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TAG: St Dunstan’s church

Medieval Canterbury Weekend – two months to go

This week I want to feature a few of the events that will be taking place during the Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2020 and link them to medieval Canterbury. However, before that I just want to say that Dr Martin Watts will be speaking at the Canterbury branch meeting of the Historical Association tomorrow (Thursday) evening at Kent College. His topic will be his book on the Royal Marines in the Second World War. If you want a taster, please see this earlier blog and if you live locally and this sounds interesting, the local HA will be delighted to see you at 7pm: https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/kenthistory/from-anglo-saxons-to-wwii-exploring-canterbury-faversham-and-the-royal-marines/

Graduation and Holocaust Memorial Day

Stop press: Dr Claire Bartram’s edited collection Kentish Book Culture: Writers, Archives, Libraries and Sociability 1400-1660 (Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2020) arrived yesterday and it looks a very fine volume. Then today the first group of taught MA students in MEMS and Modern History graduated, congratulations to all and especially Katie Brooke as the winner of the first Lawrence Lyle Memorial MA Dissertation Prize.

Churchwardens’ accounts – from Canterbury to Bristol and back again

For the Christmas and New Year fortnight I’ll take the opportunity to play Janus and look back over the past year before turning to the exciting new projects and events for 2018. However, in the meantime here is another of the Advent ‘Picture this …’ offerings: https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/archives/picture-this/remarkable-rather-than-mediocre/

From Roman to Reformation Canterbury

As we are now in November, I thought I would start off this week with news of the Centre’s three evening lectures this month and next, two of which are joint events with the Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, as well as mentioning the Medieval Canterbury Weekend on 6-8 April 2018 for which tickets are already selling well. To see what is available the website is at: www.canterbury.ac.uk/medieval-canterbury and as before we hope to raise funds for the Ian Coulson Memorial Postgraduate Award.

Exploring Canterbury’s past – material culture and female agency

In many ways, I want to pick up the same theme as last week. This is because I discovered this week that among the elements within the new GCSE syllabus is the role of medieval or early modern historical sites; and that in Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 a local study using primary sources is one of the criterion. In my opinion, such an emphasis on a student’s own locality in the past seems a good idea because just as microhistory can be used to understand the ‘bigger picture’, so a local history study, provided it is set within its regional and national context, can be both rewarding and enlightening.