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The Celts, a migratory people, spread from west-central Europe throughout the continent over the course of the first millenium BC; because of the British Isles' location on the periphery of Europe, however, it was in this area that Celtic culture developed most fully and survived the longest. The Celts in Britain managed to absorb the traditions of invaders without diluting their own culture; their literary, folkloric, mythological, and musical traditions, enhanced by their sense of the connection between human and otherworldly concerns, made a great contribution to world literature. The ability of these peoples to preserve and develop their cultures in the face of repeated invasions by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and the Normans merits attention. They offer us a reminder of the ways in which even "conquered" peoples make enormous and valuable contributions to the societies of which they are a part.
The Celts in Britain and Ireland, the fifteenth annual Medieval Studies Spring Lecture Series, will run from 27 March through 30 March 2000. Through a series of seven lectures, the speakers will explore the Celts' rich mythological, artistic, and social heritage. Special attention wil be given to Celtic archaeology, music, literature, mythology, and Celtic art and manuscript
The Lecturers
Bernard Meehan is the Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin and assumes curatorial responsibility for the College's wide-ranging manuscript and archive collections. He is the curator of the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow and has published widely on each of those manuscripts, including The Book of Kells: An Illustrated Introduction to the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin (1994) and The Book of Durrow: A Medieval Masterpiece at Trinity College Dublin (1996). From 1987-97, he fulfilled a government appointment to the National Archives Advisory Council, and he has also served as Chair for the Irish Region of the Society of Archivists.
Christopher D. Morris is the Appointed Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. He was Head of that program from 1990 to 1999 and will become one of the Vice-Principals of the university next year. He specializes in Late Iron Age and Early Medieval archaeology, with a particular focus on Celtic and Viking settlements. Professor Morris has distinguished himself both as an academic and as field archaeologist; throughout the 1990's, much of his attention has been directed to excavations and fieldwork in Cornwall, the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney and Northern Scotland. He has published widely on his findings, including more several more general articles as well as specialist papers and monographs on his excavations at Tintagel and in Scotland. He also enjoys government appointments to the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University. A native of Ireland, he lectured at the University of Dublin for more than twenty years. His publications include The Heroic Biography of Cormac Mac Airt (1977) as numerous articles on early Irish literature, mythology, and language. His research is devoted to various aspects of early Irish narrative literature, including its politico-religious ideology, its relationship to mythology, and its thematic content and structure. He is currently at work on an edition of the Origin Legends of the Déisi, who settled in the South-East of Ireland.
Andrea Budgey is a medievalist and musician who has made a specialty of Celtic music and has a particular interest in Celtic music of the Middle Ages. She received an M.Mus. in performance and an M.A. in medieval studies from the University of Toronto. Currently, she is researching the background to the description of music in Ireland and Wales by the twelfth-century writer Giraldus Cambrensis. She is also a founding member of the SINE NOMINE Ensemble for Medieval Music; the ensemble has recorded a CD, A Golden Treasury of Mediaeval Music, and has performed both in Canada and abroad.
Lecture Schedule
Monday, March 27, 2000 7 PM
Christopher David Morris, Head, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Scotland
"The Vikings and Celtic Britain" - Slide lecture
This slide lecture will function as a bridge between the 1999 Spring Lecture Series on Viking culture and the 2000 Spring Lecture Series on the Celts. It will review Professor Morris' long-term research project involving excavation and survey in Northern Scotland (The Viking and Early Settlement Archaeological Research Project [VESARP]), which has investigated the archaeological remains of a settlement at the center of the Norse Orkney Earldom, fishery remains from Caithness, Norse chapels in Orkney, Shetland, and the Isle of Man, and the coastal archaeology of Caithness and Sutherland. Special attention will be paid to the contribution the project has made to issues concerning the relationship of the incoming Scandinavians to the native Picts in Northern Scotland and, especially, the islands of Orkney and Shetland. Professor Morris is a specialist in the archaeology of Scandinavia and the North Atlantic region from the Iron Age, with a particular concern for the impact of the Vikings and Celts in the British Isles.
Tuesday, March 28, 2000 3:30 PM
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, Professor of Celtic Studies, Harvard University
"Celtic Mythology"
The gods and goddess of the Celts are known to us from iconography and inscriptions, from the commentaries of Greek and Roman observers, and from the vernacular literature of Ireland and Wales. The Irish and Welsh texts can also be examined in the wider comparative perspective afforded by other mythological systems. The current "state of play" in the study of Celtic mythology will be examined in this lecture.
Tuesday, March 28, 2000 7 PM
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, Professor of Celtic Studies, Harvard University
"Celtic Literature and Culture"
The medieval literatures of the Irish and Welsh reflect the very different historical experience of the two peoples, but their Celtic heritage is also strongly represented. In this lecture we shall look at some aspects of this heritage, especially the prestige and role of the learned classes in the two countries, and of their predecessors among the continental Celts. In Ireland, which never became part of the Roman empire, the Church reached an early accommodation with the native learned classes, with the result that a mass of vernacular texts survives from the seventh century onwards, something that is unique in Europe. The salient characteristics of this material will be considered.
Wednesday, March 29, 2000 4 PM
Andrea Budgey, Instructor, University of Toronto, Co-director, Sine Nomine
"Celtic Music" - Lecture (with demonstration)
Music is the aspect of Celtic culture perhaps most readily recognized and most popular today. The traces left by medieval Celtic music in literature, in Irish and Welsh laws, in art, in manuscript sources, and in later music tradition are fascinating and often elusive. This lecture will explore what we can discover about the sound-world which enveloped Celtic secular and religious life in the Middle Ages; it will examine the lives and status of musicians and the role of music in the society in which they worked. The lecture will include demonstrations of medieval Celtic music using voice and harp.
Wednesday, March 29, 2000 7 PM
Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts, Trinity College, Dublin
"The Book of Kells" - Slide lecture
The Book of Kells can be numbered among a handful of works of art known, at least by repute, to all. Yet, uniquely among such works, the Book of Kells is not a single image but a collection of images, the content and purpose of which are frequently enigmatic. We do not know the name of its artists, and we do not know with certainty when or where it was produced. This lecture will deal with the diversity of work contained in the manuscript, with its scribes and artists, and with its cultural status in Ireland.
Thursday, March 30, 2000 3:30 PM
Christopher David Morris, Head, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Scotland
"Arthurian Myth and Archaeological Reality: Reflections from Tintagel, Cornwall" - Slide lecture
Tintagel was long seen as a key site for understanding the "Celtic monastery" concept, but more recent work in the 1970's and 1980's has prompted a re-evaluation of post-Roman society-and of this site. Tintagel appears now to be a key secular site--most probably a "citadel" of the rulers, with a key role in the links to the Mediterranean world, as evidenced by imported pottery found in huge numbers at this site. This lecture will review the large-scale excavations carried out by Dr. Morris at Tintagel in Cornwall, and his re-evaluation of the work of Dr. Raleigh Radford, an earlier excavator of the site. He will discuss the structural, artefactual and ecofactual evidence from these excavations, as well as some of the issues ensuing from the popular association of the Arthurian myth with this site. Dr. Morris will illustrate his lecture with slides from the Tintagel excavations. The objective of the lecture is to emphasize the potential Tintagel has for illuminating the nature of contacts between the Insular area and the Mediterranean world at this time.
Thursday, March 30, 2000 7 PM
Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts, Trinity College, Dublin
"The Golden Age of Irish Art: Irish Christian Art and Artifacts" - Slide lecture
The period from the 6th to the 9th century is frequently referred to as the golden age of Irish art, an age which produced a number of undisputed masterpieces: the Tara brooch, the Derrynaflan paten, and the Book of Durrow, among others. This lecture will survey artistic work in manuscripts, metalwork and stone from the 6th century to around the year 800 AD. It will concentrate on developments in manuscript art, and on problems of dating and localisation.
2000 Spring Lecture Series Sponsors
Sponsored by: The University of New Mexico Institute for Medieval Studies in conjunction with the Center for Advanced Studies; College of Arts & Sciences Lecturer's Series; European Studies Program; International Programs; Religious Studies Program; University Honors Program; Women Studies Program; School of Architecture and Planning; the Departments of Art and Art History. Earth and Planetary Sciences. English, Foreign Languages and Literatures, History. Linguistics, Mathematics and Statistics, Music, Philosophy, Physics and Astronomy. Psychology, Spanish and Portuguese: the Bainbridge Memorial Slide Library; the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology; the Fleming Fund; the Luger Fund; the Shapiro and Robertson Fund:and KUNM.
This Lecture Series is supported by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities.
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