Talk: Sumer is Icumen In – ‘The Reading Rota’

What:

Was the Reading Rota manuscript created in Reading? 

This talk will look at the contents of the manuscript overall, and will compare both them and the styles of script and illumination with other Reading manuscripts. It is surprisingly wide-ranging, as the manuscript also contains 'fortune-telling' texts, medical recipes, lists of medicinal plants, works by Marie de France, and instructions for fashionable styles of singing.  This will provide the background for discussion of thirteenth-century monastic and professional medicine, romance literature and poetry, and music; together with an attempt to answer the puzzling question of why monks should possess and use such a collection!

Anne Lawrence-Mathers is a professor of medieval history at the University of Reading, and has written and researched on manuscript studies and on medieval science and magic.  Relevant publications are: Medieval Meteorology (Cambridge University Press) and The Magic Books (Yale University Press).

Who:

Adults and older children

For More Information:

Visit the manuscript, currently on display in our Story of Reading Gallery: Sumer is Icumen in – ‘The Reading Rota’ | Reading Museum