Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures

The Medium Aevum Essay Prize 2027 is now open to submissions! 📅Deadline: 12:00 midday (GMT) Tuesday 1st December, 2026 👩🏾‍🎓Eligibility: Graduate students and those who have completed a higher degree within the last three years 📝Submission: An essay of 6,500-8,000 words 🏆Prize: £500

SSMLL has awarded the Medium Ævum Essay Prize since 2008. Postgraduates and those recently graduated with a higher degree are invited to submit an essay that falls within the range of the interests of Medium Ævum (loosely defined as the fifth to the fifteenth century, in the Western calendar).

It was with great sadness that the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature learned of the death of our Past President (2015-2018), Prof. Julia Boffey, on Friday 11th September 2026.

A distinguished scholar of late medieval English literature and the cultures in which it was produced, she was both gracious and selfless, and her exemplary leadership of the Society encapsulated many of her virtues.

The latest issue of the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, Medium Ævum (94.2), has now been published! Medium Ævum (94.2) contains the articles: 🖊️Mar Gutiérrez-Ortiz, 'Insular additions to Isidore’s Etymologiae?' [1/5]

🖊️Eric Weiskott, 'The authenticity of the rubrics in the A-text of Piers Plowman' 🖊️Janice Pinder, 'A Carthusian mirror for princesses? The Dialogus inter Christum et principissam of Denys the Carthusian' [4/5]

The latest issue of the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, Medium Ævum (94.2), has now been published! Medium Ævum (94.2) contains the articles: 🖊️Mar Gutiérrez-Ortiz, 'Insular additions to Isidore’s Etymologiae?' [1/5]

🖊️Miguel C. Fernandes, 'Numbers, words, and gestures: grammar and the medieval tradition of finger-counting' 🖊️Leon Jacobowitz-Efron, 'Il Mal Sartor: the underbelly of the tailor simile in Inferno xv.21' [2/5]

In the second of our new partnership announcements, we are delighted to share that from 2027, Medium Ævum Monographs will be published by @brepols.net [1/4]

President of SSMLL Professor Alastair Minnis writes: 'The intellectual values of our monograph series, and indeed of SSMLL at large, align perfectly with those of this press: we promote the scholarly interests and skills necessary for study of the production [...] [3/4]

In the second of our new partnership announcements, we are delighted to share that from 2027, Medium Ævum Monographs will be published by @brepols.net [1/4]

NEW PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: Medium Ævum, the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature (SSMLL), will join University of Chicago Press Journals publishing program beginning in 2027. [1/6]

'...which will allow us to accommodate better images. This will also ensure that the journal can return to using footnotes rather than ones confined to the end of the article’. [5/6]

NEW PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: Medium Ævum, the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature (SSMLL), will join University of Chicago Press Journals publishing program beginning in 2027. [1/6]

'...auguring a new era for our long-established and highly-regarded journal. The new arrangement will help us bring the excellent research we publish to fresh audiences’. [3/6]

NEW PARTNERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT: Medium Ævum, the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature (SSMLL), will join University of Chicago Press Journals publishing program beginning in 2027. [1/6]

It was a pleasure to celebrate the launch of the Nigel F. Palmer Travel Fund fundraising effort with Nigel's family, friends, and Society Members last night. The Nigel F. Palmer Travel Fund will support graduate students' travel to visit libraries, archives and sites of historical significance.

We warmly invite you to join a wine reception to launch the Nigel F. Palmer Travel Fund, to be held at 18:00, Monday 11 May in the Hinrich Reemtsma Auditorium of the Warburg Institute. The Fund will support graduate students whose research in medieval languages and literature necessitates travel.

The Mortimer History Society will once again offer two Research Bursaries for the academic year 2026 to 2027 of £1,000 each. The MHS Bursary programme is designed to support new research into any aspect of the medieval (1066 to 1536) Welsh March, the Marcher lordships or the Mortimer family.

It's day two of the SSMLL Annual Conference 2026: Medieval Wales at Cardiff University! Both the weather and the scholarship are already hotting up, with Scott Lloyd giving the first paper of the day, 'From Tref to Cantref: Mapping Medieval Welsh Boundaries for the Digital Age' 🗺

We are now in the final session of the Medieval Wales conference, featuring: ⚔ Luciana Cordo Russo on crusade discourse and epic elements in Kedymdeithyas Amlyn ac Amic 🏰Bridgid Ehrmantraut on Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales, and the Ruins of Caerleon

It's day two of the SSMLL Annual Conference 2026: Medieval Wales at Cardiff University! Both the weather and the scholarship are already hotting up, with Scott Lloyd giving the first paper of the day, 'From Tref to Cantref: Mapping Medieval Welsh Boundaries for the Digital Age' 🗺

Session 4 has also featured: 🖍Elissa Chiariotti speaking on 'The Rubricators of the Hendregadredd Manuscript (NLW MS 668oB)' 🐉Makenzie Marshall presenting 'The Missing Dark Dragon: An Exploration of the Modified 'Prophecy of the Eagle' in Peniarth 27ii'

It is a beautiful day in Cardiff for the start of the SSMLL Annual Conference 2026: Medieval Wales! What better way to start the day than with Welsh cakes and our first paper of the conference by Thomas Clancy, 'What's the commotion? Sound, structure and sense in Ystoria Gereint uab Erbin'

Our AGM has concluded, where we celebrated the winner of the Medium Aevum Essay Prize 2026, Clara Bykvist (Queen's College, Oxford), for her essay 'The Liber Iparchi: A Twelfth Century Forgery of Ancient Astronomy. Congratulations Clara!

It is a beautiful day in Cardiff for the start of the SSMLL Annual Conference 2026: Medieval Wales! What better way to start the day than with Welsh cakes and our first paper of the conference by Thomas Clancy, 'What's the commotion? Sound, structure and sense in Ystoria Gereint uab Erbin'

Session 1 featured three further fantastic papers from Natalia Petrovskaia, @ascolotl.bsky.social, and Jessica Shales. After a break for a convivial lunch (with more Welsh cakes) we return for Session 2.