New project book out Open Access!
We are delighted to share the news that Liturgy, Literature, and History. Oswald of Northumbria and the Cult of Saints in the Middle Ages has been published by the British Academy. The book, which uses Oswald of Northumbria as a case study to understand the dynamics of saintly cults in the Middle Ages, is edited…
New short YouTube film in the “Glimpses of German History” series!
Glimpses of German History is a series of short films made by the German History Society, which uses objects to shed light on German history. In this short film, Dr Johanna Dale discusses the reliquary of St Oswald from Hildesheim Cathedral. This unique reliquary claims to contain Oswald’s head (spoiler: it almost certainly does not!)…
Landscapes of Sanctity in Sankt Oswald
There has been a religious building dedicated to St Oswald in this small valley in the Nock Mountains since some time before 1197, when a chapel is first mentioned in the context of the nearby monastery at Millstatt coming into possession of lands in the area. In the following century the chapel became a church…
Heaven(field) is a place on Earth
In a lay-by by the side of the B6318 in rural Northumberland there stands an oak cross, which was installed in the 1930s. What is this monument doing in a roadside lay-by, just east of the site of Turret 25B on Hadrian’s Wall, one of the series of turrets and milecastles that protected the wild…
2025 Conference
We are pleased to announce that we will be holding a project conference at the Institute of Advanced Studies at UCL on 2nd and 3rd July 2025. Please keep an eye on the conference page of this website for information about the programme and details of how to book, which will be released in due…
Book launch: St Peter-on-the-Wall: Landscape and heritage on the Essex Coast
26 February 2024, 5:30 pm–7:30 pm at UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) In the mid-seventh century, St Cedd, who had been trained at Oswald’s foundation of Lindisfarne, undertook missionary work in the Kingdom of the East Saxons. He founded two monasteries, one at Tilbury and one at Bradwell on Sea. The Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall,…
Landscapes of Sanctity
Call for papers and ECR bursaries for Leeds IMC 2024 We welcome applications from Early Career Researchers to participate in panels on ‘Landscapes of Sanctity’ to be put forward for the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024. Four successful applicants will each be given a bursary of £450 towards the costs of attending the conference, funded by the…
Grant success!
We’re delighted to share the news that medievalists Dr Johanna Dale (PI, UCL History) and Dr Sarah Bowden (Co-I, King’s German) have been awarded a grant of £248,718 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their project “Liturgical and literary landscapes: the cult of St Oswald of Northumbria in the German-speaking world” Sankt Oswald…
Oswald in the margins
Annotations and additions in a medieval manuscript copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Johanna Dale We tend to think that writing in library books is a bad thing. Some time ago the Cambridge University Library held a small exhibition showing some of the most egregious examples in their collection. I remember seeing on display a library…
Lancaster University Regional Heritage Centre Online Event
Johanna Dale will be giving a talk about the cult of Oswald of Northumbria in the medieval German Empire as part of Saints’ Lives and Medieval History in Northern England, an online study event organised by the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster University. The study event comprises pre-recorded talks and a live discussion on Saturday…
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Oswald of Northumbria 