Women Martyrs in Action: Recreating and Performing Medieval Heroines Today

Women Martyrs in Action: Recreating and Performing Medieval Heroines Today

Also known as: womartyr-act

There are dramatic masterpieces from the 14th and 15th centuries, handed down in manuscript form, which are little known on today’s stage: The Play of Saint Agnes and The Mystery of Saint Barbara in Five Days. These texts celebrate holy female martyrs and are written in Provençal and Middle French. This project aims to highlight the value of translating and staging these medieval works today, and to bring them to the attention of a wider audience. The challenge lies in exploring this distant material by employing contemporary aesthetics (acting, staging, sound design) that can make it accessible to a modern audience, whilst preserving the original text. The research methodology is based on an on-stage exploration of these theatrical forms in collaboration with a diverse group of performers: Master’s students from the University of Lausanne, the University of Paris Nanterre and the School ArTeC (project partner), four actors and directors, and a composer of electroacoustic music. The experimentation is based on a process of translating into modern language or adapting extracts from medieval sources, and on practical workshops leading to public performances. The theoretical findings of the project will be published in the form of an essay; the interimediate data (translations, adaptations, videos of the performances and images) will be archived in the project’s database.

Project Leader, Data Collector, Data Curator
FNS Senior Researcher
Université de Lausanne
susanna.scavello@unil.ch
Data Curator
Research manager, Researcher manager, Research Manager
Université de Lausanne
marion.rivoal@unil.ch

Cite this Project

Citation

Scavello, S., Rivoal, M. (2026), Women Martyrs in Action [base de données] (DaSCH), https://ark.dasch.swiss/ark:/72163/1/0113.

Data Access

Access Rights
Full Open Access
License
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
(2026-07-27)

Copyright

Women Martyrs in Action: Recreating and Performing Medieval Heroines Today

Contact

FNS Senior Researcher
Université de Lausanne
susanna.scavello@unil.ch

Project Timeline

Period
2024-07-01 – 2026-06-30
Status
Ongoing

Funding

Grants
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Grant: 217235
SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowships
More info
Data Management Plan
Not accessible