The Toller Lecture
The Toller Lecture is held every March and is open to all, free of charge. The Lecture is published in the Spring volume of the Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester the following year. Transcripts of some of the Memorial Lectures are available at a cost of £3 including post and packing. The topics chosen for the lectures reflect the interdisciplinary research ethos of the centre:
2014
The 2014 Toller Lecture will take place on Monday 3 March in the Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Libray Deansgate at 6pm, followed bya FREE wine reception. The speaker will be Professor John Hines, Cardiff Unversity,on ‘A new chronology and new agenda: the problematic sixth century’ exploring the issues raised by the recent high-precision radio-carbon dating project
2013
The 2013 Toller Lecture was given by Leslie Webster, formerly of the British Museum. on Monday 4 March 2013 in the Historic Library, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Deansgate Building, and was followed by a wine reception and dinner.
2012
The 2012 Toller Lecture was held on 5 March 2012 in The Historic Library, John Rylands University Library, Deansgate Building.Eamonn O'Carragain, of the University of Cork, spoke on ‘Vercelli as a context for The Dream of the Rood’.
The lecture was followed by a FREE wine reception in the Foyer of the Deansgate Library and dinner (regrettably not free!)at Pestos on Deansgate.
2011
Mon 7 March 2011 at 6.00 p.m. Professor Barbara Yorke, University of Winchester spoke on ‘King Alfred and the traditions of Anglo-Saxon kingship’.
Previous lectures
2010
Professor Rolf Bremmer, University of Leiden
'Looking Back at Anger: Wrath in Anglo-Saxon England'
2009
Professor Michelle Brown
'The Anglo-Saxon contribution to the History of the Book'
2008
Dr Gillian Fellows-Jensen (University of Copenhagen)
'The Danes and the Danish Language in England: an anthroponymical point of view'
2007
Professor Allen J. Frantzen, , Loyola University, Chicago
"Performance and Old English Poetry: Theatre and the Literature of the Anglo-Saxons"
2006
Professor Roy Liuzza (University of Tennessee)
'Time in Anglo-Saxon England'
2005
Professor Elaine Treharne (University of Leicester)
'The Politics of English, 1000 - 1200'
2004
Paul E. Szarmach (Western Michigan University)
'Anglo-Saxon Texts in Search of the Beginning'
2003
Patrick Wormald (University of Oxford)
'The Advent of the English: Migration as Historical Event'
2002
Professor Peter Baker (University of Virginia)
'Toller at School Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller and the Progress of Old English Lexicography in the Nineteenth Century'
2001
Professor Simon Keynes (University of Cambridge)
The Charters of King Athelstan and the Kingship of the English
2000
Professor Mechthild Gretch (University of Göttingen)
Winchester Vocabulary and Standard Old English: The Role of the Vernacular in Late Anglo-Saxon England
1999
Professor Nicholas Howe (Ohio State University)
An Angle on this Earth: Sense of Place in Anglo-Saxon England Available
1998
Professor Richard Pfaff (University of North Carolina)
The Anglo-Saxon Bishop and his Book
1997
Dr David Hinton (University of Southampton)
Smiths and Myths Available
1996
Professor Joyce Hill (University of Leeds)
Translating the Tradition: Manuscripts, Models and Methodology in the Composition of Ælfric's Catholic Homilies Available
1995
Professor Richard Bailey (University of Newcastle)
'What mean these stones?' Some Aspects of Pre-Norman Sculpture in Cheshire and Lancashire Out of print
1994
Professor George Hardin Brown (Stanford University)
The Dynamics of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England Out of print
1993
Professor Katherine O'Brien O'Keefe (University of Notre Dame)
Source, Method, Theory, Practice: on Reading two Old English Verse Texts Available
1992
Professor Roberta Frank (University of Toronto)
The Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet
1990
Professor Michael Lapidge (formerly University of Cambridge, now University of Notre Dame)
Textual Criticism and the Literature of Anglo-Saxon England. Available
1989
Professor Helmut Gneuss (University of Munich)
The Study of Language in Anglo-Saxon England Out of print
1988
Professor Audrey L. Meaney (MacQuarie University)
Scyld Scefing and the Dating of Beowulf - Again Available.
1987
Professor Janet Bately (King's College, London)
Manuscript Layout and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Available