At the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2015, the Syon Abbey Society is happy to be co-sponsoring a panel with the Hagiography Society. Read the description below, and please submit an abstract!
Multidisciplinary Saint Bridget: In Honor of Syon Abbey’s 600th Anniversary
This year, the Syon Abbey Society and the Hagiography Society are teaming up to offer a multidisciplinary panel devoted to Saint Birgitta of Sweden (c. 1303-1373), or Saint Bridget as she was known in England. Bridget became famous during her lifetime for her divine visions, her campaigns to bring the papacy back to Rome, her political activism, and her foundation of the Order of St. Saviour (or the Bridgettine Order as it is often called). The only British Bridgettine house, Syon Abbey, was founded in 1415 and flourished alongside the growing devotional cult surrounding Bridget and her texts in England. Syon Abbey is now recognized as one of the most vibrant literary and cultural monastic centers of late medieval England, and this panel will be one of several events in the US and UK to mark the sexcentenary of its foundation.
We invite abstracts for papers exploring any aspect of Saint Bridget and her cult in England or the Continent. Papers addressing connections to Syon’s sisters, brothers, texts, history, or influence are welcome but not required. We hope to form a panel that reflects a variety of disciplinary standpoints: e.g., music, liturgy, art, iconography, architecture, theology, textuality, manuscripts, textual transmission, early print, monasticism, gender issues, socio-politico-economic contexts.
Please email short abstracts to Laura Saetveit Miles, University of Bergen (laura.miles@gmail.com) by September 15.
The Syon Abbey Society 