2025 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference in Review
- Eugenia Vorobeva
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
The topic of this year’s conference was ‘Rituals & Ceremonies’. Over the course of two busy days, the conference hosted twenty diverse papers and two keynote lectures on the subject.
Day 1
After the opening remarks given by the chair, Ryan Mealiffe, the first day of the conference started with the session on Saints and Staging.
The four papers explored in their own ways the role of performative practices and rituals in the building of local communities around saints and sacred narratives. The paper by Isadora Martins Fontoura de Carvalho addressed the cult of St Marina in Galicia and the role of memory and landscapes in her veneration, exemplified by the annual reenactment of the saint’s story. Next, Anna MacDonald explored the medieval English cult of William of Norwich based on the story of his ritual murder by the Jews and shaped in the attempt to bring affluence to Norwich, thus introducing the concept of ‘ritual economy’ into the conversation. Clare Whitton then spoke about the cult of San Gennaro in medieval and early Modern Naples: she addressed the role of garlands, pigs, and blood in the annual ritual which re-enacts the translation of San Gennaro’s body and reaffirms the local belief in the saint’s resurrection through the miracle of the liquefied blood. In the final paper of the session, Simone Kügeler-Race turned to the medieval drama and its performance as can be reconstructed from the manuscript records. On the example of one specific Passion play Simone then demonstrated how its recorded staging and allusion to the liturgy were meant to re-actualize salvation history.
A vivacious coffee-break, kindly organised by the MFO, was followed by the second session titled ‘Eating and Abstinence’ the overarching theme of which was the relationship between the religious practices of consumption and daily lives. Isabel Hedgecock explored the liturgical flexibility shown by Wulfstan of York in his various writings on the Ember days, usually marked by fasting, both in Latin sermons and legal texts. While advocating the consistent and ordered Christian practice, his writings adjusted its form depending on his audience: insular or continental. Caitlin Kelly continued the conversation by discussing the depiction of food in medieval art and literature. Although often in the picture, it is rarely shown to be consumed. Caitlin demonstrated this on the example of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, addressing the contemporary religious connotations of tasting food as well as a possible dietary shift at the time. Finally, Arsany Paul gave a paper on the domestic Eucharistic practices among the Copts throughout the Middle Ages. He clarified the context in which the practice was considered permissible and spoke about the private celebration of Eucharist as the form of both hospitality and private devotion.
After lunch, everyone reconvened for the third and final session of the day dedicated to Relics, Textiles, and Amulets. In her paper, Rachel Maxey spoke about amulets and their place within medieval Christian practices. Somewhere between miracle and magic, the amulets and the incantations accompanying them were often frowned upon by the Church but drew excessively on the Scripture for their imagery. Then, Janine Weingärtner considered the seamless robe of Christ and the epic poem of Orendel. She outlined the development of the cult surrounding the relic in Trier, and the story of it given in Orendel. Janine suggested that the implausibility of the narrative did not matter as long as it narrated a miracle and remained effective in initiating a conversation around the relic. The third paper of the session was given by Tracey Davison and addressed the skeuomorphic textiles in the early Churches of Rome: she addressed their role as devotional objects which were not intended to replace the real textiles but created an impression of splendour and permanence.
The first day of the conference was concluded by the keynote address given by Dr Helen Gittos. In
her lecture titled ‘Christianity before Conversion’, she considered a different narrative of Christianisation of medieval Britain. Based on the archaeological evidence and changes in burial practices in the 6th century, Dr Gittos suggested that women played a prominent role in spreading Christian teachings and that the conversion was a much more active and eager process of which the missionaries from Rome are not the beginning but the end.
The first day ended with a drinks reception followed by the convivial conference dinner.
Day 2
The second day of the conference started bright and early with the fourth session titled ‘Death, Grief, and Afterlife’. The first paper of the session was given by Isla Defty on going mad as a grief ritual in Middle English romances. On the examples of Sir Orfeo and Partonope of Blois Isla suggested to consider their protagonists’ madness as a response to grief, structured and characterised by four stages. Emilie Badoux then spoke about another Middle English text, the Auchinleck Life of Adam and Eve and how it was supposed to teach the readers the Christian doctrine through the family history as well as to pass knowledge through generations — one of such things to be passed down were funeral rites taught by angels to Adam and Eve. Next, Catriona Dowden spoke about the imaginary rituals in medieval visions of afterlife. Offering an exercise in theological gymnastics, these visions often depicted the afterlife existing on the same plane as the life of the living and in compliance with the Latin liturgical calendar. In the final paper of the session, using the epigraphic evidence and historiography on the subject, Divya Sharma addressed the complicated relationship between ritual lamentation in Dravidian funerals, caste, and gender from medieval times up to the present.
The fifth session, ‘Rituals of the Body’, resumed after a coffee-break and dwelt on bodies as both the focal point and the instrumental part of the ritual. Charlotte Stobart’s paper on disabled bodies in Viking Age Scandinavia considered both archaeological and saga evidence in her discussion of various disability models. While impairments could become a source of supernatural ability in Old Norse gods and were often normalised through bynames in the sagas, they could also be seen as disabling not only the individual but the whole society. Then, Celeste van Gent spoke about injuries and their remedies among later medieval soldiers. She introduced the idea of healing rituals as something used to bring soldiers comfort as a part of their lived religion rather than a substitute to the medial practice. Finally, Willa Stonecipher discussed genuflection in medieval England from the osteoarchaeological point of view: focusing on the archaeological finds from Littlemore Priory, she showed how osteoarchaeological interpretation can shed new light on ritual practices in monastic populations.
The sixth and ultimate session of the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference was dedicated to Rites of Passage and focused on the rituals used to mark the change in one’s status as well as to reaffirm the status quo. In his paper, Zachary Young followed the advent and development of the degradation ritual for clergy, showing how the rite of removal from the clerical state could be seen as a reflection of evolving theological ideas about what it meant to be ordained. Next, Bastien Paulin Verdier considered the rituals and ceremonies attached to the offices of sénéchaux and sergents féodés in Brittany. He demonstrated how these ceremonies enabled smooth transition and reaffirmed the sharing of power in the region of Rohan. The final paper of the conference was given by Kaiyue Zhang and focused on the manumission ceremonies in Lombard Italy: the release from slavery could have been performed to different degrees and could entail various procedures, one of which was the four-road ritual.
After a coffee-break, the conference proceeded to its second and final keynote lecture delivered by Prof. Aleks Pluskowski who spoke about ritual and religious practice after the Baltic Crusades. He discussed the process of Christianisation in the Baltic area and demonstrated how the religious practices digressed from the correct Catholic, or later Protestant, behaviour. He further focused on the parallel or even blended worlds of sacred sites found in the region, some of which still persevere to this day and time.
The conference concluded with our own conference ritual as everyone present was invited to suggest and vote for the next conference topic. We are pleased to announce that the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2026 will be devoted to Sounds & Silence!
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