Posted by Edward Mills
22 September 2025autumnus, illo ad inferiora decidente, siccus et frigidus.
Bede, ‘The Reckoning of Time’ (c. 725)
Autumn, when the Sun falls to the lower regions, is dry and cold.
As campus starts to regain its usual buzz of activity after the summer hiatus, we’re once again thrilled to share another exciting programme of events taking place this term at the Centre for Medieval Studies.
Details for the upcoming term’s events are now available on the Centre’s website. Mark your calendars for Wednesday 24th September, when we’ll be kicking off the new term with our traditional welcome event. There’s a decidedly early-medieval theme to this term’s seminars, with topics ranging from scribal practice to how Arabic medicine was understood and interpreted. The annual Barton Lecture will take place on 4th December, when we’ll be joined by Andrew Jostischky from Royal Holloway.
We’re working to confirm details of our reading groups for the coming weeks, and more details will be available shortly on the website. Weekly updates on all our events are sent to our dedicated mailing list, mediev@list.exeter.ac.uk; if you aren’t yet a member of this list, and would like to stay up-to-date with everything going on at the Centre, please email Gregory Lippiatt.
Things are looking similarly busy on the blog, too. Regular Monday posts will resume from next week, when new contributor Elliot Kendall will take us on a trip to southern Italy as he falls down a research rabbit-hole. In future weeks, we’ll be heading to Spain, with medievalist colleagues in Modern Languages; to Britain, taking a closer glance at some extremely dapper horses; and to the realm of the theoretical, as we ask how far we can (or should) talk about ‘medieval neurodivergence’.
If you’re interested in writing for the blog this term, please don’t hesitate to get in touch; we’re particularly keen to hear from undergraduates, postgraduates, and new members of the Centre, but welcome any and all contributors with a connection to Exeter (however loosely-defined).
Latin text from C. W. Jones (ed.), ‘Bedae, Opera temporibus’ (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1943), p. 246. Translation adapted from Faith Wallis, ‘Bede, The Reckoning of Time’ (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), p. 100. Header image: picking berries, from a 13th-century calendar page for September. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 1186 (réserve), fol. 6r.