This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a postdoctoral Researcher (0.8 fte for 3 years) in the ERC Starting Grant project ‘Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550’ (PRAYER). Candidates are…

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent.

This project aims to answer the following questions: how did the landscape and geography of the local surroundings of Chalcis impact medieval to early modern productivity, habitation, mobility and interaction in a wider sense? And where are such changes and continuations still visible in the landsca…

The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions.

This project incorporates spatiality into the discussion of medieval demography, allowing for a more nuanced view on medieval town populations. It establishes a maximum population count for towns for periods prior to 1400 and provides a means to compare the ranking of towns using size and density instead…

Magistri Symonis (?) Questiones secunde partis Doctrinalis Alexandri de Villa Dei First Critical Edition from the Manuscript with Introduction, Appendices and Indexes

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest.

By comparing the archaeological evidence at Sedgeford and other sites located on both English and Continental coastal zones, what evidence is there for a shared maritime culture between these North Sea communities? Also if evidence is found, can we reveal to some extent a separate coastal identity to…

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

Report on the Excavations of the University of Amsterdam (1988) and the National Museum of Antiquities Leiden (1991-1993) in Syria.

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

What does the excavated material tell us about the continuation and/or change of urban life during the transitional phrases from Antiquity to the Middle Ages on Crete and in the eastern Mediterranean more generally?

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

We are cosmologists, in other words we use physics to study the Universe, how it started and evolved into the structure that we observe around us.

Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score.

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,…

Central to the research of several cluster members are the social function and contexts of the production and consumption of medieval and early modern art, literature and media:

Investigating domestic crafts and subsistence activities through experiments and material analysis

The proposed research project examines the social role of two monk-bishops in seventh-century Egypt, Abraham of Hermonthis and Pesynthios of Koptos, by reconstructing their social networks on the basis of their archival documents.

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

Daniel Stumm defended his thesis on 16 April 2020.

Tell Sabi Abyad is a major Late Neolithic settlement mound in Northern Syria, belonging to the seventh and early sixth millennium bc. This book presents the results of large-scale fieldwork conducted at the site between 1994 and 1999, under the auspices of the Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities…

Researchers within the cluster are committed to the close and expert analysis of the materiality and content of the arts, literature and media they study. Different types of media bring various aspects of this core interest to the fore.

What follows is a survey of existing programs and current projects for each of the participating universities.

In a podcast episode of 'New Books in History' Claire Weeda talks about her book 'Ethnicity in Medieval Europe 950-1250: Medicine, Power and Religion'.

An exploration across thirteen essays by critics, translators and creative writers on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, delving into how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Introduction

It is integral to many cluster members’ research to use Medieval and Early Modern Arts as a lens for studying the medieval and early modern periods at large:

Primary Objective: The primary aim of the proposed RCT is to evaluate whether LF-TLP in blended form as an indicated prevention for anxiety complaints is more (cost-) effective than TAU according to the NHG guideline Anxiety. We hypothesize that in comparison to TAU, LF-TLP will result in a significantly…

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

An investigation into how racial stereotypes were created and used in the European Middle Ages.

Interview for National Public Radio sparks media frenzy.

Anyone who thinks that #MeToo is a new phenomenon, can think again. Subjects such as sexual intimidation, female self-defence and subjection to male desires can be found as early as in Medieval Islamic literature. Senior lecturer Asghar Seyed-Gohrab explains further on the Leiden Medievalists Blog,…

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

In tracing intra-site, local and regional craft networks in Late Bronze Age Tiryns (Greece) the project aimed to understand technological changes, (dis)continuities and social practices from the Late Palatial until the Post Palatial periods in Mycenaean Greece.

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

In late medieval and early modern times, books, as well as the people who produced and read (or listened to) them, moved between regions, social circles, and languages with relative ease. Yet, in the multilingual Low Countries, francophone literature was both internationally mobile and firmly rooted…

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…

For thousands of years, societies have fallen under the reign of a single leader, ruling as chief, king, or emperor. In this fascinating global history of medieval and early modern dynastic power, Jeroen Duindam charts the rise and fall of dynasties, the rituals of rulership, and the contested presence…

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works such as roads and harbours were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers and there is a vast increase in material culture to inform us about the lives…

Settlement burials in the pagus Texandrië and the transformation of Merovingian society c. 700 AD (Southern Netherlands)