Michael Nightingale Memorial Annual Lecture 2026

Brook Rural Museum’s annual Michael Nightingale Memorial Lecture, in conjunction with Kent MEMS will take place on Tuesday 22 September at 7pm.

It will be preceded by a wine reception from 6.30pm sponsored by CAMEMS, the third partner, and this will take place in the Templeman Library Lecture Theatre and atrium (west wing of the library), University of Kent and is free, no booking required. Albeit there will be a retiring collection after the lecture in aid of Brook Rural Museum and CAMEMS for its fund which helps postgraduate students.

The speaker this year is Professor Mark Bailey (UEA) and his topic is: ‘English Agriculture in the Age of the Black Death, 1350–1500’. Some of you may remember the excellent lecture Mark gave in 2024 at the Canterbury Medieval Weekend that year, hence it brilliant that he is coming back again, so please do come along if you can.

From the CAMEMS website …

Professor Bailey is one of Britain’s leading historians of the later Middle Ages. A Professor of Late Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, he was appointed James Ford Lecturer at the University of Oxford in 2019, and his acclaimed Ford Lectures were subsequently published by Oxford University Press as After the Black Death.

In his lecture, Professor Bailey will explore the profound effects of plague on the English countryside. Far from being solely a story of demographic catastrophe, the period witnessed significant economic and social change. The lecture will examine how successive outbreaks of plague transformed the lives of landlords, tenants and agricultural workers, creating new opportunities for some while contributing to shifts in landholding and a gradual movement from arable to pastoral farming.

The annual lecture commemorates the distinguished medieval historian Michael Nightingale and is sponsored by the Brook Rural Museum and CAMEMS in association with Kent MEMS. It promises to be of interest not only to specialists in medieval history but also to anyone interested in the origins of England’s rural landscape and the long-term consequences of the Black Death.

See you all next Tuesday!