Medieval art and Medievalisms

Overview

About Medieval Art and Medievalisms

The department has one of the largest concentrations of medievalists in the country, with expertise from the late Roman Empire to the Renaissance and Reformation. The Research School also encompasses medieval revivals, especially those of the nineteenth-century. Research and teaching in the department ranges geographically across much of Europe and the Islamic world, with particular strengths in the material culture of the British Isles.

The department has a growing digital archive of images of sites and objects from across the medieval world, whilst local resources for the study of medieval and medieval revival art are extraordinarily rich. These include the great gothic Minster, its archive, the city of York and its churches. Museums in York and the local area contain internationally important collections of sculpture from the early Anglo-Saxon period onwards, whilst the Minster and city churches of York contain the largest collection of medieval stained glass in Britain. The surrounding region contains many significant monuments, including the great Cistercian abbeys of Fountains and Rievaulx, and a large number of nineteenth-century revivalist churches in the Wolds.

Our research combines close attention to the works of art witt a high-level of engagement with current scholarship nationally and internationally.Within the university, we maintain close links with over 30 leading medieval scholars in other departments through interdisciplinary collaboration in the Centre for Medieval Studies, situated in the historic King's Manor in central York. Seminars and workshops are run on a regular basis, as well as a full programme of lectures by visiting speakers. Postgraduate students at both Masters and Doctoral level are therefore part of a lively and outward-looking research community, with many opportunities for formal and informal contacts. We warmly welcome students who wish to undertake postgraduate research in medieval art.

Staff

Research staff

  • Dr Tim Ayers
    Later medieval art and architecture in England, especially stained glass; Art and architecture in the medieval university
  • Sarah Brown
  • Dr Jason Edwards
  • Emily Guerry
  • Dr Jane Hawkes
    Anglo-Saxon art and architecture, especially figurative sculpture; Iconography; Medieval revivals in 19th-century England and Ireland
  • Dr Amanda Lillie
    Art and architecture in Italy 1300-1600, especially the palazzi and villas of secular patrons, including the Medici
  • Professor Richard Marks
    Medieval stained glass in England and in Europe; Art and devotion in late medieval England; Byzantine and Russian religious art
  • Dr Tom Nickson (Director)
    Medieval architecture and material culture in medieval Iberia, especially gothic architecture and sculpture, and the encounter between Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions
  • Professor Christopher Norton
    Art and architecture of the religious orders in England and France in the 12th to the 14th centuries; Medieval decorated pavements; Art and architecture in northern England, especially Durham and York
  • Dr Jeanne Nuechterlein
    Flemish, Netherlandish and German art of the 15th and 16th centuries; Van Eyck, Dürer, Holbein

Students

Research students

Current students

  • Meg Boulton
    (Re)Building Jerusalem: considering the construction and employment of conceptual space in Anglo-Saxon England by the early church in the sixth-ninth centuries
  • Amanda Denton
    An Anglo-Saxon Theory of Style: motif, mode and meaning in the art of Eighth century Northumbria
  • Zoe Dumelow
    Visual Representations of Biblical Dreams in England, c.1200-1350
  • Melissa Herman
    Faith in Pictures: An Examination of the Impact of the Conversion to Christianity on the Visual Culture of Pagan Society in Merovingian Gaul and Anglo-Saxon England
  • Luisa Izzi (CMS, co-supervision)
    Representing Rome in Anglo-Saxon England
  • Christine Maddern (CMS, co-supervision)
    Early Northumbrian Name Stones
  • Elizabeth McCormick
    Casts, Catalogues, and Curators: Acquisition and Display of Early Medieval Sculpture in National Museums, c. 1850 to 1950
  • Chloe Morgan (CMS, co-supervision)
    Space in Middle English Romance
  • David Reid
    The twelfth-century glass of York Minster
  • Harold Stirrup
    In the wake of the Alexis Master: Monastic artists at work in some twelfth-century English manuscripts c.1120-1170
  • Philippa Turner
    Image and Devotion in Late Medieval English Cathedrals
  • Helen York
    The Meaning of Hans Memling’s Landscapes

Recent students

  • Jane Crease
    "Incomparable Sepulchres": The Alabaster Altar Tomb in Yorkshire, 1350-1550
  • Mike Reed (CMS, co-supervision)
    Anglo-Scandinavian Sculpture in East Anglia
  • Magdalena Skoblar
    Eleventh-century figure sculpture in early medieval Croatia

Teaching

Medieval Art and Medievalisms modules

  • Medieval Cairo: An Introduction to Islamic Architecture
  • Art, Architecture and Higher Education: British Universities during the Later Middle Ages
  • Casts and Cultures: The Crystal Palace, Sydenham
  • Norman Sicily: Encounters in the Medieval Mediterranean
  • The Victorian Gothic Revival
  • Art in the City: Late Medieval York
  • The Art of the Dome: Building Heaven on Earth in the Early Medieval World
  • Image & Icon. Representing the Sacred in the Early Medieval World
  • Impacts of the Late Antique c. 350-850
  • The Virgin's Places: Chartres, Siena and Castile
  • Seeing and Being Seen: English Art in the Fourteenth Century
  • The Art of Anglo-Saxon England, c.600-850
  • Royal Spaces in Medieval Europe: Church, City & Realm
  • Church, College and Castle c. 1250-1450
  • Stained Glass in the Great Church
  • Medievalisms
  • Art and Imagery in York Minster
  • Art and Identities in Medieval Spain
  • Scrolls & Serpents: The Arts of the early Insular World (c.600-900AD)
  • Monastic Patronage of the Arts 1080-1280
  • 'Painting on Light': Stained Glass in the Medieval Tradition

Events

Forthcoming events:

 

For up-to-date listings and details of all History of Art Department events visit the News and Events page

 

Dome of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Royal Palace in Seville, 1360s

Director

Research schools

Research clusters