A study afternoon exploring women as book producers and owners in Early Modern England and Scotland.

Women and Their Books: Women as Book Producers and Owners in Early Modern England and Scotland

Saturday 3 October 2026

Christ Church Upper Library*

The recent acquisition of a sixteenth-century manuscript containing copies of Katherine Parr’s Praieres or meditacions (1545) and other devotional works prompted a new look at women as book producers and owners in early modern England and Scotland as represented in Christ Church Library’s collections.

In this study afternoon our speakers will explore the ways in which women and their books were part of devotional, intellectual, and cultural landscape and the material evidence of women’s book ownership and production.

During the event there will be a chance to view a special display which includes a sixteenth-century manuscript containing copies of Katherine Parr’s Praieres or meditacions (1545) and other devotional works, a 1599 book of Psalms in French, written out in a large variety of scripts by the Franco-Scottish calligrapher Esther Inglis, many other books and medical works donated to Christ Church in 1567 by Mildred Cecil, Lady Burghley.

Programme

10:30am: Registration and opportunity to see display

11.30am: Welcome

11.35am: Sophie Bacchus-Waterman (Christ Church, Oxford), ‘A Queen’s Monogram?: The Boleyn Family and the Horenbout Workshop’

12.05pm: Professor Tamara Atkin (The Queen’s College, Oxford), ‘Christ Church MS 715: Some Unresolved Questions’

12.35: Q&A with Sophie Bacchus-Waterman and Professor Tamara Atkin

1-2pm: Lunch**

2pm: Professor Micheline White (Carleton University), ‘Queen Katherine Parr’s Prayers or Meditations: Origins and Afterlife in Christ Church MS 715’ [Online]

2.30pm: Dr John McCallum (University of Edinburgh), ‘Setting the scene: Religion and Culture in Late Sixteenth-Century Scotland’

3pm: Q&A with Professor Micheline White and Dr John McCallum

3.30pm: Tea break

4pm: Dr Georgianna Ziegler (Folger Shakespeare Library), ‘Psalms Fit for a Queen: Esther Inglis's 1599 gift for Elizabeth I’

4.30pm: Anna-Nadine Pike (University of Kent), ‘“I have written in as many diverse styles as anyone else”’

5pm: Q&A with Dr Georgianna Ziegler and Anna-Nadine Pike

5.30pm: Summing up and drinks reception

* We regret that access to the Upper Library is by a large spiral staircase only and may cause difficulty for anyone with limited mobility.

** Lunch is not provided but can be easily found in the city centre.

Description supplied by the event organiser.