Inaugural Lecture, Professor Sinéad O’Sullivan, Queen's University Belfast

Sinéad O’Sullivan is Professor of Early Medieval Intellectual History at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research examines the reception of classical, biblical and late antique texts in the early medieval West. She is author of Early medieval glosses on Prudentius’s ‘Psychomachia’: The Weitz tradition (2004) and ,” Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 237 (2010). She has co-edited two volumes: Crafting Knowledge in the Early Medieval Book: Practices of Collecting and Concealing in the Latin West, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 16 (2023) and Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella: Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on ‘De nuptiis’ in Context (2011).

Research FocusI am an historian of early medieval intellectual culture. To date, my research has resulted in two solo-authored substantial monographs. My first book provides an edition of glosses on Prudentius’s Psychomachia, an allegorical work that had a profound influence through the Middle Ages into the early modern era. My second on the reception of Martianus’s textbook on the liberal arts illumines the central work underpinning medieval ideas of education and learning. Providing comprehensive first editions of early medieval glosses on foundational texts, both books establish the significance of glosses as evidence for early medieval intellectual activity. Moreover, the larger issues arising from these studies pertaining to micro-texts and hypertexts reach right into the modern world. Additionally, collaborations on interdisciplinary projects have extended the scope of my research beyond the field of glossing studies into the areas of the classical commentary tradition and the materiality of the medieval book.

More recently, I have explored the reception of Vergil for insight into Carolingian imperial ideology as well as the Carolingian conception of earth.My current project probes annotations on the Psalms added to Carolingian manuscripts for insight into Carolingian imperial ideology. Viewed through the lens of a rich commentary tradition, recited as inspired poetry, the Psalms animated Carolingian culture. That the Psalms were poems was clear to Carolingian thinkers from the texts and commentaries they read. My project aims to show that the treasury of key words and images brought to the Carolingians through engagement with the Psalms shaped their conception of empire. It will chart the ways in which the Psalms undergirded the most influential re-invention of empire in the post-Roman West.

Image: Golden Psalter (St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 22, p. 63)

Registration required via Eventbrite

Friday 4 October 2024, Lecture 5pm - 6pm, followed by a drinks reception.

The Canada Room and Council Chamber, Lanyon Building, Queen's University Belfast.

This event is hosted by the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University Belfast.

Organiser: Lorna O'Connor

[email protected]

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