Archive of Plenary Lectures
This archive lists in reverse chronological order the plenary lectures at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (and, before 1979, the Conference on Medieval Studies) hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University.
Medieval Reproductive Justice
Carissa Harris
Temple University
sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Catalan National Identity and the Image of the Middle Ages, from 1714 to the Present
Paul Freedman
Yale University
Sponsored by Medieval Institute Publications and De Gruyter
Clothing the Angelic Life: The Desert Fathers on the Necessity of Clothing for Monks, Angels, and Adam
Thelma Thomas
New York University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Sex Magic and You: Experimental Ritual, Mythical Innovation, and the Study of Medieval Religion
Marla Segol
University of Buffalo
Sponsored by Medieval Institute Publications and De Gruyter
An Ordinary Ship and Its Stories of Early Globalism
Geraldine Heng
University of Texas at Austin
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Threatening That He Would Break Her Bones: Compulsion in Late Medieval Marriage
Ruth Mazo Karras
Trinity College Dublin
Sponsored by Medieval Institute Publications and De Gruyter
Marco Polo and the Diversity of the Global Middle Ages
Sharon Kinoshita
University of California, Santa Cruz
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Black Queen of Sheba: A Global History of an African Idea
Wendy Laura Belcher
Princeton University
Sponsored by Medieval Institute Publications and De Gruyter
The 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies was canceled due to the pandemic and no plenary lectures were given.
Icons of Sound and the Exultet Liturgy of Southern Italy
Bissera V. Pentcheva
Stanford University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Mastering Humiliation in Medieval Literature
Bonnie Wheeler
Southern Methodist University
Sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Press
"Salvation is Medicine": The Medieval Production and Gendered Erasures of Therapeutic Knowledge
Sara Ritchey
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Saint Louis’s Other Converts
William Chester Jordan
Princeton University
Sponsored by Cornell University Press
Artifacts of the Infidel: Medieval and Modern Interpretations of the Sacred Law of Islam
Leor Halevi
Vanderbilt University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Donkey and the Boat: Rethinking Mediterranean Economic Expansion in the Eleventh Century
Chris Wickham
University of Oxford
How We Read J. J. R. Tolkien Reading Grendel's Mother
Jane Chance
Rice University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Religion and the End of the Roman West
Ian Wood
University of Leeds
Modern Toleration through a Medieval Lens: A "Judgmental" View
Cary J. Nederman
Texas A&M University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Notion of the Middle Ages: Our Middle Ages, Ourselves
Richard Utz
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Libel of the Lamb: Violence and Medieval Metaphor
Susan L. Einbinder, University of Connecticut
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
What They Read, What They Saw, What They Heard: Composers and Sacred Music in Late Medieval Culture
Anne Walters Robertson, University of Chicago
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Poseidon's Oar: Horizons of the Medieval Mediterranean
Peregrine Horden, Royal Holloway, University of London
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Augustinian Intention and Medieval Aesthetic
Mary Carruthers, New York University
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Conceptualizing Literary History: Europe, 1348-1418
David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Heroic Age of Gothic: Invention and Its Contexts, 1200-1400
Paul Binski, University of Cambridge
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Outremer: Byzantine Art in a World of Multiple Christianities
Annemarie Weyl Carr, Southern Methodist University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Gerald of Wales and the Ethnographic Imagination
Robert Bartlett, University of St. Andrews
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Why Were Latin Qur'ans Produced in Christian Spain but Never Read There? Reflections on Spanish-Christian Culture during the Long Twelfth Century
Thomas E. Burman, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The "Clerical Proletariat" and the Rise of English: A New Look at Fourteenth-Century Book Production
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, University of Notre Dame
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Fictions of Conduct in Medieval France
Roberta L. Krueger, Hamilton College
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Michael of Rhodes: A Venetian Seafarer and His Book
Alan M. Stahl, Princeton University
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Seeing, Reading and Interpreting the Apocalypse in Complex Medieval Manuscripts
Richard K. Emmerson, Florida State University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Are Bestiaries Really Psalters, and Vice Versa?
Christopher de Hamel, University of Cambridge
Sponsored by the Richard Rawlinson Center and Boydell & Brewer
When Did the Near East Become Muslim? Patterns of Christian Decline in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, 634-1340
R. Stephen Humphreys, University of California, Santa Barbara
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Dante’s Gift: Reflections on the Divine Comedy
Christopher Kleinhenz, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Madeline H. Caviness, Tufts University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Historical Fictions in Medieval Castile
Alan D. Deyermond, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer and the Ibero-Medieval Association of North America
Mastering Authority and Authorizing Mastery in the Long Twelfth Century
Jan M. Ziolkowski, Harvard University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Medieval Textual "I"
A. C. Spearing, University of Virginia
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Making History: Actions and Agents within the Liturgical Framework of Time
Margot Fassler, Yale University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Margin and Center: The Book of Hours and the Late Medieval Culture of Prayer
Eamon Duffy, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
The Specter of Judaism in the Age of Mass Conversion: Spain 1391-1492
David Nirenberg, Johns Hopkins University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The French of England: A Question of Cultural Traffic?
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Fordham University
Sponsored by Boydell & Brewer
Relics, Swords and the Stories They Tell in the Chanson de Roland
Eugene Vance, University of Washington
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Competing Conversations in the Generation of 1400: Townspeople, Inquisitors, Societies of the Devout and Women Writers
John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame
Mural Paintings and Manuscripts as Evidence for the Papal "Rapprochement" with Byzantium in the Ninth Century
John Osborne, University of Victoria
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Reading the Heroes and Saints of Early Medieval Latin Literature
Danuta Shanzer, Cornell University
The End of Christian Art
Karl F. Morrison, Rutgers University
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Tensions, Ambiguities, and the Pressures of History: Constructing the Cultural Biography of Joseph the Carpenter
Pamela Sheingorn, Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY
On the Performance of Medieval Music
Christopher Page, University of Cambridge
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Making of Maid Marian
Stephen Knight, Cardiff University
From Roman Tax Exemptions to Medieval Holy Places: Landmarks in the History of Immunities
Barbara H. Rosenwein, Loyola University, Chicago
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Oculus Paleographicus
Rev. Leonard E. Boyle, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Gothic Ivory Carvings and the Limits of Connoisseurship
Paul Williamson, Victoria and Albert Museum
Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art
Alchemy and the Use of Vernacular Language in the Late Middle Ages
Michela Pereira, Univeristà degli Studi di Siena
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
The Study of Pope Gregory VII
H. E. J. Cowdrey, University of Oxford
Where East is West: Art and Its Viewers on Venetian Crete
Robin Cormac, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
When Did the Middle Ages End? Perspectives of an Intellectual Historian
Marcia Colish, Oberlin College
"Scivias": Reading without Learning, Learning without Reading
Michael Clanchy, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
Thomas Becket: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Saint from the Middle Ages to the Reformation
Phyllis B. Roberts, Graduate School and University Center, CUNY
From the Ancient to the Medieval City: Continuity and Change in the Early Middle Ages (with Special Attention to Tours)
Nancy Gauthier, Université de Tours
Tobit’s Nights: A Scriptural (Fish)bone of Contention about Ethical Individualism
Alain Boureau, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Medieval Transition from Latin to Romance before 1300
Roger Wright, University of Liverpool
Quis Teutonicos constituit judices nationum? Or, the Trouble with Heinrich
Horst Fuhrmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Latinate Jewish Wills in Medieval Spain
Robert I. Burns, S.J., University of California, Los Angeles
Witchcraft and Sainthood: Anthropological Problems and Structural Comparison
Gabor Klaniczay, University of Budapest
The Oral Text of "The Wanderer"
J. B. Bessinger, Jr., New York University
The Insular Tradition: An Overview
Rosemary Cramp, Durham, England
Frederick Barbarossa as "Lord of the World"
Robert E. Benson, University of California, Los Angeles
In Search of the Real Bernard
Jean Leclercq, Abbaye Saint-Maurice, Clervaux
Norman Art of Sicily and Its Dynastic Patronage
Beat Brenk, Universität Basel
Sutton Hoo: The Pros and Cons
Sir David Wilson, British Museum
Learning in the Middle Ages
John Contreni, Purdue University
The Theology of the Resurrection and Bodily Miracles in the Thirteenth Century
Caroline Walker Bynum, Getty Center
Sermons for the People: The Anglo-Saxon Contribution
James Cross, University of Liverpool
Why and How to Write the Biography of a Medieval Character: Saint Louis?
Jacques LeGoff, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Society and the Body: The Social Meaning of Asceticism in Late Antiquity
Peter Brown, Princeton University
The Carolingian Age: Reflections on Its Place in the History of the Middle Ages
Richard Sullivan, Michigan State University
Signs and Ceremonies in Medieval Monasticism
Giles Constable, Harvard University
Looking at William Caxton: The Historian's Eye and the Bibliographer's Eye
Paul Needham, Pierpont Morgan Library
Representation of Time in the Late Middle Ages
John Leyerle, University of Toronto
The Legacy of John Wyclif
Anne Hudson, University of Oxford
King Arthur as a Medium for Political Action
Karl-Heinz Goeller,Universität Regensburg
Crisis of Faith in the Twelfth Century
Karl Bosl, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Address at the Public Session of the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
Laurence K. Shook, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
The Crusades from the Point of View of Byzantium
Sir Steven Runciman, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Roots and Essence of Colonialism: Medieval Attitudes to Alien Culture and Society
Joshua Prawer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Miracles of St. Benedict
Benedicta Ward, University of Oxford
Albert the Great and Medieval Culture
James Weisheipl, O.P., Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
How Original was Joachim of Fiore's Theology of History?
Marjorie Reeves, University of Oxford
Nova et Vetera: On the Improvement of Our Methods
Leopold Genicot, Université de Louvain
Reform and Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Germany: Perspectives of Research and Discussion
Günter Volger, Alexander Humboldt Universität
Rhetoric and Philosophy in the Renaissance
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Columbia University
The Rhetoric of Damnation: The Poetics of Dante's Inferno
John Freccero, Yale University
The Idea of Man in the Middle Ages
Gordon Leff, University of York
Interaction of Social and Religious Changes in Germany, 1400-1600
Heiko A. Oberman, Universität Tübingen
The Familia as a Basic Structure of Medieval Society
Karl Bosl, Universität München
Image and Text in the Early Middle Ages: Some Problems in Interpretation
Paul J. Meyvaert, Mediaeval Academy of America
The Social Context of Medieval Love Language in Religious, Courtly, and Popular Literature
Jean Leclercq, Clervaux, Rome, and Western Michigan University
Children in Medieval Art
Ilene H. Forsyth, University of Michigan
Bernard of Clairvaux and the Language of Love
Jean Leclercq, Clervaux, Rome, and Western Michigan University
It Seems There Is No God, 1256/1274
Edward A. Synan, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Saint Bonaventure: Some Aspects of His Life and Doctrine
Theodore Crowley, OFM, Queen’s University, Belfast
The Notion of the "Middle Ages" and the Future of Medieval Research
Karl Ferdinand Werner, Institut historique allemand, Paris
Modern Psychology and Medieval Studies
Jean Leclercq, Clervaux and Rome
The Plowman and the Tree: Labor and Grace in the Fourteenth Century
John Leyerle, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
What Is the Most Significant Feature of Medieval Rhetoric?
Panel discussion, chaired by James J. Murphy, University of California, Davis
The Reformation of the Twelfth Century
Giles Constable, Harvard University
Visual Exegesis in Medieval Art
Harry Bober, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Gerald the Welshman
Urban Tigner Holmes, University of North Carolina
The Nature and Value of Medieval Studies
Laurence K. Shook, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
The Notion of the Middle Ages
Laurence K. Shook, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
