L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Date Wednesday 1 July 2026 – Friday 3 July 2026
Location To be announced (Universiteit Leiden)

Prayer was central to religious life in the late medieval and early modern period. Despite growing scholarly interest in religious texts, devotional practices, and spirituality, prayer and prayer books remain comparatively understudied. Prayer could take on a multitude of forms and occur in a range of spaces, from public to secluded and private; from monastic, liturgical prayer to short, indulgenced invocations and meditative prayers that evoked a rich scala of emotions and mental images.

To pray, devotees – whether clerical or lay – often took a book to hand. Prayer books played a vital role during many moments in a person’s life in the performance of prayer and prayer-related practices. While the act of prayer is inherently transient, the books held or touched by late medieval and early modern devotees form codified and material evidence of the practices in which they engaged. Still extant in large numbers and containing a vast variety of textual and visual materials, these books – through both content and appearance – reflect the diversity of prayer practices as well as developments in book production. Taking the book as the central artefact for the study of prayer allows for an analysis that encompasses all aspects and components of prayer books, along with the actors involved in their production and use. This, in turn, enables us to chart the ‘cultural ecosystem’ in which prayer books were produced, circulated, and used.

This three-day international conference, hosted at Leiden University by the PRAYER project (ERC Starting Grant), with keynotes by Walter S. Melion (Emory University) and Kathryn M. Rudy (University of St Andrews), aims to bring together researchers working on books that were (intended to be) used in any form of prayer practice in the late medieval and early modern era (up to the eighteenth century). This conference aims to shed new light on prayer across late medieval and early modern Europe by exploring the broader ecosystem of prayer books. This includes a wide range of interactions between the material book, texts and images disseminated through it (and their connections to other types of objects, such as rosaries, small pipe clay figures, and single-sheet prints), the devotions inspired by these texts and images, the producers and buyers/readers of the books, and the communities they belonged to.

Call for papers – See the full Call for Papers (PDF). The deadline for sending in proposals is 1 October 2025.

Source : Universiteit Leiden

27 (Bruxelles) et 28 (Liège) octobre 2025

Séminaire interuniversitaire à destination des étudiant·es et doctorant.es médiévistes – première inscription avec soumission de cas d’étude jusqu’au 27 juin 2025 (contact : timothee.sebert@uclouvain.be)

Date : 27-28 octobre 2025

Lieu : Université de Liège et UCLouvain – Saint-Louis Bruxelles

Public visé : étudiant·es en fin de cursus ; doctorant·es.

Présentation :

Le projet de ces deux journées « Le Moyen Âge clé en main » consiste à ouvrir un temps d’outillage et de discussion interdisciplinaire au profit des jeunes médiévistes, toutes disciplines confondues (Art, Archéologie, Histoire, Philosophie, etc.). Concrètement, il s’agit d’inviter des intervenant·es à présenter leurs méthodes de recherche et à initier le public à l’un ou l’autre outil propre à leur approche. L’objectif n’est pas d’en donner une formation condensée, mais plutôt de montrer comment cet outil et ces méthodes peuvent être utiles aux médiévistes et comment ils peuvent s’avérer complémentaires d’autres méthodologies. Afin d’articuler au mieux les rencontres avec les attentes des participant·es, ces dernier·ères seront invité·es à soumettre en amont quelque document provenant de leur propre recherche qu’ils et elles jugent susceptible d’être éclairé par les approches présentées lors du séminaire Les cas d’étude sont à compléter et à transmettre jusqu’au 15 juin (cf. formulaire annexé)

Programme provisoire :

Lundi 27 octobre : UCLouvain Saint-Louis – Bruxelles (P61)

9h30  Accueil

9h45  Introduction par le comité organisateur

10h  1. Regards textuels avec Aude Sartenar (UMons) et Svetlana Yatsyk (CNRS)
  première partie

11h30  Pause café

11h50  1. Regards textuels avec Aude Sartenar (UMons) et Svetlana Yatsyk (CNRS)
  deuxième partie

13h20  Pause déjeuner

14h25  2. Penser le monde au Moyen Âge avec Martha Beullens (ULB), Cécile Bonmariage (UCLouvain) et Jérémy Delmulle (IRHT)
  première partie

15h55  Pause café

16h15  2. Penser le monde au Moyen Âge avec Martha Beullens (ULB), Cécile Bonmariage (UCLouvain) et Jérémy Delmulle (IRHT)
  deuxième partie

17h45  Fin de la première journée

Mardi 28 octobre : ULiège (Salle des professeurs)

9h45  Accueil

10h  3. Arts médiévaux avec Etienne Anheim (EHESS) et Marianne Besseyre (Institut de France)
  première partie

11h30  Pause café

11h50  3. Arts médiévaux avec Etienne Anheim (EHESS) et Marianne Besseyre (Institut de France)
  deuxième partie

13h20  Pause déjeuner

14h25  4. Moyen Âge et sciences des matériaux avec Pierre Chastang (UVSQ-Université Paris-Saclay) et Lise Saussus (EHESS)
  première partie

15h55  Pause café

16h15  4. Moyen Âge et sciences des matériaux avec Pierre Chastang (UVSQ-Université Paris-Saclay) et Lise Saussus (EHESS)
  deuxième partie 17h45  Fin de la deuxième journée

Call for Papers: Seminar Series « Euro-Mediterranean Entanglements in Medieval History » 2025/2026

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kordulawolf.bsky.social/post/3lplpd3b5ik2j

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DHIRom/posts/pfbid07iTnNeCCgvkbWqzPMgVs1u2Gdr5GEDrqyiNdBuJ3N1ETVRGKqWHrBVCShDU24Q11l

Organisers: German Historical Institutes of Paris and Rome (Max Weber Foundation)
Location: Online Zoom
Date: Academic year 2025/2026
Language: English
Deadline: 9 June 2025
More information: https://t1p.de/entanglements-call_2025-2026
 
The aim of our online seminar series on « Euro-Mediterranean Entanglements in Medieval History » is to exchange new ideas and perspectives with young and established scholars from all medieval disciplines. Sessions will take place every two months and are intended to provide an international and interdisciplinary forum where different topics and methodological approaches can be presented and discussed.
Our speakers begin with a 10-minute keynote to present their current or recently completed research, followed by a 10-minute commentary from an invited expert. This will be the basis for the subsequent 40-minute discussion with the online audience.
 
Please send an abstract (1–2 pages) and short curriculum vitae (with list of publications, if possible) by June 9, 2025 to asagasser@dhi-paris.fr and wolf@dhi-roma.it.
 
Topics
The geographical area is deliberately not clearly defined and includes Europe, as well as the Mediterranean region in its broadest sense. Interconnections between the Euro-Mediterranean area and other world regions are also included. The following topics are in focus:
•    cross-regional, transcultural, and interreligious entanglements (processes/results).
•    overlapping spaces: between geographic borders and cultural contacts
•    social networks and interpersonal relations
•    mobility and migration
•    transfer, diffusion and adaptation (of ideas, knowledge and material objects)
 
Dates
Tuesdays 5.00-6.00 PM CET

October 28, 2025
November 25, 2025
January 20, 2026
March 31, 2026
May 26, 2026

Contact
If you have any questions about the research seminar, please contact:
Amélie Sagasser (DHI Paris): asagasser@dhi-paris.fr
Kordula Wolf (DHI Rome): wolf@dhi-roma.it

Source : Institut historique allemand

RSA ANNUAL MEETING
SAN FRANCISCO
19TH-22ND FEBRUARY 2026

In Renaissance Europe, the logic of waste was not one of disposal, but of continuity, circulation, and reuse. From rag-paper and metal scraps to worn textiles and broken glass, what modernity often discards was, for Renaissance societies, a resource with monetary, material, and social value. These economies of reuse were not peripheral – they were integral to how industries functioned, cities operated, and people lived.

This session invites contributions that explore how waste, repair, salvage, and recycling functioned as economic practices, social behaviors, and cultural paradigms in the late medieval and early modern period. Rather than viewing discarded materials as mere detritus, we propose to see them as active components of production systems, shaping labor, consumption, commerce, and even worldviews.

We welcome proposals from scholars in history, art history, material culture, economic history, archaeology, literary studies, and related fields.

Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to):

• Types of waste generated by Renaissance industries (e.g., textiles, metals, glass, paper, leather, construction)
• The economic value of salvaged materials and the infrastructure of their reuse
• The cultural significance of mending, repairing, and second-hand use
• Recyclable goods in local, regional, and transnational markets
• The role of gender, class, and profession in reuse economies
• Guild regulations and institutional attitudes toward waste and reuse
• Recycling and urban space: markets, workshops, and storage
• The relationship between household economies and artisanal salvage
• Changing attitudes toward ‘the old, the used, the discarded’
• Waste and early capitalism: an overlooked variable in economic historiography

Please send the following, specifying your current affiliation (if applicable), and language of presentation, to Alessia Meneghin [mea4@uv.es] by 15th July:

• Title (15-words maximum)
• Abstract (200-words maximum)
• 2-pages CV