The Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies celebrates its 50th anniversary

Monday, 22 June 2015

On Wednesday 17th June the GCMS held its Annual Symposium in this, its 50th anniversary year.  The Centre is the oldest of its kind in this country, and has an international reputation, and its journal, Reading Medieval Studies, has been published annually since 1975.  The GCMS has alumni across the world and is both a wide-reaching network and a genuine community of medievalists.

A vibrant group of postgraduates and postdocs plays a vital role in the GCMS and made enormous contributions to last week's celebrations.  They showed off both their artistic and thespian skills, producing ‘birthday cakes' for the GCMS as well as a set of sketches on the theme of the miracles worked by Reading Abbey's great relic of the Hand of St James.   Photographs of the cakes and the performers can be seen on the GCMS' facebook page.

Papers delivered at the Symposium related to major research projects which GCMS members have conducted, and also shed new light on medieval events and figures currently making headlines.  Dr Anne Bailey analysed the re-interment of Richard III, and Professor Brian Kemp revealed to a fascinated audience that King John was at Reading Abbey, in May 1215, when the representative of the barons delivered their formal defiance to him.  The annals of the abbey, which Professor Kemp is editing, demonstrate its support for, and importance to, the king.