The Medieval and Early Modern Week 2025 is running from Saturday 5 – Saturday 12 April. Here are some events to get involved in:

Ballads of Robyn Hode

Saturday 5 April, 2pm and 4pm, St Mary le Wigford Church, Lincoln High Street (near the Railway Station).

Tales of outlaws have captured human imagination for centuries, none more so than the legendary Robyn Hode. Come along to The Lincoln Mystery Plays performances of ‘Ballads of Robyn Hode’ to be entertained and enchanted as we sing and enact these medieval tales – both comic and macabre, sinister and cerebral. Accompanied by the Lincoln Mystery Players with their medieval instruments, we will tell of hungry outlaws, destitute knights, luckless clerics and an exasperated King who will fall foul of his capers.

Our ballads, drawn from the earliest written tales of Robyn Hode, convey the famed outlaw in his authentic medieval context. A violent criminal, loyal to his friends, antagonistic to authority and utterly brutal to his enemies – this is not the hero you know!

Performances at 2pm and 4pm

Performances last for approximately an hour – No ticket is required, but registrations will help us prepare for attendance numbers.
If you are planning to attend one of the performances, please register here: https://forms.office.com/e/hv0vrgDnJi

Performances will take place in the medieval church of St. Mary-Le-Wigford as part of the University of Lincoln’s Medieval and Early Modern Week and last approximately one hour. No tickets are needed but your donations for the upkeep of this, the oldest church in Lincoln, will be most gratefully accepted.

---

Medieval Studies Annual Lecture 2025 – Edward Woodville’s Teeth: Warfare and Masculinity in the Late Middle Ages

Tuesday 8 April, 6pm-7:30pm – Co-Op Lecture Theatre (MB0312), Minerva Building, Brayford Campus, University of Lincoln
If you are planning to attend one of the performances, please register here: https://forms.office.com/e/hv0vrgDnJi

Medieval Studies Annual Lecture Speaker: Professor Katherine Lewis

Abstract:
In 1486, Edward Woodville (brother-in-law of Edward IV of England) joined the campaign being waged by Isabel of Castile and Fernando of Aragon against the Emirate of Granada. While scaling the walls of the town of Loja, Edward was struck by a rock thrown from the ramparts which smashed out his front teeth. This paper considers the gendered implications of Edward’s loss of teeth, by suggesting the impact which this injury had on Edward’s masculinity. Edward’s injury and accounts of reactions to it in contemporary chronicles are examined against the wider experience of medieval warfare and attitudes to physical injury and disfigurement.

Bio:
Professor Katherine Lewis is honorary chair at the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Lincoln. Her research focuses on medieval gender history. She has published on the cults of female saints, especially St Katherine of Alexandria and other virgin martyr saints, as well as on Margery Kempe, Chaucer’s Prioress and Robin Hood. She is the author of Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England (2013), and co-editor of Crusading and Masculinities (2019). Her research also encompasses medievalism, exploring modern depictions of medieval gender as both identity and experience.

Image: from Anciennes chroniques d’Angleterre, by Jean de Wavrin, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 77, fol. 329v (public domain/BNF-Gallica).

---

The City of Lincoln During and After the English Civil Wars (Online Talk)

Thursday 10 April, 6pm-7pm – on Zoom
If you are planning to attend the talk, please register here: https://forms.office.com/e/hv0vrgDnJi

Speaker: Jon Fitzgibbons (University of Lincoln)

Abstract:
In this talk, Dr Jon Fitzgibbons will explain the role played by Lincoln during England’s Civil Wars (1642-1651). Besides exploring the thorny question of whether Lincoln was Royalist or Parliamentarian, he will explain why the city came to be entangled in the conflict and how it ended up changing sides on no fewer than six occasions. The talk will retell the dramatic stories of Lincoln’s destructive sieges and reveal what life was really like for people living in the city during the wars. It will also explore the war’s lasting legacies in Lincoln, including several enduring local myths and legends about the dastardly deeds of that arch-Roundhead, Oliver Cromwell.

Bio:
Dr Jon Fitzgibbons is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Lincoln. He completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford, and was previously a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge before moving to Lincoln in 2017. He has written two books on Oliver Cromwell and the political history of 1650s Britain and is currently completing a scholarly edition of the ‘lost’ memoirs of the Parliamentarian lawyer Bulstrode Whitelocke.

Story submitted by Renee Ward
rward@lincoln.ac.uk