English Medieval Art

The term opus anglicanum, as a designator of English national identity associated with embroidery and textiles, is unknown in any document written in England during the Middle Ages, but is used in papal and other European archives. The term has been questioned by a number of scholars who have suggested it may be a generic name used to describe a particular technique of attaching gold thread to an embroidered textile (underside couching). It is suggested in this article that the phenomenon of opus anglicanum during its golden age c. 1200–1400 was part of a wider European cultural development at a time when an appreciation of cultural identity as a transnational phenomenon emerged. The article goes on to examine the relationship between English pictorial artists and the craftswomen and men who made these textiles. It concludes with a case study of the orphrey associated with the Daroca Cope in Madrid — now associated with a designer in the artistic circle of the artist of the Wilton Diptych. The respect for, and reuse of, these works of art (many of which have survived through the care taken to preserve them in cathedral treasuries and private collections up to the present day) is an element in their continued importance as a part of our shared European heritage.

Keywords: opus anglicanum, cope, orphrey, Daroca, Wilton Dyptich

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).

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.

This paper was presented at a two-day conference at Merton College, Oxford, entitled "Performing Medieval Text, an Interdisciplinary Conference" in May 2013. It discusses a large medieval medical scroll now in the Kungliga Bibliotheket, Stockholm, also discussed in my PhD thesis.

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.

Survey of English illuminated manuscripts c. 1200-1500

Der Doppelband zur Buchkultur der Gotik ist der letzte der Reihe, in dessen Fokus das handgeschriebene Buch steht. Er behandelt die Jahrhunderte, in denen die Herstellung von Handschriften zunehmend kommerzialisiert wurde, ihren quantitativen Höhepunkt erreichte und schließlich durch den Buchdruck abgelöst wurde. Neben dem fast unüberschaubaren religiösen Schrifttum gewann in dieser Epoche die profane Literatur an Boden, und obwohl Latein weiterhin als Schriftsprache dominierte, spielten nun auch die Volkssprachen eine Rolle. Den klösterlichen Büchersammlungen traten bedeutende Adels-, Universitäts- und Stadtbibliotheken an die Seite, und bürgerlicher Buchbesitz ist ebenfalls nachweisbar - Zeugnis für die Ausbreitung von Schreib- und Lesefähigkeit, für steigendes Bildungsniveau. Die Veränderungen fanden ihren Niederschlag in der Buchmalerei, die der Buchkultur der Gotik ihren besonderen Glanz und Charakter verleiht.

Vielfalt und Komplexität des Buchwesens im späten Mittelalter werden anhand von zentralen Beispielen vorgestellt, die als Wegweiser durch die umfangreiche Überlieferung dienen können. Im ersten Band stehen die Leistungen des spätmittelalterlichen Buchwesens in gesamteuropäischer Perspektive im Mittelpunkt, der zweite Band ist den Entwicklungen im Rahmen bestimmter Regionen und Kulturen gewidmet, wobei die Buchmalerei Ausgangs- und Angelpunkt bildet.

As with many important medieval pilgrimage sites, St Albans Abbey preserves very little of the rich material holdings which were documented at the site in the Middle Ages.  The Gesta Abbatum, the main historical record for the abbey, does not provide a systematic inventory or catalogue, but does mention, with varying degrees of detail, a number of works of art made for the church in the twelfth century, including several textiles which have not yet been the subject of any extended scholarly examination.  In this paper I offer some preliminary comments on a textile held by the abbey which depicted scenes from the Passion of St Alban.  Although textiles of a similar nature from this period and region are scarce, we can gain some idea as to the appearance of this textile from comparative material.  Although any reconstruction must remain speculative, a better understanding of the appearance of this work offers points of departure for examining how the work, as one part of an immersive visual and material experience, might have interacted with other elements of the ritual space of the abbey church in the twelfth century and later, and how the work might have been understood by medieval viewers, whether pilgrims, patrons, or members of the monastic community.