'Here is my space, kingdoms are clay'

Yours truly hard at work (looking like a startled gazelle) on the Arts reception desk!

I survived my first conference...

... and survived too four nights in student halls, in a rather dismal and depressing brick-lined little room with horrible lighting, inadequate pillow and duvet, and a window that was jammed open and refused to be shut. Still, the fact that the hall was half-way up the Wellington cable car provided a much-needed note of glamour. And after all, was dir nicht umbringt, macht dich nur stärker. 

The conference itself was very good, well worth attending and not quite as scary as I feared. The two hundred and fifty (ish) delegates were split fairly evenly between postgraduate students and established academics, a reassuring ratio even if I still seemed to be one of the youngest people there. The whole conference was flawlessly organised, managing at the same time to be friendly and supportive and providing me with a host of new ideas, resources and connections.

My paper (Family, Faith and Fortune: The Blackburns 1400 - 1450), which I had been dreading for months (see here), seemed reasonably well-received. (I just hope nobody noticed how much my hands were shaking.) Afterwards I was encouraged by two people who heard it to write it up as an article and submit it to a journal, so it looks as if neither you, dear reader, nor I have yet seen the last of the Blackburns.

The man who started it all: Nicholas Blackburn (and his wife, Margaret)

After the conference I stayed on for an extra day, a PATS (Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar) at the National Library of New Zealand on 'markings and marginalia.' This included presentations by three academics in the field and a question and answer session at the end of the day, but the best bit was looking through some of the medieval and early modern books and manuscripts in the library's collection. This being NZ, we were told to wash our hands and then let loose - no white gloves! 

The books included a thirteenth-century Bible, rather plainly written but copiously annotated, especially in the Book of Ecclesiastes; a fourteenth-century Bible rather more decorative, and with funny curly doodles to some of the letters by a bored scribe; a seventeenth-century treatise on divorce; a seventeenth-century edition of the Papal Bull against the teachings of Martin Luther; a printed catalogue of a collection of natural history, to which someone had carefully added beautiful pen-and-ink drawings of various specimens in the margins; a folio of Ben Johnson's plays - at the end of Sejanus some long-dead owner had hand-written a withering review of the play, saying it was over-wordy with not enough action; and a seventeenth century Bible translated into Irish.

This is where I wished I had worked harder at Latin (and, come to think of it, the Bible) when in school... most of the texts were in Latin and a good working knowledge of the language would have made navigation much easier! 

We were allowed to take photos of the manuscripts, but for personal use, and I am not going to put them up here as that would constitute publication and I don't want to get entangled in copyright issues. But ask me by email if you want to see my seventeenth-century doodlings of toadstools, or the beautiful jewel-like colours of a medieval calendar, or how a medieval scribe ruled the guidlines for writing.

All in all, a very positive experience. Thankyou ANZAMEMS for having me, and to all my family and friends for their advice, support and good wishes. An extra thankyou to my mother who came down to Wellington specially to hear me give my first conference presentation.