Booking has now opened for the Battle conference at Winchester in July 2014. This will be handled via the University of Winchester; please visit their website, to register. The final date for booking is 7 July 2014. More information here

The Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies is an annual conference devoted to English and Norman medieval history and culture. It focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its purpose, as formulated by its founder R. Allen Brown in 1978, is ‘to discuss and forward knowledge on all aspects of Anglo-Norman history, with particular reference to the Anglo-Norman realm, but also to be concerned with the Old English and Scandinavian contribution to the Anglo-Norman achievement in Italy, Sicily, Spain and the Crusades’.

The Proceedings of the Conference, now entitled Anglo-Norman Studies, have been published annually since 1978. All papers delivered to the Conference are given at the invitation of the Conference director and editor of Anglo-Norman Studies, at present David Bates.

With the conference’s traditional venue at Pyke House (on the field of the Battle of Hastings) no longer available, the conference has become peripatetic. Having been held in Norwich in 2010, York in 2011, and Bayeux in 2012, this year it will be held in Cambridge at Lucy Cavendish College from Friday 26 July to Tuesday 30 July. As in previous years, we have received generous help from our hosts, Lucy Cavendish College and the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge. As ever, the Conference seeks to encourage participation by younger scholars and for this reason five bursaries for postgraduates will be available this year. By having no more than four c.50 minute papers a day, the Conference ensures that there is plenty of time for discussion, both fairly formal and very informal.

Formal registration for the Conference will be done through Lucy Cavendish College. For details of these arrangements see the programme and registration forms accessible through this web-site. The closing date for non-residential registration has been extended to 28 June 2013. All queries about the conference should be addressed to the Director David Bates

In 1987 (the Conference’s tenth year and the 900th anniversary of the death of William the Bastard/Conqueror) the Conference met in Caen, and it has now established a tradition of travelling in every fifth year – in 1992 to Palermo, in 1997 to Dublin, in 2002 to Glasgow, and in 2007 to Gregynog, Montgomeryshire’. The 2012 Conference continued this tradition by being held in Bayeux.

This year’s Allen Brown Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Elisabeth van Houts and will be followed by a Reception hosted by the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge. The conference will finish at lunch-time on the Tuesday. As always, there will be visits to places of interest, including an exhibition of manuscripts in the Wren Library of Trinity College, an excursion to Isleham, the Fens, and Ely, and a walking tour of early medieval Cambridge.

Details of the programme are now available. To be put on the mailing list or for further information about the conference please contact the director, David Bates. Please note that there is no ‘call for papers’ for the Battle Conference and that all papers are read at the director’s invitation. Suggestions for suitable speakers are, however, welcome at any time. For further information about any other aspect of the conference please contact David Bates.

The R Allen Brown Trust has some limited funds and likes to use them to assist postgraduates to meet costs of attending the conference. Details of how to apply for bursaries will be posted soon.

Programme :

Thursday 24 July

1:30pm-4:00pm : Arrival at Winchester
Registration at University of Winchester ‘West Downs’
Tea and coffee will be provided.

5:00pm : Allen Brown Memorial Lecture: Edmund King (University of Sheffield) – Henry of Winchester: the Bishop, the City, and the Wider World
6:30pm-7:30pm : Reception, hosted by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Elizabeth Stuart, University of Winchester
8:00pm : Dinner

Friday 25 July

9:30am : Peter Fergusson (Wellesley College) – Canterbury Cathedral Priory as painted early in Henry II’s reign: object or subject?
10:45am : Tea/Coffee
11:15am : Katherine Weikert (University of Winchester) – The story of a place: Faccombe Netherton, Hampshire c. 900-1200
12:30pm : Buffet Lunch

1:30pm : John Crook – introduction to Walkelin’s Winchester Cathedral
3:00pm : Winchester Cathedral visit with Dr John Crook
7:30pm : Dinner

Saturday 26 July

9:30am : Richard Allen (St John’s College, Oxford) – Episcopal acta in Normandy 911-1204: the charters of the bishops of Avranches, Coutances and Sées
10:45am : Tea/Coffee

11:15am : Jennifer Farrell (University College Dublin) – History, prophecy and the Arthur of the Normans: the question of audience and motivation behind Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae
12:30pm : Buffet Lunch

1:30pm : Johanna Dale (University of Cambridge) – Royal inauguration and the liturgical calendar in England, France and the empire c. 1050-c. 1200
3.00–3.15pm : Tea/Coffee

3.30pm : Opportunity to visit Winchester sites, including Saint Cross
7.30pm : Conference dinner
8:45pm : Chris Lewis (King’s College, London) – The Book of Winchester

Sunday 27 July

9:30am : Nicholas Karn (University of Southampton) – Quadripartitus, Leges Henrici Primi and the scholarship of English law in the early twelfth century
10:45am : Tea/Coffee

11:15am : Lauren Mancia (Brooklyn College, City University of New York) – John of Fécamp and affective reform in eleventh-century Normandy
12:30pm : Buffet Lunch

1:30pm : Eljas Oksanen (Independent scholar, London) – Patterns of trade and travel in England during the long twelfth century
2:30pm : Tea/Coffee

3:15pm : [to be delivered by the winner of the Marjorie Chibnall Prize]
4:30pm : Short break

4:45pm : Gesine Oppitz-Trotman (University of East Anglia) – Royal appropriation of saints’ cults with special reference to Henry II and Frederick Barbarossa
7:30pm : Dinner

Monday 28 July

9:30am : Benjamin Pohl (University of Cambridge) – The illustrated archetype of the Historia Normannorum: did Dudo of St-Quentin write a “chronicon pictum”?
10:45am : Tea/Coffee
11:15am : Pierre Bauduin (University of Caen) – Richard II : figure princière et transfers culturels à la charnière des Xe-XIe siècles

Source de l’information : The Battle Conference