University of Oxford, England
The sixth ISAS meeting was held at Wadham College, in the University of Oxford, on 1-7 August 1993. This meeting was the first to establish explicitly an overall theme, ‘Culture and Social Context’. Thirty-eight papers were presented on the overall theme of the conference (J. Campbell, H. Hamerow, C. R. Hart, E. Okasha, S. Foot, W. Filmer-Sankey, B. Whitwell, A. Meaney, J. Blair, J. Wilcox, C. David, J. Niles, A Orchard, A. Rossi-Reder, F. Bancila, J. Cermàk, P. Lozowski, J. Loszlovsky and J. Halàcsy Scholz, N. Howe, A. Hagen, E. Treharne, M. Biddle, E. B. Irving, P. Lendinara, L. Abrams, A. Corréa, J. Gerritsen, E. Dahl, D.N. Dumville, D. Donoghue, M. Irvine, D. Pelteret, S. Hollis, J. McNamara, C. Ireland, M. Ogura, C. Biggam, R. Liuzza, J. Toswell). Reports on projects were given by D. Scragg and M. Lapidge, R. Pfaff, A. diPaolo Healey, C. Hough, P. Pulsiano. There were two panel discussions, one on ‘Anglo-Saxon Bibliography: Making It Better’ (P. Szarmach, P.W. Conner, S. Keynes and P. Pulsiano, substituting for Carl Berkhout, and one on ‘The Historical Thesaurus of Old English’ (C. Kay, J. Roberts and L. Grundy).
The Oxford meeting also represents the point at which the Society had become sufficiently secure financially to the point that it could help support projects in which it had a direct interest. To that end £1000.00 sterling was donated to the Dictionary of Old English fundraising program, and a scheme to support the dues of Anglo-Saxonists in Eastern Europe was put forward by Terry Hoad and accepted.
An after-dinner paper was presented by Daniel Donoghue, ‘The Reception of Lady Godiva’.
There was an exhibition of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the Bodleian Library and an exhibition of Anglo-Saxon coins at the Ashmolean Museum.
The conference included a day-long excursion to Winchester, with a tour of medieval sites conducted by Martin Biddle, and an excursion led by John Blair at Lew, Bampton, Langford, Gloucester and Deerhurst.
George R. Brown took up to the Presidency, and Patrizia Lendinara was elected to the position of First Vice-President.