Meetings 2003

Special visit: Monday 17 November 2003, 7:00-9:00 pm. Location: the Special Collections Department, Green library, Stanford University.

• John Mustain (host): A third evening in the Stanford University Libraries' special collections. Our (now traditional) visit to a selection of books and manuscripts from the Stanford Library special collections. Always a treat!

Seminar: Tuesday 28 October 2003, 7:00-9:00 pm.

• A Medieval Military evening
• Bruce Paschel will talk on swords and maile, and bring several examples.
• Bob Nyden will bring his trebuchet model.

Seminar: Monday, September 29, 7:00-9:00 pm. Location: Stanford Alumni Center, 326 Galvez, Stanford University.

• The Sarum Seminar will start off our 2003-4 year with a Salisbury evening.
• Bob Scott will talk about his new book The Gothic Enterprise, which is finally out(!).
• Linda Jack will talk on The piety of William Longespée. William Longespée, earl of Salisbury, died at the castle at Old Sarum on March 7, 1226. As his funeral procession wound its way down the hill from the castle to the new and unfinished cathedral, Roger of Wendover relates that the tapers shed light throughout the journey, "not withstanding the showers of rain and the violence of the wind," thereby showing that the earl had died in a state of grace. Linda examines the contemporary evidence for Longespée's pious acts and traces the friendships, kinship connections, obligations of lordship, and political alliances that were an integral part of his piety.

Seminar: Thursday, May 22, 7:00-9:00 pm. Location: Stanford Alumni Center, 326 Galvez, Stanford University.

• Anna Maria Busse-Berger (Professor, Medieval and Renaissance History and Theory, University of California, Davis), with an introduction by Bob Scott: Medieval Music and Memory

Seminar: Tuesday, April 28, 7:00-9:00 pm. Location: Stanford Alumni Center, 326 Galvez, Stanford University.

• Virginia Jansen (Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz): The Case for Bishop Richard Poore as "Architect" of Salisbury Cathedral (Or, Forget Elias of Dereham)

Seminar: Thursday, March 13, 2003, 7:00-9:00 pm, at Frances C. Arrillaga Center; 326 Galvez, Stanford University (If you are so inclined, come early for supper or a glass of wine at the cafe.)

• Asa Mittman, Stanford University Art Department: Headless Men and Hungry Monsters: the Anglo-Saxons and their "Others". (From Fall'03, Asa will be teaching at Santa Clara University.)
• Asa writes: "Anglo-Saxon England was a deeply multi-cultural society, composed of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Britons and Romans. To provide some measure of national unity, authors and artists cast their gazes outward to disparate Others. Perhaps more than any other medieval society, the Anglo-Saxons focused on a host of monsters believed to inhabit distant Africa and Asia: The dog-headed, fire-breathing cynocephali, one-footed sciopods, wonderful headless, mindless, possibly soulless blemmyes, and many others. These creatures, along with a fantastic host of dragons, ogres and elves, populated the Anglo-Saxon world with a very real presence. In this discussion, I deconstruct their very careful, consciously constructed bodies - freakish, hybrid bodies that, in turn, render the bodies of their viewers as stable and normal."

Special visit: Thursday, February 27, 2003, 7:00-9:00pm. At the Special Collections Department, Green library, Stanford University

• John Mustain (host): Medieval treasures and other delights: a second evening in the Stanford University Libraries' special collections.

Music Program/Singers' Reunion and Potluck: Saturday, January 11 2003. At the home of Ann and Dick Jones.

• Music programs from 3:00-5:00 and 5:15-6:00, followed by potluck from 6:30 to 9:00 pm