The John Coffin Memorial Annual Palaeography Lecture celebrates current work by leading scholars tackling questions pertaining to the script and reading of medieval manuscripts.

Past lectures:

2018-19, Prof. Susan Rankin (University of Cambridge), Writing Music on Parchment in the Early Middle Ages.

2017-18, Prof. A.S.G. (Tony) Edwards (University of Kent), What is Palaeography for? The role of Palaeography in Scholarly Research from the Nineteenth Century onwards.

2016-17, Prof. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (École Pratique des Hautes Études), Crossing Palaeographical Borders: Bi-alphabetical Hebrew scribes and manuscripts in Egypt, Spain and Northern France (11th to 15th centuries).

2015-16, Prof. Daniel Wakelin (University of Oxford), “Let me slip into something less comfortable”: Gothic textualis by accident and by design.

2014-15, Prof. Nicholas Vincent (University of East Anglia), Who Wrote Magna Carta? Lecture available here.

2013-14, Dr James Willoughby (University of Oxford), The Hand of Ralph of Coggeshall. Chronicle-Making in the Reign of King John.

2012-13, Prof. Mirella Ferrari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), From Milan to Europe. The Transmission and Diffusion of the Works of St Ambrose. Lecture available here.

2011-12, Prof. Jennifer O’Reilly (University College Cork), Inscribed Images and Inscribed Scribes.

2010-11, Prof. James Carley (York University), “In Private Men’s Hand”: The library of Archbishop Whitgift (d. 1604): Sources, catalogue and dispersal. Lecture available here.

2009-10, Prof. Teresa Webber (University of Cambridge), Reading in the Refectory: Monastic practice in England, c.1000-c.1300. Lecture available here.

2008-9, Prof. Vincent Gillespie (University of Oxford), Fatherless Books: Authorship, attribution, and orthodoxy in later medieval England.

2007-8, Dr Margaret Bent (University of Oxford), The Re-making of the 15th-Century Veneto Musical Anthology MS Bologna Q15.

2006-7, Prof. Richard Gameson (University of Durham), Codices Circumientes: The circulation of books between England and the Continent c.871-c.1100.

2005-6, Dr Christopher de Hamel (University of Cambridge), The Library of Abbot Simon of Saint Albans.

2004-5, Prof. Martin Steinmann (University of Basel), Abbot Frowin of Engelberg and His Books: A Swiss scriptorium of the 12th century.