welsh Contemporary of Chaucer Balliol College
Alan Deyermond The Individual Voice in Medieval Spanish Prose St. Hilda's College
Janet Coleman
Fourteenth-century Theology. Piers Plowman and some Radical Franciscans
Merton College
Reinhard Strohm Late Medieval Song University College
J.E. Cross The Conception of the old English Phoenix Balliol College
Tony Hunt Anglo-Norman Medicine St. Hilda's College
Alixe Bovey Ludic Margins: the Gravity of Play in Gothic Manuscripts Lincoln College, Oxford
Miri Rubin Mary of the Europeans: Emotion and Devotion St. Hilda's College
Alan Deyermond
These things are figures of the true': Uses of Biblical Typology in Medieval Spanish Literature
St. Hilda's College
Éamonn Ó Carragáin The Dream of the Rood' and Eighth-Century Northumbria Mansfield College
Nigel Palmer
Gospel Meditations in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-century Europe: Three Voices from the Upper Rhine
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol
Helen Cooper The Ends of Story-telling University of Durham
Sarah Medlam
Estate and Precedence: The Form and Function of Beds in Medieval Households
Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College, Oxford
M. Michèle Mulchahey
How the Dominican Order Dealt with Error within its Own Ranks: Unsanctioned Publication and the Censure of Durand of St-Pourçain
Lincoln College, Oxford
Andy Orchard
Mightier than the Sword? Grasping the Point of the Anglo-Saxon Riddle Tradition
Bancroft Building, Queen Mary, University of London
Robert Bartlett Gervase of Tilbury and International Courtly Culture University of Lincoln
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
Literary Networks of the Vicars Choral and the Clerical Proletariat in Late Medieval York
Sir Clive Granger Building, University Park, Nottingham
MAE Annual Lecture and AGM 2016 (Cardiff) Cardiff University
Liz Herbert McAvoy
Gerald's Hard Country: Representations of Landscape and Enclosure in the Itinerarium Kambriae
Cardiff University
Janet Nelson
MÆ Annual Lecture, Meeting and Colloquium - Medieval Life Writing - in Celebration of the Lecture's 60th Anniversary
Harris Manchester College
David D'Avray
The 2019 MÆ AGM and Lecture - David d'Avray (UCL), 'How to explain the Medieval Papacy'
University of Birmingham
Sarah Bowden
2024 MÆ AGM and Lecture: ‘Shifting Landscapes: St Oswald of Northumbria in England and Germany’
Grimond Lecture 3, Grimond Building, University of Kent / Online
Matthew Kempshall
The 2023 MAE Lecture: Causes and Chronography in Medieval Historical Writing
Grosvenor Museum, Chester
Ryan Perry
The 2022 MAE Lecture: Middle English Books of Devotion & Liturgical Privatisation in 15th England
University of Nottingham
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne
The 2021 MAE Lecture: Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Women and Multilingualism in Late Medieval England
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, online