Orme Lecture: Elisabeth van Houts (Cambridge), ‘Hidden Memories: Medieval Obituaries on Lead, 800-1200’

This year's annual Orme Lecture will be given by Prof. Elisabeth van Houts (Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge). The lecture will explore the medieval custom of burying elite men and women with lead plaques tucked away in their coffins, sometimes placed under their heads. They contained short texts of varying lengths from the name of the dead person to short obituaries which give biographical data and sometimes more expansive eulogies. Some have survived alongside their more public grave stone or tomb. Of particular interest is the conundrum that these plaques were hidden and never meant to be ‘published’ yet they were obviously crafted with great effort to pass on information. What audience did their authors have in mind?