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'Mapping the Miraculous' in Cambridge

Posted by: hwebster 6 years ago

May has been a busy month of conferences and finalising everything ready for the project launch on 20th June. For me, it kicked off on 2nd May, when I attended the ‘Mapping the Miraculous: Hagiographical M.jpgs and the Medieval World’ Conference at Cambridge University. It was an extremely interesting conference to attend, and the range of speakers and papers was excellent food for thought for my upcoming ‘Journal of Medieval History’ article.

Although all the papers were great, the highlight for me had to be meeting Professor Robert Bartlett, author of ‘The Hanged Man’. His book is the fullest study of the Cragh story to date, and has been a vital resource for our City Witness project from the outset, so it was very exciting to be able to discuss our work with him. His paper, ‘Narrative M.jpgs in Medieval Miracle Accounts’, addressed a wide range of issues pertaining to the development of the hagiographical tradition. In particular, I found his analysis of the increasingly ‘forensic’ approach to miracles a valuable perspective from which to view those of St Thomas de Cantilupe.

I was also able to share my experiences of database construction and Digital Humanities with the organisers of the conference. They are developing a proposal for a new research project gathering together the m.jpgs found in hagiographical literature in an open access database – I look forward to seeing where this goes in the future!