This week has brought a series of meetings and the chance to be part of Canterbury Society’s celebrations.
TAG: Lord Mayor of Canterbury
Nightingale Lecture 2019
Nightingale Lecture by Professor Carl Griffin on the Swing Riots and their aftermath. Professor Ellen Swift on replica Ancient Egyptian musical instruments.
- September, 30
- 1356
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Pigs, Place-Names and more Young Medievalists in Canterbury
This week has been a case of looking forward to the new academic year and the School of Humanities’ first intake of Medieval & Early Modern Studies Taught Masters students, some of who have opted to study late medieval and Tudor Canterbury as one of their option modules. This is very exciting and hopefully we will have a very enjoyable time.
- September, 14
- 1977
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Tudor and Stuart Canterbury – universities working together
Last Saturday was the Kent History Federation’s 1-day conference hosted at Canterbury Christ Church by the Centre for Kent History and Heritage. To avoid clashing with the Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2018 that took place last month, the conference focused on ‘Tudor and Stuart Canterbury’ and brought together academics from Canterbury Christ Church and the University of Kent.
- May, 19
- 1740
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The Medieval Canterbury Weekend comes to town
After another very successful History Weekend, I would first like to thank all the great speakers (see below), but equally the brilliant audiences we had at all 27 events from ‘Saturn’s Fury’ puppet show in Waterstones on Friday morning to Dr Michael Jones’ talk on the Black Prince and Professor Carenza Lewis’ lecture on new discoveries about the impact of the Black Death that were the last parallel events on Sunday afternoon. Without YOU the audience the Weekend would be meaningless, and your enthusiasm, engagement and searching questions covering the wide range of topics on offer was wonderful from the organisers’ perspective – THANK YOU!
- April, 11
- 3335
- academic, archaeology, Blog Posts, Canterbury, conference, Events, festival, Kent, Lecture, local and regional history, London, Middle Ages, News
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Skeletons in Canterbury and St Alban’s
Exciting news this week, we passed the thousand-ticket mark for the Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2018. There are still tickets for all the talks but some of the guided tours have now sold out. So if you haven’t already done so, why not check out the website at: www.canterbury.ac.uk/medieval-canterbury for exciting talks on wonderful medieval manuscripts (Professors Michelle Brown and Richard Gameson), fantastic stained glass windows or medieval beasts (Leonie Seliger and Dr Diane Heath).
- January, 27
- 1856
- academic, archaeology, Blog Posts, Canterbury, conference, Early Modern, Events, festival, Kent, Lecture, local and regional history, Middle Ages, News
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Attracting youngsters to history and Hayes Award winner
This week saw the awarding of the John and Peggy Hayes Canterbury Award for publications on the history of the city, and this year the recipient is Professor David Birmingham for his book Canterbury before the Normans.
- December, 2
- 1621
- academic, archaeology, Blog Posts, Canterbury, Events, festival, Kent, Lecture, local and regional history, London, Middle Ages, News, Tudors
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Hops in history – Nightingale Lecture and Ian Coulson Awards
This week has brought the start of the academic year, I hope the final touches to the Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2018 webpages so that they can go live next week and the Nightingale Lecture. This year was the sixth and the third to be held jointly by the Centre and the Agricultural Museum, Brook at Canterbury Christ Church.
- September, 30
- 1604
- academic, archaeology, Blog Posts, Canterbury, conference, Early Modern, Events, Kent, Lecture, local and regional history, Middle Ages, News, Tudors
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Saxon history – linking Canterbury to continental Europe
The 68th International Sachsenymposion is drawing to a close today after four and a half days of guided tours, workshops, poster displays, a public lecture, and academic debate following a plethora of high-quality academic papers on a wide range of early medieval ‘Saxon’ topics.
- September, 6
- 2020
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Norman and Bronze Age warriors
Wednesday saw two events linked to History at Canterbury Christ Church. The first was the presentation of the John and Peggy Hayes Canterbury Award to Paul Bennett as Director of Canterbury Archaeological Trust. The Lord Mayor, Councillor George Metcalfe, presented the award to the Trust in recognition of the several publications recently completed on such large sites as Canterbury Whitefriars and the outer precincts of St Augustine’s Abbey (now largely covered by the main campus of Christ Church). Among the committee responsible for the Award is Professor Jackie Eales and it was thus appropriate that the presentation took place at the University’s Sidney Cooper Centre. Professor Louise Wilkinson joined Jackie Eales, and other members of the School of Humanities, as well as a number of Trustees from Canterbury Archaeological Trust at the presentation. The audience heard the Lord Mayor congratulate Paul on the continuing work of the Trust in the face of increasing difficulties regarding planning matters and other issues. Paul responded in kind and thanked both the Award’s committee and Councillor Metcalfe. He recalled the activities of John and Peggy Hayes in the field of Canterbury history, and the direct help they had given to the Trust over many decades. Paul also mentioned that 2016 had been very successful, not least the ‘40-year history of the Trust’ exhibition held in the Beaney about six months ago which had brought in several thousand visitors.
The Lord Mayor, Paul Bennett and Richard Eales in discussion
The second event on Wednesday was Dr Leonie Hicks’ lecture on ‘Reading and Writing the Battle of Hastings, 1066’. As Christ Church’s contribution to the 950th commemoration of a battle that arguably changed the course of national and international history, it was fitting that Dr Keith McLay, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, chaired the lecture. Students joined staff members from the Faculty in the lecture theatre in Old Sessions House, and the audience was considerably enlarged by the presence of members from several local organisations, such as the Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society, the Historical Association and the University of Kent’s Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.
Leonie explored a considerable number of almost contemporary and relatively near contemporary sources, including the poem Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, and narratives of the period and people produced by William of Poitiers, William of Jumieges, and monastic writers such as Eadmer and Orderic Vitalis. As she was keen to point out, there are analytical issues regarding all the sources. Yet some are more problematic than others are in terms of the story told, the level of detail given, and the viewpoint of the narrator. Moreover, when looking at the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a further consideration has to be its place of production because William’s treatment of the north not surprisingly influenced how chronicles viewed these invaders. Leonie did not confine her analysis to the written word, but also discussed the Bayeux Tapestry. She noted that like Eadmer’s History, this should be seen as a ‘local’ source because Odo Bishop of Bayeux probably commissioned its creation at St Augustine’s Abbey under Abbot Scolland. This makes it especially interesting because she posed the question ‘did the makers have any agency in its design’ at a time when there must have been considerable tension between Anglo-Saxon and Norman in the monastery, as in society more generally. Such topics engaged the attention of the audience and Leonie took a large number of questions after her lecture.
Another lecture that drew questions from the audience was Dr Conrad Leyser’s lecture on ‘The Cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the History of the Family’ in The Schoolroom of the King’s School on Tuesday evening. Conrad took questions on his analysis of the development of Marian piety during late antiquity and the subsequent Carolingian era, in particular. Several of his questioners were students at King’s, and it was interesting to hear the various viewpoints raised.
A considerable number of students from Canterbury Christ Church were at the Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust lecture last night. As a result, the lecture theatre in Newton was almost full to hear Peter Clark, Deputy Director of CAT, give a fascinating talk on ‘The Swordsmiths of Holborough: the manufacture, use and disposal of late Bronze Age weaponry’. His assessment of the way bronze swords were made using clay moulds was eye-opening and demonstrated his very careful analysis of all the various processes, as well as opening up a wide range of questions about the availability of raw materials, logistical matters, and the status of smiths and other skilled workers from this period. However, from a personal perspective it was the cultural questions that he posed that reminded me of Everyday Objects, edited by T. Hamling and C. Richardson, and the paradox of an apparently ‘everyday object’ that through its particular use becomes ‘symbolically changed’ or ‘singular’, but that its everydayness is paramount for this process to work. Thus, thematically this was indeed thought provoking for a medievalist who knew nothing of Bronze Age sword making an hour earlier.
- October, 21
- 1359
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