Dr Cosima Clara Gillhammer

Before taking up my Fellowship at LMH in October 2024, I was a Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford (2020-2024). Previously, I worked as Postdoctoral Researcher on the project ‘Editing the Wycliffite Old Testament Lectionary’ at Oxford’s English Faculty. I have spent eight years teaching the medieval period as a Stipendiary Lecturer at Trinity College, Oxford, where I also studied for my DPhil in English (awarded 2020, funded by a Clarendon Scholarship). I hold a double degree in English Linguistics and Medieval English and German Literature from LMU University of Munich, where I taught undergraduate and graduate seminars on Medieval English before coming to Oxford. I have also held the Erika and Kenneth Riley Fellowship at the Huntington Library, California. 

My research focuses on medieval Bible translation, hermeneutics, and commentary culture in the context of the Wycliffite Bible (the first complete translation of the Latin Vulgate into English, completed in the fourteenth century). My work investigates why, how, and by whom the Bible was first translated from Latin into English, and how this translation influenced literary works of the Middle English period. My textual-critical work has produced two scholarly editions of previously unknown texts – amongst these is the first complete edition of the Wycliffite Old Testament Lectionary (OUP, 2021), a collection of liturgical texts translated from Latin into Middle English. I continue to research the role of the liturgy in medieval English culture and literature, particularly in works by poets such as Chaucer and Langland. In tandem with this research, I have recently written a teaching book, Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy (forthcoming with Reaktion Books in April 2025). Informed by my research, this book introduces students and general readers to important liturgical texts and their influence on literature, art, and music, revealing some surprising discoveries along the way.

At LMH I teach medieval literature to first and second years on the BA English course, including Prelims Paper 2: Early Medieval Literature, c. 650–1350, FHS Paper 2: Literature in English, c. 1350–1550, and a range of other papers related to Old and Middle English language and literature. I also teach the language component of Prelims Paper 1, and I regularly supervise dissertations on various aspects of medieval literature. In my teaching for all of these papers I incorporate object-led approaches, giving students the opportunity to work with medieval manuscripts ‘in the flesh’ at the Bodleian Library.

Book-length studies:

Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy (Reaktion Books, forthcoming 1 April 2025)

A Late-Medieval History of the Ancient and Biblical World, edited from Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29, two vols (Middle English Texts series, Winter, 2022)

The Wycliffite Old Testament Lectionary (Early English Text Society, OUP, 2021)

Recent articles include:

'Fifteenth-Century Compilation Methods: The Case of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29' (The Review of English Studies 2022, 73, pp. 20–41)

‘The Wycliffite translators and the liturgy’, in Lutz Edzard, (ed.) Bibelübersetzung(en) in sprachvergleichender Perspektive (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Harrassowitz Publishers, 2021)

‘Non-Wycliffite Bible Translation in Oxford, Trinity College, 29 and Universal History Writing in Late Medieval England’ (Anglia 2020, 138:4, pp. 649–72)

‘The Holy Cross Legend: A Unique Version in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29’ (Medium Aevum 2019, 88:1, pp. 52–79)