Cosima Clara Gillhammer

In Trinity, I currently teach FHS (Final Honour School) Paper 2: Literature in English, c. 1350-1550. I regularly teach manuscript classes at the Bodleian Library for my undergraduate students. I also teach Prelims Paper 2: Early Medieval Literature, c. 650-1350, and Course II Paper 4: The History of the English Language.

My primary research interests focus on textual criticism, medieval English biblical scholarship, and late medieval textual culture in the context of the Wycliffite Bible (the first complete translation of the Bible into English). The core of my current research project is a study and edition of the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels, a group of erudite fourteenth-century vernacular commentaries on the gospels. The Glossed Gospels are of particular importance for the early history of Bible translation into English, and a close analysis of these texts can refine our understanding of the intellectual and scholarly context which gave rise to the Wycliffite translation project. I am particularly interested in philological and linguistics aspects of the Wycliffite translations, including the texts’ translation strategies in rendering the Latin sources in the vernacular, and their significance within a wider linguistic network.

A Late-Medieval History of the Ancient and Biblical World, 2 vols (Winter, 2022)

‘Fifteenth-Century Compilation Methods: The Case of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29’ (Review of English Studies 308, 2022)

The Wycliffite Old Testament Lectionary (Oxford University Press, 2021)

‘The Wycliffite Translators and the Liturgy’, in Lutz Edzard (ed.), Bibelübersetzung(en) in sprachvergleichender Perspektive (Harrassowitz, 2021)

‘Non-Wycliffite Bible Translation in Oxford, Trinity College, 29 and Universal History Writing in Late Medieval England’ (Anglia 138:4, 2020)

‘The Holy Cross Legend: A Unique Version in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29’ (Medium AEvum 88:1, 2019)