Event Calendar

Click on an event for more information about dates, times, or how to join.

Dr Christopher de Hamel (University of Cambridge): The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscript Club

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

The 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 […]

Free

Professor Catherine Hall (UCL): ‘Making White and Black: Edward Long slave-owner and historian of Jamaica’

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

This 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 […]

Free

Dr Helen Paul (University of Southampton): ‘The South Sea Company and Enslavement’

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

The 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. […]

Free

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 […]

Free

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 […]

Free

Joanna Story, University of Leicester: ‘Insular Manuscripts – some new approaches to some old questions.’

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

More than 600 manuscripts survive that were written between c. 600–850 in the Irish or Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, or in continental monasteries founded by missionaries from the islands of Britain or Ireland in the seventh or eighth centuries. Defined by characteristic script, as well as decoration, these manuscripts are graphic testimony to the contribution of the […]

Free

Desirée Baptiste: Incidents in the Life of an Anglican Slave, Written by Herself  (2023), staged reading.

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

A new play inspired by a rare 1723 letter from an anonymous enslaved Virginian to the ‘Lord arch Bishop of London’, Incidents (2023) draws on archival research and historical imagination to bring to light, 300 years after a bold act of resistance, the life of a ‘poore’ parishioner of the Church of England, author of […]

Free

Desirée Baptiste: Incidents in the Life of an Anglican Slave, Written by Herself  (2023), staged reading.

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

A new play inspired by a rare 1723 letter from an anonymous enslaved Virginian to the ‘Lord arch Bishop of London’, Incidents (2023) draws on archival research and historical imagination to bring to light, 300 years after a bold act of resistance, the life of a ‘poore’ parishioner of the Church of England, author of one of […]

Free

Dr Harry Spillane (University of Cambridge): ‘The Bishops’ Bible, Archbishop Matthew Parker, and the Elizabethan Church’

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

The Bishops’ Bible, which was first printed in 1568, has frequently been cast as a useless and widely unpopular translation of the Bible into English. However, by exploring what the intended purposes of the Bishops’ Bible were, and by paying attention to the wealth of images, prefaces, maps, diagrams and heraldic devices within it, a […]

Free

British Records Association 2023 Maurice Bond Lecture and Harley Prize Presentation

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

The 2023 Maurice Bond lecture will be given by Dr Andrew Flinn of the Department of Information Studies, University College London. The lecture will explore the work of community archivists in identifying, preserving and making accessible community generated archives and heritage material. Employing Sven Lindqvist's Dig Where You Stand (1978 & 2023) metaphor and method, […]

Free

Garden Open Day

Lambeth Palace Lambeth Palace Road, London

Join us for a family fun day in the beautiful historic grounds of Lambeth Palace, celebrating the new Coronation exhibition! We are excited to welcome you to Lambeth Palace Library and Lambeth Palace Gardens for a very special garden open day, celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III and the opening of the new Coronation […]

Free

Peter Lake (Vanderbilt): ‘On Laudianism’

Lambeth Palace Library Lambeth Palace Road, London

Peter Lake, Professor of History at Vanderbilt, is one of the most distinguished writers on English religion after the Reformation. Later this year Cambridge University Press will publish Peter's latest book, Piety, polemic and politics during the personal rule of Charles I. The central argument is that ecclesiastical politics under Charles I and Archbishop Laud […]

Free