Annual conferences
The Association holds an annual conference at a centre of established importance in the medieval period, usually in the British Isles and occasionally in mainland Europe, collating the results of recent research on major cathedrals, minsters and abbeys and including visits to places of relevant interest.
Our next annual conference: 20-24 July 2013 is in Westminster
Booking for the Westminster Conference is now closed and the conference is full. We have a lengthy waiting list and are not accepting any more applications for full places.
We do have some "lecture only" places available with optional lunches, priority for these places will be given to members. Lecture only places are £50 and include all lectures, conference pack, teas and coffees and a badge which will gain admittance to the Abbey when open to the public during the conference. Lecture only places do not include site visits and site talks or receptions and dinners. Please click here for booking form. For a further £50 an optional sandwich lunch will be included for lecture only delegates. This includes lunch each day (Saturday to Wednesday). We are not able to cater for lunches on individual days. Lectures will be during the afternoon of Saturday 20th July and then each morning on the four subsequent days Sunday 21st to Wednesday 24th inclusive.
About the conference:
The 2013 Conference will embrace the royal palace and abbey of Westminster, covering the archaeology, history and art history of the complex of religious and secular structures occupying the Island of Thorney, from their origins to the fire of 1834.
A full programme of lectures and visits has been arranged, which will include access to parts of the Abbey, School and Palace that are not open to the public. The conference dinner will be held in the 14th-century abbots? private hall (now College Hall), and there will be another dinner in the Houses of Parliament.
Speakers will include: Jeremy Ashbee, Steven Brindle, Nicola Coldstream, Mark Collins, John Crook, Richard Foster, John Goodall, Roland Harris, Edward Impey, Virginia Jansen, John McNeil, Richard Mortimer, Julian Munby, Warwick Rodwell, Marie Louise Sauerberg, Jane Spooner, Tim Tatton-Brown, Pamela Tudor-Craig and Christopher Wilson.
Delegates will have open access to the Abbey, and the arranged site visits will include: Norman Undercroft, Pyx Chamber, Shrine of Edward the Confessor, Coronation Chair, Cosmati pavements, Chapter House, Jerusalem Chamber, Library and Museum. There will be visits to parts of Westminster School, including the remaining medieval fragments, and Ashburnham House. Visits to the Palace will include Westminster Hall, St Mary Undercroft, St Stephen?s Cloister and the Jewel Tower.
The conference will be non-residential, but details of local hotels will be supplied for those who need to book accommodation.
Our last conference : 7th -11th July 2012 was in Norwich
General description of the Norwich conference:
From the eleventh century until the seventeenth, Norwich was the second largest city in Britain, and it was set in the wealthiest and most populous region. A major boost to its status was the founding of the cathedral in the 1090s and the coeval construction of the castle, together representing a huge investment in its development as a regional centre. The many parish churches, the friaries (of which Blackfriars largely survives), guildhall, Great Hospital and merchants'
houses testify to the resources of patronage and craftsmanship to be found here. Norwich was a centre for the production of panel paintings, stained glass and architectural sculpture, much of which is still extant. The work of artists and masons from Norwich is also found around the county, and our day trip will focus on places where it can be seen. The conference presented recent research into the production and consumption of art and architecture in Norwich over a period of six centuries. The aim was to provide an overview regarding the changes in social and religious attitudes and how these were expressed and received.
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Our most recent International Romanesque conference was in Palermo: 16-18 April 2012
The British Archaeological Association held the second of the biennial series of International Romanesque conferences in Palermo on 16-18 April, 2012. The theme was Romanesque and the Mediterranean, and the aim was to examine points of contact between the Latin West and the Byzantine and Islamic worlds in the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the widespread importation of artefacts - textiles, ceramics, ivories and metalwork for the most part - to a specific desire to recruit eastern artists or emulate eastern Mediterranean forms and buildings, particularly those in Jerusalem.
The Conference was held in the historic centre of Palermo from 16-18 April, with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to medieval buildings in and around Palermo from 19-20 April.
Click below to download sample programme and abstracts:
1 programme 2 abstracts part one 3 abstracts part two
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Future Annual Conferences
Aberdeen (July, 2014).
Call for Papers at other medieval conferences
Forum for Medieval Art (link) (download)
For information about other past BAA annual conferences:
please see below
The British Archaeological Association's annual conference for 2011 was held in Kracow, the medieval capital of Poland. The conference was based at the Jagiellonian Library and was concerned with the medieval art, architecture and archaeology of Kracow and the Lesser Poland region, as well the cultural and artistic links that bound the Polish kingdom to its central European neighbours. The programme included lectures on Romanesque and Gothic archaeology, architecture, sculpture and painting as well as touching on the reception of medieval art in post-Reformation times. We visited the archaeological museum on Wawel royal hill as well as the newly opened archaeological exhibition under the Old Town Market, the cathedral and other medieval churches in Kracow and the Kazimierz district, the Cistercian Monastery at Mogia and the medieval town of Sandomierz.
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New Conference Series:
International Romanesque Conference was hosted by the BAA in April 2010 and April 2012
The biennial series on International Romanesque Conferences was launched as the result of a generous donation from one of the Association's members, John Osborn. The first was held in London on 9-11 April, 2010 under the heading 'Romanesque and the Past: Retrospection in the Art and Architecture of Romanesque Europe', and was attended by around 150 scholars, speakers and amateur enthusiasts from a dozen countries. Click here for conference abstracts.
The most recent conference in the biennial series was 'Romanesque and the Eastern Mediterranean' held in Palermo from 16-18 April, 2012.
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Recent Annual Conferences:
Norwich 2012
Kracow 2011
Newcastle 2010
Canterbury 2009
Limerick 2008
Prague 2006
Kings Lynn 2005
Cardiff 2004
Mainz 2003
The proceedings of our annual conferences are published. Please see our publications section for a list of volumes in this series, or order from the Maney's website (the association's publisher).
Romanesque Conference (Palermo) 2012