- New York University
Department of Art History
Silver Center 303, 100 Washington Square East
New York, NY 10003-6688
Kathryn A Smith
New York University, Art History, Faculty Member
- Medieval Art, Early Christian Art and Iconography, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Medieval History, Medieval England, Medieval Studies, and 56 moreArt History, History of Art, Medieval Literature, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Medieval English Literature, History of the Book, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Wall Paintings, Illumination (Manuscripts, Books), Manuscripts (Medieval Studies), Manuscripts and Early Printed Books, Book History, History of Art and Architecture, Early Christianity, Northern European Sculpture 1330-1550; Alabaster, Medieval Devotional Culture, Devotional Objects, Devotional literature, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Medieval Art History, Early Medieval Art, Word and Image Studies, Iconography, Christian Iconography, Early Christian Art, Late Middle Ages, Anglo Norman and Angevin England, Anglo-Norman history, 13th century England, 14th century England, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Lay Piety, English Alabasters, Arthurian Studies, Arthurian Romances, Medieval Literacy, Folklore, Folklore Studies, Medieval Devotional Practice, Medieval Devotional Literature, Late Medieval Religion, Monasticism and Devotion, Medieval Europe, Devotional Art, Medieval Christian representations of women and Jews, Medieval Christian Representation of Jews and Muslims, Medieval Artists, Medieval scribes, Codicology of medieval manuscripts, Orality-Literacy Studies, Vernacular Theology, Carmelites, Carmelite Spirituality, Medieval Architecture, Medieval Archaeology, Biblical Exegesis, and Biblical Medieval Exegesisedit
Cited: Martha Easton, “Feminist Art History and Medieval Iconography,” in Colum Hourihane, ed., The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 875n37; “The French of England: Annotated Short... more
Cited: Martha Easton, “Feminist Art History and Medieval Iconography,” in Colum Hourihane, ed., The Routledge Companion to Medieval Iconography (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 875n37; “The French of England: Annotated Short Bibliography and Resources,” Fordham University, https://frenchofengland.ace.fordham.edu/?page_id=100#some-art-historical; “Crowned Woman (likely Eleanor of Woodstock) at Mass,” Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=37792; Kathryn A. Smith, "Margin," in Medieval Art History Today: Critical Terms, ed. Nina Rowe, special issue of Studies in Iconography 33 (2012), 44n34; Nigel Morgan, "English Books of hours, c. 1240-c.1480," in Sandra Hindman and James H. Marrow, ed., Books of Hours Reconsidered (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2013), 90n26; Kathryn A. Smith, "'Specially English': Gothic Illumination, c. 1190-Early Fourteenth Century," in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, 2nd, rev. ed. Conrad Rudolph (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 585, 591n68, 592n79, n81, 599.
Publicity: Sarah J. Biggs, “The Taymouth Hours,” The British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog, April 13, 2012,
https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/04/the-taymouth-hours.html?_ga=2.119940683.2120474733.1614875499-558522456.161487549
Publicity: Sarah J. Biggs, “The Taymouth Hours,” The British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog, April 13, 2012,
https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/04/the-taymouth-hours.html?_ga=2.119940683.2120474733.1614875499-558522456.161487549
Research Interests: History of the Book, Narrative, Visual Narrative, Narrative and interpretation, Manuscript Studies, and 14 moreMedieval Women, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Art History, Medieval Devotional Culture, Medieval Artists, Devotional Art, Book Illustration and Design, Women Arts Patronage, Women's patronage of medieval art, symbolism and meaning of the medieval book, and the body of christ as a book
If you would like a complete pdf of my book, please contact me at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu or via Academia.edu.
Research Interests: History of the Book, Crusades, Visual Narrative, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Women, and 15 moreLate Medieval English History, Medieval Children and Childood, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Iconography, Medieval Christian representations of women and Jews, Medieval Devotional Culture, Miraculous Images, Antijudaism, Medieval Heraldry, Medieval Seals, Medieval Artists, Marian Miracles, and Book Illustration and Design
In 'Tributes to Elly Miller: Opening Manuscripts', ed. Stella Panayotova, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Tamar Wang (Turnhout and London: Harvey Miller, 2024), 322-45 First 3 pages only: if you would like a copy of the full essay please... more
In 'Tributes to Elly Miller: Opening Manuscripts', ed. Stella Panayotova, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Tamar Wang (Turnhout and London: Harvey Miller, 2024), 322-45
First 3 pages only: if you would like a copy of the full essay please contact me directly at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu
First 3 pages only: if you would like a copy of the full essay please contact me directly at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu
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This essay is intended as a contribution to the scholarly conversation around the signifying power of fictive books—that is, images of books in medieval books. I examine representations of books in three fourteenth-century English... more
This essay is intended as a contribution to the scholarly conversation around the signifying power of fictive books—that is, images of books in medieval books. I examine representations of books in three fourteenth-century English manuscripts -- a Latin Bible written and illuminated in the 1330s (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 35 [A.I.2]), a bilingual (Latin and Anglo-Norman French) planned miscellany of devotional and didactic works (Paris, BnF MS fr. 400, c. 1340-c.1350), and the 'Liber benefactorum' of St Albans, originally compiled and illuminated in 1380 (London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D VII). My aim is to suggest how particular details of the format, form, or color of the books depicted in these manuscripts, or the script or text written on their fictive pages, reveal the responsiveness of their makers to the books' larger pictorial or codicological contexts, or to the genre of text in which these images of books appear. Some of the fictive books enrich "portraits" of holy or venerable authors or readers; others serve as props in religious narratives, denote authority or identity, or visualize tenets of Christian doctrine, belief, or ideology; still others inflect and complicate images of pedagogy, conversion, or donation. I am interested not only in the semantic potency of individual images of books, but also in their meaning in relation to other book-images, and in the work that these fictive books do as key elements within larger chains and webs of signification.
Research Interests: Iconography, Medieval Studies, Illumination (Manuscripts, Books), Medieval England, Medieval Art, and 13 moreMedieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Virgin Mary, Late Medieval England, Medieval bibles, Antijudaism, Medieval Artists, Bible Illustration, Symbolism of Color, symbolism and meaning of the medieval book, the body of christ as a book, Medieval Illuminators, and jews in medieval art
English narrative alabaster reliefs depicting the public life and martyrdom of John the Baptist are a fascinating yet understudied corpus. The starting point of this essay and its place of return is a series of three fifteenth-century... more
English narrative alabaster reliefs depicting the public life and martyrdom of John the Baptist are a fascinating yet understudied corpus. The starting point of this essay and its place of return is a series of three fifteenth-century panels depicting Saint John the Baptist Before Herod Antipas, the Burial of Saint John the Baptist, and the Burning of Saint John the Baptist's Bones and the Scattering of his Ashes. Once possibly part of an altarpiece made for export, the reliefs are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A Inv. nos A.124-1946, A.125-1946, and A.126-1946). Drawing on a broad range of literary, liturgical, homiletic, folkloric, and artistic sources, the essay examines the multifaceted nature of late medieval devotion to John the Baptist, focusing in particular on the saint's connection to women, fertility, and healing, and on the festal, celebratory dimensions of his cult. The essay concludes by offering a reading of the V&A reliefs in light of the popular beliefs and customs that would have informed the English alabaster carvers' lived experience and speculates on the roles of lived experience and memory in the creation and reception of images.
NB: This is the FIRST PAGE ONLY of this article. "Studies in Iconography" is published in hard copy and online via ScholarWorks. If you would like a pdf of this article please contact me at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
NB: This is the FIRST PAGE ONLY of this article. "Studies in Iconography" is published in hard copy and online via ScholarWorks. If you would like a pdf of this article please contact me at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
Research Interests: Mythology And Folklore, Iconography, Visual Culture, Visual Narrative, Medieval Art, and 15 moreMedieval illuminated manuscripts, Material Culture, Women's and gender history, Medieval Art History, John the Baptist, Medieval Iconography, Medieval Liturgy, Medieval Devotional Culture, Cults of Saints, Medieval Sculpture, Medieval Art--Gothic and Late Gothic Sculpture, Alabaster Sculpture, Medieval Dance Studies, English Alabasters, and Medieval Cult of Relics
This essay introduces to a wider audience the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible,... more
This essay introduces to a wider audience the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England. I argue that this grand, multilingual manuscript and the vernacular translation preserved in its pages were commissioned c. 1366-c.1370 by the widowed baroness Maud de Ros to serve as a primer, mirror, guide, family archive, and source of spiritual consolation for her son, John, fifth Baron Welles of Welle, Lincolnshire, and other estates. Working under the direction of a Carmelite chaplain, who I believe composed the translation, the secular artists who illuminated the manuscript strove to visualize scripture in a manner that was at once faithful to the vernacular biblical text in all its concrete detail, evocative of its most elevated themes, and relevant to the values and lived experience of its intended reader-viewer. I show how the Bible’s pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. In addition, using as case studies a selection of illustrations for the Old Testament books, I endeavor to reconstruct the main artist’s creative process, and to identify some of the possible contours of the collaboration that produced the Bible’s visual program. This essay contributes to our picture of lay literate and religious aspiration; the history of Bible translation and reception; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; and medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, memory, and the emotions in post-Black Death England.
Research Interests: Iconography, Medieval Studies, Word and Image Studies, Visual Narrative, History Of Emotions, and 15 moreBible Translation, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Women, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Literacy, Medieval sexuality, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Black Death, Gothic Art, Patronage, Medieval Heraldry, Medieval Artists, and Carmelites
This article also is available online via ProjectMuse at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/738211 and on Penn Scholarly Commons.
Research Interests: Art History, Moral Theology, Virtues and Vices, Medieval Art, Manuscripts (Medieval Studies), and 12 moreCodicology of medieval manuscripts, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Manuscript Illustration, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Medieval Manuscripts, Medieval Devotional Culture, English Books, Illuminated manuscripts, Holy Face, Vision In the Middle Ages, and Passion of Jesus
If you would like a better-quality pdf of this essay please contact me at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
Research Interests: Narrative, Word and Image Studies, Visual Narrative, English History, Late Medieval English History, and 10 moreJewish - Christian Relations, Narrative Analysis, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Iconography, Gothic Art, Medieval Christian representations of women and Jews, Illuminated manuscripts, Representations of Jews and Judaism, and Medieval Artists
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The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library, Royal MS. 2 B. VII), probably made c. 1310-20 for a royal recipient, is among the most lavishly illuminated manuscripts produced in late medieval England. This study focuses principally on a... more
The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library, Royal MS. 2 B. VII), probably made c. 1310-20 for a royal recipient, is among the most lavishly illuminated manuscripts produced in late medieval England. This study focuses principally on a single picture in the Psalter’s Old Testament preface showing the prophet Nathan’s reproof of a repentant King David, and it identifies in that picture what is ostensibly the earliest surviving depiction of St Edward’s Chair, now commonly known as the Coronation Chair, made at the end of the thirteenth century on the order of Edward I. The drawing and its Anglo-Norman French caption are examined for the evidence they offer concerning a range of artistic and political issues, among them the chair’s possible use in the coronation of Edward II in 1308. This study then widens its focus to consider the depiction in the preface of a second artifact associated with the coronation rite: the dove-topped rod or virga, held by the Egyptian pharaoh in a scene in the Joseph story. The essay concludes with speculations concerning the messages that these two topical treatments of biblical history might have conveyed to their presumed royal reader-viewer(s) about the nature and limits of royal authority.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, English History, Late Medieval English History, Kingship (Medieval History), and 15 moreMedieval England, Medieval Art, Manuscripts (Medieval Studies), Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Late Medieval History, Medieval Visual Culture, Edward II, Edward III, Illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Artists, English Medieval Art, 12th-15th century English Kingship, English illuminated manuscripts, Coronation Rituals, and English coronation
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Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England,... more
Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. " Childbed " and " deathbed " are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household.
Research Interests: Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Medieval English Literature, Medieval Art, and 12 moreMedieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Medieval Iconography, Medieval Visual Culture, Furniture History, Late Medieval England, medieval material culture (Northern Europe), Medieval Households, Illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Women and Gender, Medieval Material Culture, and Medieval Manuscript Illumination
in Denis Piramus, La Vie seint Edmund le rei, ed. by D. W. Russell, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Annual Texts 71 (Oxford: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2013-14), 41-64.
Research Interests: Narrative, Word and Image Studies, Visual Narrative, Narrative and interpretation, Manuscript Studies, and 10 moreMedieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Medieval manuscripts, especially scribal editing behaviour and text-image relationships., Anglo-Norman England, Saints, Anglo Norman and Angevin England, Medieval scribes, Bury St Edmunds, and Medieval Artists
in The Social Life of Illumination: Manuscripts, Images, and Communities in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Joyce Coleman, Mark Cruse and Kathryn A. Smith, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013),... more
in The Social Life of Illumination: Manuscripts, Images, and Communities in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Joyce Coleman, Mark Cruse and Kathryn A. Smith, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 121-76.
NB: the publisher of my first book, 'Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England', is given incorrectly in the bibliography for this essay, and was changed without my authorization in the final stages of publication. The originating publisher of my book was The British Library (London).
NB: the publisher of my first book, 'Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England', is given incorrectly in the bibliography for this essay, and was changed without my authorization in the final stages of publication. The originating publisher of my book was The British Library (London).
Research Interests: Literacy, Manuscript Studies, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and 13 moreChristian Iconography, Women and Culture, Medieval Wall Paintings, Medieval Devotional Culture, Wall Paintings, Medieval Heraldry, Medieval Lay Patronage, Medieval Artists, English Medieval Art, Devotional Art, Book Illustration and Design, Medieval English Art, and English wall painting
in 'Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces', ed. Elina Gertsman and Jill Stevenson, Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2012), 44-72
Research Interests: Medieval Studies, Provençal Literature, Suicide, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and 15 moreChristian Iconography, Medieval Occitan Literature, Medieval Art History, Medieval Sermons, Exempla, Medieval Iconography, Medieval Sermon Studies, Imitation, Medieval Devotional Culture, The Cross and Crucifixion, Provençal language and literature, Art of Copying, Simulacrum and Transference, Allegory Period 1300 1600, Crucifixion iconography, and symbolism and meaning of the medieval book
in 'Medieval Art History Today: Critical Terms', ed. Nina Rowe, special issue of 'Studies in Iconography' 33 (2012): 29-44.
Research Interests: Iconography, Word and Image Studies, Manuscript Studies, Medieval England, Medieval Art, and 11 moreManuscripts (Medieval Studies), Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Art History, Marginalia, Word and Image, Illuminated manuscripts, Medieval English Manuscripts, Medieval Marginalia, Manuscript Marginalia, English illuminated manuscripts, and symbolism and meaning of the medieval book
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In Negotiating Sacred and Secular in Medieval Art: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, ed. by Alicia Walker and Amanda Luyster (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers), 17-54
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In Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus (London: Routledge, 2006), 89-92
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In Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections, ed. James R. Tanis and Jenny A. Thompson (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), 21-24
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The Art Bulletin 81/1 (1999), 72-92
**Article of the Month for August 2000, in Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, http://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/ArticleOfTheMonthPrevious.aspx#2000**
**Article of the Month for August 2000, in Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index, http://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/ArticleOfTheMonthPrevious.aspx#2000**
Research Interests: Literacy, Word and Image Studies, Visual Narrative, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Art, and 15 moreMedieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Devotional literature, Sermon Studies, Virgin Mary, Medieval Sermon Studies, Medieval scribes, Passion of Christ, Vernacular Theology, Vision In the Middle Ages, Medieval Artists, Book Illustration and Design, Teaching in the Middle Ages, and Reading in the middle ages
The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian,
and Islamic Art, special issue of the Journal of Jewish Art 23-24 (1998), 179-202
and Islamic Art, special issue of the Journal of Jewish Art 23-24 (1998), 179-202
Research Interests: Art History, Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Jewish - Christian Relations, Medieval England, and 15 moreMedieval Art, Medieval Jewish History, Codicology of medieval manuscripts, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Medieval Iconography, Jerusalem in Art, Medieval Liturgy, Medieval Devotional Culture, Antijudaism, Jewish War 66-73 AD, Medieval Christian Representation of Jews and Muslims, Devotional Art, Anti-Jewish Polemics, and Josephus Jewish Wars
Gesta 32/2 (1993): 147-59
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Oxford Art Journal 16/1 (1993): 3-24.
Research Interests: Religion and Sexuality, Early Christianity, Old Testament, Medieval Women, Women in Art, and 15 moreLate Antiquity, Early Christian Art, Christian Iconography, Medieval Sermons, Sermon Studies, Touch, Early Christian Studies, History of marriage and celibacy, Sensorium, Depictions of Women in Religious Medieval Art, Early Christian Catacombs, Vision In the Middle Ages, Medieval Senses, Early Christian Sarcophagi, and history of marriage in Christianity
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Research Interests: Medieval Historiography, Medieval Women, Women in Art, Historiography (in Art History), Medieval Art, and 7 moreEarly and Medieval Islamic Art and Architecture, Depictions of Women in Religious Medieval Art, Medieval Women and Gender, Women As Art Patrons, Medieval Jewish Art, Women as Artists, Subjects, and Patrons, and Women in Jewish art
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caareviews, Nov. 19, 2008, http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1188, November 19, 2008; CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2008.116; reprinted in excerpted form in 'The Art History Newsletter' as 'Whither Medieval Art History?';... more
caareviews, Nov. 19, 2008, http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1188, November 19, 2008;
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2008.116; reprinted in excerpted form in 'The Art History Newsletter' as 'Whither Medieval Art History?'; http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/.
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2008.116; reprinted in excerpted form in 'The Art History Newsletter' as 'Whither Medieval Art History?'; http://arthistorynewsletter.com/blog/.
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in Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from
Philadelphia Collections, ed. by James R. Tanis and Jenny A. Thompson (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), 24-43
Philadelphia Collections, ed. by James R. Tanis and Jenny A. Thompson (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), 24-43
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co-authors Lynley Herbert, William Noel
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Authors: William Noel, Lynley Herbert; co-author, Kathryn A. Smith. This manuscript comprises twenty-four leaves of Bible pictures by W. de Brailes, an English artist active in Oxford in the middle of the thirteenth century. Seven leaves... more
Authors: William Noel, Lynley Herbert; co-author, Kathryn A. Smith. This manuscript comprises twenty-four leaves of Bible pictures by W. de Brailes, an English artist active in Oxford in the middle of the thirteenth century. Seven leaves from the same set of images are now in the Musée Marmottan in Paris. These thirty-one leaves are all that remain of an image cycle that once contained at least ninety-eight miniatures, and which was the longest cycle of Bible miniatures surviving from the thirteenth century in England. In all probability these Bible pictures were actually prefatory matter to a Psalter, now Stockholm, National Museum Ms. B.2010. De Brailes also composed and wrote the captions that accompany many of the images, a pattern of production observable in other manuscripts made by him, including London, British Library Ms. Add. 49999, a richly illuminated Book of Hours apparently intended for a female owner. W. de Brailes is one of only two English artists of the thirteenth century whose name we can associate with surviving works. Eleven manuscripts have been identified that contain miniatures in his hand. De Brailes has a quirky and chatty style and is extremely gifted at turning Bible stories into paint.
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co-authors: Lynley Herbert, William Noel
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This is a complete copy of my doctoral dissertation, completed in 1995 and defended in 1996, and supervised by Jonathan J. G. Alexander. Thanks to all of you who have expressed an interest in it. Since 1996 it has been available via UMI... more
This is a complete copy of my doctoral dissertation, completed in 1995 and defended in 1996, and supervised by Jonathan J. G. Alexander. Thanks to all of you who have expressed an interest in it. Since 1996 it has been available via UMI and ProQuest. If you do use information from it, please do acknowledge it. You may also wish to consult my articles on Egerton 2781, the Neville of Hornby Hours (1997/98, 1999), and my 2003 book, 'Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England,' which include additional interpretations of and information about Egerton 2781 and other manuscripts.
Research Interests: Word and Image Studies, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Women, Medieval Literacy, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and 15 moreAnglo-Norman literature and culture, Eucharistic Theology, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Devotional literature, Virgin Mary, Medieval Christian representations of women and Jews, Female Patronage, Late Medieval England, Miraculous Images, Vernacular Theology, Illuminated manuscripts, Passion of Jesus, The Eucharist, Medieval Childhood, and the body of christ as a book
Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages is an art history series from Brepols, edited by Kathryn A. Smith (New York University). The editorial board consists of Adam S. Cohen (University of Toronto) and Sharon E. J. Gerstel... more
Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages is an art history series from Brepols, edited by Kathryn A. Smith (New York University). The editorial board consists of Adam S. Cohen (University of Toronto) and Sharon E. J. Gerstel (University of California, Los Angeles). This book series is dedicated to publishing innovative interdisciplinary work on art, architecture, and visual culture from late antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Monographs, thematic studies, multi-author essay collections, and investigations that take a cross-cultural perspective on any aspect of western medieval, Byzantine, Jewish, and Islamic visual and material culture are welcome.
Contact: Johan Van der Beke at Johan.VanderBeke@brepols.net; or Kathryn A. Smith, New York University, Department of Art History, at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
For volumes published in the series or in contract, see the attached list.
Contact: Johan Van der Beke at Johan.VanderBeke@brepols.net; or Kathryn A. Smith, New York University, Department of Art History, at kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
For volumes published in the series or in contract, see the attached list.
Research Interests: Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Islamic Art, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Mediterranean Art and Architecture, and 8 moreByzantine Art and Archaeolgy, Byzantine art, Islamic art and architecture, Medieval Art and Archeology; Treasure of Chuch, Medieval Islamic manuscripts, Byzantine manuscripts, Medieval Jewish Manuscripts, and Medieval Jewish Art
"Women Medievalists on Medieval Women: A State-of-the-Field Symposium," March 20, 2024 Hosted by the American Trust for the British Library, and jointly sponsored with the Early Book Society; the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History... more
"Women Medievalists on Medieval Women: A State-of-the-Field Symposium," March 20, 2024
Hosted by the American Trust for the British Library, and jointly sponsored with the Early Book Society; the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance, Johns Hopkins University; and with gratitude to the Grolier Club.
Hosted by the American Trust for the British Library, and jointly sponsored with the Early Book Society; the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance, Johns Hopkins University; and with gratitude to the Grolier Club.
Research Interests: Women's Studies, Late Middle Ages, Medieval History, Book History, Material Culture Studies, and 11 moreMedieval Studies, Medieval Women, Medieval Art, Early Middle Ages (History), Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Merchants (Medieval Studies), Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Devotional Culture, Medieval Jewelry, Medieval Women and Gender, and The Medieval Cult of Relics
The Cambridge Medieval Art Seminar Series 2023-24 (2/12), NYU MARC Distinguished Lectures Series (3/26) Forthcoming in 'Opening Manuscripts: A Tribute to Elly Miller', ed. Stella Panayotova, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Tamar Wang... more
The Cambridge Medieval Art Seminar Series 2023-24 (2/12), NYU MARC Distinguished Lectures Series (3/26)
Forthcoming in 'Opening Manuscripts: A Tribute to Elly Miller', ed. Stella Panayotova, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Tamar Wang (Turnhout and London: Harvey Miller)
Forthcoming in 'Opening Manuscripts: A Tribute to Elly Miller', ed. Stella Panayotova, Lucy Freeman Sandler, and Tamar Wang (Turnhout and London: Harvey Miller)
Research Interests: Medieval Science, Manuscript Studies, Moral Theology, Medieval England, Medieval Art, and 9 moreMedieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Medieval Art History, Diagrams, Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Medieval Iconography, Gothic Art, Medieval Devotional Culture, and Apophatic theology
Research Interests: Genealogy, Medieval Studies, Manuscript Studies, Medieval Women, Late Medieval English History, and 15 moreMedieval Europe, Women Artists, Medieval Art, Medieval Authorship, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Manuscripts, Female Patronage, Carmelite Spirituality, Medieval Heraldry, Medieval Women and Gender, Medieval Artists, Carmelite History & Origins, and Women as Artists, Subjects, and Patrons
My talk introduces the grand yet understudied multilingual manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1)—the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illustrated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the “first full... more
My talk introduces the grand yet understudied multilingual manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1)—the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illustrated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the “first full prose vernacular Bible produced in England” (Russell). Building on the work of biblical and literary scholars, and through analysis of key elements of the manuscript’s visual and textual programs, I argue that both the Bible and its revised, modernized translation were produced c. 1365–c. 1370 on the order of a lay woman: Maud de Ros (d. 1388), widow of John, 4th Baron Welles (d. 1361) of Welle, Lincolnshire and other estates; and that the book was intended to serve as a primer, mirror, family archive, and source of spiritual consolation for Maud’s son, John, 5th Baron Welles (d. 1421). I discuss the circumstances of the commission, presenting evidence for Carmelite sponsorship and composition of the translation. I further show that the manuscript’s main artist read the biblical text assiduously, carefully adapting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to synchronize the illustrations with the particularities of the translation, as well as to personalize the biblical text for its intended reader-viewer.
My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration; the history of Bible translation and reception; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, health, and memory; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death. In addition, in illuminating some of the possible contours of the collaboration that fueled the “making” of the Welles-Ros Bible, my talk demonstrates what the methods and concerns of art history can contribute to literary and religious studies.
My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration; the history of Bible translation and reception; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, health, and memory; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death. In addition, in illuminating some of the possible contours of the collaboration that fueled the “making” of the Welles-Ros Bible, my talk demonstrates what the methods and concerns of art history can contribute to literary and religious studies.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Iconography, Word and Image Studies, Visual Narrative, Bible Translation, and 15 moreManuscript Studies, Late Medieval English History, Commemoration and Memory, Allegory, Reception of the Bible, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Jerusalem, Medieval Iconography, Female Patronage, Patronage, Illuminated manuscripts, Medieval Artists, History and Theories of the Emotions, and Carmelites
ICMA at the Courtauld Annual Lecture/The Courtauld Research Forum, Wednesday 14 October, 2020 “My talk brings together my early and more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris Bibliothèque nationale de... more
ICMA at the Courtauld Annual Lecture/The Courtauld Research Forum, Wednesday 14 October, 2020
“My talk brings together my early and more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France MS fr. 1) — the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the “earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England” (Russell). Building on the work of biblical and literary scholars, I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one of the matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume’s functions and intended audience; and show how the Bible’s rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. Moreover, the manuscript’s main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble clients both the sense of the vernacular translation and its very words. My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; the history of bible translation and reception; medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death.”
“My talk brings together my early and more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France MS fr. 1) — the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the “earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England” (Russell). Building on the work of biblical and literary scholars, I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one of the matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume’s functions and intended audience; and show how the Bible’s rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. Moreover, the manuscript’s main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble clients both the sense of the vernacular translation and its very words. My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; women’s cultural patronage; artists’ literacy and working methods; the history of bible translation and reception; medieval ideas about gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death.”
Research Interests: Iconography, Medieval Studies, Word and Image Studies, Bible Translation, Medieval Women, and 14 moreHeraldry, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Literacy, Medieval sexuality, Patronage (History), Reception of the Bible, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Mendicant Orders, Black Death, Medieval Heraldry, and Medieval Artists
My talk brings together my early and more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France fr. 1) -- the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the... more
My talk brings together my early and more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France fr. 1) -- the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the earliest "full prose vernacular Bible produced in England" (Russell) -- and the subject of my monograph in-progress. I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one or more matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume's functions and intended audience; and show how the Bible's rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. Moreover, the manuscript's main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble clients both the sense(s) of the vernacular translation and its very words. My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; the history of Bible translation and reception; women's cultural patronage; artists' literacy and working methods; medieval constructions of gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, and culture after the Black Death.
Research Interests: Word and Image Studies, History of Sexuality, Bible Translation, Late Medieval English History, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and 7 moreChristian Iconography, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Medicine, Medieval Masculinities, Medieval Women and Gender, and Medieval Artists
Case Western Reserve University, November 7th, 2019
Research Interests:
Plenary lecture, 43rd Annual Mid-America Medieval Association, University of Missouri, Kansas City, September 14th, 2019 This talk brings together my work from the late 1990s and my more recent research on the manuscript that I call the... more
Plenary lecture, 43rd Annual Mid-America Medieval Association, University of Missouri, Kansas City, September 14th, 2019
This talk brings together my work from the late 1990s and my more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris BnF MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the "earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England" (Russell). Building on recent work by biblical and literary scholars, I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one or more matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume's functions and principal intended reader; and show how the Bible's rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. Moreover, the manuscript's main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble audience both the sense of the vernacular translation and its very words. My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; the history of bible translation and reception; women's cultural patronage; artists' literacy and working methods; medieval constructions of gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, politics, and culture after the Black Death.
This talk brings together my work from the late 1990s and my more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris BnF MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the "earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England" (Russell). Building on recent work by biblical and literary scholars, I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one or more matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume's functions and principal intended reader; and show how the Bible's rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. Moreover, the manuscript's main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble audience both the sense of the vernacular translation and its very words. My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; the history of bible translation and reception; women's cultural patronage; artists' literacy and working methods; medieval constructions of gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, politics, and culture after the Black Death.
Research Interests: History of the Book, History and Memory, Bible Translation, Medieval Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, and 10 moreChristian Iconography, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Constructions of masculinity, Black Death, Medieval Art History, Medieval Iconography, History of Medicine in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Female Patronage, Late Medieval England, and Medieval Women and Gender
My paper is intended as a contribution to the scholarly conversation around the signifying power of fictive books—that is, images of books in medieval books. I examine representations of books in three fourteenth-century English... more
My paper is intended as a contribution to the scholarly conversation around the signifying power of fictive books—that is, images of books in medieval books. I examine representations of books in three fourteenth-century English manuscripts -- a Latin Bible written and illuminated in the 1330s (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 35 [A.I.2]), a bilingual (Latin and Anglo-Norman French) planned miscellany of devotional and didactic works (Paris, BnF MS fr. 400, c. 1340-c.1350), and the 'Liber benefactorum' of St Albans, originally compiled and illuminated in 1380 (London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D VII). My aim is to suggest how particular details of the format, form, or color of the books depicted in these manuscripts, or the script or text written on their fictive pages, reveal the responsiveness of their makers to the books' larger pictorial or codicological contexts, or to the genre of text in which these images of books appear. Some of the fictive books enrich "portraits" of holy or venerable authors or readers; others serve as props in religious narratives, denote authority or identity, or visualize tenets of Christian doctrine, belief, or ideology; still others inflect and complicate images of pedagogy, conversion, or donation. I am interested not only in the semantic potency of individual images of books, but also in their meaning in relation to other book-images, and in the work that these fictive books do as key elements within larger chains and webs of signification.
Paper given at the 46th Annual St. Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University, June 18, 2019; The Medieval Book as Object, Idea and Symbol, 36th Annual Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, Harlaxton Manor, UK, July 23, 2019; and in the "Works in Progress" series, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, November 5, 2020.
Paper given at the 46th Annual St. Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University, June 18, 2019; The Medieval Book as Object, Idea and Symbol, 36th Annual Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, Harlaxton Manor, UK, July 23, 2019; and in the "Works in Progress" series, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, November 5, 2020.
Research Interests: Teaching and Learning, Art History, Book History, History of the Book, English History, and 14 moreLate Medieval English History, Jewish - Christian Relations, History of Art, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Manuscript Illustration, Medieval Iconography, Late Medieval England, St Albans literary production, Illuminated manuscripts, English Monasticism, Medieval Christian Representation of Jews and Muslims, Images of Girdle Books, symbolism and meaning of the medieval book, and the body of christ as a book
This workshop introduces the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1), the most complete extant copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, and the earliest full prose vernacular bible produced in England. Made in the mid-14th century for the Welles... more
This workshop introduces the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1), the most complete extant copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, and the earliest full prose vernacular bible produced in England. Made in the mid-14th century for the Welles barons of Lincolnshire, this grand yet understudied manuscript is the sole surviving illustrated copy of this work. The manuscript is the subject of my monograph in-progress, provisionally titled Found in Translation: Artists, Patrons, and Readers in the Welles-Ros Bible.
This workshop proceeds in three parts. In the first part, I introduce the Welles-Ros Bible as an artifact and set it in the larger contexts of its creation.
Second, using as case studies a selection of illustrations for the Old Testament books, I endeavor to reconstruct the illuminator's responses to the vernacular biblical text, and offer hypotheses regarding the pictorial traditions, models, and habits of thought and visualization that appear to have informed his artistic choices and imagery. The artist's sources include both rare and more widely circulating iconographies originating in English traditions of Latin Bible illustration, cosmological diagrams, continental vernacular historical and biblical works, and erudite allegorical imagery associated with books made for both monastic and elite lay reader-viewers. Keenly attuned to the particularities of the vernacular translation that he and his noble clients had before them, the artist adapted and creatively reformulated his models in order to bring his illustrations in line with the text. In a few instances, the artist appears to have rejected known pictorial tradition altogether, creating images that reinterpret details of the text through the lens of the material culture and natural environment of the baronial manor.
My research not only contributes to our picture of late medieval artisanal literacy and artists' working practices. It also illuminates the points of convergence and interchange between later and late medieval monastic and lay religious and artistic cultures, and suggests that their relationship was far from unidirectional. Finally, it affirms the key role of artists, and of book artisans in general, as synthesizers and transformers of diverse intellectual and artistic traditions, and as collaborators in the transmission of vernacular theology.
In the third part of this workshop, I offer evidence concerning the genesis of the Welles-Ros Bible as an intellectual project. The manuscript preserves a revised, modernized version of the text that was apparently undertaken to make it more accessible to a lay readership. Moreover, BnF fr. 1 is thought by some scholars to have been the very artifact for which this revised version was achieved. The pictorial evidence suggests that one or more of the Welles family matriarchs commissioned the manuscript, and perhaps even the translation preserved in its pages. A compelling case thus can be made for female agency as the "engine" driving a signal chapter in the history of vernacular biblical translation and in the creation of this important work of manuscript art.
4/26/19
This workshop proceeds in three parts. In the first part, I introduce the Welles-Ros Bible as an artifact and set it in the larger contexts of its creation.
Second, using as case studies a selection of illustrations for the Old Testament books, I endeavor to reconstruct the illuminator's responses to the vernacular biblical text, and offer hypotheses regarding the pictorial traditions, models, and habits of thought and visualization that appear to have informed his artistic choices and imagery. The artist's sources include both rare and more widely circulating iconographies originating in English traditions of Latin Bible illustration, cosmological diagrams, continental vernacular historical and biblical works, and erudite allegorical imagery associated with books made for both monastic and elite lay reader-viewers. Keenly attuned to the particularities of the vernacular translation that he and his noble clients had before them, the artist adapted and creatively reformulated his models in order to bring his illustrations in line with the text. In a few instances, the artist appears to have rejected known pictorial tradition altogether, creating images that reinterpret details of the text through the lens of the material culture and natural environment of the baronial manor.
My research not only contributes to our picture of late medieval artisanal literacy and artists' working practices. It also illuminates the points of convergence and interchange between later and late medieval monastic and lay religious and artistic cultures, and suggests that their relationship was far from unidirectional. Finally, it affirms the key role of artists, and of book artisans in general, as synthesizers and transformers of diverse intellectual and artistic traditions, and as collaborators in the transmission of vernacular theology.
In the third part of this workshop, I offer evidence concerning the genesis of the Welles-Ros Bible as an intellectual project. The manuscript preserves a revised, modernized version of the text that was apparently undertaken to make it more accessible to a lay readership. Moreover, BnF fr. 1 is thought by some scholars to have been the very artifact for which this revised version was achieved. The pictorial evidence suggests that one or more of the Welles family matriarchs commissioned the manuscript, and perhaps even the translation preserved in its pages. A compelling case thus can be made for female agency as the "engine" driving a signal chapter in the history of vernacular biblical translation and in the creation of this important work of manuscript art.
4/26/19
Research Interests:
This paper examines a selection of striking illustrations in the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1), the most complete surviving copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible -- a close, often literal translation of the Vulgate into Anglo-Norman... more
This paper examines a selection of striking illustrations in the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1), the most complete surviving copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible -- a close, often literal translation of the Vulgate into Anglo-Norman French, and the earliest full prose vernacular bible produced in England. Made around the middle of the fourteenth century for the Welles barons of Lincolnshire, this grand yet understudied manuscript is the sole surviving illustrated copy of this work. A focus of my talk is the approach of the manuscript's main artist to visualizing the vernacular biblical text, which this artist apparently read assiduously, as details of the images suggest. Clearly cognizant of traditions of biblical illustration, the artist nonetheless often ignored or reformulated these traditions, producing idiosyncratic compositions and original iconographies in an effort to visualize for his noble clients both the very words and the ostensible sense of the vernacular translation that they -- and he -- had before them. The artist appears to have been attuned to the particularities of the biblical translation, and made every effort to bring his compositions in line with these features of the text. I also offer new evidence concerning the genesis of the Anglo-Norman Bible as an intellectual project. The Welles-Ros Bible preserves a revised, modernized version of the text that was apparently undertaken to make it more "user friendly." Moreover, BnF fr. 1 is thought by some scholars to have been the very artifact for which this revised version was achieved. The pictorial evidence suggests that one or more of the Welles family matriarchs commissioned the manuscript, and perhaps even the translation preserved in its pages. My talk thus makes a case for female agency as the "engine" driving a signal chapter in the history of vernacular biblical translation, as well as contributing to our picture of late medieval artisanal literacy and invention and artists' working practices.
2/28/19
NB: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, in the first of two sessions, "In Honor of Richard K. Emmerson: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Art, Drama, and Literature," held on May 11, 2017.
If you would like further information about this paper, to be published in a forthcoming volume, and which derives from my current book project on BnF fr. 1, please contact me at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
2/28/19
NB: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, in the first of two sessions, "In Honor of Richard K. Emmerson: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Art, Drama, and Literature," held on May 11, 2017.
If you would like further information about this paper, to be published in a forthcoming volume, and which derives from my current book project on BnF fr. 1, please contact me at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
Research Interests: Art History, Medieval Studies, Word and Image Studies, Bible Translation, Manuscript Studies, and 12 moreMedieval England, Manuscripts (Medieval Studies), Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman literature and culture, Translation, Patronage (Medieval Studies), Medieval Art History, Word and Image, Female Patronage, Patronage, Illuminated manuscripts, and Medieval Artists
Paper presented in the session, "In Honor of Richard K. Emmerson, "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Drama, Literature and Art I," Thursday, May 11, 2017, 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan... more
Paper presented in the session, "In Honor of Richard K. Emmerson, "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Drama, Literature and Art I,"
Thursday, May 11, 2017, 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Thursday, May 11, 2017, 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Flash presentation given in "Manuscript as Medium," Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, March 5, 2016 This flash presentation considers the relationships between the well-known Mass picture and the lesser known Tree of Vices... more
Flash presentation given in "Manuscript as Medium," Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, March 5, 2016
This flash presentation considers the relationships between the well-known Mass picture and the lesser known Tree of Vices in the Butler Hours, examining how the pictures' interrelated imagery, and the Anglo-Norman verse texts in the latter miniature, might have shaped the religious experience of their Butler beholders. It is suggested that the manuscript was designed in part to train the eyes, mind, conscience, and devout comportment of the future William, 3rd Lord Butler, who was a youth at the time of the volume's original production (early 1340s).
NB: This talk, in expanded form, will be published in the journal "Manuscript Studies," vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall 2019)
This flash presentation considers the relationships between the well-known Mass picture and the lesser known Tree of Vices in the Butler Hours, examining how the pictures' interrelated imagery, and the Anglo-Norman verse texts in the latter miniature, might have shaped the religious experience of their Butler beholders. It is suggested that the manuscript was designed in part to train the eyes, mind, conscience, and devout comportment of the future William, 3rd Lord Butler, who was a youth at the time of the volume's original production (early 1340s).
NB: This talk, in expanded form, will be published in the journal "Manuscript Studies," vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall 2019)
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Session on Manuscript Studies and Medieval Reading Practices: Text, Image, Margin and Voice, Medieval Academy of America annual meeting, University of Notre Dame, March 12th, 2015.
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Reading and Writing in City, Court, and Cloister: Conference in Honor of Mary C. Erler, The 35th Annual Conference of The Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, New York, March 7th, 2015
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English Fourteenth Century Manuscripts in the British Library: A Conference, The British Library/AMARC, December 1, 2014
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Paper given in Session, "Art and Devotion in Medieval England I," 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI, May 11th, 2012; "Mixed Media: Rethinking the Archive in Medieval England,"... more
Paper given in Session, "Art and Devotion in Medieval England I," 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI, May 11th, 2012; "Mixed Media: Rethinking the Archive in Medieval England," Michigan Medieval and Early Modern Symposium, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, September 29th, 2012; Columbia Medieval Seminar, Columbia University, New York, September 16th, 2014; Julius Fund Lecture, Department of Art History, Case Western University/Cleveland Museum of Art, March 23rd, 2016; "Fracture/Suture," Arpeggio: 2016 Art, Art History & Visual Studies Symposium, Duke University, October 21st, 2016.
Research Interests: Folklore, Medieval Art, Christian Iconography, Medieval Magic, Medieval Art History, and 15 moreJohn the Baptist, Medieval Devotional Culture, Salome dance, Memory in Medieval Culture, Medieval Dance, Medieval Women and Gender, Alabaster Sculpture, Medieval Artists, Medieval Dance Studies, English Medieval Art, Devotional Art, Northern European Sculpture 1330-1550; Alabaster, Medieval Art and Liturgy, English Alabasters, and Medieval Cult of Relics
Late Medieval Spirituality and…, panel of the Medieval Club of New York, CUNY Graduate Center, May 3rd, 2013.
Research Interests:
Putting England in its Place: Cultural Production and Cultural
Relations in the High Middle Ages, 33rd Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, March 10th, 2013
Relations in the High Middle Ages, 33rd Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, March 10th, 2013
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Iconography On and Off the Books, Second Annual Medieval Manuscript Workshop: Iconography and Illumination, New York University, September 23rd, 2011
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It is a pleasure to announce the first Medieval Virtual Seminar, a collaboration of the University of Bristol, the University of Oslo, Middlebury College, and New York University. The seminar will feature four lectures on topics in... more
It is a pleasure to announce the first Medieval Virtual Seminar, a collaboration of the University of Bristol, the University of Oslo, Middlebury College, and New York University.
The seminar will feature four lectures on topics in medieval studies, one hosted by each institution, to take place during the 2014-15 academic year.
The first lecture in the seminar will take place on Friday, December 5th, from 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Beth Williamson, Reader in History of Art in the Department of History of Art, University of Bristol, will speak on
“Representing and Embodying the Virgin in a Trecento Reliquary Tabernacle.”
Location: 3 Washington Square Village, Suite 1M (ground fl.), Conference Rm 104; (entrance on Bleecker St., betw. La Guardia Pl. and Mercer; look for the purple NYU-GTS banner)
The seminar will include three further lectures on February 13th, February 27th, and May 8th, 2015.
For further details, please contact Kathryn Smith, Department of Art History, at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
The seminar will feature four lectures on topics in medieval studies, one hosted by each institution, to take place during the 2014-15 academic year.
The first lecture in the seminar will take place on Friday, December 5th, from 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Beth Williamson, Reader in History of Art in the Department of History of Art, University of Bristol, will speak on
“Representing and Embodying the Virgin in a Trecento Reliquary Tabernacle.”
Location: 3 Washington Square Village, Suite 1M (ground fl.), Conference Rm 104; (entrance on Bleecker St., betw. La Guardia Pl. and Mercer; look for the purple NYU-GTS banner)
The seminar will include three further lectures on February 13th, February 27th, and May 8th, 2015.
For further details, please contact Kathryn Smith, Department of Art History, at Kathryn.smith@nyu.edu.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Art History, Art, Medieval Studies, Manuscript Studies, Eucharist, and 15 moreHistory of Art, Medieval Art, Codicology of medieval manuscripts, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Christian Iconography, Manuscript Illustration, French and Francophone Literature, Medieval Manuscripts, Diagrams, Book of Hours, Medieval Devotional Culture, English Books, Illuminated manuscripts, Holy Face, and Illuminated Manuscripts
Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England,... more
Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. “Childbed” and “deathbed” are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household. To Johan Bedell my servaunt . . . an honest whole complete bed and all other things therto belonging for a bedde.—John Goodwyn, 1522 (TNA Prob11/20/377) Take here hede and lerne howeȝ þou schalt make an honest bede and a good plesinge vnto god profitabel and worschipful vnto þi soule. (Take heed here and learn how you shall make an honest bed a...