The Long Middle Ages

A Seminar Series at the University of Leeds

2026 Seminar Schedule

The first series of seminars will commence from Thursday 29th January, 2026 and run on a fortnightly basis until the summer. All seminars will be delivered in a hybrid format at 5pm-7pm at the University of Leeds. 

The speakers include doctoral and early career researchers from the UK and international institutions. Papers will cover a diverse range of topics and disciplines. Below is a full schedule of the seminars. 

Seminar DatePaper 1Paper 2
29th January 2026Martina Rizzini Ongarato
University of Padua

‘The Old English creation of the Rune Poem tradition’		Holly Dempster-Edwards
University of Liverpool

‘Emotions, Gender and Crusading in Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Prose Epics and Chronicles’
12th February 2026Eszter Sipos
University of Tokaj

‘The Quinta Essentia of Wine and the Long Middle Ages: Spirits between Court, Laboratory, and Curiosity’		James Rhodes
University of Leeds

‘From Parchment to Paper: Post-Medieval receptions of Richard Rolle’s Emendatio Vitae’
26th February 2026Giacomo Savani
University of Leeds

‘Voiceless Spas: Non-Elite Sensory Interactions with Water and the Divine’		Louise Simongiovanni
Sorbonne Université

‘Balms, Baths, and Beyond: Exploring the Therapeutic Relationship in the Old English Leechbooks’
12th March 2026Agnese Bargagna
University of Edinburgh

‘Copying What They Could Not Read: Greek Passages and Scribal Practice in Codex Vaticanus Latinus 1873 (V)’		Devon Sherwood
University of Toronto

‘The Books of Hours of Anne de Bretagne, Queen of France: Evolving Self-Representations of Queenship’
26th March 2026Emma Nelson
University of Manchester/Chetham’s Library

‘No Take-Backsies? Gerald of Wales and the Boundaries of Book Donation’		Amber Peut
Leiden University

‘Selling love and lust to the early modern youth? Printed alba amicorum as pedagogical works’
9th April 2026Mehdy Shaddel
University of Cambridge

‘Changing Patterns of Landholding and Extraction in the Early Caliphate, 7th-10th Centuries’		Majideh Qazizadeh
University of Exeter

‘Women, Myth, and the Gendering of Chess in Medieval Islam’
23rd April 2026Mary Catherine O’Connor
University of Oxford

‘The rex iustus, King Hákon Hákonarson, and Norse Arthurian Romance’		J. D. Moore
University of St. Andrews

‘Encounters with Courtesy: Jarl Rognvald Kali Kolsson and Ermengarde of Narbonne in the Mid-Twelfth Century’
7th May 2026Maria Sandali
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

‘The transformation of an Ancient Greek Hero during the Middle Ages: Achilles of Benoît de Sainte-Maure’		Carlo Scapecchi
Arden University

‘Weaving Tapestries with Wasted and Recycled Silk in Sixteenth-Century Italy’
21st May 2026Immaculada Villafranca
Universidad de Córdoba

‘From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages through a vine branch: Knowledge transmission or common roots? The case of vegetal decoration in Córdoba (Spain) from the 5th to the 10th centuries’		Erik Nilsson
Linné University

‘From Everywhere to Everywhere: Movement Corridors and Shared Spaces Between the Baltic and the Mediterranean (AD 0-500)’