DoSSE Project

Theodore of Mopsuestia was the most important theological authority for the Church of the East, often mislabeled as "Nestorians"

This follows on from Sofia's recent book, 'Re-envisioning Theodore: Theodore of Mopsuestia's Biblical Exegesis in his Catechetical Homilies'

We are pleased to share that our research associate, Sofia Puchkova, has published an authoritative entry on Theodore of Mopsuestia for the DHGE – Louvain Dictionary of Church History (vol 34, fascicule 199b-200)

www.brepols.net/products/IS-...

Really looking forward to seeing how the students develop their insights from today when looking at visual sources in future seminars. ~James

One highlight of the seminar for me was getting students to flick through the Vatican Terence (an illustrated Carolingian manuscript of Terence's comedies, likely copied from a late antique exemplar). We discussed how the slave characters could be identified. digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat...

I also asked students to upload an image related to slavery to Padlet (thanks @kcross.bsky.social!) - either from the late antique period, or a representation from modern media (film, TV, etc) that shows how people have tried to recreate the visual and material world of Roman slavery.

Week 3 of Slavery in Late Antiquity focused on material & visual culture. Students read articles about three different sources: Jennifer Trimble on slave collars; Marice Rose on slaves & mistresses in art; Avigail Manekin-Bamberger on the incantation bowls of Jewish households in the Sasanian Empire

Would also be very interested to know this, #medievalsky

For Week 2 of 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', on the origins of the enslaved, students read and discussed Kyle Harper's chapter on the Roman slave supply, St Patrick's Confessio & Epistula, a slave sale contract, and Augustine's letter (10) on slavers kidnapping children.

Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy Cambridge Core - Ancient History - Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy

ICYMI: Bart Danon’s (University of Groningen, @facultyofartsug.bsky.social) excellent new book *Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy* (@universitypress.cambridge.org) is available as a free digital download ⬇️

www.cambridge.org/core/books/w...

medieval worlds • no. 23 • 2025 A truly sensational find is presented in volume 23 of Medieval Worlds: a newly discovered Christian world chronicle in Arabic, which Adrian C. Pirtea examines in a preliminary case study. We furthermo...

"A truly sensational find" made by my friend and colleague Adrian C. Pirtea 👀👇
#Syriac
#ChristianArabic
#ChristianEast

Students filled out an anonymous survey giving their own views on 'slave' vs 'servant' translations, as well as their perspective on using 'enslaved person' vs 'slave'. I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of responses, which ran the fall gamut of opinions. Makes me feel very encouraged. ~James

Peter Brown on Sarah Ruden’s translation of St Augustine’s Confessions While some reviewers have found Sarah Ruden’s recent translation of St Augustine’s Confessions unnecessary, ‘jarring’, and marked by too many ‘aesthetic costs’, …

Prior to the class, students read Peter Brown's positive review of Ruden's Confessions and her emphasis on slavery, and David van Schoor's criticisms. We discussed why, in this context, late antique slavery matters for people today.

jasongoroncy.com/2017/10/07/p...

journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.1...

I had a great time starting teaching a third-year undergrad module on 'Slavery in Late Antiquity' today.

We talked about the controversy over Sarah Ruden's translation of servus as 'slave' not 'servant' and dominus as 'master' not 'lord' in her translation of Augustine's Confessions

This includes several discussions of slavery in early Judaism, including in a fascinating article by Carmen Palmer on the legal status of wet-nurses

Very sorry to see that we're clashing with some really fascinating sessions on early medieval Europe and the Middle-East!

The IMC programme out - the DoSSE project is sponsoring four sessions on slavery (in Merovingian, Visigothic, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, and Venetian sources) on Tuesday 7th July. Details attached.

Very pleased for our University of Leicester colleague Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson, whose fantastic research on a nun's doodles has just been published in Early Medieval Europe and is rightly being shared widely

Louis and the Jews: Louis the Pious’ Grant to Abraham, 815×825 It could be a dangerous thing to be Jewish in Christian Western Europe in the Middle Ages. In addition to being a religious minority, Jews were believed to have orchestrated the execution of Jesus …

Today on the blog, why the Carolingian empire wasn’t the worst place in the early medieval world to be Jewish. Featuring trade, slavery, and, most joyous of all, taxes! #medievalsky #jewishhistory

salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/l...

𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝘀
𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮
Éric Fournier, Maijastina Kahlos (eds)

More Info: bit.ly/49KnjI8

#Women #Antiquity #Medieval #Womensstudies #Europe #Africa #History #Medievalsky #Medievalists

Not forgetting, of course:

Very happy to have received these three super books for Christmas! ~James

Soon to appear, Eric Fournier and Maijastina Kahlos (eds.), Women and Gender in the Post-Roman Kingdoms, see www.brepols.net/products/IS-... and www.academia.edu/145456266/Wo... (incl. my paper on "Secular Women in the Lombard Kingdom“).

Call for Papers — Land and Power in the Later Roman World Tübingen, June 29 to July 1, 2026 Codex Justiniani I-IX cum glosa Franciscus Accursius, Guido de Suzaria, Guillelmus de Ferreriis, Petrus de Ferreriis, Petrus de Cerveriis (BHSL.HS.0021) Land and l…

🚨CfP: Land and Power in the Late Roman World. Deadline: 11 Jan 26, event 29 Jun-1 July 26.

Come join the Land & Loyalty team in sunny Tubingen to discuss why land was so important in the late Roman world. ECRs especially solicited!

research.st-andrews.ac.uk/landloyalty/...

16-dec - Durham University

Day 1 of “The ‘Other’ and ‘Empire’ in Christianity: Postcolonial Readings of Late Antique Literature,” a small conference/workshop organised by Classics and Ancient History at Durham University (www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...). This has been a superb meeting so far.

🎉 Today I defended my dissertation and passed with summa cum laude.

The title is "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)."

The abstract is below, and I hope to publish it soon.

Our research associate Dr Sofia Puchkova co-organised this fantastic, free-to-attend conference in Durham on 'Postcolonial Readings of Late Antique Literature'. The first sessions took place today and there will be more tomorrow. See the programme below:

Read the full review here muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

And learn more about Seth's new book here: brill.com/display/titl...

Very happy for our DoSSE project alumnus Seth M. Stadel, whose new translation of 'The Catalogue of Books of ‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha' is praised by Giorgia Nicosia in the Journal of Early Christian Studies as "a tool of lasting importance for everyone working on Syriac literature"

Now updated with an extra, 1st century BC example of a slave sale from Roman Egypt, and with references to parallel concepts of property ownership in Aramaic and Arabic documents: