MSO: Faculty Interests

Faculty Interests

Vincent Gillespie

Map of Ireland from Ptolemy's 'Geographia', published 1490

Map of Ireland from Ptolemy's Geographia, published in Rome in 1490

J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of Medieval English and
Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall

Apart from the glorious buildings, the rich collections of manuscripts and early printed books, and the centuries of scholarly endeavour embedded in the very fabric of the university, what appeals about studying the literature of medieval England in Oxford? What strikes me most forcefully is the sheer capaciousness of the subject. At a recent day conference for the Medieval English Masters students we had papers ranging from medieval Welsh law codes to Old English monsters; from music in the Middle English mystics to aspects of Old Norse narrative; from memory in Piers Plowman to the Scottish Lancelot of the Laik; from Saracen conversion stories in Middle English romances to Thomas Hoccleve; from John Colet and Thomas More to the Eucharistic theology of the early sixteenth century. This chronological range and scholarly depth of work is possible because of the unusually large concentration of medievalists in the English Faculty, and also because of our ability to tap into the expertise of many generous colleagues in other faculties. Medieval studies are inherently and necessarily inter- and intra-disciplinary, and we never stop adding to our critical and scholarly toolkits new skills in cultural or critical theory, in new or old historicisms, in palaeography and textual criticism; or in socio-linguistics and philology. The literature produced in these islands in the Middle Ages occupied a multilingual cultural environment, so we study not only Old and Middle English but also Latin and Anglo-Norman, Older Scots, Welsh, Irish, and even the odd passage of Cornish. But what still excites and inspires me is the distinctive Oxford focus on the books themselves. Despite the increasing availability of electronic versions of medieval books, there is really no substitute for holding the real thing. Whether you call it 'the material text', or 'the history of the book' or, as more recently, 'the history of reading', the attempt to understand in detail the means and mechanisms that govern and promote the production, transmission and dissemination of written words remains central to our explorations of the medieval culture. Of the making of books there is no end, and the making of a medievalist is the work of lifetime. But Oxford remains an inspiring, challenging and rewarding place to take the first steps on that long journey.

Chris Wickham

Medieval Roman mosaic (Santa Maria in Trastevere)

Chichele Professor of Medieval History and Fellow of All Souls College

My work focuses on two linked areas: the history of medieval Italy, 400–1200, and early medieval Europe as a whole. In the first of these, I have focussed on central Italy, and have explored rural society from a variety of standpoints: settlement pattern and settlement archaeology, village communities and local lordship, conflict and dispute settlement. In the second, I have ttried to compare societies across Europe and the Mediteranean, in articles and most recently two books. I am now working on the city of Rome in the period 900–1200.

I have been Chichele Professor of Medieval History at Oxford since 2005. In that time, I have particularly valued the opportunities for research and, above all, for the discussion of research that Oxford provides. Its library collections, in the Bodleian and elsewhere, are unrivalled among British Universities; the number of research seminars is so large that no medievalist could go to all of them. The thriving academic community that exists here amongst faculty and college academics and students, in medieval studies and beyond, is a remarkable basis for collaborative work and for generating new ideas.