A shepherd, but also a comparativist and historian with very broad interests. That is how Professor Philippe Buc describes himself. As of 1 August 2021, he will hold the chair of professor of Medieval History at the university. In an introductory interview, Buc introduces himself, his research and his…

Musical instruments are multiple things: they are objects but also means of communication; they are technological and also deeply connected to embodiment through the player; and they leave certain cultural traces (Ricoeur 1975/1984). This research project explores how literary texts from the 19th century…

What is the difference between a minister saying that something is possible or that it is not impossible ?

The Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens announces the summer session focused on the study of Medieval Greek, from June 26 to July 27, 2023. The Library invites applications for a month-long Summer Session for Medieval Greek at the Intermediate to Advanced Level. The…

The theme of the Research School for Medieval Studies' Medieval Studies' Day 2022 (UvA, Amsterdam, 4 November 2022) is Reflections. We welcome 15-minute papers on topics connected to the theme, with a medieval focus, in all humanities disciplines. We particularly invite proposals from PhD students and…

This research investigates the impact of socioeconomic developments on the physical condition of medieval populations in Holland and Zeeland between AD 1000 and 1600 through the analysis of human skeletal remains from three archaeological sites.

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressing question is how this global health emergency impacted the research agendas of the field of crisis and disaster science. This article reviewed contributions in ten important crisis and disaster journals in the two and a half years following the COVID-19…

This month, the volume Reading Russian Literature, 1980-2024, edited by Otto Boele and Dorine Schellens, was published at Palgrave Macmillan.

The course "Presenting Medieval Research at International Conferences" is open for registration. The deadline for registration is 10 September 2020.

In the summer school 'Medieval Religion' students will be challenged by specialists in the field of medieval religion to position and develop their own research in relevant scholarly and cultural contexts. The instructors will give masterclasses from their own specialties. Deadline for registrations:…

Material culture and the role of rural communities in exchange systems of the eighth and ninth centuries

To our regret we have to postpone the annual Medieval Studies Day of the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, the Reflection Symposium, which was planned for December 17, to the spring of 2022. (Exact date to be decided). The present Covid-19 situation does not allow for a safe and productive…

The urban graveyard presents several studies in which the results of older archaeological and osteoarchaeological research are compared to more recent excavation data from several Dutch, Belgian and Danish cities and towns.

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

On 19 January (15:30-16:30), the Nicholas Brunmayr (Bruxelles) will give a talk on medieval butter trade at the Amsterdam Centre for Urban History.

The programme for the Medieval Studies' Day (4 November, Amsterdam) is now available online!

Medieval Memoria Research has published its final newsletter. This special MeMO-themed issue contains several articles about the MeMO project and its influence on the work of various scholars.

On 4 and 5 December 2023, the National Library of Luxembourg organizes a workshop on medieval armorials. Proposals for contributions can be submitted until 30 June 2023.

Debates about the ‘end’ of the Roman era, how, when, and even if it ended, are still very much alive and raging. However, what happened after the (long) late antique period is a lesser-known and lesser-studied subject. The post-Roman past needs, however, as much energetic investigation and discussion.…

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

A number of scholars joint forces to analyse and re-analyse a number of Merovingian cemeteries and publish the results in the series Merovingian Archaeology in the Low Countries published by Habelt Verlag in Bonn (Germany). We call it the ANASTASIS project. This is the third volume in which the data…

The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie is one of the first long-term studies in English of an Iberian town during the late medieval crisis. Focusing on the Catalonian city of Manresa, Jeff Fynn-Paul expertly integrates Iberian historiography with European narratives to place the city's social,…

On 30 November the website Pas d'Armes was launched. The website, aimed at students and a more general audience, offers a gateway into the world of the pas d’armes (English: passage of arms). This was a highly ritualised form of tournament, that was very popular in Anjou, the Burgundian lands, France,…

In this second book of the series

What development pathways support teaching faculty members in research-intensive universities in becoming informal educational leaders?

Leiden University is home to over a hundred specialists studying the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. From 2017-2018 onwards, they will join forces to offer two new options for specialisation within existing MA programmes: Medieval Studies and Early Modern Studies.

ERC Starting Grant: The Van Manen Project. This five year project (2023-2028) is made possible with an ERC Starting Grant. It aims to (digitally) reunite all parts of the Van Manen Collection. This enables us to study it as a whole, helping us to understand the process of collection formation. More…

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

On Tuesday, September 16, 2025, Professor Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University) delivered a Keynote Lecture at the Leiden Jewish Studies Network Conference “Care and the Jewish Experience".

The Vrijthof excavations (1969-1970)

The Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies invites PhD's and other ECRs to present their research on the Medieval Studies Day 2023. Deadline for abstracts: September 30.

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

This article provides a list of the concepts and key elements that should be considered when creating effective communication messages.

Subproject of

This article aims to provide a coherent foundation for empirical studies of interpersonal discussion on risk.

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…

How did the medieval manuscript develop as a physical object during the Twelfth Century Renaissance and what do these changes tell us about the intellectual culture of the period?

On 21-23 September 2022 Utrecht University will host an international conference titled 'Multilingual Dynamics of Medieval Literature in Western Europe'.

The University of Reading will host an online workshop on 27 April 2021. It is aimed at early career and postgraduate research historians focusing on the area of medieval finance. The deadline for submissions is: 19 February 2021.

Nine Archaeology students have built a reconstruction of an early medieval house in Vlaardingen. The house, built according to a houseplan discovered during excavations at Rotta, has already played an important role as the backdrop of the re-enactment of the battle of Vlaardingen of 1018.

Do you frequently search the catalogue of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) for western medieval manuscripts? Then you must have noticed important changes lately. Some 1800 summary catalogue records in Dutch were replaced by more elaborate descriptions in English. Furthermore, the catalogue interface…