Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Sept 2015 update

DNB_stamp_block logoNew biographies for religious men and women during medieval and Reformation periods and individuals active during the First World War.

The latest update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography—published on Thursday 17 September 2015—adds biographies of 112 men and women active between the thirteenth and the early twenty-first century.

The new update includes a special focus on men and women active during the First World War—in combat and on the home front—with a particular interest in the events of 1915. New additions include the physicians Louisa Garrett Anderson and Flora Murray who opened the Endell Street Military Hospital, London, in May 1915; it remains the only British army hospital staffed and run by women. Military inventions from 1915 include the bowl-shaped Brodie helmet (named after its designer John Brodie) which went into production 100 years ago this month. By the end of the war, seven million of these helmets had been produced. Other war-time lives include the boy soldier Horace Iles (1900-1916) who was killed at the Somme; his biography is now part of school education programmes run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

September’s update also concludes a 3-year research project to extend the Oxford DNB’s coverage of the medieval religious—the abbots, abbesses, priors, and prioresses who led England’s religious houses until the Reformation. The project has added 56 first-time biographies. To mark the project’s completion, Professor Claire Cross of York University considers these Lives of the Religious for what they can tell us about medieval monasticism, and how those in office in the 1520s and 1530s responded to the Reformation.

Dr Philip Carter, Publication Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

New ejournal: The Medieval Low Countries, 1, 2014-

I’m pleased to announce that Oxford users now have access to the ejournal The Medieval Low Countries: An Annual Review [ISSN: 2295-3493], issue 1, 2014 onwards.
Medieval Low Countries cover
Published by Brepols Publishers, The Medieval Low Countries is a peer-reviewed journal featuring scholarly articles on the Low Countries (les Pays-Bas) from c 400 AD to c 1500. During this time, the area of roughly modern-day Belgium and The Netherlands was an important political, economic, cultural and religious hub in medieval Europe.

The journal is published annually and its scholarly articles cover a wide range of disciplines (history, law, religion, art, architecture, literature, etc.). The topics are often interdisciplinary and usually in either French or English. Book reviews are also published.

If you want to keep up-to-date with this journal, just sign up to a New Issue Alerting.

Table of contents for issue 1 (2014):

  • Jean-Francois Nieus et Steven Vanderputten, ‘Diplôme princier, matrice de faux, acte modèle. Le règlement d’avouerie du comte Baudoin V pour Saint-Bertin (1042) et ses réappropriations sous l’abbatiat réformateur de Lambert (1095-1123)’.
  • Aart Noordzij, ‘The wars of the lord of Bronkhorst: Territory, lordship and the proliferation of violence in fourteenth-century Guelders’.
  • Rombert Stapel and Jenine de Vries, ‘Leydis, Pauli, and Berchen revisited. Collective history writing in the Low Countries in the late fifteenth century’.
  • Tom Gaens, ‘Acquiring religious perfection outside a vow. The Carthusian institution of the donati in late-medieval reformist communities and the Modern Devotion’.
  • Mario Damen, ‘Patricians, knights, or nobles? Historiography and social status in late-medieval Antwerp’.
  • Hans Mol, ‘The Cistercian model? The application of the grange system by the various religious orders in the Frisian coastal area, 1150-1400’.
  • Book reviews

Other recently subscribed to ejournals for medievalists:

New: Loeb Classical Library online

Loeb - Confessions - coverI am pleased to report that thanks to the Classics Librarian Oxford readers now have access to the Loeb Classical Library online. Over 520 volumes of useful sources materials for historians are now available in both Latin and Greek with parallel English translations.

The Digital Loeb Library is an interconnected, fully searchable, perpetually growing, virtual library of all that is important in Greek and Latin literature. Epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; the great medical writers and mathematicians; those Church Fathers who made particular use of pagan culture—in short, our entire Greek and Latin Classical heritage is represented here with up-to-date texts and accurate English translations.

Catalogue records for the individual volumes will also soon be added to SOLO.

Related resources

New: Brepols Miscellanea Online – Essays in Medieval Studies

Mediavalists will be delighted to know that a major resource has now become available to Oxford readers.

Brepols Miscellanea Online – Essays in Medieval Studies provides online access to over 5,000 book chapters and articles on medieval studies published in Brepols publications since 1998. It includes books published in series such as Culture et société médiévales, Europa Sacra, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, Medieval Church Studies, Collection d’études médiévales de Nice, Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800) and more.

*Important: please note that not all volumes in a series have been digitised. Look out for the green box!

Brepols Miscellanea Online - screenshotA wide range of subject areas are represented: Archaeology, Art History, European Languages and Literatures, History of Science, Manuscript Studies, Medievalism, Music History, Philosophy, Social and Economic History, and Theology.

You can search for articles and books in a variety of ways as well as browse by subject area.

The articles are indexed in the International Medieval Bibliography which is also available to Oxford users.

Brepols Miscellanea Online – Essays in Medieval Studies can be access via SOLO and Databases A-Z.

Other recently received medieval resources

New ejournal: Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 1 (2012) –

I’m delighted to report that Oxford users now have access to the online Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies [ISSN 2034-3515], vol. 1 (2012) to current.

journal of medieval monastic studies - coverThis journal focuses work on monasticism throughout medieval Europe. This peer-reviewed journal is published annually, is international and interdisciplinary in scope. The journal will include scholarly contributions on monastic history, archaeology and architectural history, art history, literature, etc, as well as relevant book reviews and shorter notices.

The 20 members of the editorial board include experts in history, archaeology, art history and theology, covering all of medieval Europe. The language of publication will be English, but abstracts in the original language of individual contributions may be included.

Access is via SOLO or OU eJournals.

Vol 2 (2013) Table of contents

  • Translation, Controversies, and Adaptations at St Sabas Monastery during the Sixth Century – Augustine Casiday
  • The Monk as Mourner: Gendered Eastern Christian Self-Identity in the Seventh Century – Hannah Hunt
  • ‘No One Can Serve Two Masters’: Abbots and Arch-Abbots in the Monastic Networks at the End of the Eleventh Century – Guido Cariboni
  • A Norbert for England: Holy Trinity and the Invention of Robert of Knaresborough – Joshua Easterling
  • English Benedictine Monks at the Papal Court in the Thirteenth Century: The Experience of Thomas of Marlborough in a Wider Context – Jane Sayers
  • The Monastic Ideal of Discipline and the Making of Clerical Rules in Late Medieval Castile – Susana Guijarro
  • Questions and Answers on the Birgittine Rule: A Letter from Vadstena to Syon Abbey 1421 – Elin Andersson
  • Reviews
    • The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, c. 1070–1309 (by Jonathan Riley-Smith) – Andrew Jotischky
    • Odiosa sanctitas. St Peter Damian, Simony, and Reform (by William D. McCready) – Ralf Lutzelschwab
    • The Origin, Development, and Refinement of Medieval Religious Mendicancy (ed. by Donald S. Prudlo) – Hans-Joachim Schmidt
    • Survival and Success on Medieval Borders: Cistercian Houses in Medieval Scotland and Pomerania from the Twelfth to the Late Fourteenth Century (by Emilia Jamroziak) – Piotr Gorecki
    • The Benedictines in the Middle Ages (by James G. Clark) – Jorg Sonntag
    • Churches in Early Medieval Ireland: Architecture, Ritual and Memory (by Tomas O Carragain) – Anne Muller
    • The Gothic and Catholicism: Religion, Cultural Exchange and the Popular Novel, 1785–1829 (by Maria Purves) – Veronica Ortenberg West-Harling
    • Female ‘vita religiosa’ between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages: Structures, Developments and Spatial Contexts (ed. by Gert Melville and Anne Muller) – Alison I. Beach
    • Custodians of Continuity? The Premonstratensian Abbey at Barlings and the Landscape of Ritual (by Paul Everson and David Stocker) – David Austin
    • Inventing Sempringham: Gilbert of Sempringham and the Origins of the Role of the Master (by Katharine Sykes) – Alison I. Beach

Other recently received medieval resources

New: Medieval Sermon Studies, 50 (1) 2006- is now online

I’m pleased to report that Oxford readers now have online access to Medieval Sermon Studies [ISSN 1366-0691] from 50 (1) 2006 onwards.

Medieval Sermon Studies - coverPublished annually by Maney Publishing on behalf of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society, this refereed journal contains articles on the study of medieval sermons, preaching in Latin and the vernacular languages within their social, literary, religious, intellectual, theological, catechetical, political and historical contexts. It also aims to foster the study of various artes praedicandi, and theories of preaching derived from them, as well as material used by sermon writers (e.g. Florilegia, commentaries, etc.).

This will be of interest to medievalists working in the field of religious culture, history, and literature.

Amongst others, it is indexed in ATLA with ATLASerials and MLA International Bibliography.

Access is via SOLO or OU eJournals.

Other recently received medieval resources

Medieval Events at Magdalen College, 26/02/14 and 03/03/14

Readers are invited to attend two upcoming events at Magdalen College, which should provide a fascinating insight to the history of the college and the rich Medieval resources held there.

On Wednesday of 6th week (26/02/14), an exhibition of manuscripts and facsimiles will explore what key details about texts can tell us about the production and use of medieval manuscripts. Guest curated by Sarah Laseke, the exhibition will be open to visitors from 12:00-14:00 and 16:00-18:00 in Magdalen College Old Library.

Meanwhile, on Monday of 7th week (03/03/14), ‘Good Deeds: The Completion of Magdalen College Deeds Conservation Project’  will offer budding conservationists  the chance to discover more about a major project recently undertaken to clean, conserve and rehouse over 12,000 title deeds. Following  a presentation about the project, taking in the history and contents of the collection, attendees will be given the chance to view several original title deeds, some dating back as far as the late fifteenth century. The session will run from 17:30-18:30 in Magdalen College Summer Common Room, with all welcome to attend.

For more details, please see the attached poster.

Medieval Manuscripts  Deeds

New: e-access to Nottingham Medieval Studies, 1, 1957-

Oxford users now have full electronic access to Nottingham Medieval Studies (ISSN 0078-2122) from vol 1 (1957) to current issues. Access is via SOLO and OU eJournals.

Nottingham Medieval Studies - coverThis important interdiscplinary journal for medieval studies from the fall of Rome to the Reformation is relevant to those researching medieval history, art history, musicology, archaeology, and languages and literatures.

It is published annually under under the aegis of the Institute for Medieval Research.

Amongst others it is indexed in MLA International Bibliography, The Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) and British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography (Online).

A brief history of the Journal can be found on page 14 of the University of Nottingham’s magazine Exchange.

New: The Mediaeval Journal, 1 (2011-) now online

I am pleased to announce that Oxford medievalists now have online access to The Mediaeval Journal (ISSN p: 2033-5385; e: 2033-5393), 1, 2011- to current. Access is via SOLO or OU eJournals.

Mediaeval journal coverThe Mediaeval Journal is the first European-based cross-disciplinary and multinational journal of Medieval Studies to be published in the lingua franca of English. It is also the first journal to address the two most exciting and productive trends in current Mediaeval Studies: the turn towards multinational work and towards cross-disciplinarity.

In an increasingly multinational academic world of collaboration and intellectual exchange, scholars all over Europe and beyond are ever more frequently realizing that important research is emerging from outside their national academies. The Mediaeval Journal recognizes the rich opportunities that this movement represents.  Moreover, in fulfilling its cross-disciplinary remit, The Mediaeval Journal publishes articles mixing approaches from traditional subjects with areas and perspectives which are currently under-explored.

Aiming to offer wide disciplinary coverage in each issue, it welcomes submissions from specialists in all areas of Mediaeval Studies, whether they come from traditional disciplines like Art History, History, Archaeology, Theology, Languages/Literatures, and English, or from less-exposed fields such as Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Manuscript Studies, Mediaevalism, Material Culture, History of Medicine and Science, History of Ideas, Queer Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Musicology, and others.” Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews.

The General Editors are Margaret Connolly, Ian Johnson and James Palmer. Oxford’s own Prof. Vincent Gillespie is also on the editorial board (pdf) together with many eminent medievalists.

Table of content of the most recent issue:

Volume 3, Number 2 / 2013

  • A Living Language of the Dead? French Commemorative Inscriptions from Late Medieval England / Author: David Griffith
  • Jerusalem behind Walls: Enclosure, Substitute Pilgrimage, and Imagined Space in the Poor Clares’ Convent at Villingen / Author: Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner
  • The Iconography of ‘Husband-Beating’ on Late Medieval English Misericords / Author: Betsy L. Chunko
  • ‘I am here’: Reading Julian of Norwich in Nineteenth-Century New England / Author: Allan F. Westphall
  • Reviews

New: Miscellanea Mediaevalia now online

I am pleased to report that Oxford medievalists now have online access to Miscellanea Mediaevalia via SOLO or OxLIP+.

Available online as full-text in the pdf format, the series Miscellanea Mediaevalia was founded by Paul Wilpert in 1962 and since then has presented research from the Thomas Institute of the University of Cologne. The cornerstone of the series is provided by the proceedings of the biennial Cologne Medieval Studies Conferences, which were established over 50 years ago by Josef Koch, the founding director of the Institute.

The interdisciplinary nature of these conferences is reflected in the proceedings. The Miscellanea Mediaevalia gather together papers from all disciplines represented in Medieval Studies – medieval history, philosophy, theology, together with art and literature, all contribute to an overall perspective of the Middle Ages.

Details of the individual volumes in the series will soon appear in SOLO as ebooks.