The study of medieval liturgy has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. As the lines between various kinds of cultural studies have become increasingly blurred, musicologists, art historians, literary scholars, and historians have realised its centrality and importance. Liturgy provides fundamental insights into the experience of worship and devotion in the middle ages, as the medium through which religious ideas were transmitted. There is now a need, we believe, to find coherent expression and a voice for the emerging generation of students of the liturgy, by breaking institutional and disciplinary boundaries, and by bringing so-called para-liturgical genres, such as drama, hagiography, and sermons, as well as art and architecture, back into their liturgical contexts.
To this purpose, we are holding a two-day international workshop for post-graduate students from a variety of disciplines on the subject of medieval liturgy. It will include a training session in recent developments of liturgical studies, led by acclaimed professor Susan Boynton of the Department of Music at Columbia University.