Postgraduate researcher Hannah MacKenzie gives Leeds Central Library talk

Institute for Medieval Studies postgraduate researcher Hannah gave a talk to the public at Leeds Central Library.

On Wednesday 6 July, Institute for Medieval Studies postgraduate researcher Hannah MacKenzie gave a talk at Leeds Central Library titled, ‘Eating People is Wrong? Heroes and Cannibals on the First Crusade’.

The contents of the presentation was taken from Hannah’s doctoral research which examines the ways in which cannibalism was presented in several narrative accounts of the First Crusade (1095-1099) found in Benedictine chronicles and epic poetry. The talk itself focused on one scene of cannibalism found in the Chanson de Antioche, which discusses an act of Cannibalism from the siege of Antioch in 1098.

The event was very well attended and prompted a lively question and answer session from those in attendance which covered a wide range of related topics including the Templars and the Mongols. The talk was accompanied by items from the library’s Special Collections, which allowed those in attendance to handle and read Medieval and Early Modern manuscripts both before and after the talk.

Along with the talk, Hannah is in the process of producing a blog post about the contents of the talk which will be available on the library’s website.