Anne Hudson died 8 December 2021. She is mourned by many friends, not only where she worked and lived in Oxford but also in Lublin, Prague, Vienna and York.
Anne receiving an honorary doctorate from the Charles University, Prague, in 2010, pictured here, courtesy of the University. We include here links to notices from the Faculty of English at Oxford and the British Academy.
We are sad to note to death, in March, of Professor Gordon Leff, who was a central figure in heresy studies for many years. Pete has written a short note in commemoration of Prof. Leff's work and influence, which can be read here
A collaboration between the Doat Project and York Minster Library, Inquisition Retold is an exhibition about the making and remaking of inquisition through text, using material held in the library’s collection. It takes place at the The Old Palace, York Minster, which houses the Minster Library, and runs from the 9th April to the 8th May.
An exciting week for students of heresy. The second of the project's two workshops on inquisition takes place 9-10 April, after which it will decant many of its members to what promises to be an excellent conference at Nottingham on the 11-12, Heretical Self-Defence, which aims to think about ways in which people might defend themselves against inquisition and other forms of repression. This editor, for one, is very much looking forward to it.
A roundtable discussion 'Heresy and Deviance in the Middle Ages', kindly hosted by UCL, will launch Cathars in Question (York, 2016) on January 18th. Several members of the Doat project were involved in the original conference on which the volume was based, and the event will be something of a reunion, as well as a welcome opportunity to discuss some of the issues raised by the essays. Welcome also will be the chance to hear from the three speakers, Jinty Nelson, Yossef Rapaport, and Andrew Roach.
We are delighted that Dr Jessalynn Bird will be joining us for a week in the Spring as the Doat Project Visiting Fellow. Jessalynn’s work deals (broadly) with high medieval intellectual culture, pastoral theology and Reform, and the intersection of these with crusade and the ecclesiastical developments of the thirteenth century. She is known particularly amongst scholars of medieval heresy for her studies of Peter the Chanter’s circle and its influence on anti-heresy and inquisition in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We very much look forward to working with her.
In April 2016, we will host the first of two conferences connected with the project, here at the University of York. This first conference will aim to discuss the emergence of inquisition procedures in the thirteenth century.
We are delighted that, from October, the Doat team will be gaining two new members. Rachael Hardstaff and Beth Richardson will be joining us as AHRC-funded PhD students on the project, working on ‘The Religion and Culture of the Thirteenth-Century Southern French Nobility’, and ‘The Idea of Medieval Heresy in Early Modern France’ (respectively). We are very excited to have them on board, and look forward to working with them over the next three years.
Two fully-funded PhD studentships are being offered in connection with the project, and with the inquisition registers on which it is based. One will focus on the ‘Religion and Culture of the Thirteenth-Century Southern French Nobility’, and the other on ‘The Idea of Medieval Heresy in Early Modern France’, both broadly defined. The deadline for applications is 22 May 2015, further details can be found on the History Department’s web page.