Thursday 27 February 2025, 7pm via Zoom
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Dr Kathryn Dutton, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds and Lincoln Record Society Nigel Burn Large Research Grant holder
Kirkstead Abbey and the Beks of Eresby
This paper assesses the extensive evidence provided by the newly-transcribed charters and cartulary of Kirkstead Abbey, alongside extant conventual seals, episcopal memoranda and late-medieval compilations, for the role played by the family which came to be known as the Beks of Eresby in the history of this major Cistercian foundation. Hitherto considered primarily a Tattershall enterprise, this evidence provides a powerful picture of the influence of the Bek dynasty on the abbey’s formation, holdings, immediate landscape and commemorative practices, as well as the fashioning of its own monastic identity. In this, we can observe some important dynamics which shaped the Bek-Kirkstead relationship, including the influence of women, the use of forgery and the importance of wider local lordly relationships.
Dr Owain Gardner, Affiliate Researcher in History, University of Glasgow
New Research on Robert Grosseteste – towards a Metaphysics of Music
The modern study of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235-1253), has rediscovered his multidisciplinary ways of working by way of considering the connections between nearly all subjects of the medieval Trivium/Quadrivium (the Seven Liberal Arts).
There has been considerable interest, both historically and more recently, in Grosseteste’s conceptions of Theology, Philosophy, ecclesiastical reform of the largest diocese in medieval England and his scientific works. But there appears to be a plank missing in respect of Grosseteste’s conception of music, its role in the world and also its utility in the cura animarum.
We only need look to Grosseteste’s episcopal familia – containing as it did two Franciscans, two Dominicans and a Harpist – to see quite how important music was to him, in warding off the devil or hearing Psalm 150 for example. I propose to consider this in my paper, by way of using music as a lens through which to view Grosseteste in the round.
Furthermore, I propose to explore the idea that Grosseteste held a deeply personal Metaphysics of Music, comparable to his Metaphysics of Light, such was the importance of music to him personally and within his thought as its very ubiquity enables all to be engaged without the need for language.