The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture (CMRC) community gathers scholars and renowned academics as well as postgraduate research students from across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. We study such topics as history, literature, politics, music, material culture, buildings and landscape of the period between late antiquity and 1700.
We are all experts in our respective discipline, but what brings us together is a strong interest in interdisciplinarity and a commitment to developing an interdisciplinary approach to research. Our main activity, as a centre, revolves around the organisation of interdisciplinary study days, conferences and the Reuter lecture.
The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture (CMRC) has particular strengths in a number of areas, including performance history and practice in music, drama and song; history and cultural history; monasticism and church history; and questions of place, identity and travel.
Many of us are also involved in providing the raw material for research through the preparation of scholarly editions - of archival material, manuscripts, plays, and music. Many of our projects draw on digital tools and methods which allow us to present and interrogate medieval and early modern sources in new ways.
The University of Southampton has had a long and distinguished tradition in medieval and early modern studies, including two Fellows elected to the British Academy, Professor Colin Morris (2007) and Professor Chris Woolgar (2020), in recognition for their outstanding contribution to the field of Medieval History and Archival studies.
Professor Timothy Reuter held a chair in medieval history at Southampton, from 1994 to 2002. In addition to his illuminating work on early medieval Germany, Timothy Reuter used state-of-the-art computer technology for editions of texts. Through his translation work, he also served as an important liaison between the worlds of Anglo-American and German medieval studies.
The CMRC holds an annual lecture given by distinguished speakers, which celebrates Timothy Reuter’s extraordinary achievements and his vigorous work to create a research culture at Southampton.