Panels

Panel 1 - Historical Pragmatics and Stylistics

Panel 2 - Navigating the Lexicon

Panel 3 - Travelling Glosses

Panel 4 - Spiritual Journeys

Panel 1: Historical Pragmatics and Stylistics

Panel convenors: Sara Pons-Sanz (Cardiff University), Annina Seiler (University of Zurich) and Louise Sylvester (University of Westminster)

This panel seeks to explore how textual effects and meanings are created in Middle English texts through the application of theoretical approaches in pragmatics and stylistics. Papers might include investigations relating to lexical choice and semantics; address terms; communicative contexts of texts; communicative contexts dramatized within literary texts; representations of speech and thought; effects of transitivity choices; speech acts; politeness and impoliteness. Literary and/or non-literary texts may form the data for investigation and we welcome proposals on these or any other approaches within the broad areas of pragmatics and stylistics.

 

 

Panel 2: Navigating the Lexicon

Panel convenors: WAW-ME project members: Olga Timofeeva (University of Zurich), Annina Seiler (University of Zurich), Johanna Vogelsanger (University of Zurich), Rihab Ayed (University of Zurich), Anthony Harris (University of Cambridge), Tabea Hilbe (University of Zurich), Karin Taglang (University of Zurich)

Kay & Roberts (2000: xv) famously described the Thesaurus of Old English (TOE) as an “inside-out dictionary”, and the same can be said of e.g. the Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE), which is a re-organisation of the Oxford English Dictionary according to a semantic hierarchy. Both the TOE and the HTE use roughly the same approach, with very general sense categories at the top to which increasingly specific sub-categories are added. A slightly different approach was taken for the Bilingual Thesaurus of Everyday Life in Medieval England (BTh), which is primarily organised according to semantic roles (Alexander & Kay 2025). The BTh also includes Anglo-French in addition to Middle English words. In our own ongoing project, Waxing and Waning Words: Lexical Variation and Change in Middle English (WAW-ME), we are currently assembling a lexico-semantic database focused on four semantic domains: LAW, MEDICINE, EDUCATION, RELIGION. In addition to lexico-semantic information, this database will also include information on diatopic and diaphasic occurrence of individual words and phrases, and therefore necessitates further exploration and consideration of different approaches to classifying, publishing, and visualising this information. 

This panel is dedicated to large-scale, conceptual and theoretical approaches to the Middle English lexicon, and we invite proposals for both regular papers and inputs for a roundtable on more practical aspects. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• semantic hierarchies and other classification approaches
• practical problems and solutions related to creating thesauri and other lexico-semantic databases
• historical/medieval conceptualisations of lexical fields and lexico-semantic relationships
• (conceptual) metaphors of language change
• case studies on specific lexical or semantic fields
• discussions and evaluations of specific (lexicographical) resources

References

Alexander, Marc and Christian Kay. 2025. About. About the Historical Thesaurus of English. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. https://thesaurus.ac.uk/bth/about/https://thesaurus.ac.uk/bth/about/

Roberts, Jane & Christian J. Kay, with Lynne Grundy. 2000. Introduction. A Thesaurus of Old English, Volume 1: Introduction and Thesaurus. Second Revised Edition (King’s College London Medieval Studies XI), vol. 1. Amsterdam: Brill, xv–xxxvi. (doi:10.1163/9789004485235) (https://brill.com/view/title/31527)

 

 

Panel 3: Travelling Glosses

Panel convenors: Heather Pagan (University of Westminster), Annina Seiler (University of Zurich), Christine Wallis (University of Westminster)

As Peggy A. Knapp (2000: 66) explains, “The practice of inserting explanatory material between the lines or in the margins of important texts […] grounded the production and dissemination of knowledge during the Middle Ages.” Latin and vernacular glosses were added to the Bible, to the works of Classical authors, to scientific texts, to lexical and grammatical works, and even to vernacular literature, etc., to preserve and expand the existing body of learning. As visible traces of reader engagement, they reflect the communities of practice behind these activities. Moreover, they shed light on how such activities evolved over time and through space. Groups of glosses often travelled with the texts they explain, though new layers might be added, and obsolete material discarded. This panel is dedicated to glosses that travel across space and/or time with a link to high and/or late medieval England. We invite papers dealing with any aspect of the dissemination and transmission of glosses, commentaries and glossed texts, for example:

•               multilingual glosses

•               glosses that move between languages

•               glosses linked to specific communities of practice

•               glosses that change shape in their transmission

•               Middle English glosses on Old English texts, etc.

 

We aim to discuss the roles that glosses played in the dissemination of learning and the establishment of scholarly communities of practice and to explore the implications of changes to glosses on various levels.

References:

Copeland, Rita. 2012. ‘Gloss and Commentary.’ In: Ralph Hexter and David Townsend (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 171-191.

Hunt, Tony. 1991. Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

Knapp, Peggy A. 2000. ‘Gloss’. In: Time-Bound Words. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 66–79.

Kuczynski, Michael P. 2016. ‘Glossing and Glosses’. In: Elizabeth Solopova (ed.). The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation. Leiden: Brill. 346-367.

Minnis, Alastair J. 2014. ‘Inglorious Glosses?’ In Ana Sáez-Hidalgo and Robert F. Yeager (eds.). John Gower in England and Iberia: Manuscripts, Influences, Reception. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. 51-76.

Rothwell, William. 1993. ‘From Latin to Anglo-French and Middle English: the role of the multilingual gloss.’ The Modern Language Review 88: 581-599.

 

 

Panel 4: Spiritual journeys

Panel convenors: Olena Danylovych (University of Lausanne), Mireille Le Berre (University of Lausanne)

Spiritual journeys are an important theme in medieval literature, whether framed as allegorical pilgrimages, mystical ascent towards annihilation in the divine, or internal quests for self-knowledge. These itineraries, just like physical travel, involve trial and transformation, overcoming emotional and physical obstacles and the discovery of real or imagined landscapes. The ultimate goal is spiritual progression, reshaping the self in the pursuit of a potential encounter with the divine.

This panel explores the diverse representations of spiritual journeys across medieval texts, examining how authors construct pathways toward salvation, enlightenment, or despair.

We invite papers dealing with all aspects of spiritual journeys such as (but not exclusively):

• Spiritual itineraries, progression, obstacles and goals
• How genre and form impact spiritual travel narratives
• Instructions for and expressions of mystical ascent
• Pilgrimage read as a quest for self-knowledge
• Religious interpretation of landscape (desert, sea, wilderness)
• Spiritual journeys in relation to space, time, and the body.