The programme for the Medieval Studies' Day (4 November, Amsterdam) is now available online!

On 4 and 5 December 2023, the National Library of Luxembourg organizes a workshop on medieval armorials. Proposals for contributions can be submitted until 30 June 2023.

The urban graveyard presents several studies in which the results of older archaeological and osteoarchaeological research are compared to more recent excavation data from several Dutch, Belgian and Danish cities and towns.

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

A special find has been made in the Alkmaar Regional Archive: a number of 17th-century book bindings contained pieces of parchment from a manuscript from the 11th century. The original manuscript may have belonged to a princess who fled England after the Norman Conquest.

Debates about the ‘end’ of the Roman era, how, when, and even if it ended, are still very much alive and raging. However, what happened after the (long) late antique period is a lesser-known and lesser-studied subject. The post-Roman past needs, however, as much energetic investigation and discussion.…

With the help of the JEDI fund, Fatima al Moufridji and Thijs Porck went in search of cultural contacts between early medieval England, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Together they made four knowledge clips that can now be seen on YouTube.

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,…

Thijs Porck, university lecturer of medieval English at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS).

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

A number of scholars joint forces to analyse and re-analyse a number of Merovingian cemeteries and publish the results in the series Merovingian Archaeology in the Low Countries published by Habelt Verlag in Bonn (Germany). We call it the ANASTASIS project. This is the third volume in which the data…

The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie is one of the first long-term studies in English of an Iberian town during the late medieval crisis. Focusing on the Catalonian city of Manresa, Jeff Fynn-Paul expertly integrates Iberian historiography with European narratives to place the city's social,…

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.

Costume dramas would have us believe that women in the Middle Ages became mothers at a much younger age than they do today. University lecturer Krista Milne wants to refute this image with the help of an NWO XS grant. ‘In the past, not all data was taken into account.’

In this second book of the series

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

What do you do if you have a book from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but you suspect that the binding contains a fragment of a medieval manuscript? University lecturer Thijs Porck has received an NWO grant to experiment with a camera attached to a tube. 'The project boils down to keyhole surgeries…

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

On Tuesday, September 16, 2025, Professor Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University) delivered a Keynote Lecture at the Leiden Jewish Studies Network Conference “Care and the Jewish Experience".

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book Leiden researchers take stock.

The Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies invites PhD's and other ECRs to present their research on the Medieval Studies Day 2023. Deadline for abstracts: September 30.

Jonathan Powell came to Leiden from England to conduct research into the role of women in early modern court cases. In addition to all kinds of exciting documents, he also discovered the biscuits from the Water & Bloem bakery and the wild flowers at the Groenesteeg cemetery.

On this page you will find more information about the selected projects of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund for 2023.

The Vrijthof excavations (1969-1970)

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

On 21-23 September 2022 Utrecht University will host an international conference titled 'Multilingual Dynamics of Medieval Literature in Western Europe'.

The University of Reading will host an online workshop on 27 April 2021. It is aimed at early career and postgraduate research historians focusing on the area of medieval finance. The deadline for submissions is: 19 February 2021.

Nine Archaeology students have built a reconstruction of an early medieval house in Vlaardingen. The house, built according to a houseplan discovered during excavations at Rotta, has already played an important role as the backdrop of the re-enactment of the battle of Vlaardingen of 1018.

The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…

Do you frequently search the catalogue of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) for western medieval manuscripts? Then you must have noticed important changes lately. Some 1800 summary catalogue records in Dutch were replaced by more elaborate descriptions in English. Furthermore, the catalogue interface…

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship? Want to learn more? Then sign up for the new MOOC…

How did nineteenth-century non-Anglophone translators and authors creatively engage with the poem Beowulf?

The Institute for History of Leiden University seeks to expand its academic staff by appointment of a university lecturer with teaching and research expertise in the field of Medieval History. Deadline: 20 January.

Utrecht University is hiring an assistant professor Medieval English Literature. Candidates are invited to apply before April 6, 2024.

The University of Groningen is looking for an Assistant Professor in Medieval History. The deadline for applications is: 14 February 2021.

The Department of Art & Culture, History, and Antiquity of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is seeking to appoint an Assistant Professor (tenure track) in Medieval History. Deadline for applications: July 5.

Radboud Ancient and Medieval Studies organises a lecture series for this year as well. The programme for the first semester can be found below. The first lecture will take place on September 25.

Jessica Barr and Barbara Zimbalist invite essays that examine any aspect of race and religion in medieval culture and society for a special issue on race and religion in the Middle Ages. Deadline for submission: 1 February 2021.

While Old Germanic studies might seem dated and, regrettably, occupies a less than secure position in various academic institutions, exciting new research presented by young researchers shows that the field is still vibrant and may have a bright future. On Thursday, the 7th of April, the ‘Junius Symposium…

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history.

Recently, some changes have been made to the catalog of Leiden University Library, making more than 1000 digitized codices more accessible than before. The 'Inventory of Western Medieval Manuscripts Held by Leiden University Libraries,' created by manuscript curator André Bouwman, is also now available:…

How does the evolution of the archaeological landscape at Son Sard reveal rural settlement patterns on Mallorca, serving as a pars pro toto for Balearic rural archaeology?

What did medieval scholars think of the books they read? In her inaugural lecture, Professor Mariken Teeuwen will talk about the texts they wrote in the margin.

Towns and elites in Merovingian northern Gaul, 450-650

In a sailboat, a canoe or stowed away on a ship: during the Second World War, many Leiden students tried to cross the sea to join the Allies in Britain. ‘Soldier of Orange’ is the most famous, but who were the other ‘England voyagers’ or Engelandvaarders as they are known?