2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Report

August 24, 2025 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Business Meeting, Call for Papers, Conference, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Postal History at Kalamazoo, Societas Magica

RGME Activities
at the
2025 International Congress
on Medieval Studies:
Report

60th ICMS
Thursday through Saturday, 8–10 May 2025
(with Sessions variously
in Person, Online, or Hybrid)

[Posted on 20 August 2025]

Vista at the 2025 ICMS. Photograph by David W. Sorenson.

With the successful completion of our RGME activities at the 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies, we offer a Report. For information about the Congress more generally:

Building Blocks

The RGME activities at the 2025 Congress came into being in stages, according with the timetable for preparations for the annual ICMS from one year to the next.

1) First, as an Annual Congress takes place (for example, see our 2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report), we begin to confer about plans for the next year. We do so among ourselves and with current or potential co-sponsoring organizations who also make plans. At each Congress, our Open Business Meeting provides a gathering point to confer, share ideas, and spread the word to generate interest and find collaborators.

2) After designing the proposed sessions, we submit them by 30 May to the Congress Committee for approval, and then issue the Call for Papers, with the deadline of 15 September.

3) After the close of the CFP, selecting among the proposals received, we design the Program for each Session, with its Organizer or Co-Organizers, Presider, Speakers, and perhaps also a Respondent. In some years, as with 2025, our initial proposal can identify a subject for two sessions, Parts I and II.  In some years, as with 2025, the strength and number of responses to the Call for Papers can lead us to seek, in some cases, two sessions (Parts I and II) in place of the one which we had proposed.

4) When ready, the Programs for our Sessions — presenters, sequence of papers, response(s) if included — are sent to the Congress Committee by 15 October for review and approval. That is the time also for booking our Open Business Meeting at the Congress and, in some years, a Reception.

5) In due course, the program of the Congress in full is set into place, as the Committee determines its order to announce it. Thus we can learn the date-, time-, and room-assignments of our set of activities.

6) Our custom is to announce our activities for a given Congress on our website, in a HomePage of its own, like the one for the 2025 Congress. The HomePage serves as an information center, with updates as appropriate, such as when the Congress approaches and there might be changes such as in the room assignment or details of the program for a given session.

7) From the HomePage are launched the Abstracts for Papers, as the speakers might allow.  Note that the Abstracts are indexed, for convenience, in two ways:

Venue at the 2025 ICMS. Photograph by David W. Sorenson.

8) On site, as the Congress takes place, our activities unfold in their sequence as listed in the Program or adapted through changes. For 2025, our activities comprised the sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions of Papers; and our Annual Open Business Meeting at the Congress.  The line-up by the time of the Congress:

All these events were successfully accomplished, with some adaptations within them as required. Hybrid sessions recorded by the Congress were available for viewing afterward by Congress registrants, for an assigned period.

9) Afterward, comparing notes and gathering photographs taken at the time, we produce the Report.

********************

Los Angeles, Getty Center, Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 1. Scipio and Guillaume de Loris Lying in Their Beds Dreaming. Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Building upon our successful activities at the 2024 ICMS (see our 2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report), we prepared for the 2025 ICMS. First we proposed a set of sessions, sponsored and co-sponsored. Then, when they had been accepted by the Congress Committee, we issued the Call for Papers (CFP) for our proposed Sessions. The strength and number of the responses by the due date (15 September 2024) led us to seek, in some cases, two sessions in place of the one which we had proposed.

With the Congress Program set into place or revised, we presented the Program of our activities, both sponsored and co-sponsored. We give thanks to our organizers, co-organizers, presenters, respondents, advisors, co-sponsors, participants, and audience both in-person and online, and to the Congress, its staff, and its co-ordination.

RGME @ 2025 ICMS

RGME Activities at the 2025 Congress comprised:

  • nine Sessions (Sponsored and Co-Sponsored)
  • the RGME Annual Open Business Meeting at the Congress
Logo of the Societas Magica, reproduced by permission

Societas Magica logo

Four Sessions were our own.  Our co-sponsors for ICMS Sessions in 2025 were:

  • Societas Magica (with three co-sponsored Sessions)
  • Polytheism-Oriented Medievalists of North America (P.-O.M.o.N.A.)
  • Postal History at Kalamazoo

Among our co-sponsorships for the Congress over the years, 2025 marks

Year 21 of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica,
Year 4 with P.O.M.o.N.A., and
Year 2 with  Postal History at Kalamazoo.

Also, the Session co-sponsored with Postal History at Kalamazoo continues the tradition of our long-term series of RGME Sessions at the ICMS on “Medieval Writing Materials”, which began in 2014.  See, for example,

2025 RGME Activities

The activities unfolded in their scheduled sequence across the three days of the Congress.

  • Thursday 8 May, the first day of the Congress
    Two sessions plus our Annual Open Business Meeting, for which lunch was provided
  • Friday 9 May
    Two sessions
  • Saturday 10 May, the last day of the Congress
    Four sessions

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 7. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, Comentum Macrobii Ambrosii in somnium Scipionis. Dated 1469 Feb. 7. Image Public Domain via https://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/146944005911/macrobius-ambrosius-aurelius-theodosius-comentum.

1. “Dream Books, Spells, Divination,
Incubation, and Interpretation:
‘Sandalphon, send me a dream’ “

Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica
and
Polytheistic-Oriented Medievalists of North America
(P.-O.M.o.N.A.)

Session 17 (Congress Program Booklet page 7)
Thursday 8 May 2025
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Sangren Hall, 3130
(hybrid)

Organized by
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
Phillip Bernhardt–House (Polytheistic-Oriented Medievalists of North America)
Claire Fanger (Rice University)

Speakers
Phillip Bernhardt–House
“Incubation, Inspiration, Incantation, or Intervention?
The Imbas Forosnai Ritual in Sanas Cormaic as Dream Divinatory Operation”

Leigh Ann Craig (Virginia Commonwealth University)
” ‘The very same ears were thrown away’:
Demons, Diagnostics, and Dream Interpretation in a Thirteenth-Century Miracle Story”

Meghri Doumanian (McGill University)
“Dreams, Anxieties, Magic, and Liturgical Healing in Armenian and Judeo-Arabic Cultures:
The Examples of the Erazahan and the Sefer Pitron Halomot”

2. Lunchtime Open Business Meeting (with lunch provided)

Sponsored by the RGME

Notebook of "Recettes" in French, open at the front with inserted slips. Photography from Private Collection by Mildred Budny. Handlist Number 5.

Notebook of “Recettes” in French, open at the front with inserted slips. Photography from Private Collection by Mildred Budny. Handlist Number 5.

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Open Business Meeting
Thursday 8 May 2025
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM, Student Center, 2207
Lunch was provided through a donation
(hybrid)

Registration for this Meeting by the RGME Eventbrite Portal for in-person and online attendance allowed us to know how many people to expect for the Meeting and to arrange the catering appropriately.

The one-page combined Agenda & Annual Report for this Meeting is available for download on our website as both announcement and record of our accomplishments for 2024–2o25, goals, and future plans.

London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 4r.Christine de Pisan sits at work writing in an interior accompanied by a dog. France (Paris), c. 1410 – c. 1414. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html.

London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 4r.Christine de Pisan sits at work writing in an interior accompanied by a dog. France (Paris), c. 1410 – c. 1414. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html.

3. “Women and Manuscripts:
Questions of Authorship”

Session
Sponsored by the RGME

Session 63 (Congress Program Booklet, page 22)
Thursday 8 May 2025
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM, Sangren, 3130
(hybrid)

Organized by
Jaclyn A. Reed (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Speakers
Lisa Templin (Mount St. Vincent University)
” ‘Not soe good as common’:
The Eroticization of the Female Voice in the Margins of
Rachel Speght’s A Mouzell for Melastomas”

Marisa Rose Bordonarou (Western University)
“For the General Good of My Country:
Sugar as a Transcorporeal Means of Liberation and Colonial Subjugation
in Hannah Wooley’s The Queen-Like Closet”

Jacob Lollar (Durham University)
“For the Praise and Glory of the Glorious Woman:
Women in Syriac Manuscripts and Book Culture, and the Attempts to Erase Them”

Faremeh Shahnavaz (Western University)
“Penning with Paint:
Redefining Female Authorship through Lady Anne Clifford’s Visual Autobiography”

[This paper was not presented. Shortly before the Congress, Faremeh withdrew her paper.]

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits. Français 835, fol. 1r. Opening of collection of texts by Christine de Pizan. Image via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449047c/f9.item.

4–5. “Grimoires of the Greater West”
(Parts 1–2)

Sessions
Co-sponsored with the Societas Magica

Organizers:
Vajra Regan (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)
Gal Sofer (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Matthew Melvin-Koushki (University of South Carolina)

(1) “Multicultural Solomonic Magic:
The Case of the Almandal”

Session 117 (Congress Program Booklet, page 41)
Sangren Hall 4520
Thursday 8 May 2025
3:30–5:00 pm EDT
(in-person)

Speakers
Vajra Regan
“The Liber Almandal of Solomon ans Its Christian Elaborations:
New Evidence from the Manuscripts”

Gal Sofer
“Al-Mandal:
Multicultural Magic and the Quest for an Urtext”

Respondent
David Porreca (University of Waterloo)

Halle (Saale), Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, 14 B 36, fol. 243r: Image image of the almadel or “table of spirits”. Astro-magical texts on paper, circa 1400. Image C.C. BY 4.0, via http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/33754.

(2) “From Arabic and Persian to Hebrew and Latin”

Session 165 (Congress Booklet, page 60)
Sangren Hall 3130
Friday 10:00–11:30 am EDT
(hybrid)

Speakers
Michael Noble (Exeter University)
“The Hidden Secret of Fakhr al-Din Rãzī:
Theurgy as Pre-Mongol Cosmocracy”

Rosario Cornejo (University of Virginia)
“Interpreting Repetition and Variation in the Picatrix and the Lapidario”

Agata Paluch (Frei Universität Berlin)
“Theosophical and Practical Knowledge in European Jewish Grimoires”

Matthew Melvin–Koushki
“Occult Democracy in Persian Grimoires”

6. “Moving the Mail:
Letters, Couriers, and Post Offices in the Medieval World”

Session
Co-Sponsored with Postal History at Kalamazoo

Session 224 (Conference Program Booklet, page 79)
Friday 9 May 2025
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM, Sangren, 4540
(In person)

Organized by
David W. Sorenson (Allan G. Berman, Numismatist)

Speakers
Ralph W. Mathiesen (University of Illinois – Urbana–Champaign)
“Institutionalized Mail Delivery Networks in Early Medieval Europe from the Fourth to Seventh Century”

Eleanor A. Congdon (Youngstown State University)
“Time as a Commodity:
Merchants Tracking of the Spread of ‘News’ in the Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean”

A courier stands before a figure receiving a letter, with a landscape in the background.

Private Collection, Courier delivering letter. German translation of Petrarch (1559).

7. “Rending the Veil:
The Rupture of Image and Text
in Medieval Apocalypse Commentaries“

Session
Sponsored by the RGME

Session 336 (Conference Program Booklet, page 116)
Saturday 11 May 2025
10:00 – 11:30 am
Sangren Hall, 4540
(In person)

Organized by
Mildred Budny
Vajra Regan

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 8878, fol. 119v. Image Public Domain, via ark:/12148/btv1b52505441p.

Speakers

Zoey M. Kambour (Graduate Center, City University of New York)
” ‘The Speaking Mouth of Terrible Vastness’:
Visualizing the Fourth Beast of the Apocalypse in Beatus Manuscripts”

[This paper was not presented. Zoey was unable to attend either in-person or online, so that adaptations at short notice were set into place.

With her permission, the intentions for her paper were represented by the Abstract.

Also, our Director provided reflections on the subject as a Coda, which has appeared as a blogpost reporting on long-standing interests in the subject of Beatus Manuscripts.]

See also:

Sarah E. Frisbie (Case Western University)
“In terra et mare:
Constructing Cosmos in the Beatus of Saint-Sever”
(Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Ms. Lat. 8878)

New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.644, fol. 222v-223r. Beatus, Saint, Presbyter of Liebana, -798. Commentary on the Apocalypse (MS M.644). Spain, San Salvador de Tábara, ca. 945. Image via https://www.themorgan.org/manuscript/110807.

8–9. “Deviant Images:
Text/Image Relationships in Medieval Manuscripts”
(Parts 1-2)

Pair of Sessions
Sponsored by the RGME

Organized by
Courtney Anne Berg (City University of New York)

London, British Library, Add. MS 62925, fol. 83r detail. Rutland Psalter in Latin, circa 1260, England (London?). Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/05/marginali-yeah-the-fantastical-creatures-of-the-rutland-psalter.html

(1) Visual Intervention

Session 384 (Congress Program Booklet, page 133)
Saturday 10 May 2025
1:30 – 3:00 pm EDT
Sangren Hall, 4540
(In person)

Speakers

Emmarae Stein (University of Rochester)
“Minor Deviations:
The Interplay of Text and Image in Fifteenth-Century Papal Prophecies”

Gamble Madsen (Monterey Peninsula College)
“Come, See If If You Can—God is Truth:
Approaches to Picturing the Godhead in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry”
(Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, MS lat. 18014)

Daniel S. Berman (Hunter College, City University of New York)
“Let No One Doubt the Measure:
Conjuring Christ’s Body through Faith and Devotional Action”

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. lat. 18014, Annunciation. Illustration by Jacquemart de Hesdin (c. 1355 – c. 1414). Image Public Domain via The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN : 3936122202., Domaine public, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152716

(2) Sacred/Secular

Session 432 (Congress Program Booklet, page 150)
Saturday, May 10, 2025
3:30 – 5:00 pm EDT
Sangren Hall, 4540
(In person)

Speakers

Kaylin O’Dell (Skidmore College)
“Bidirectional Images:
Visualizing the Soul’s Struggle in the Old English Psychomachia”

Justin M. Sturgeon (University of West Florida)
“Text and Image in René d’Anjou’s Livre des tournois:
Mutually Exegetic Components”

Chloe Peters (University of Toronto)
“Games on the Edge:
Ludic Marginalia on the Borders of a Thirteenth-Century Latin Bible”

*****

Accessibility

In the light of travel considerations and as a courtesy for our community of participants, as of 15 April, the RGME offered Eventbrite Registration Portals for an online option. They provided the functionality of an interactive RGME Zoom Meeting (not closed Zoom Webinar) for our In-Person Events at the 2025 ICMS which were not assigned Hybrid functionality for the Congress.  Access to this online option for our sponsored or co-sponsored in-person events was open to Congress registrants only. We did not charge for this consideration, out of respect for our community.
It is customary in recent years for our Open Business Meetings to be hybrid.

*****

Preparations for the 2026 Congress

As customary, during the Congress, the RGME began to explore subjects for sessions at the next Congress. (See the steps listed above for the cycle of the year from Congress to Congress.) Now see the Call for Papers for our proposed sessions, both sponsored and co-sponsored:

The deadline for your proposals is 15 September 2025.

*****

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We look forward to hearing from you and welcoming you to our events.

*****

 

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