Culture and Creativity Seminar Series 2023
Hosted by the Everyday Heritage Team and Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, University of Canberra
Venerated women – mapping Anglo Saxon female saints
PRESENTER: Martina Tenzer, University of York
WHEN: Thursday 27 July 2023
TIME: 12:30 – 1:30pm
WHERE: 06C12, University of Canberra, 11 Kirinari St, Bruce ACT 2617
Recordings are available here
Female Anglo-Saxon saints, venerated across Britain for over 1700 years, still inspire in modern times. However, the Anglo-Saxon Christian world is mainly seen in the light of kings and bishops. At the same time the remarkable lives and workings of the female protagonists remain scattered and marginalised within Anglo-Saxon history. Scientific projects, such as ‘Finding Eanswythe’ (Canterbury Christ Church University), draw the spotlight on this subject. However, a comprehensive resource for students and the public, compiling and presenting female saints, is missing.
This talk will give insights into a project partnered by Isle Heritage CIC, Folkestone, to extend the ‘Finding Eanswythe’ project and map female Anglo-Saxon saints across Britain. It combines spatial, quantitative, and qualitative data on one platform, creating a deep map with textual, audio and video information. The resulting website includes an interactive web map, giving an overview of the network and distribution of female saints and deep insight and understanding of the lives, workings, places, and legends of this neglected but important part of history. Integrating historical data, anecdotes and legends, spatial data, photographs of the landscape setting, and audio impressions of the church bell sound with quantitative and qualitative data create a deep map for immersive storytelling.
Martina is a PhD researcher at the University of York (UK), Department of Archaeology, focusing on methods for analysis and visualisation of public perception in cultural landscapes. Martina holds degrees in Landscape Archaeology (University of Oxford) and Prehistory and Classical Archaeology (University of Heidelberg, Germany). Martina worked in commercial archaeology as a fieldwork supervisor across Britain. Martina’s research interests include Contemporary Archaeology, Historic Landscape Characterisation, landscapes of biodiversity and climate change impact, Artificial Intelligence in heritage management, mapping and visualization of complex, abstract concepts, and QGIS.
