OxTalks will soon be transitioning to Oxford Events (full details are available on the Staff Gateway). A two-week publishing freeze is expected in early Hilary to allow all events to be migrated to the new platform. During this period, you will not be able to submit or edit events on OxTalks. The exact freeze dates will be confirmed as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Each year, White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) migrate north to breeding grounds in Europe and back south to their wintering grounds, as far afield as sub-Saharan Africa. These long-distance migrants are large, unmistakable in plumage and behavior, and synanthropic, living near humans and benefitting from anthropogenic environments. How did medieval communities in proximity to stork breeding colonies interpret the comings and goings of these birds? This talk presents preliminary findings on the development of interspecies, place-based temporalities between people and storks in northern France and the Low Countries. This region was a growing population center for the species and produced some of the liveliest renderings of storks in manuscripts c. 1250 to 1515. Focusing on depictions of storks in calendars and psalters produced around the Upper Rhine and drawing upon both zooarchaeological and written records of White Storks, I examine the possibility that depictions of storks’ arrival, departure, breeding, and behavioral choices may have acted as pictorial gauges for a combination of environmental, temporal, and climatic variables, calibrating formulaic occupational and liturgical schedules for seasonal variability by synchronizing them with the rhythm of the avian annual cycle.