The International Medieval Congress at Leeds has been described as ‘Glastonbury for medievalists’ (though the toilets are better and you do get SOME sleep).

This year we had not one, not two – but five sessions on death and commemoration organised by our amazing member Lena Wahlgren-Smith.

We also had a stall at the Societies Fair, which was great fun – we made new friends, met old friends, shared research wormholes and sold a few books.

One of Lena’s sessions featured a paper by Rosalind Phillips-Solomon on the tomb to two very young children of Anne of Brittany. Rosamund has kindly sent us a reading list to follow up on that paper and we hope to persuade her to write something for our Monument of the Month series.

‘Par Atropos, qui les cueurs humains fend’: The Tomb of the Children of Anne de Bretagne.

Rosalind Phillips-Solomon

Acciarino, Damiano. ‘Renaissance Iconology of Fate’. In Fate and Fortune in European Thought, Ca. 1400-1650, edited by Ovanes Akopyan, 183–214. Brill, 2021.

Allen-Goss, Lucy. ‘“For He Was Lively in His Mother’s Womb … yet Dead Born”: Medieval Frameworks for Grieving Pregnancy Loss’’. Presented at the Medieval Literatures Seminar, York, 16 June 2022. https://youtu.be/LWvVKe2lsSI.

Boudon-Machuel, Marion, and Pascale Charron. ‘Figurative Art of the Loire Valley through the Prism of the Digital Humanities: ARVIVA and Sculpture 3D Projects’. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, no. 1 (2016): 425–32.

Bresc-Bautier, Geneviève. ‘The Fascination of Italy: Myth and Reality’. In Kings, Queens and Courtiers; Art in Early Renaissance France, edited by Martha Wolff, 181–83. New Haven and London: The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Press, 2011.

Brown, Cynthia J. The Queen’s Library: Image-Making at the Court of Anne of Brittany, 1477-1514. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Brown, Cynthia Jane, ed. The Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating Convention in Books and Documents. Boydell & Brewer, 2010.

Chancel-Bardelot, Beatrice de, Pascale Charron, Pierre-Gilles Girault, and Jean-Marie Guillouët eds. Tours 1500: Capitale Des Arts, Paris: Musée des beaux arts Tours, Somogy Editions d’Art, 2012.

Cootes, Kevin, Matthew Thomas, David Jordan, Janet Axworthy, and Rea Carlin. ‘Blood Is Thicker than Baptismal Water: A Late Medieval Perinatal Burial in a Small Household Chest’. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 31, no. 3 (May 2021): 358–65.

Le Roux de Lincy, Antoine. ‘Détails Sur La Vie Privée d’Anne De Bretagne, Femme De Charles Viii Et De Louis Xii’. Bibliothèque de l’École Des Chartes 1 (1849): 148–71.

Matarasso, Pauline Maud. Queen’s Mate: Three Women of Power in France on the Eve of the Renaissance. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

Meiss, Millard. ‘Atropos-Mors: Observations on a Rare Early Humanist Image’. In Florilegium Historiale, 151–59. University of Toronto Press, 1971.

Mitchell, Margaret, ed. Remember me: Constructing Immortality: Beliefs on Immortality, Life, and Death. New York and London: Routledge, 2007.

Mozzati, Tommaso. ‘“Tailleurs de Massonnerie Entique Italiens” Italian Sculpture and Sculptors at the French Court, between Charles VIII and François I’. The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, 2011.

Norwood, Tamarin. ‘Metaphor and Neonatal Death: How Stories Can Help When a Baby Dies at Birth’. Life Writing 18, no. 1 (2021): 113–24.

Wilson-Chevalier, Kathleen, and Eugénie Pascal, eds. Patronnes et mécènes en France à la Renaissance. St-Etienne, France: Presse universitaire St-Etienne, 2007.

Vrand, Caroline. ‘Anne de Bretagne Au Plessis-Lès-Tours: Le Pouvoir Symbolique de La Reine de France’. In Le Sceptre et La Quenouille: Être Femme Entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance., Exh Cat, edited by Elsa Gomez and Aubrée David-Chapy, 296–302. musée des beaux-arts de tours, in fine éditions d’art, 2024.

Our publicity officer, Maddy Gray, gave a paper in the same session on the changing burial choices of William Herbert, earl of Pembroke (d. 1469). No detailed bibliography for that one but some follow-up references in an article at https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/publications/the-lost-tombs-of-william-herbert-earl-of-pembroke-and-his-son-wi .

The conference also had hands-on sessions on weaponry, music, medieval dance and illumination. Better than Glastonbury, then?