Event Calendar
Click on an event for more information about dates, times, or how to join.
Lecture
Hidden Hands: the human stories hidden in our oldest books
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonSpeaker: Dr Mary Wellesley Dr Mary Wellesley is a writer and historian, who teaches courses on medieval language and literature as part of the British Library’s adult learning programme. Her book, Hidden Hands: the Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers was published in October 2021. It was chosen as one of the history books of the year by […]
Bishop Symon Patrick (1626-1707) – unsung hero of the Restoration Church of England
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonSpeaker: Dr Nicholas Fisher In 2018, Nick Fisher was the first recipient of a Lambeth doctorate after the scheme had been rebranded ‘Lambeth Research Degrees in Theology’. His thesis explored the life and writings of Symon Patrick in a career that included being Rector of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, a King’s Chaplain and Bishop of Ely. This […]
Friends’ Annual Lecture & Annual General Meeting
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonLecture: In the Shadow of Death: The Life, Work and Trials of Archbishop Tait Speaker: Revd John WitheridgeThe lecture is at 2.30pm. The AGM is at 3.30pm and is followed by tea. Archibald Campbell Tait was Queen Victoria’s favourite Archbishop of Canterbury. While not always successful, his leadership of the Church during a period of controversy at home and challenge overseas […]
‘Lived religion’ in eighteenth-century England: the education of poor children
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonThe Church of England Record Society Annual Lecture 2022 Speaker: W.M. Jacob Drawing on the insights of ‘lived religion’ this paper investigates evidence from a wide range of eighteenth century archival sources, including diocesan parochial and borough records, to illustrate the religious commitment of Anglican lay people of the ‘middling sort’ in a wide geographical […]
Breakspear: the unknown English pope
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonSpeaker: Adrian Waddingham Nicholas Breakspear has been overlooked for centuries, even though his achievements outshone those of his contemporary, Thomas Becket. Born in poverty and probably illegitimate, Breakspear rose to become the only Englishman to ascend the throne of Saint Peter, ruling over the papal states as Adrian IV. His life is not a tale […]
Dr Andrew Smith (University of Liverpool): Responding to Historic Organisation Misconduct Accusations: the Campaign for Corporate Reparations for Black Slavery
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonAbout thirty UK and US firms have been accused by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists of having profited from black slavery before its abolition in the British Empire and the United States. There were calls for these companies to pay compensation to the descendants of enslaved people. The responses of the accused firms were diverse: […]
Dr John Maddicott (University of Oxford): ‘John Prideaux (1578-1650): A Scholar at Large’
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonJohn Prideaux was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford from 1615 to 1642, a highly successful head of his Oxford college, bishop of Worcester during the Civil War, and one of Europe's leading scholars. John Maddicott will assess his role in the ecclesiastical politics of his day against the broader background of his social ascent, […]
Dr Christopher de Hamel (University of Cambridge): The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscript Club
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonThe illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. But we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to […]
Professor Catherine Hall (UCL): ‘Making White and Black: Edward Long slave-owner and historian of Jamaica’
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonThis talk will introduce Edward Long, whose History of Jamaica published in 1774 (and in print ever since) aimed to convince a metropolitan audience that slavery was essential to the wealth of Britain and that black people were naturally born to serve those who were white. Long’s account of Jamaica provides an extraordinarily detailed picture […]
Dr Helen Paul (University of Southampton): ‘The South Sea Company and Enslavement’
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, LondonThe South Sea Company is famous for giving its name to an early financial crash, the South Sea Bubble of 1720. This event has overshadowed the company’s involvement in Britain’s transatlantic slave trade. In popular histories, the importance of the company’s trading arm has been downplayed in order to highlight the supposed foolishness of investors. […]
Professor Raluca Radulescu (Bangor University): ‘What do we need to know about the Prose Brut tradition and why? A medieval best-seller and modern scholarly silence’
This talk will focus on the appeal of the Prose Brut tradition in the Middle Ages with a view to examining the relationship between the large number of manuscripts it survives in (over 200) and relatively little scholarly interest from modern scholars. It takes a broad view of how the text was presented to modern […]
Professor James Walvin (University of York): ‘The Black Presence in Transatlantic Slavery Archives’
Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London*Please note change of speaker* The distinguished social historian James Walvin, author of many books on slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world, will discuss ‘The Black Presence in Transatlantic Slavery Archives’ with Desirée Baptiste, author of a new play, Incidents in the Life of an Anglican Slave, Written by Herself (2023), inspired by a document […]
