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Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Use of Personification

'When well-appareled April on the heel / Of limping winter treads'. A calendar month cannot dress, nor can a season walk. This lecture will explore the magic of personification in Shakespeare's poetry.

Roman Singing and its Influence Across Europe

In this lecture we shall explore what the singing of Rome meant far afield: in northern England, Ireland, Spain and Germany.

Medieval Carols

Jeremy Summerly traces the early history of the world’s favourite musical genre with sung illustrations from the St Luke's Carollers of Chelsea.

Schooling Singers in the Cathedrals

A singer in a church of 450-650 was appointed in the same way as a gravedigger - too lowly to demand the bishop's attention. Arrangements were increasingly made to school singers in the great metropolitan churches of the West, as will be demonstrated.

Shakespeare's Astronomy

Amongst all his astronomical allusions, Shakespeare demonstrates a deep knowledge of the night sky and its movements, including the new Copernican world-view. What can we learn of Elizabethan astronomy and Shakespeare's knowledge of it from the plays?

Towards a Ministry of Singing

In their deliberations, the bishops identified for the first time in Christian history, an actual ministry of song. This lecture will build on this foundational moment in Christian musical history.

The Growth of London as a Port from Roman to Medieval Times

How might the study of the first 1,500 years of London's port history (encapsulating profound changes ranging from location, infrastructure and technology to variations in river levels) help when making predictions for the future?

The Music of the First Christians

Like many others in the first and second centuries, the governor thought the Christians very strange. So they were in many respects, but they were not so strange that they repudiated the use of ritual song. We begin our survey with the music of the first Christian communities.

Anne of Cleves: Beauty and the Art of Hans Holbein

Did Holbein con Henry VIII into marrying Anne of Cleves...

Medieval Music: The Lands of the Bell Tower

This final lecture of the series, given in the church whose bells are commemorated in nursery rhyme as the ‘bells of the Old Bailey’, will explore the place of the bell tower and its inhabitants in the medieval imagination.

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