When we read a text, we think we know who wrote it, but in the early modern period, manuscript production was often a collaborative or ‘socialised’ enterprise involving secretaries and scribes who physically wrote what the author dictated.

Masterclass

Early Medieval Grave Reopenings in the Low Countries

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.

New Texts and Studies on Christian Nubian Culture

Central to the research of several cluster members are the social function and contexts of the production and consumption of medieval and early modern art, literature and media:

From once controversial scientific works and historical bibles, to personal shopping lists and clothing bills. The 17th-century Bibliotheca Thysiana and the archive of the collector Johannes Thysius exhibit both the intellectual and everyday life as it was three hundred years ago. Now a brand-new digital…

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

On the next meeting of the Committee of Education and Research three new student representatives will be appointed.

Lecture

In Mapping the Pāśupata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the Śaiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India, Elizabeth A. Cecil explores the sacred geography of the earliest community of Śiva devotees called the Pāśupatas.

Conference

Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture (2018)

Conference

Exhibition

From 17 to 19 September, the University of Granada organized the 27th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM).

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

An Introduction and Field Guide, Second and Revised Edition (15 December 2014)

The Leiden University Institute for History is responsible for the main part of the historical research carried out at Leiden University. The institute has a wide-ranging academic scope.

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology specialises in the macroscopic and microscopic analysis of human remains. We use cutting edge scientific approaches to address archaeological, historical, and anthropological research questions. In addition to paleopathological, histological, and 3D scanning…

LUCIS Summer School

LUCAS’ Medieval and Early Modern (MEM) cluster brings together expertise in the fields of art, literature and media. It focuses on the arts in society in Europe and beyond during a vast period of time, from the 7th through to the 18th centuries CE.

Nirajan Kafle defended his thesis on 15 October 2015

This dissertation explores the history of the language of a manuscript known as Tönnies Fonne's Russian-German Phrasebook (Pskov 1607).

Asim Zubcevic defended his thesis on 11 November 2015

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A comparative study on the spatial origin and development of towns in the northern Netherlands, 700-1400.

Recently, archeologists of Leiden University made an excavation in Oegstgeest, where they found a unique silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century as well as imported pottery and winebarrels. Thijs Porck, lecturer in Old English language and culture at Leiden University, places the Oegstgeest…

Course, LUCIS Summer School

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

The primary aim of this project is to recover, order, and assess Persian Epic Cycle material in order to provide the field of Iranian studies with the first comprehensive and balanced analysis of the form and contents of the epics within the Persian Epic Cycle.

Workshop

LUCIS What's New Lecture

Debate

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

The Research MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers two years and can be studied in four tracks: Classics is one of them. While diving into the literary, cultural and intellectual worlds of Greece and Rome, you will be involved in current research, and stimulated to reflect on the significance…

The MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers one year and can be studied in four tracks: Classics is one of them. While diving into the literary, cultural and intellectual worlds of Greece and Rome, you will be involved in current research, and stimulated to reflect on the significance of Classics…

This sections showcases PhD projects in the field.

Lecture

The Indigenous Calendars of Mexico and Guatemala

This dissertation examines how we can reconstruct physical activity by looking at variations in the shape of muscle attachment sites ( ‘entheses’) on the human skeleton. It evaluates two post-medieval contexts; rural Middenbeemster and urban Aalst.

For thousands of years, societies have fallen under the reign of a single leader, ruling as chief, king, or emperor. In this fascinating global history of medieval and early modern dynastic power, Jeroen Duindam charts the rise and fall of dynasties, the rituals of rulership, and the contested presence…

LUCIS produces various video series and MOOCs to showcase the variety of expertise available at Leiden University.

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…