Archive of Plenary Lectures
- The Congress is sponsored by the WMU Medieval Institute
Archive of Plenary Lectures
This archive lists the plenary lectures at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (and, before 1979, the Conference on Medieval Studies) in reverse chronological order.
2013
Poseidon's Oar: Horizons of the Medieval Mediterranean
Peregrine Horden,
Royal Holloway, Univ. of London
sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Augustinian Intention and Medieval Aesthetic
Mary Carruthers,
New York Univ.
sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2012
Conceptualizing Literary History: Europe, 1348-1418
David Wallace, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Heroic Age of Gothic: Invention and Its Contexts 1200-1400
Paul Binski, Univ. of Cambridge
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2011
Outremer: Byzantine Art in a World of Multiple Christianities
Annemarie Weyl Carr,
Southern Methodist Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Gerald of Wales and the Ethnographic Imagination
Robert Bartlett,
Univ. of St. Andrews
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer, Ltd.
2010
Why Were Latin Qur'ans Produced in Christian Spain but Never Read There?
Reflections on Spanish-Christian Culture during the Long Twelfth Century
Thomas E. Burman,
Univ. of Tennessee–Knoxville
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The "Clerical Proletariat" and the Rise of English: A New Look at Fourteenth-Century Book Production
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton,
Univ. of Notre Dame
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer, Ltd.
2009
Fictions of Conduct in Medieval France
Roberta L. Krueger,
Hamilton College
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Michael of Rhodes: A Venetian Seafarer and His Book
Alan M. Stahl,
Princeton University
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer, Ltd.
2008
Seeing, Reading, and Interpreting the Apocalypse in Complex Medieval Manuscripts
Richard K. Emmerson, Florida State Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Are Bestiaries Really Psalters, and Vice Versa?
Christopher de Hamel, Univ. of Cambridge
Sponsored by the Richard Rawlinson Center and Boydell & Brewer
2007
When Did the Near East Become Muslim? Patterns of Christian Decline in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, 634–1340
R. Stephen Humphreys, Univ. of California–Santa Barbara
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Dante’s Gift: Reflections on the Divine Comedy
Christopher Kleinhenz, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2006
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Madeline H. Caviness, Tufts Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Historical Fictions in Medieval Castile
Alan D. Deyermond, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Univ. of London
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer and the Ibero-Medieval Association of North America (IMANA)
2005
Mastering Authority and Authorizing Mastery in the Long Twelfth Century
Jan M. Ziolkowski, Harvard Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Medieval Textual "I"
A.C. Spearing, Univ. of Virginia
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2004
Making History: Actions and Agents within the Liturgical Framework of Time
Margot Fassler, Yale Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Margin and Center: The Book of Hours and the Late Medieval Culture of Prayer
Eamon Duffy, Magdalene College, Cambridge
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2003
The Specter of Judaism in the Age of Mass Conversion: Spain 1391–1492
David Nirenberg, Johns Hopkins Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The French of England: A Question of Cultural Traffic?
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Fordham Univ.
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
2002
Relics, Swords, and the Stories They Tell in the Chanson de Roland
Eugene Vance, Univ. of Washington
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Competing Conversations in the Generation of 1400: Townspeople, Inquisitors, Societies of the Devout, and Women Writers
John Van Engen, Univ. of Notre Dame
2001
Mural Paintings and Manuscripts as Evidence for the Papal “Rapprochement” with Byzantium in the Ninth Century
John Osborne, Univ. of Victoria
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Reading the Heroes and Saints of Early Medieval Latin Literature
Danuta Shanzer, Cornell Univ.
2000
The End of Christian Art
Karl F. Morrison, Rutgers Univ.
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Tensions, Ambiguities, and the Pressures of History: Constructing the Cultural Biography of Joseph the Carpenter
Pamela Sheingorn, Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY
1999
On the Performance of Medieval Music
Christopher Page, Univ. of Cambridge
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Making of Maid Marian
Stephen Knight, Cardiff Univ.
1998
From Roman Tax Exemptions to Medieval Holy Places: Landmarks in the History of Immunities
Barbara H. Rosenwein, Loyola Univ., Chicago
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Oculus Paleographicus
Rev. Leonard E. Boyle, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
1997
Gothic Ivory Carvings and the Limits of Connoisseurship
Paul Williamson, Victoria and Albert Museum
Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art
Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Language in the Late Middle Ages
Michela Pereira, Univ. degli Studi di Siena
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Study of Pope Gregory VII
H. E. J. Cowdrey, Univ. of Oxford
1996
Where East is West: Art and Its Viewers on Venetian Crete
Robin Cormac, Courtauld Institute of Art, Univ. of London
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
When Did the Middle Ages End? Perspectives of an Intellectual Historian
Marcia Colish, Oberlin College
1995
Scivias: Reading without Learning, Learning without Reading
Michael Clanchy, Institute of Historical Research, Univ. of London
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Thomas Becket: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Saint from the Middle Ages to the Reformation
Phyllis B. Roberts, Graduate School and University Center, CUNY
1994
From the Ancient to the Medieval City: Continuity and Change in the Early Middle Ages (with Special Attention to Tours)
Nancy Gauthier, Univ. de Tours
Tobit’s Nights. A Scriptural (Fish)bone of Contention about Ethical Individualism
Alain Boureau, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
1993
Medieval Transition from Latin to Romance before 1300
Roger Wright, Univ. of Liverpool
Quis Teutonicos constituit judices nationum? Or, the Trouble with Heinrich
Horst Fuhrmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica
1992
Latinate Jewish Wills in Medieval Spain
Robert I. Burns, S. J., Univ. of California–Los Angeles
Witchcraft and Sainthood: Anthropological Problems and Structural Comparison
Gabor Klaniczay, Univ. of Budapest
1991
The Oral Text of The Wanderer
J. B. Bessinger, Jr., New York Univ.
The Insular Tradition: An Overview
Rosemary Cramp, Durham, England
1990
Frederick Barbarossa as "Lord of the World"
Robert E. Benson, Univ. of California–Los Angeles
In Search of the Real Bernard
Jean Leclerq, Abbaye Saint-Maurice, Clervaux
1989
Norman Art of Sicily and Its Dynastic Patronage
Beat Brenk, Univ. Basel
Sutton Hoo: The Pros and Cons
Sir David Wilson, British Museum
1988
Learning in the Middle Ages
John Contreni, Purdue Univ.
The Theology of the Resurrection and Bodily Miracles in the Thirteenth Century
Caroline Walker Bynum, Getty Center
1987
Sermons for the People: The Anglo-Saxon Contribution
James Cross, Univ. of Liverpool
Why and How to Write the Biography of a Medieval Character: Saint Louis?
Jacques LeGoff, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
1986
Society and the Body: The Social Meaning of Asceticism in Late Antiquity
Peter Brown, Princeton Univ.
The Carolingian Age: Reflections on Its Place in the History of the Middle Ages
Richard Sullivan, Michigan State Univ.
1985
Signs and Ceremonies in Medieval Monasticism
Giles Constable, Harvard Univ.
Looking at William Caxton: The Historian’s Eye and the Bibliographer’s Eye
Paul Needham, Pierpont Morgan Library
1984
Representation of Time in the Late Middle Ages
John Leyerle, Univ. of Toronto
The Legacy of John Wyclif
Anne Hudson, Oxford Univ.
1983
King Arthur as a Medium for Political Action
Karl-Heinz Goeller, Univ. Regensburg
Crisis of Faith in the Twelfth Century
Karl Bosl, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
1982
Address at the Public Session of the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
Laurence K Shook, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
1981
The Crusades from the Point of View of Byzantium
Sir Steven Runciman, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Roots and Essence of Colonialism: Medieval Attitudes to Alien Culture and Society
Joshua Prawer, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem
1980
The Miracles of St. Benedict
Benedicta Ward, Univ. of Oxford
Albert the Great and Medieval Culture
James Weisheipl, OP, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
1979
How Original was Joachim of Fiore’s Theology of History?
Marjorie Reeves, Oxford Univ.
Nova et Vetera: On the Improvement of Our Methods
Leopold Genicot, Univ. of Louvain
Reform and Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Germany: Perspectives of Research and Discussion
Günter Volger, Alexander Humboldt Univ.
1978
Rhetoric and Philosophy in the Renaissance
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Columbia Univ.
The Rhetoric of Damnation: the Poetics of Dante’s Inferno
John Freccero, Yale Univ.
1977
The Idea of Man in the Middle Ages
Gordon Leff, Univ. of York
Interaction of Social and Religious Changes in Germany, 1400–1600
Heiko A. Oberman, Univ. Tübingen
The Familia as a Basic Structure of Medieval Society
Karl Bosl, Univ. München
1976
Image and Text in the Early Middle Ages: Some Problems in Interpretation
Paul J. Meyvaert, Medieval Academy of America
The Social Context of Medieval Love Language in Religious, Courtly, and Popular Literature
Jean Leclerq, Clervaux, Rome, and Western Michigan University
1975
Children in Medieval Art
Ilene H. Forsyth, Univ. of Michigan
Bernard of Clairvaux and the Language of Love
Jean Leclerq, Clervaux, Rome, and Western Michigan University
1974
It Seems There Is No God—1256/1274
Edward A. Synan, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Saint Bonaventure: Some Aspects of His Life and Doctrine
Theodore Crowley, OFM, Queen’s Univ., Belfast
1973
The Notion of the “Middle Ages” and the Future of Medieval Research
Karl Ferdinand Werner, Institut historique allemand, Paris
1972
Modern Psychology and Medieval Studies
Jean Leclerq, Clervaux and Rome
1971
The Plowman and the Tree: Labor and Grace in the Fourteenth Century
John Leyerle, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto
1970
What Is the Most Significant Feature of Medieval Rhetoric?
Panel discussion, chaired by James J. Murphy, Univ. of California–Davis
1968
The Reformation of the Twelfth Century
Giles Constable, Harvard Univ.
1966
Visual Exegesis in Medieval Art
Harry Bober, Institute of Fine Arts, New York Univ.
1964
Gerald the Welshman
Urban Tigner Holmes, Univ. of North Carolina
1962
The Nature and Value of Medieval Studies
Laurence K. Shook, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Photograph: A Congress plenary lecture (photo: Neil Rankin)