We are delighted to announce that the first electronic election of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society has been a success. Out of 85 members eligible to vote, 69 members voted. Anne Thayer has been reelected to the Council, and Jessalynn Bird, Pietro Delcorno, and Patricia Stoop have been newly elected.

The new Council has also met to elect its officers. Here is the new Council:

President: Anne Thayer

Vice Presidents: Linda Gale Jones and Patricia Stoop

Secretary: Jessalynn Bird

Treasurer: Pietro Delcorno

Councilors: Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Beata Spieralska-Kasprzyk

Beginning in January 2021, Marjorie Burghart and Holly Johnson will replace Jonathan Adams and Ralf Lützelschwab as co-editors of Medieval Sermon Studies.

A big thank you to everyone who participated in our first electronic election and for your commitment to the IMSSS, and a big thank you to Kim Nguyen and Kim Rivers for making our first electronic election a success!

MEDIEVAL MONKS, NUNS & MONASTIC LIFE

Organizer: Professor Carolyn Muessig
Head of the University of Bristol's Department of Religion and Theology and Co-Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies

Registration is now closed 

If you have questions about the symposium, please contact us at [email protected]

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS INCLUDE CLAUDIA RAPP (AUSTRIA) AND BRIAN PATRICK McGUIRE (DENMARK)

The 2018 IMSSS symposium will explore the breadth and depth of sermon literature and preaching activity relating to monks, nuns, and monastic life, and serve as a microcosm of the religious and cultural landscape of the Middle Ages.

The symposium will be based in the beautiful grounds of the University of Bristol's Wills Hall, and will include a workshop at historic Downside Abbey, with its medieval manuscripts, incunables, and Centre for Monastic Heritage. We will also visit Wells Cathedral, as well as the medieval sites of Bristol. 

See the programme (PDF) or click on the image below

View information on rates for registration and accommodations

View information about the main site of our Symposium, the University of Bristol's beautiful Wills Hall

All details at:

It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death of Gloria Cigman, on December 13, 2018, in Oxford. She was born in London ninety years ago.

From 1968 to 1996, she taught Medieval English Studies at the University of Warwick as Lecturer and then as Senior Lecturer.

We are in Gloria's debt for her founding of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society. She launched the “Medieval Sermon Studies Newsletter” in 1977, and then the Symposia in 1979 at Linacre College in Oxford (UK).

As Leo Carruthers remembers in his short history, «Gloria played a unique role, since it was her dynamism and vision that brought people together and gave the necessary impetus to the group who would go on to found the Society in 1988».

Since the passing of Phyllis Barzillay Roberts in January 2018, this is the second great loss for our Society and many of us this year.

Thank you so much, dear Gloria: we’ll miss you. RIP.

This past July, Flagler College in beautiful St. Augustine, Florida, hosted the 20th biennial symposium of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society, the first symposium to be held in North America.

St. Augustine is the site of the first North American mission, so the theme chosen for this year’s symposium was Preaching and New Worlds. Topics ranged from medieval perceptions of new worlds to images of missionaries in Italian Renaissance art and sermons to the translation of exempla into the Timucuan language, a language spoken by the Native Americans in La Florida.

IMSSS members came from all over the globe to attend the symposium, including France, Italy, Spain, England, Israel, Japan, Russia, and the United States. We all enjoyed the sunshine and Flagler College’s wonderful hospitality. Thanks to Tim Johnson for making this year’s symposium a great success!​

See full information about the IMSSS Symposium event at Flagler.edu.

We hope that many of you will be able to attend the 2016 IMSSS symposium taking place July 22-26 at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. Registration is now open at the following link:

 http://www.flagler.edu/news-events/imsss/