The largest international conference on English historical linguistics is coming to Leiden. From 7 June to 11 June 2021, the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) organises the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-21). Due to Covid measures, the conference takes…

On the brand-new Leiden Teachers Blog, Leiden teachers share their experiences with educational innovation. They show colleagues, students, and everyone else who is interested the different facets of creating university education.

Working during Corona brings along various challenges but also unexpected opportunities. Thijs Porck, university lecturer medieval English at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), was asked to give a digital guest lecture for the University of Costa Rica and shares his experi…

After the advent of Islam in the 7th century C.E., the strategic geographical position of Tarsus (its proximity to the sea and to the mountain pass leading to inland Anatolia) made this town the de facto capital of the thughur, a historical and geographical term created by Muslim geographers qualifying…

From 3 to 5 September 2025, the project Governing and Building the City will organize the conference 'Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1600)' at KBR in Brussels. The deadline for the call for papers is 7 April.

In the nationalist nineteenth century, people developed an interest in medieval language and literature. The study of medieval material in one’s own vernacular was thought to reveal a great national past. But why, then, was Old English studied by Germans, Danes, Italians and many other nationalities…

The ERC project Early Medieval English in Nineteenth-Century Europe (EMERGENCE), led by Thijs Porck (Leiden University) is hiring 1 postdoctoral researcher and 2 PhD's. Details on the individual projects can be found below. Deadline for applications: 1 March 2024.

On 11 and 12 December, the Associazione Italiana di Filologia Germanica (AIFG) organizes a graduate conference around the theme of "The Fantastic and the Supernatural in the Medieval Germanic Traditions". PhD students and recent graduates who wish to present are encouraged to submit an abstract before…

On 5 and 6 june 2024, the conference The Senses, Cognition, and the Body in Medieval Devotional Practices is organised at the University of Padova. The organisers welcome abstracts for 25-minute papers in English or Italian, to be submitted by November 30.

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects…

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

Associates of Leiden University Center for Intercultural Philosophy

Systematisch geordend naslagwerk voor alle stadsrechten in Nederland

Ahab Bdaiwi, University Lecturer of Islamic history, religion and philosophy, was received the first Faculty Impact Award. His interest lies in ‘everything that has to do with antiquity’, especially the religious and philosophical ideas that arose at that time. ‘They can move people. And many of those…

During the 2019 Reuvensdagen, PhD candidate Femke Lippok was awarded the prestigious W.A. van Es-prize for her research master’s thesis The Pyre and the Grave, written in 2017. The jury lauded Femke for her pioneering work and making use of big data analysis, while adding an admirably expansive and…

This series of seminars convenes researchers based in North America and Europe in order to inspire and further establish reflections about race, race-thinking, and racialization among scholars of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first seminar will be held on Monday, October 19, at 12:00 EDT by…

In 2013, Thijs Porck wrote a guest blog for 'medievalfragments'...

On Friday, the 24th of April 2015, the Junius Symposium voor Jonge Oudgermanisten, a symposium for junior researchers in the field of language, culture and history of the (early) medieval Germanic tribes, was organized by Peter Alexander Kerkhof (LUCL) and Thijs Porck (LUCAS).

With his dance routine and YouTube clips, he even manages to make grammar fun. His infectious enthusiasm and innovative teaching methods have won Thijs Porck, a lecturer in Old and Middle English, a nomination for the LUS Teaching Prize.

The Botany Laboratory is part of the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden. Under the supervision of Dr Mike Field, research is carried out here on archaeo- and palaeo-botanical material including seeds and fruits, pollen and spores, and wood.

In line with tradition, at the opening of the academic year the LUS Teaching Prize will be presented to the University’s best teacher. Get to know the nominees. This week: Thijs Porck.

In his VIDI project “Turning Over a New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance” (2010-2015) Erik Kwakkel and his team studied how books and reading developed under influence of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, a period in which Europe went through a variety of cultural and intellectual…

What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past? What significance did Maritime Conflict Management have in shaping the standards of diplomacy and international law in pre-modern Atlantic Europe (1200-1600)?

My current research focuses on criminality and gender interactions in nineteenth-century Europe. This project uses a comparative methodology to explain gender constructions in a criminal and in a court setting.

Maritime conflict management is the regulation of conflict in relation to the sea. It comprises conflict enforcement, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance. How did victims of maritime conflicts claim and obtain damages or demand compensation or reparation?

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University are to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). These awards offer promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

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

See below for the full programme and abstracts of all papers.

At the end of the 7th century something curious occurs in Northwestern Europe. Suddenly, people start burying the dead next to their dwellings instead of in communal cemeteries. Professor Frans Theuws recently published a book on this phenomenon. ‘We wanted to know if the study of these farmyard burials…