This new study by professor Peter Hoppenbrouwers focuses on conflict in village communities of late medieval Drenthe in order to depict a typical peasant society in late medieval Europe.

Family, Work, and Household presents the social and occupational life of a late medieval Iberian town in rich, unprecedented detail. The book combines a diachronic study of two regionally prominent families—one knightly and one mercantile—with a detailed cross-sectional urban study of household and…

This book is witness to Hendrik Vanden Abeele’s research into the development, construction and creation of a present-day performance practice of late medieval plainchant, based partly on his work with the Belgian chant group Psallentes.

The Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (LAMS) is an academic initiative housed at the Leiden University Institute of Philosophy. It brings together researchers and academics working on one or more aspects of late antiquity and medieval studies, across the fields of philosophy, history, theology,…

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

Politically speaking, the Frisian coastal area constitutes a special case in late medieval Europe since it was not subject to an overlord as it withstood feudalization in the 13th century. Its many sub regions, which were dominated by elites of small noblemen and freeholders, long time succeeded in…

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

How did Anglo-Saxons reflect on the experience of growing old? Was it really a golden age for the elderly, as has been suggested?

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

This book is a celebration of the work of Professor Frans Theuws and was published in conjunction with the symposium held at the University of Leiden, June 29, 2018. It comprises of 38 archaeological papers from over 50 authors. They range from the Roman period, Early Medieval, Early medieval in the…

The Corfu Papers

The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie is one of the first long-term studies in English of an Iberian town during the late medieval crisis. Focusing on the Catalonian city of Manresa, Jeff Fynn-Paul expertly integrates Iberian historiography with European narratives to place the city's social,…

Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 provides a comprehensive survey of this complex and varied formative period of European history, covering themes as diverse as barbarian migrations, the impact of Christianisation, the formation of nations and states, the emergence of an expansionist commercial…

Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Cuisine and Western Foodways

Mapping sanitary infrastructure in large urban societies in the Low Countries, 1200–1900

Due to the fact that the Frisian lands lacked major political centers in the Middle Ages and also because most of its monasteries suffered complete destruction in the second half of the 16th century, relatively few written documents concerning medieval Frisian history have survived. To analyze them…

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book Leiden researchers take stock.

This book is a result of the collective research project Urban Societies in the Port Towns of Atlantic Europe in the Late Middle Ages. It studies the connections between diplomacy and trade from a comparative and transnational perspective throughout medieval Atlantic Europe.

This research project studies the distribution and impact of medieval malaria in the Netherlands.

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations.

To our regret we have to postpone the annual Medieval Studies Day of the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, the Reflection Symposium, which was planned for December 17, to the spring of 2022. (Exact date to be decided). The present Covid-19 situation does not allow for a safe and productive…

Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

Within the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, medievalists from six Dutch universities work together. The school (together with the local graduate schools of the universities) takes care of the training of researchers focussed on the Middle Ages and provides educational activities…

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Byzantine and Ottoman Archaeology, Amsterdam, 21-23 October 2011

This research project focuses on the thoughts of ethnicity and political orthodoxy in Medieval China by investigating Wang Tong’s works.

This research programme encourages the analysis of nascent Islam within the framework of religious studies.

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

In Voices on Birchbark Jos Schaeken explores the major role that writing on birchbark – an ephemeral, even ‘throw-away’ form of correspondence and administration – played in the vibrant medieval merchant city of Novgorod and other cities in the Russian Northwest.

This project aims to answer the following questions: how did the landscape and geography of the local surroundings of Chalcis impact medieval to early modern productivity, habitation, mobility and interaction in a wider sense? And where are such changes and continuations still visible in the landsca…

The times between the Neolithic and Urban revolutions in Mesopotamia have for a long time been interpreted as a period of stagnation. This volume is part of an emerging discourse that challenges such assumptions.

Magistri Symonis (?) Questiones secunde partis Doctrinalis Alexandri de Villa Dei First Critical Edition from the Manuscript with Introduction, Appendices and Indexes

This project incorporates spatiality into the discussion of medieval demography, allowing for a more nuanced view on medieval town populations. It establishes a maximum population count for towns for periods prior to 1400 and provides a means to compare the ranking of towns using size and density instead…

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

Report on the Excavations of the University of Amsterdam (1988) and the National Museum of Antiquities Leiden (1991-1993) in Syria.

By comparing the archaeological evidence at Sedgeford and other sites located on both English and Continental coastal zones, what evidence is there for a shared maritime culture between these North Sea communities? Also if evidence is found, can we reveal to some extent a separate coastal identity to…

The contributions in this volume seek to highlight the atypical features of the Hanse, and place them in a wider context of common roots, influences and parallel developments.

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score.