About the Center

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies is an interdisciplinary unit in the College of Humanities dedicated to the study of Europe and its neighbors from the end of the Roman Empire through the seventeenth century. Its activities include the promotion of teaching and research in all aspects of medieval and renaissance culture, including art, music, literature, religion, history, philosophy and government. The Center affords students and faculty a variety of opportunities to examine these various cultural forces as they interact with each other.

The activities of the Center include offering courses on both the undergraduate and graduate levels; administering an undergraduate major and minor; sponsoring a graduate certificate program; coordinating several series of lectures as well as an in-house colloquium; supporting the research of affiliated faculty and graduate students through a program of small grants for travel and the acquisition of materials; providing graduate administrative and teaching associateships; publishing a twice-quarterly newsletter Nouvelles Nouvelles; and contributing to the annual Medieval and Renaissance Festival. In addition, the Center has served as the headquarters for the New Chaucer Society, and was also the operational home for university-wide plans to commemorate the quincentenary of Columbus' first voyage. In October of 1998, the Center sponsored a conference on “The Medieval and Renaissance Worlds in Contemporary America.”

The Center's faculty affiliates number over one-hundred and include members from the University Libraries as well as sixteen academic units: Comparative Studies, Dance, English, French and Italian, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Greek and Latin, History, History of Art, Near Eastern, Judaic and Hellenic Languages and Literatures, Linguistics, Music History, Music Theory, Philosophy, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, Spanish and Portuguese, and Theatre.

Francis L. Utley (English) was the moving spirit behind the Center, which he founded together with Herbert S. Livingston (Music History), Franklin M. Ludden (History of Art), and Franklin J. Pegues (History) in 1965.

Since 1969, the Center has been directed by

It was under Professor Kahrl's leadership that the Center's annual conference, courses, and undergraduate major were established.

A major attraction on The Ohio State University campus for scholars from the United States and abroad is the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies, an affiliate of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. The Resource Center, in association with the Hilandar Research Library, offers scholars access to microfilms of over 4,000 medieval manuscripts, most written in Church Slavonic with some in Greek and 18 other languages, as well as a related reference collection. We have over 700 early Cyrillic printed books on microfilm. The Hilandar Research Library is the largest repository of its kind in the Western hemisphere and has materials from twenty countries and fifty-five different private, monastic, and public libraries. The single largest collection, totalling some 960 items, is the Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. The Director of the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies and Curator of the Hilandar Research Library is Dr. Predrag Matejic.

PLEASE NOTE: The Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies and the Hilandar Research Library are now located on the second floor of Ackerman Library in Room 6065. Currently, we only have one internal phone working, 4-4757. It would be best if you call before coming over to 610 Ackerman Road, the Ackerman Library, just to make sure someone is here. There is a University CABS bus "Library/Buckeye Village" that runs every 15 minutes, weekdays 7:30 am-10:15pm, from RPAC on Tuttle Park Place (there is also a stop in front of the French Field House on Woody Hayes Dr.) to the Ackerman Library. To reach our room, enter the "main" entrance of the Ackerman Library, walk straight ahead to the elevator on the right hand wall, go to the second floor. When you exit the elevator, walk straight ahead all the way to the end of the long corridor in front of you. We are the last office on the left.

The University Libraries contain a strong collection of scholarly materials for the study of the medieval and Renaissance periods.  These resources have been enhanced by the gifts of the extraordinary private scholarly libraries of Professors Francis Utley and Stanley Kahrl. The Kahrl Collection of seventeenth-century drama is the single most valuable book collection ever donated to OSU Libraries. In 1996, a collection of over 900 manuscript leaves, formerly belonging to the collection of the university art gallery, was transferred from the Wexner Center to the Rare Book Room of the University Libraries.  These leaves include substantial portions of two medieval Bibles and a variety of individual leaves from other manuscripts. They are now available for teaching and research purposes and can be searched at http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/finding/mrmss0311.html. Other period holdings of particular strength include: Harold J. Grimm Reformation Collection; Talfourd P. Linn Cervantes Collection; John Dryden Collection; John Foxe Collection; and the John Daye, Printer, Collection. In 2004, Rare Books acquired the James Stevens-Cox Collection of STC-Sigla books, which include extremely rare copies of popular seventeenth-century books whose rarity is a result of most copies being literally read to pieces.

The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies is set up as a research institute for the study of inscriptions and manuscripts.  The Center contains a number of specialized collections and resources pertaining to the study of palaeography.  It boasts a relatively extensive collection of books, monographs, and reproductions related to the production of western manuscripts from 400-1600.  In addition, it has a comprehensive collection of offprints related to research in the field of classical reception in the Middle Ages, particularly as it pertains to the school tradition. Most recently, it acquired several valuable private collections, in particular the collection of Julian Plante, former director of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library.  The specialized collections housed at the Center can all be accessed by going to its webpage at http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/epigraphy/. The Center also sponsors research fellows who may hold the Virginia Brown Fellowship in Palaeographical Studies and additionally sponsors an annual conference on manuscript studies called Texts and Contexts.