As Scaliger professor, Erik Kwakkel is responsible for the academic context of the complete Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. His inaugural lecture on 15 May will focus mainly on the section closest to his heart: Medieval books.

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

Material Culture, Settlements, and Landscapes from the Mediterranean to Western Asia

Alumnus Peter Burger – along with his colleague Alexander Pleijter – is the face of fact-checking in the Netherlands. ‘My degree led straight to this.’

The physical features of twelfth-century manuscripts from the Flemish abbey of Ter Duinen – such as script, page layout, and reading aids – show how their readers organized, interpreted, and transmitted knowledge.

An endoscopic camera was used to record images of reused medieval fragments on the inside of book bindings from the 16th and 17th centuries. The unique images were made as part of the project ‘FragmEndoscopy: An Innovative Way to Discover Hidden Heritage inside Early Modern Book Bindings’, funded by…

'When taking into account all finds in the Islamic world of this enigmatic vessel, it would perhaps be wise not to restrict this container to merely one function.'

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.

In 2024, Professor Joanita Vroom received a substantial grant from the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) in support for her Hinterlands of Medieval Chalcis Project (HMC Project) in Greece. PHI, a California-based non-profit organization, is dedicated to archaeological research as well as to the preservation…

This new Casebook features the work of an international, interdisciplinary research group entitled ‘The Joust as Performance: Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry’.

On June 26-28, 2024, the Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Medieval Theology will take place. The theme this year is "The End: Finiteness, Death and Completion in Medieval Theology". Deadline for paper proposals: 20 December 2023.

Medievalism is the area of academic study that investigates the reception and reconstruction of the medieval past since the Middle Ages came to an end.

The first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries is scheduled for October 25 and 26, 2024. This event aims to facilitate the exchange of recent research, ongoing projects, and key discussions within the realm of environmental history among scholars from…

On 25 and 26 October 2024, the first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries, is scheduled to take place at Leiden University.

Fighting for the faith, caring for the sick, and praying for the soul of their benefactors were the main tasks of the military orders, who since the time of the crusades were well represented in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages, including the Frisian lands. Especially the Hospitallers and the Teutonic…

The deadline for the conference "The Fantastic and the Supernatural in the Medieval Germanic Traditions" has been extended to June 30.

The English Language and Culture programme focuses on four areas, namely: philology, literature, linguistics and language acquisition. It also offers several specialisation options, ranging from renaissance literature to the use of metaphors.

From Great-Britain to the United States and from Australia to South Africa: people around the whole world speak and write English. In Leiden you will broaden your knowledge of the English language and the rich Literature and culture of the global English world on academic level.

Thijs Porck has successfully applied for a subsidy for a research project that will study the early correspondence of G. J. P. J. Bolland, an autodidact student of Germanic languages who would later become one of the country’s leading philosophers. The project is sponsored by Leiden University Fund…

Fondazione 1563 launched a call for the Summer School of the Turin Humanities Programme, that will take place in Torino from September 6 to September 8 2023. The theme is: Writing global medieval history: comparative and connected approaches. Deadline for applications: June 25.

The ERC project SenSArt (University of Padova) is organizing a conference on multisensorial preaching practices in Medieval Europe. The conference will take place on October 24 to 25. Those interested are encouraged to submit a paper proposal before April 5.

As part of the lecture series 'Religion Matters', Sven Gins (RUG) will speak about moving statues and other ingenuous devices in late medieval France. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, March 13, 17:00-18:00.

On May 30 and 31, a workshop will take place at the Dutch Art Historical Institute in Florence (NIKI). This workshop aims to further our understanding of how late medieval societies reconciled the partially contradictory ideals and expectations of Ecclesia and Iustitia at a collective and individual…

Op 22 februari leidt Karst Schuil (Wenen) het derde seminar (online) van de seminarreeks van de Onderzoekschool Mediëvistiek: Emotionality and Late Medieval Self-Transformative Processes. Hij onderzoekt de relatie tussen pelgrimages en emoties en zal zijn prospectus (een uitgewerkt voorstel) van zijn…

The 7th European Congress of Medieval Studies of the Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales (FIDEM) will be organized by the Department of Arts, Media, and Philosophy of the University of Basel, Switzerland. There is a number of slots for papers (20 minutes) and special sessions…

Leiden University and the University of Warsaw organize a two-day conference on medieval fragmentology, with a special focus on the so-called N-Psalter. The conference will take place in the Regional Archive in Alkmaar. ReMA students can obtain 1-2 ECTS by attending the conference and completing an…

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.

The most important group of medieval manuscripts from the Special Collections of the University Libraries of Leiden (UBL), the Codices Vossiani Latini, is now available in open access via the Digital Collections. The 324 Latin manuscripts copied in medieval Europe, along with 48 post-medieval manuscripts,…

The Utrecht-based VIDI project Lettercraft in Early Medieval Europe, AD 481-751 is working on a new database of Merovingian epistolary communication. We are looking for enthusiastic (R)MA students who would like to join us this Fall as research apprentices for the first phase of data entry and analysis.…

On November 8, the annual Medieval Studies Day will take place, organized by the Flemish Medievalist Association, in cooperation with the Henri Pirenne Institute Ghent. This year’s theme is Pe(s)ts to Parchment: Multidisciplinary Research on Animals in the Middle Ages. On the evening of 7 November,…

Osteoarchaeologist Rachel Schats investigates traces of malaria in old human skeletons. Even though the disease cannot be spotted directly in bone material, you may find traces of it, for example through porosity caused by anemia, linked to malaria. Rachel was a guest in the programme Science071 on…

Women in the Middle Ages often wore better quality clothes than men. This is one of the conclusions drawn by Leiden archaeologist Chrystel Brandenburgh, who studied textile remnants from the period from 400 to 1000 A.D. PhD defence 10 May.

The bottom-up development of post-Roman northwestern Europe

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…

This project investigates the professionalisation of university libraries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through the lens of the medieval manuscript holdings. Taking Leiden University Library as a starting point, it sheds light on the changing practices surrounding the conservation,…

The University of Trento hosts the biennial conference of the International Reynard Society, taking place on September 25-28 2024. Deadline for paper/session submissions: December 31.

The coastal site of Butrint is situated on a peninsula in south-western Albania, opposite the island of Corfu and Apulia in southern Italy (across the Adriatic Sea). In Medieval times, Butrint served as a connecting bridge between East and West – between Byzantium and the Latin world.

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…

Athens is universally known as a symbol of democracy, philosophy, and ancient Greek aesthetics. Some of the most famous classical monuments, including the Parthenon and the temple of Hephaestus, can be found here.

A workshop is organized at St John's College, Oxford, on September 23-24. The workshop aims to bring together medievalists of all disciplines to discuss the research and teaching of ‘difficult’ or ‘taboo’ topics. The organizers welcome applications from scholars working in any field that demands sensitivity…

On May 23 and 24, a masterclass is organized at Utrecht University on the theme of 'Reform'. Participating students will be rewarded 1 ECTS for preparation and presentation at the workshop, with the possibility of gaining another 2 ECTS to research and write a paper afterwards – for a total of 3 ECTS…

Ghent University's Department of History is hiring 1 PhD researcher (m/f/x) for an FWO Senior Research project on the pragmatic, socio-economic and legal historical context in which the oldest borough charters in the Low Countries and northern France were negotiated and codified (late 11th-early 13th…

LUCDH is creating a community of LU scholars researching in Digital Humanities. A selection of their DH Projects are listed on this page. If you are an Affiliated member and would like your project listed here or would like to be an Affiliated member, please email us at lucdh@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Situated on the west coast of modern Turkey, the site of Ephesus is one of the largest excavations in Turkey and one of the most visited tourist attractions. Only one tenth of the city has been exposed until now although the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna (ÖAI) has been excavating here…

More focus on diversity in Antiquity, workshops for students with disabilities, and a card game to share stories about diversity: these and other projects will receive funding from the JEDI Fund in 2023.

On November 27-28 2025, the congress 'Disability and inclusion in the medieval city: a comparative view between Europe and the Islamic World' will be held at the university of Cantabaria, Spain. The deadline for submissions is 13 October, 2025