2015 Magna Carta Lecture with Lesley Smith (Cancelled)

Please note this lecture has been cancelled due to a family emergency.

The rescheduled lecture will take place on Friday 24 July in Salisbury Cathedral. The rescheduled seminar will take place on Saturday 25 July in Salisbury Cathedral Library.

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Professor Lesley Smith – Renewal and Reform: Archbishop Langton in a Circle of New Ideas.

Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207 to 1228, is credited as the key intellectual influence behind the ideas that went into making Magna Carta. This talk will not deal with the Charter itself, but will instead focus on Langton, his education and teaching career in Paris, and the intellectual circle to which he belonged.

Paris was the European centre of theological research at this time, and Langton was part of arguably its most exciting and innovative group of scholar-clerics, all linked to master Peter the Chanter at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Their lively discussions about the reform of the Church and society set the scene for the events of 1215.

Professor Lesley Smith is professor of medieval intellectual history at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, where she also teaches the history of political ideas. Her research focuses on ideas raised by the academic study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, and especially on the manuscripts which survive from that study.

Tickets are £7 and are available by phoning 01722 424800, emailing courses@sarum.ac.uk or on the door. Follow-up seminar takes place on Saturday 21 February in Salisbury Cathesral Library priced at £10. Places limited. Lecture takes place in Salisbury Cathedral.

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Subsequent lectures and seminars

Lectures: Neil MacGregor (6 March), Dominic Grieve (12 March), Robin Griffith-Jones (27 March), Chris Dyer (24 April), Nicholas Vincent (15 May), Dick Howard (7 June) and Lord Igor Judge (18 June) Seminars: Lesley Smith (21 February), Robin Griffith-Jones (28 March), Chris Dyer (25 April) and Nicholas Vincent (16 May)