London Society for Medieval Studies

27/05/2025

London Society for Medieval Studies is on the lookout for new committee members! Postgraduate students and early-career researchers, please get in touch if you're interested in being part of a friendly and active committee and helping to share new research in the field!

06/05/2025

Join us tonight to hear a fantastic talk on 'The Seed of Good and Evil: Divergent Transmission and Reception of Sir Gawain in Medieval Europe' by Julio San Roman! Everyone is welcome - come to Senate House, Wolfson Room NB01 at 17.30. We look forward to seeing you there!

29/04/2025

LSMS' summer series is getting started next week with an exciting talk on 'The Seed of Good and Evil: Divergent Transmission and Reception of Sir Gawain in Medieval Europe' by Julio San Roman! We hope you can join us at 17.30 in Wolfson NB01 in Senate House Building!

05/02/2025

Exciting news! On 11/02 LSMS is hosting TWO speakers to talk to us about 'Medieval Manuscripts: Exploring Craftsmanship, Ownership, and Use': Sophia Adams and Edward Cheese! Please join us at Senate House or online at 17.30. Book your free spot at

Thome famulo tuo’: An Owner for Beinecke MS 410 Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library MS 410 is a finely decorated late fifteenth-century prayer roll. Currently, its first owner, depicted as a kneeling cleric beneath an image of the Five Wounds, has not been identified with any certainty. This i...

26/01/2025

Please join us on 28/01 for LSMS' first seminar of term. Ana Gómez-Bravo will be speaking to us on 'Constructing Racialized Difference in Early Spain: Key Language and Concepts'. As always, the seminar is free. It is online only and booking is essential:

The presentation will examine various aspects of the lexicon and semantics that helped in the conceptual construction of social and religious inferiority during the late Middle Ages. Such construction rests on the central role assigned to physical as well as religious difference, a difference marked...

09/12/2024

LSMS is thrilled to be hearing from Nancy Haijing Jiang on 'Bargaining Against Despair in Medieval Sermon Exempla' tomorrow - we can't wait! The paper is at the usual time of 17.30 and will be online via Zoom, so make sure you sign up for your free slot!

Founded in 1970/1, the London Society for Medieval Studies seeks to foster knowledge of, and dialogue about, the Middle Ages (c.500–c.1500 CE)...

03/12/2024

ANNOUNCEMENT OF TITLE CHANGE: Next week Nancy Haijing Jiang will be speaking to us about "Bargaining Against Despair in Medieval Sermon Exempla"! There's still plenty of time to sign up to this online talk: https://www.history.ac.uk/seminars/london-society-medieval-studies
We're looking forward to this exciting paper!

Founded in 1970/1, the London Society for Medieval Studies seeks to foster knowledge of, and dialogue about, the Middle Ages (c.500–c.1500 CE)...

11/11/2024

There's still time to sign up for tomorrow's talk by Elizabeth Robertson on 'Geoffrey Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and Late Medieval Voluntarism'! It will be held online via Zoom at 17.30 GMT - we can't wait to see you there!

In this paper, I shall argue that Geoffrey Chaucer, in one of his most problematic tales, The Clerk’s Tale, affirms the radical power of the will in terms consonant with the urgent debates about the nature of the will taking place among late medieval philosophers known as voluntarists. The tale’...

06/11/2024

Have you signed up for Elizabeth Robertson's talk, 'Geoffrey Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and Late Medieval Voluntarism', on Tuesday 12th November? This seminar is online only, and you must register for your FREE spot:
https://www.history.ac.uk/events/geoffrey-chaucers-clerks-tale-and-late-medieval-voluntarism
We look forward to seeing you!

In this paper, I shall argue that Geoffrey Chaucer, in one of his most problematic tales, The Clerk’s Tale, affirms the radical power of the will in terms consonant with the urgent debates about the nature of the will taking place among late medieval philosophers known as voluntarists. The tale’...

22/10/2024

We're so excited for Julia Bungey's paper, 'Ladies, Lordships and Losses: The Lives of Three Generations of Aristocratic Women in the Fifteenth Century' - how about you? Join us in-person or online on 29/10 at 5.30! To book your spot, follow the link:

This paper explores the life cycles of three generations of medieval aristocratic women: Alice Montagu (1407-1462), her daughter, Katherine Neville (1442-1504) and her granddaughter, Cecily Bonville (1460-1529).

22/10/2024

Check out our seminar schedule for the 2024/25 Autumn Term! Lots of exciting talks on the agenda this term - we hope to see lots of you there!