Cornell University is getting medieval this weekend as it hosts the 17th International Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society for Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman and Angevin History at the Statler Hotel, Saturday, Nov. 14, through Tuesday, Nov. 17. A full conference schedule is posted at the web site http://www1.minn.net/~rob/Haskins/Conference.html.

The event is the first of five consecutive annual Haskins Society conferences to be held at Cornell, no small conquest for the university's Medieval Studies Program, which is hosting the conference.

"The central challenge to teaching in any of the non-hard science subjects these days is to explain why it's worth doing," said Paul Hyams, history professor at Cornell and conference director. "The conference will bring students into direct contact with leading international figures and will allow them first-hand experience of the professional activities in their field."

Charles Homer Haskins (1870-1937) was one of the most eminent medieval historians in the United States. He served as a member of the U.S. delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Versailles and was a major influence in American graduate education. The Haskins Society is dedicated to the study of Norman and Anglo-Norman history in a European context and commemorates and honors Haskins for his seminal work in the study of the medieval Renaissance, medieval science and universities, and especially his work in Norman and Anglo-Norman history in a European context.

The society's conference will come to Cornell after 15 years at the University of Houston. Those successful events in the past have helped establish the Haskins Society's annual meeting as a priority event that no medieval historian should miss. The conference is renowned for its relaxed atmosphere, in which graduate as well as undergraduate students rub shoulders with leading world authorities.

"We are working to preserve this special Haskins character," said Hyams.

Among the notable plenary speakers is Connie Berman, a University of Iowa history professor whose investigations on 12th-century nuns have created a historical controversy that transcends gender. Berman's lecture, titled "The Twelfth-Century Invention of Religious Orders in an Anglo-Norman Conquest," is scheduled for 1 p.m., Tuesday, in the Statler Amphitheater.

On Monday afternoon at 4 p.m., also in the amphitheater, a 90-minute session entitled "Pre-Conquest Prognostication," features presentations on such topics as "Anglo-Saxon Charms as Natural and Supernatural Medicine," by Jennifer Welsh of Cornell, and "Orality, Literacy and Lunar Astrology," by Tracey-Anne Cooper of Boston College.

The conference is sponsored by Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences and hosted by the Medieval Studies Program and the History Department. Financial assistance to support graduate student participation was provided by various Cornell departments, including English, German studies, History, and also the Rare Books Fund of the Kroch Library and the Intercollege Program in Archaeology.