When the Midwest Medieval History Conference gathers at Ohio University on October 2 and 3, 2026, it will be carrying on a tradition that stretches back more than six decades — one built on a deliberately informal premise. The conference was founded in 1962, and it describes itself as an ad hoc group with no dues or formal membership. "Any person interested in the study of the Middle Ages is eligible for membership," its constitution reads. "Membership will be established merely by registering at the annual meeting." There are no dues, no formal roster, and no permanent home. It is, by design, an ad hoc gathering of medievalists that moves among Midwestern campuses each fall.
That wandering habit has taken the conference to the Universities of Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Illinois, to Saint Louis, Purdue, and Ohio State, and even to the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. It has also made the group one of the oldest — by its own account, possibly the oldest — constituent members of the Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) of the Medieval Academy of America. The 2026 meeting marks a return to Athens, where Ohio University's history department and its library collections will host two days of panels, workshops, and a hands-on encounter with the physical materials of the medieval world.
This year's theme is Law and Society, a subject that runs straight through the conference's keynote address. Dr. Sara Butler, a professor in the Department of History at Ohio State University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, will deliver "Weaponizing Death: Accusations of Hate and Spite in 13th Century England." Butler's career has been devoted to the social history of the law — the way ordinary people lived inside, and sometimes worked against, medieval legal systems. She is the author of four books, including The Language of Abuse: Marital Violence in Later Medieval England (2007), Divorce in Medieval England (2013), Forensic Medicine and Death Investigation in Medieval England (2015), and Pain, Penance and Protest: Peine Forte et Dure in Medieval England (2022). Her current research centers on "inquests of hate and spite" — malicious accusations of homicide in thirteenth-century England — and she has published on the subject in an article whose title she borrows for the keynote, "Weaponizing Death: Harassing the Clergy in Thirteenth-Century England." The talk promises to show how a legal accusation could itself become a weapon, a way of harassing enemies through the machinery of the courts.
Butler's address closes the conference on Saturday afternoon, introduced by Miriam Shadis of Ohio University, who also serves as a councilor for the organization. Before that, the program ranges widely across the medieval world. Friday's sessions open at noon with registration and a facsimile exhibit in the Friends of the Library Room (319) of Alden Library, followed by a roundtable on "The Facsimile and Manuscript Collection at Ohio University." That discussion brings together an unusually interdisciplinary group: Shadis from History; Charles Buchanan from Interdisciplinary Arts; Lindsey Martin from Film; Miriam Intrator, the Rare Books Librarian; and Kate Wiselogel, a senior in the Honors Tutorial College studying English. Their conversation, open to an audience, is a reminder that the university's medieval holdings are not just a historian's resource but a teaching collection used across disciplines.
The facsimile exhibit stays open for the rest of Friday, and an ink workshop — location to be determined — gives attendees a chance to engage with the material culture of manuscript production rather than merely reading about it. Friday's panel, "Religious Authority and Social Order," chaired by Marita von Weissenberg of Xavier University, features Frans van Liere of Calvin University on "The Venerable Bede and the Hebraica Veritas"; Buchanan on an eleventh-century book of decrees by Burchard of Worms held in a Lucca manuscript; and Erin L. Jordan of Colorado State University on the legal system of the Latin East and women. A reception follows, with dinner on attendees' own.
Saturday shifts to the Baker Student Center, second floor, rooms 230 and 231, beginning with breakfast from 8 to 9 a.m. The day's three panels track the theme from different angles. "Law and Authority in Medieval England" pairs Morgan McMinn of West Virginia University, on the power of monastic superiors in the courts of Chancery and Common Pleas, with Meghan Woolley of Idaho State University, on condemnations of favor and partiality in the early common law. "Discipline and Norms in Medieval Society" brings together Adam J. Davis of Denison University on ambition and ecclesiastical law, Mireille J. Pardon of Berea College on animals and judicial ritual in fifteenth-century Bruges and Dijon, and C. Matthew Phillips of Concordia University on Aelred of Rievaulx's preaching for the Feast of St Benedict. After lunch and a business meeting, the final panel, "Narrating Power in the Crusading World," features Daniel Carlin of Rochester Christian University on divine judgment in Benedictine narratives of the First Crusade, Tess Janish of Oakland University on Richard the Lionheart in crusade narratives, and Miguel Gomez of the University of Dayton on the many lives of Pedro Fernández de Castro.
The conference is free for undergraduates, though organizers ask for a headcount so they can plan. Registration runs through the Ohio University events calendar, and lodging has been arranged at the Ohio University Inn, a fifteen-minute walk from both Alden Library and the Baker Center, with conference rates and complimentary parking for guests. The gathering is open to the public in the broadest sense the constitution allows: anyone interested in the Middle Ages can register and take part.
What makes the Athens meeting distinctive is the way it pairs the abstract work of legal history with the tangible. A conference whose subject is law and society will spend part of its time not only arguing about thirteenth-century courts but handling facsimiles of the manuscripts those courts produced — an ink workshop, a facsimile exhibit, and a roundtable on the collection itself. For a group that has met annually since the early 1960s without dues or a headquarters, that combination of scholarly rigor and open, hands-on curiosity is very much in character.