Christian Steer
University of York, History, Department Member
- noneedit
- My primary interest is medieval commemoration and in particular monuments of the dead from the city of London. My pub... moreMy primary interest is medieval commemoration and in particular monuments of the dead from the city of London. My publications over the years have examined patterns of memory and commemoration in the mendicant churches of London and elsewhere, practices adopted by the canons of St Paul’s and focused case-studies on the parishes of St James Garlickhithe and St Nicholas Shambles. More recently my interests have evolved to include a study on the low-relief effigy of bishop Catterick in Florence, a brass inscription now in a Cambridge museum (formerly in a parish church in Norwich) and a return to London with a study of the medieval funerary monuments from St Bartholomew’s Priory in Smithfield. In 2023 I was guest-editor - with Professor Caroline M. Barron - of 'The Ricardian' published as a tribute issue on Yorkist People in memory of Anne F. Sutton (d. 2022).
My current projects include (with David Harry) an edition of the churchwardens' accounts for St Nicholas Shambles (1452-1548), to be published by the London Record Society, and the three volume 'Tomb Monuments in Medieval Europe (with Paul Cockerham) to be published by Shaun Tyas in 2024/25.
My most recent publication is a collection of essays in 'Death and Dying in the Late Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2022 Harlaxton Symposium' (co-edited with Jenny Stratford) and published in the Harlaxton Medieval Studies series as volume 33 in August 2024.
I have been a trustee of the Yorkist History Trust since 2016 and chairman since 2021. I am sponsor to three new publications by the Trust on , the probate inventory of Sir Thomas Charleton, the executors' accounts of Ralph Verney and an edition of London Journal 9 during the reign of Richard III. I am also co-editing (with Richard Asquith) a festschrift in honour of Peter and Carolyn Hammond, due for publication by the Trust in Spring 2025.
I hold degrees from the University of London (2013 and 1995) and the University of York (1997). In 2014 I was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London) and in 2018 elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Thanks to the kindness of the late Professor W. Mark Ormrod I was appointed an Hon. Visiting Fellow in the Department of History at the University of York in 2016.edit
London’s Franciscan church was a pantheon of the great, the good and the godly. During an almost 300-year period, generations of wealthy patrons had paid for the construction of the church and its ancillary buildings, gave generously... more
London’s Franciscan church was a pantheon of the great, the good and the godly. During an almost 300-year period, generations of wealthy patrons had paid for the construction of the church and its ancillary buildings, gave generously towards the furnishing of the convent, and were remembered with lavish, state of the art, monuments commemorating their lives and good works. This remarkable tombscape was destroyed during the 1540s and nothing has survived. And yet an important – and often overlooked – register of burials and tombs reveals almost 700 monuments of the dead. This essay will examine this register and compare it to some 219 wills for those who were buried within the convent. They will be used to identify how much it cost to be buried by burial zones and to suggest how the friars managed grave space for particular groups of benefactor to create the greatest mausoleums of medieval London.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Franciscan Studies, Memory Studies, Commemoration and Memory, and 12 moreDeath and Burial (Archaeology), Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Medieval London, Remembrance, Death and Dying, Mourning and Remembrance, Funerary Practices, Burial Customs, Memorials, Monumental Brasses, Incised slabs, and London Grey Friars
Biography of a widow from medieval London, born the daughter of a yeoman in Essex, died a peeress of the realm.
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Obituary of Anne F. Sutton published in the special tribute issue of The Ricardian
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An account of the surviving funerary monument for Rahere, and a discussion of the evidence for over forty now lost memorials from the Middle Ages.
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John Fuller died on 1 October 1526. His will does not refer to a brass and the antiquarian evidence is likewise silent on whatever tomb monument he may have had. Yet for almost ninety years an inscription brass, hitherto of unknown... more
John Fuller died on 1 October 1526. His will does not refer to a brass and the antiquarian evidence is likewise silent on whatever tomb monument he may have had. Yet for almost ninety years an inscription brass, hitherto of unknown provenance, has formed part of a collection of detached brasses in a Cambridge museum. In this article this 'Norwich 6' memorial is attributed to John Fuller of the parish of St Clement Colegate, Norwich. It will also consider the broader forms of memory and commemoration in England which were used by testators such as John Fuller on the eve of the Reformation.
Research Interests: Late Middle Ages, Death Studies, Reformation Studies, Memory Studies, Commemoration and Memory, and 11 moreChurch monuments, Merchants (Medieval Studies), Tombs (Medieval Studies), Remembrance, Epigraphy, Medieval wills, Memorialisation, Sixteenth Century History, Medieval Norwich, Funerary Monuments, and Monumental Brasses
JOHN CATTERICK, BISHOP of Exeter, died, aged about forty-five years old, in his palazzo in Florence on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in 1419. He signed his last will and testament at the George Inn, Dartmouth (Devon), three years... more
JOHN CATTERICK, BISHOP of Exeter, died, aged about forty-five
years old, in his palazzo in Florence on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in
1419. He signed his last will and testament at the George Inn, Dartmouth
(Devon), three years before, but during his final illness the bishop made
two codicils, both drawn up as public instruments and witnessed before
his household. These three documents shed important light on the life
and career of a Lord Spiritual, a friend of kings and princes, of popes
and bishops, who was not only preoccupied with the wellbeing of his
family, household, and estate workers, but decided—almost at the hour
of his death—to be buried in the church of the Friars Minor in Florence.
This essay will consider what was so special about the friars’ church of Santa Croce and why an Englishman abroad would want to be buried
among the worthies of Tuscany. The provisions made in Catterick’s
will, and what they reveal on his view of the world, will be considered
alongside the silence concerning the bishop’s tomb, a product of the
Ghiberti workshop, and the important role played by others in the burial
and commemoration of Catterick in the Franciscan church of Florence.
The bishop of Exeter was a diplomat in the service of church and state,
and this essay will suggest how both influenced the construction and
composition of the tomb monument of John Catterick and the important
role played by Pope Martin V.
years old, in his palazzo in Florence on the Feast of the Holy Innocents in
1419. He signed his last will and testament at the George Inn, Dartmouth
(Devon), three years before, but during his final illness the bishop made
two codicils, both drawn up as public instruments and witnessed before
his household. These three documents shed important light on the life
and career of a Lord Spiritual, a friend of kings and princes, of popes
and bishops, who was not only preoccupied with the wellbeing of his
family, household, and estate workers, but decided—almost at the hour
of his death—to be buried in the church of the Friars Minor in Florence.
This essay will consider what was so special about the friars’ church of Santa Croce and why an Englishman abroad would want to be buried
among the worthies of Tuscany. The provisions made in Catterick’s
will, and what they reveal on his view of the world, will be considered
alongside the silence concerning the bishop’s tomb, a product of the
Ghiberti workshop, and the important role played by others in the burial
and commemoration of Catterick in the Franciscan church of Florence.
The bishop of Exeter was a diplomat in the service of church and state,
and this essay will suggest how both influenced the construction and
composition of the tomb monument of John Catterick and the important
role played by Pope Martin V.
Research Interests: High Middle Ages, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, Memory Studies, Commemoration (Memory Studies), and 11 moreChurch monuments, Remembrance, Funerary Practices, Death and dying, Medieval wills, Tomb Monuments, Santa Croce di Firenze, Medieval Bishops, Medieval and Renaissance Florence, Monuments of the dead, and pope Martin V.
Nigel Saul was the first to note Richard II’s obsession with burying favoured courtiers close to his tomb at Westminster Abbey. What is less well-known is that the king was in fact copying a practice established some fifty years before by... more
Nigel Saul was the first to note Richard II’s obsession with burying favoured courtiers close to his tomb at Westminster Abbey. What is less well-known is that the king was in fact copying a practice established some fifty years before by his great-grandmother, Isabella of France, in the great Franciscan church by Newgate in the city of London. This essay examines the commemorative programme of Queen Isabella and to consider this as a precedent for the subsequent popularity of courtly burials and monuments at Grey Friars church.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Death, Medieval Studies, History and Memory, Franciscan Studies, and 11 moreCommemoration and Memory, Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Medieval London, Middle Ages, Isabella of France, Richard III, Royal Households, Funerary Monuments, Monumental Brasses, and London Grey Friars
A discussion of an ardent Lancastrian, his career and the events after Barnet, and his acrimonious relationship with his son and heir.
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The medieval parish church of St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London was demolished in 1551 and whatever remained of its tombscape was destroyed or sold for reuse. This essay uses the churchwardens' accounts for the parish which... more
The medieval parish church of St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London was demolished in 1551 and whatever remained of its tombscape was destroyed or sold for reuse. This essay uses the churchwardens' accounts for the parish which survive from 1452 to 1548 to identify lost tombs. This is compared to testamentary evidence and reveals at least 45 monuments of the dead from this city church.
Research Interests: Death, Death Studies, History and Memory, Medieval Church History, Commemoration and Memory, and 13 moreDeath and Burial (Archaeology), Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Medieval London, Remembrance, Monuments, Memoria, Funerary Monuments, Monumental Brasses, Urban Churches, churchwardens' accounts, St Nicholas Shambles, London, and Jerome Bertram
The introduction to his Festschrift published by Shaun Tyas Publishing (Donington, UK)
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A discussion of chantry and obit foundation at the Franciscan church of London including a translation of the chantry agreement of Thomas Gloucester (d. 1447) of 1460.
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This paper examines the churchwardens' accounts for St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London for 1452 to 1548 to assess the presence and engagement between the parish and its resident chaplains. It compares this material to some 200... more
This paper examines the churchwardens' accounts for St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London for 1452 to 1548 to assess the presence and engagement between the parish and its resident chaplains. It compares this material to some 200 surviving wills and the bishops of London's registers to reveal at least seventy-seven perpetual chantry chaplains employed by the living and the dead in the celebrations for their souls from the mid-14th century until the closure of the chantries in 1548.
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Sir Humphrey Bourchier, heir to baron Berners and a kinsman to Edward IV, was killed at the battle of Barnet on Easter Sunday 1471. He was one of a handful of prominent Yorkists to fall that fateful day and was commemorated close to his... more
Sir Humphrey Bourchier, heir to baron Berners and a kinsman to Edward IV, was killed at the battle of Barnet on Easter Sunday 1471. He was one of a handful of prominent Yorkists to fall that fateful day and was commemorated close to his cousin and namesake Humphrey Bourchier, Lord Cromwell, in Westminster Abbey. The figure brass to Sir Humphrey is long gone but the indent reveals that it was a product of the London D workshop. The foot inscription, written in hexameter verses, has survived and compares this fallen Yorkist commander to the Homeric hero, Achilles. Such a comparison is unique in medieval epitaphs in England. This article will consider the circumstances of Sir Humphrey's burial in Westminster Abbey, and those which led to the commission of such a remarkable text comparing his military prowess to a Greek hero of the Trojan War.
Research Interests: Church monuments, Chivalry (Medieval Studies), John Lydgate, Tomb Monuments, Westminster Abbey, and 9 moreWars of the Roses, Memory and commemoration, Monumental Brasses, Memory and Commemoration In Medieval Culture, Yorkist England, Bourchier family, Battle of Barnet (1471), Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, and Raoul Lefevre
This essay takes a single craft of Londoners, the tailors - later merchant tailors - and considers patterns of memory and commemoration expressed through funerary monuments. This includes two cases studies, Sir Stephen Jenyns (d. 1523)... more
This essay takes a single craft of Londoners, the tailors - later merchant tailors - and considers patterns of memory and commemoration expressed through funerary monuments. This includes two cases studies, Sir Stephen Jenyns (d. 1523) and Sir William Fitzwilliam (d. 1534)
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A consideration of the wider implications of memory and commemoration and the role played by academic colleges in medieval Cambridge. This introductory chapter sets the scene for the eight, excellent contributions to 'Commemoration in... more
A consideration of the wider implications of memory and commemoration and the role played by academic colleges in medieval Cambridge. This introductory chapter sets the scene for the eight, excellent contributions to 'Commemoration in Medieval Cambridge' published by Boydell and Brewer.
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The friaries of the English province attracted burials in their churches and cemeteries. Chroniclers provide examples of those interred in the order's churches. In some instances antiquarians provided lists of the people laid to rest in... more
The friaries of the English province attracted burials in their churches and cemeteries. Chroniclers provide examples of those interred in the order's churches. In some instances antiquarians provided lists of the people laid to rest in the order's churches. While the register of the London Greyfriars offers an incomplete catalogue of burials, it furnishes some information on the friars whose burial places were marked by inscriptions and monuments. The different chapels provided a burial place to friars who had held various offices in the order, such as suffragan bishop, minister provincial, guardian , lector, and royal confessor. Peter of Bologna, bishop of Corbavia and suffragan bishop in the diocese of London, was interred in the choir of the church along with members of the wider royal family and nobles. William Appleton was laid to rest in the Lady chapel along with military figures. Several friars were buried in the northern chapel, including John Bunggey. Roger Conway, a doctor of theology and former minister provincial, was buried in the choir. Several friars were buried in the cloister. James Walle, a former guardian of the London Greyfriars, the bishop of Kildare, and suffragan bishop in the diocese of London, was buried before the altars.
Research Interests: Franciscan Studies, Commemoration and Memory, Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Medieval London, and 12 moreMedieval Burial, Tombs, History of the Franciscan Order, Memoria, Funerary Monuments, Memory and commemoration, Monumental Brasses, Ordo Friars Minor, Incised slabs, MONUMENTAL BRASSES, HERALDRY, ICONOGRAPHY, London Grey Friars, and Commemorating the Dead
The parish of St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London is long gone. But a remarkable set of churchwardens' accounts from 1452 to 1548 provides important new evidence on parish management. This evidence is taken alongside some 200... more
The parish of St Nicholas Shambles in the city of London is long gone. But a remarkable set of churchwardens' accounts from 1452 to 1548 provides important new evidence on parish management. This evidence is taken alongside some 200 surviving wills for parishioners and visitors alike to track patterns of burial in this particular city church. This comparison not only reveals the existence of a cloistered cemetery at St Nicholas Shambles, one of many 'monasteries in miniature' to emerge in late medieval London, but also special 'hot spots' for the dead.
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This essay examines the evidence for burial and commemoration in London's mendicant churches and discusses their popularity with particular social groups such as royalty, aristocracy, knights, aliens from overseas and Londoners.
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This essay examines the popularity of London's community of Franciscan friars amongst the citizenry and in particular the extent of benefaction, devotion and commemoration in their church. A rare register of tombs and burials (made in the... more
This essay examines the popularity of London's community of Franciscan friars amongst the citizenry and in particular the extent of benefaction, devotion and commemoration in their church. A rare register of tombs and burials (made in the 1520s) has been used to plot the graves of Londoners which has revealed a carefully managed 'tombscape'. This essay identifies which areas were popular with different groups of medieval Londoners and argues that a shift in parish benefaction by the aldermanic class from the mid-14th century led to the middling sort of Londoners taking over burial space in the Franciscan church. A remarkably detailed will, drawn up in 1527, has further revealed the important functional use of the monument in chantry celebrations and in the annual anniversary of the benefactor. A transcript of this will is included in an appendix.
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This article examines the written evidence for funerary monuments in the early Franciscan churches until c. 1350. Case studies are taken from Coventry and London which reveal the popularity of the Greyfriars amongst high status widows who... more
This article examines the written evidence for funerary monuments in the early Franciscan churches until c. 1350. Case studies are taken from Coventry and London which reveal the popularity of the Greyfriars amongst high status widows who preferred burial and commemoration with their own ancestors, rather than as adjuncts with their husband's family.
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In only a few short days in September 1666 the Great Fire of London destroyed approximately two-thirds of the city, the townhouses and mansions, shops and warehouses, its parish churches and great cathedral. Generations of tombs in old... more
In only a few short days in September 1666 the Great Fire of London destroyed approximately two-thirds of the city, the townhouses and mansions, shops and warehouses, its parish churches and great cathedral. Generations of tombs in old St. Paul's, which had survived the destruction of the Reformation and the censorship of the Civil War, were gone: all that remain today are a few battered tomb effigies from the cathedral which serve as broken reminders of a lost past. This essay will consider the extent of this forgotten landscape by examining the testamentary and written records for the burial and commemoration of the chapter at old St. Paul's and in particular the creation of a substantial tomb-scape for the cathedral canons. This rich 'carpet of memory' was sufficiently important to the chapter to warrant protection from the destruction ordered by Bishop Nicholas Ridley in 1552. Members of the cathedral chapter depended upon monuments as but one aspect of their strategy for salvation. Other commemorative devices will also be considered to explain why it was so important to preserve the memory of these long dead canons.
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This article takes the Thames-side parish of St James Garlickhithe as a case study by examining the surviving testamentary instruction on chantry foundation. The generosity of past parishioners was impressive and is revealed in a church... more
This article takes the Thames-side parish of St James Garlickhithe as a case study by examining the surviving testamentary instruction on chantry foundation. The generosity of past parishioners was impressive and is revealed in a church inventory made in 1449 by the rector William Huntingdon, the illegitimate son of John Holland, duke of Exeter. The popularity of chantry foundation in this particular city of London parish ultimately led to the creation of a 'Commons' of chaplains, a 'de facto' college, set up and organised by Thomas Kent (d. 1469), Clerk of the King's Council.
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John Stow in his 'Survey of London' (1603) records the tomb of a 'Lorde Barons slaine at Barnt Field' in the church of Austin Friars in the city of London. This fallen knight was evidently a casualty of Barnet killed on Easter Day, 1471.... more
John Stow in his 'Survey of London' (1603) records the tomb of a 'Lorde Barons slaine at Barnt Field' in the church of Austin Friars in the city of London. This fallen knight was evidently a casualty of Barnet killed on Easter Day, 1471. His identity has remained hidden for no member of the English nobility held the title Lord Barons. This articles argues that this was, in fact, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, heir of Lord Berners, and who was buried in Austin Friars before exhumation and reburial amongst his ancestors in Westminster Abbey. It was here, close to the memorial brass of his ancestor Eleanor, duchess of Buckingham, that Sir Humphrey was himself commemorated by a brass effigy with an elegant epitaph which compared his exploits on the battlefield to those of Achilles.
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Sir William Fitzwilliam (d. 1534), former mayor of London and a merchant tailor by craft, invested much of his fortune in the purchase of Marholm (then Northamptonshire, now Cambridgeshire), including the parish church of St Mary's. It... more
Sir William Fitzwilliam (d. 1534), former mayor of London and a merchant tailor by craft, invested much of his fortune in the purchase of Marholm (then Northamptonshire, now Cambridgeshire), including the parish church of St Mary's. It was here where in the early decades of the sixteenth century Sir William paid for the complete rebuilding of the chancel where he was to be buried. His executors were to arrange his memorial which was (some twenty-five years after Fitzwilliam's death) set up on the right hand of the high altar, the most spiritually advantageous location for intra-mural burial. This essay puts Sir William's monument in the context of his predecessors as lord of Marholm and the role of the memorial in the lineage of knightly identity which ultimately continued until the burial of Sir William's descendant, Earl Fitzwilliam in the graveyard in 1979.
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This article considers the evidence for memory and commemoration in medieval London and what this reveals on patterns of burial for royalty and the aristocracy. It was rare for either to be interred in a city of London parish church and... more
This article considers the evidence for memory and commemoration in medieval London and what this reveals on patterns of burial for royalty and the aristocracy. It was rare for either to be interred in a city of London parish church and the grave of the countess of Huntingdon, also Lady Herbert, in the church of St James Garlickhithe is puzzling. This article discusses her identity as Katherine Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of Richard III, and sets her tomb in the context of other burials in the parish church. It emerges that this was an almost exclusive mausoleum for London's great and good with a rich liturgy paid for by past parishioners.
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In c. 1504, the herald Thomas Benolt recorded a memorial in the parish church of St James Garlickhithe in the city of London for a countess of Huntingdon, Lady Herbert. He did not record her name and she has remained unidentified ever... more
In c. 1504, the herald Thomas Benolt recorded a memorial in the parish church of St James Garlickhithe in the city of London for a countess of Huntingdon, Lady Herbert. He did not record her name and she has remained unidentified ever since. This article reveals that she was in fact Katherine, the illegitimate daughter of Richard III, who probably died in her husband's townhouse (in the parish) during the sweating sickness of 1486.
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This summary article examines the different written sources available for the study of London's lost monuments of the dead.
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This paper reconstructs and reinterprets a sequence of monuments which was installed in the parish church at Chester-le-Street in County Durham in the 1590s by John Lord Lumley, who is probably best known today for his status as one of... more
This paper reconstructs and reinterprets a sequence of monuments which was installed in the parish church at Chester-le-Street in County Durham in the 1590s by John Lord Lumley, who is probably best known today for his status as one of the most important collectors of books and paintings in the reign of Elizabeth I. The monuments consisted of retrospective effigies of his ancestors in the direct male line and traced the family's roots to the pre-Conquest period. The paper explores the purpose of the church monuments and argues that they should not be understood in terms of changing ideas about memory and commemoration or about the nature and basis of nobility in the second half of the sixteenth century. Rather, they were designed to serve specific functions and addressed pragmatic and perennial aristocratic anxieties about power, lordship and the succession, which remained untouched by the Reformation.
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This essay considers the evidence for royal and aristocratic commemoration in the friary churches of the Austin, Carmelite, Crutched, Dominican and Franciscan orders in the city of London. It is evident that where the royal family led,... more
This essay considers the evidence for royal and aristocratic commemoration in the friary churches of the Austin, Carmelite, Crutched, Dominican and Franciscan orders in the city of London. It is evident that where the royal family led, the aristocracy followed, but other patterns emerge. The role of the Grey Friars church, near Newgate, as a mausoleum for the Blount family (Lords Mountjoy) is considered alongside the 4th baron's 'upgrade' of older tombs for his family.
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This essay is intended to fill a gap in the study of medieval church monuments in the city of London and in particular those from a former religious house, the Crutched Friars. The foundation of this house, and its appeal to particular... more
This essay is intended to fill a gap in the study of medieval church monuments in the city of London and in particular those from a former religious house, the Crutched Friars. The foundation of this house, and its appeal to particular social groups, will be discussed and compared with the foundation of the other four orders of friars in the city. Comparisons will be made to examine how, and why, the Crutched Friars appealed to Londoners and non-Londoners, and why they wanted to be buried and commemorated there. The popularity of this convent as a place of burial is also discussed, particularly the years leading up its dissolution in 1538. Written records and testamentary instructions will be used to discuss the types of monuments that were requested and eventually commissioned. From these, suggestions are made on how the 'commemorative landscape' at the Crutched Friars may have looked and how the deceased, their families, and executors influenced this. This 'landscape' is also reflected in the decisions made to exhume a number of the dead from the Crutched Friars and the removal of their monuments.
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This short piece considers the lost brass for bishop Robert Braybooke (d. 1404) of London
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This article looks at the role of women (particularly widows) in the commissioning of monuments for themselves and for their former husbands within the city of London. The important role they played emerges during the Reformation when... more
This article looks at the role of women (particularly widows) in the commissioning of monuments for themselves and for their former husbands within the city of London. The important role they played emerges during the Reformation when they arranged for the memorials for their dead husbands to be moved (presumably with their bodies) from the surrendered religious houses in the city to the nearby parish church.
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This short piece updates the bibliography of articles and chapters relating to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London.
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This piece discusses the lost memorial brass for the herald Thomas Benolt (d. 1534) and his wives Margaret and Mary formerly in St Helen Bishopsgate in the city of London.
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This article examines the surviving effigy for the London sheriff, Sir John Crosby (d. 1475) and his wife Agnes in the church of St Helen Bishopsgate in the city of London.
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Paper presented in the session: ‘Mourning and Remembrance II: English Wills, Ghosts and Epitaphs’ International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 4th July 2024
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Paper presented at 'Monuments of the Wars of the Roses: a one-day colloquium in honour of Mark Downing', 21st October 2023
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Paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2023
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Paper presented at the Architectural History Conference for Church and Hospital of St Bartholomew, Smithfield, London, Friday 24th February 2023.
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Paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2022
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Paper presented at the 25th International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2018.
Paper presented at 'Loci Sepulcrales: Pantheons and Other Places of Memory and Burial in the Middle Ages', Santa Maria Vitória Monastery, Batalha, Portugal.
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Paper presented at the session ‘Piety and the Parish’ at the 15th Century conference, University of Essex, Colchester.
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Paper presented at the ‘Norwich and the Medieval Parish Church c.900-2017: The Making of a Fine City’ conference, Norwich.
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Paper presented at the session ‘The Place of the Dead: Burial Areas and Buried Bodies in Early Modern European Cities’ at Reinterpreting Cities the 13th International Conference on Urban History, Helsinki, Finland.
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Paper presented at the Monumental Brass Society Conference ‘Symbols in Life and Death’, Norwich.
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Paper presented at the 2015 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, 'Saints and their Cults in the Middle Ages'.
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Paper present to the Medieval and Tudor London’ seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London.
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Paper presented at The Medieval Craftsman conference, Kellogg College, Oxford.
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Paper presented at the Medieval London and the World conference organised by the London Medieval Society, London.
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Paper presented at the 'Commemoration of the Dead Conference' organised by the Monumental Brass Society.
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Paper presented at the 12th Urban History Conference, Lisbon.
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Paper presented in the session ‘Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Europe’, 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo.
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Paper presented at ‘Medieval Merchants and Money: a conference in celebration of the work of Professor James L. Bolton’, Institute of Historical Research, London.
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Paper presented at the ‘Speaking with the Dead’ conference, Exeter.
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Paper presented at the 15th Century Conference, Christ Church, Oxford.
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Paper presented at the 2013 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on 'Language Networks in Medieval Britain'.
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Paper presented at the 'Friars and Friaries in the Middle Ages' conference, Kellogg College, Oxford.
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Paper presented at the 47th London and Middlesex Archaeological Conference, London.
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Paper presented at the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo.
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Paper presented at the 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo.
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Paper presented at the 2008 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on ‘Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England’.
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Paper presented at the ‘London in Text and History’ conference, Jesus College, Oxford.
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Paper presented at the 2007 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on ‘The Friars in Medieval Britain’.
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Paper presented at the 2007 IMC Leeds
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Paper presented at the 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo
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Presented at the 2004 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, 'London and Medieval Urban Life' in honour of Caroline M. Barron
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Talk given to the Church Monuments Society on the palimpsest brass commemorating William Chapman (d. 1446) formerly at St Dunstan in the West in the city of London
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Talk given to the Friends of Buckinghamshire Historic Churches Trust, Haddenham Church.
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Talk at at the 2014 York Medieval Festival, York.
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Talk given at the ‘Many Faces of a Mediaeval Fenland Church’ Study Day, Outwell (Norfolk).
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Talk given at the Richard III Society Study Weekend, York.
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Paper presented at the Medieval and Tudor London seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London.
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Paper presented to the Friends of St Mary’s Standon, Standon Church (Herts.).
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This excellent new volume published by the London Record Society makes a remarkable set of fraternity accounts, licences, ordinances and miscellanea records, available to a wide audience. They form an important record of one of the most... more
This excellent new volume published by the London Record Society makes a remarkable set of fraternity accounts, licences, ordinances and miscellanea records, available to a wide audience. They form an important record of one of the most prestigious and popular guilds in late medieval and Tudor society which met, unusually, in the crypt of old St Paul's cathedral in the City of London.
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Review of an antiquarian account of east Devon churches made in 1820s and 1830s.
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Review of an engaging new book on the collegiate church of Saint Leonard in Zoutleeuw (formerly in the duchy of Brabant, now present-day Belgium) and tackles the different practices which dovetailed together: devotion, piety, memoria and... more
Review of an engaging new book on the collegiate church of Saint Leonard in Zoutleeuw (formerly in the duchy of Brabant, now present-day Belgium) and tackles the different practices which dovetailed together: devotion, piety, memoria and commemoration.
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A welcome pan-European approach on patterns of death, burial and commemoration amongst the ruling princes of Europe.
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Review of an excellent book on the "twin" of St George's at Windsor.
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Review of an edition published by the London Record Society of Sir Thomas Kytson's ledger books.
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Review of a new collection of essays which examines the iconography of death in various ways.
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This is a valuable and informative book which explains much about the production and distribution of Purbeck stone and its many uses. It provides welcome context for the material used for incised slabs, brasses and other forms of funerary... more
This is a valuable and informative book which explains much about the production and distribution of Purbeck stone and its many uses. It provides welcome context for the material used for incised slabs, brasses and other forms of funerary monument. The author is to be congratulated on organising a lot of complicated information into an informative narrative, richly illustrated throughout and splendidly produced by the Dovecote Press.
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Review of an excellent book on the double monument (and brass)
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Review of a new collection of essays which examine the ways in which the higher clergy of medieval Europe were commemorated.
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Review of one of Jerome Bertram's final publications on the memorials of his home county of Sussex. It brings together almost sixty years of reflections, observations and study in this catalogue which has been divided, for practical... more
Review of one of Jerome Bertram's final publications on the memorials of his home county of Sussex. It brings together almost sixty years of reflections, observations and study in this catalogue which has been divided, for practical reasons, between east and west Sussex. Each volume is organised alphabetically by place followed by the dedication of the church. The entries contain a record of all extant brasses up until 1850 including inscriptions and with – where applicable – translations from the French or Latin into English.
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Book review
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Book review.
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Book review
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Book review
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The essays in this volume explore some of the many ways in which death in its practical and devotional aspects impinged on the lives of medieval people, men and women, rich and poor, both in England and in continental Europe. Underlying... more
The essays in this volume explore some of the many ways in which death in its practical and devotional aspects impinged on the lives of medieval people, men and women, rich and poor, both in England and in continental Europe. Underlying and linking the papers is the medieval preoccupation with the transitory nature of life and the fear of sudden death. A study of the text and illumination of the famous 11th-century Tiberius Psalter in the British Library begins the book. Two essays follow about sudden death, mainly murder, in London and Bologna. In the first of three literary papers, purgatory is discussed in the context of the Compileison, an influential but little-known prose treatise; the second concentrates on the diverse ways death is treated in late medieval English verse, and the third on ‘Laments’, verse elegies for eminent people in manuscript and print. In his last Harlaxton paper, the late Clive Burgess proposed a new perspective on English parish chantries, suggesting that as well as caring for the salvation of individual souls, chantries meant extra priests, vessels and vestments, benefitting the Church as a whole. On a different scale, written and visual sources allow for a close look at the richly endowed perpetual chantries established by Isabella of Portugal, third wife of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in Carthusian houses. Funerals and wills are illustrated by the state funeral in Florence of the condottiere, Niccolò da Tolentino, by the funeral palls of Henry VII, and by the complex and exceptionally well-documented story of the execution of the will of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote in Warwickshire, who died in 1525. Monuments commemorating the medieval dead are represented by a splendid but now lost tomb in Bruges, and by a chantry chapel in Hexham Abbey, the source of the painting illustrated above.
Research Interests: Medieval Literature, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Memory Studies, Commemoration and Memory, and 11 moreChurch History, History of Religion (Medieval Studies), Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Remembrance, Death and Dying, Mourning and Remembrance, Death and dying, Middle Ages, Piety, Medieval Funerary Art, and Monumental Brasses
This Festschrift honours the late Fr Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory and former Vice-President of the Monumental Brass Society, who admired, researched, lectured on and wrote about monumental brasses and incised slabs for over fifty... more
This Festschrift honours the late Fr Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory and former Vice-President of the Monumental Brass Society, who admired, researched, lectured on and wrote about monumental brasses and incised slabs for over fifty years. The essays presented here display the latest research from leading scholars, who shed new light on all types of monument – cross-slabs, effigies, incised slabs and brasses, canopied tombs – as individual case studies and regional surveys. They also consider the production process, workshops, antiquarian studies and the evidence for lost monuments not only in England and Wales but across mainland Europe. They range chronologically from as early as Christ’s tomb in ancient Jerusalem through the Roman, medieval and early modern periods and conclude with a study of a brass in nineteenth-century Oxford. These essays are a worthy tribute to an antiquary who did so much to promote the study of medieval funerary monuments. The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography of Bertram’s own publications.
The authors of the 25 essays are in order: Christian Steer, Julian Luxford, Martin Henig, Aleksandra McClain, Brian & Moira Gittos, Madeleine Gray, Sally Badham, Nigel Saul, Robert Hutchinson, Philip J. Lankaster & John Blair, Jon Bayliss, Paul Cockerham, Sophie Oosterwijk, Ann J. Adams, Reinhard Lamp, David Lepine, John S. lee, Jean Wilson, Adam White, Robin Emmerson, David Meara, Christian Steer (again), Nicholas Rogers, Richard Busby, and Charlotte A. Stanford.
The authors of the 25 essays are in order: Christian Steer, Julian Luxford, Martin Henig, Aleksandra McClain, Brian & Moira Gittos, Madeleine Gray, Sally Badham, Nigel Saul, Robert Hutchinson, Philip J. Lankaster & John Blair, Jon Bayliss, Paul Cockerham, Sophie Oosterwijk, Ann J. Adams, Reinhard Lamp, David Lepine, John S. lee, Jean Wilson, Adam White, Robin Emmerson, David Meara, Christian Steer (again), Nicholas Rogers, Richard Busby, and Charlotte A. Stanford.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, History and Memory, Medieval Church History, Commemoration and Memory, and 14 moreChurch History, Antiquarianism, Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Remembrance, Death and dying, Monuments, Catholic Church History, Sepulchral art, Effigies, Roman Funerary Commemoration, Monumental Brasses, Jerome Bertram, and Oxford Oratory
Medieval Londoners were a diverse group, some born in the city, and others drawn to the capital from across the realm and from overseas. For some, London became the sole focus of their lives, while others retained or developed networks... more
Medieval Londoners were a diverse group, some born in the city, and others drawn to the capital from across the realm and from overseas. For some, London became the sole focus of their lives, while others retained or developed networks and loyalties that spread far and wide. The rich evidence for the medieval city, including archaeological and documentary evidence, means that the study of London and its inhabitants remains a vibrant field. Medieval Londoners brings together archaeologists, historians, art-historians and literary scholars whose essays provide glimpses of medieval Londoners in all their breadth, depth and variety.
This volume is offered to Caroline M. Barron, Emeritus Professor of the History of London at Royal Holloway, University of London, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. Her remarkable career – over some fifty years – has revitalized the way in which we consider London and its people. This volume is a tribute to her scholarship and her friendship and encouragement to others. It is thanks to Caroline M. Barron that the study of medieval London remains as vibrant today as it has ever been.
This volume is offered to Caroline M. Barron, Emeritus Professor of the History of London at Royal Holloway, University of London, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. Her remarkable career – over some fifty years – has revitalized the way in which we consider London and its people. This volume is a tribute to her scholarship and her friendship and encouragement to others. It is thanks to Caroline M. Barron that the study of medieval London remains as vibrant today as it has ever been.
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This peer reviewed volume contains twenty-three essays by leading scholars exploring the distinctive aspects which the urban environment brought to late-medieval religious life. The essays are gathered in six sections ranging from... more
This peer reviewed volume contains twenty-three essays by leading scholars exploring the distinctive aspects which the urban environment brought to late-medieval religious life. The essays are gathered in six sections ranging from liturgy, music and fabric, parish politics, the relationships between the religious orders and between them and the laity, the life of the church in smaller towns (different from the life in the cities and the villages), the role of the church in charity, and aspects of clerical devotion expressed in monumental sculpture and literature. The essays bring together a wide range of experts on the English Church to reflect on these subjects and to celebrate the influence of the scholarship of Clive Burgess who, for over thirty years, has changed our understanding of religion, religious culture and the men and women whose lives were shaped by belief.
Contents: Eamon Duffy, Clive Burgess: An Appreciation; A Bibliography of the Published Works of Clive Burgess; Peter Fleming, Foreword; David Harry, Introduction: The Church and City in Late Medieval England; Magnus Williamson, Revisiting the Soundscape of the Medieval Parish; Nigel Morgan, The Diocese of London, the Sarum Calendar in the 15th Century, and Urban Production of Sarum Books c.1400-1480; T. A. Heslop, Size Matters: Norwich Churches and their Parishioners before the Reformation; Anna Eavis, Urbs in rure: A Metropolitan Elite at Holy Trinity, Long Melford, Suffolk; Robert A. Wood, London Rectors and their Parishes 1375-1490; Gabriel Byng, Recreating a Parish Polity: the Masters and Stores of Chagford, 1480-1600; Justin Colson,Late Medieval London Parish Administrators and the Cursus Honorum: Oligarchy or Community?; Martin Heale , Urban Guilds and the Religious Orders in Late Medieval England; Nick Holder, Founding and Building Religious Houses in London and its Suburbs; Elizabeth A. New, Speaking from the Art: a Reconsideration of Mendicant Seals in Medieval England; Vincent Gillespie, The Permeable Cloister? Charterhouse, Contemplation and Urban Piety in Later Medieval England: The Case of London; Julian Luxford, Sir Robert Rede and Religion; James G. Clark, The Small-town Friaries of Later Medieval England; R. N. Swanson, Town and Gown, Nave and Chancel: Parochial Experience in Late Medieval Oxford; Anne F. Sutton, The Bishop of Norwich and His ‘Ghostly Children’: Lynn in the Second Reign of Edward IV; Caroline M. Barron, The People of the Parish: The Close of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Fifteenth-Century London; Katherine L. French and Gary G. Gibbs, The Poor, the Pious and the Privileged: Towards a Social and Cultural Topography of Parish Participation in Late Medieval London; David Lepine, Nunc Vermibus Eso: Bishop Fleming’s Tomb and Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral; Julia Boffey, William Lichfield’s Remorse of Conscience: Contexts and Transmission; Amy Appleford, Singing Dirige: Lyric and Vernacular Liturgy in Fifteenth-Century England; Christian Steer,‘To syng and do dommeservyce’: The Chantry Chaplains of St Nicholas Shambles.
Contents: Eamon Duffy, Clive Burgess: An Appreciation; A Bibliography of the Published Works of Clive Burgess; Peter Fleming, Foreword; David Harry, Introduction: The Church and City in Late Medieval England; Magnus Williamson, Revisiting the Soundscape of the Medieval Parish; Nigel Morgan, The Diocese of London, the Sarum Calendar in the 15th Century, and Urban Production of Sarum Books c.1400-1480; T. A. Heslop, Size Matters: Norwich Churches and their Parishioners before the Reformation; Anna Eavis, Urbs in rure: A Metropolitan Elite at Holy Trinity, Long Melford, Suffolk; Robert A. Wood, London Rectors and their Parishes 1375-1490; Gabriel Byng, Recreating a Parish Polity: the Masters and Stores of Chagford, 1480-1600; Justin Colson,Late Medieval London Parish Administrators and the Cursus Honorum: Oligarchy or Community?; Martin Heale , Urban Guilds and the Religious Orders in Late Medieval England; Nick Holder, Founding and Building Religious Houses in London and its Suburbs; Elizabeth A. New, Speaking from the Art: a Reconsideration of Mendicant Seals in Medieval England; Vincent Gillespie, The Permeable Cloister? Charterhouse, Contemplation and Urban Piety in Later Medieval England: The Case of London; Julian Luxford, Sir Robert Rede and Religion; James G. Clark, The Small-town Friaries of Later Medieval England; R. N. Swanson, Town and Gown, Nave and Chancel: Parochial Experience in Late Medieval Oxford; Anne F. Sutton, The Bishop of Norwich and His ‘Ghostly Children’: Lynn in the Second Reign of Edward IV; Caroline M. Barron, The People of the Parish: The Close of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Fifteenth-Century London; Katherine L. French and Gary G. Gibbs, The Poor, the Pious and the Privileged: Towards a Social and Cultural Topography of Parish Participation in Late Medieval London; David Lepine, Nunc Vermibus Eso: Bishop Fleming’s Tomb and Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral; Julia Boffey, William Lichfield’s Remorse of Conscience: Contexts and Transmission; Amy Appleford, Singing Dirige: Lyric and Vernacular Liturgy in Fifteenth-Century England; Christian Steer,‘To syng and do dommeservyce’: The Chantry Chaplains of St Nicholas Shambles.
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The people of medieval Cambridge chose to be remembered after their deaths in a variety of ways – through prayers, Masses and charitable acts, and by tomb monuments, liturgical furnishings and other gifts. The colleges of the university,... more
The people of medieval Cambridge chose to be remembered after their deaths in a variety of ways – through prayers, Masses and charitable acts, and by tomb monuments, liturgical furnishings and other gifts. The colleges of the university, alongside their educational role, arranged commemorative services for their founders, fellows and benefactors. Together with the town’s parish churches and religious houses, the colleges provided intercessory services and resting places for the dead. This collection explores how this myriad of commemorative enterprises complemented and competed as locations where the living and the dead from ‘town and gown’ could meet.
Contributors analyse the commemorative practices of the Franciscan friars, the colleges of Corpus Christi, Trinity Hall and King’s, and within Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Cambridge household; the depictions of academic and legal dress on memorial brasses, and the use and survival of these brasses. Examining how academic colleges commemorated their patrons in a variety of ways, the volume highlights, for the first time, the role of the medieval university colleges within the Church family of commemorative institutions. Offering a new and broader view of commemoration across an urban environment, it provides a rich case-study for scholars of the medieval Church, town, and university.
Contents:
Christian Steer, ‘Introduction: In Fellowship with the Dead’.
John S. Lee, ‘Monuments and Memory: A University Town in Late Medieval England’.
Michael Robson, ‘The Commemoration of the Living and the Dead at the Friars Minor of Cambridge’.
Richard Barber, ‘The City of London and the Founding of the Guild of Corpus Christi’.
Claire Gobbi Daunton and Elizabeth A. New, ‘Patrons and Benefactors: The Masters of Trinity Hall in the Later Middle Ages’.
J.H. Baker, ‘A Comparison of Academical and Legal Costume on Memorial Brasses’.
Peter Murray Jones, ‘Commemoration at a Royal College’.
Susan Powell, ‘Cambridge Commemorations of Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Household’.
Nicholas Rogers, ‘‘The Stones are all disrobed’: Reasons for the Presence and Absence of Monumental Brasses in Cambridge’.
Contributors analyse the commemorative practices of the Franciscan friars, the colleges of Corpus Christi, Trinity Hall and King’s, and within Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Cambridge household; the depictions of academic and legal dress on memorial brasses, and the use and survival of these brasses. Examining how academic colleges commemorated their patrons in a variety of ways, the volume highlights, for the first time, the role of the medieval university colleges within the Church family of commemorative institutions. Offering a new and broader view of commemoration across an urban environment, it provides a rich case-study for scholars of the medieval Church, town, and university.
Contents:
Christian Steer, ‘Introduction: In Fellowship with the Dead’.
John S. Lee, ‘Monuments and Memory: A University Town in Late Medieval England’.
Michael Robson, ‘The Commemoration of the Living and the Dead at the Friars Minor of Cambridge’.
Richard Barber, ‘The City of London and the Founding of the Guild of Corpus Christi’.
Claire Gobbi Daunton and Elizabeth A. New, ‘Patrons and Benefactors: The Masters of Trinity Hall in the Later Middle Ages’.
J.H. Baker, ‘A Comparison of Academical and Legal Costume on Memorial Brasses’.
Peter Murray Jones, ‘Commemoration at a Royal College’.
Susan Powell, ‘Cambridge Commemorations of Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Household’.
Nicholas Rogers, ‘‘The Stones are all disrobed’: Reasons for the Presence and Absence of Monumental Brasses in Cambridge’.
Research Interests: Urban History, Commemoration and Memory, Franciscans, Medieval Burial, King's College, Cambridge, and 11 moreFunerary Monuments, Memory and commemoration, Monumental Brasses, Medieval Cambridge, Trinity Hall Cambridge, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Academical and legal costume, Guild of Corpus Christi Cambridge, Hugh Ashton, John Argentein, and Walter Hewke
The canopied tomb in St Mary's church, Marholm, commemorating a former mayor of London and his wife.
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Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs …
And tell sad stories of the death of kings
And tell sad stories of the death of kings
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A consideration of the lost brass for canon Ralph de Hengham (d. 1311) from old St. Paul's cathedral, London.
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The matrimonial career of a Cirencester merchant as displayed in brass.
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An examination of the monumental brass of Walter Curson, Waterperry church, Oxon.
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discount!
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Assembling the contributions of twenty-two authors, this volume aims at revisiting the question of the choice of burial sites throughout the Middle Ages, in their political, emotional, and devotional dimensions, across a wide chronology... more
Assembling the contributions of twenty-two authors, this volume aims at revisiting the question of the choice of burial sites throughout the Middle Ages, in their political, emotional, and devotional dimensions, across a wide chronology and in a vast palette of different social statuses. The choice of a burial site inevitably reflects very important statements, made by the living persons, not only regarding what they wished the memory of their passage on Earth to be, but equally enlightening us on what their concern for the future of their souls was and how it should be cared for, in the afterlife.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Franciscan Studies, Commemoration and Memory, Church History, and 12 moreSocial History, Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Religious Studies, Remembrance, Death and dying, Middle Ages, Royal Funerals, Mausoleums, Necropolis, Monumental Brasses, and Incised slabs
Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power is an investigation of identity, community construction and political power in fifteenth-century Bristol. Written by Peter Fleming (emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of... more
Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power is an investigation of identity, community construction and political power in fifteenth-century Bristol. Written by Peter Fleming (emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of the West of England), this major study breaks with the traditional historiography associated with the writings of Eleanor Carus-Wilson, David Harris Sacks and Evan Jones. Their approaches, rooted in economic and social history, are replaced with one grounded in the cultural turn and its concern with meaning, self-perception and ideological messaging. The book examines how one of the greatest urban centres of England sought to construct its identity. How did Bristol's merchant elite seek to create and use 'history' to bolster the position of their parvenu town and provide an ideological justification for their own position within it? How did Bristol's merchants engage with literature and poetry to present commerce as a noble art and mystery, rather than the 'grubby profession' portrayed by the Church, gentry and aristocracy? And, lastly, how did Bristol's rulers respond to the great dynastic conflicts of fifteenth-century England and position their community in the Yorkist Age?
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This important book presents a comprehensive history of St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in London. In 2023, the Priory Church and Hospital will celebrate the 900th anniversary of their foundation. At the heart of the... more
This important book presents a comprehensive history of St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in London. In 2023, the Priory Church and Hospital will celebrate the 900th anniversary of their foundation. At the heart of the Smithfield area, with its hospital, pubs, restaurants and market, is a church built when Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, was King of England. Overlooking the fields where kings confronted rebellions, knights jousted and heretics were burnt, St Bartholomew's Priory and Hospital played a central role in the history of medieval London. Partially torn down by order of Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Priory was reborn as a parish church. It served the City of London through the tumultuous years of the Reformation and the Civil War and has played host to many of London's most famous residents. William Hogarth was baptized in its font. Charles Wesley preached in its pulpit. Benjamin Franklin served as a printer's apprentice in its former Lady Chapel. John Betjeman lived across the street and memorialized it in his poetry. The history of St Bartholomew's is a tale of miraculous survival and continual renewal. It came out unscathed from the Great Fire of 1666 and the bombs dropped in Zeppelin raids in World War I and during the Blitz in World War II. Its splendid Romanesque core has been added to by each successive generation. This volume-the first comprehensive history of the Church since 1921surveys the art, architecture and historical significance of the City of London's oldest parish church in a scholarly, yet accessible tone. Richly illustrated, this book will appeal to those interested in the history of the City of London, in medieval and Victorian church architecture, in funerary monuments, and in the history of the Church of England.
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France is fabulously rich in incised effigial slabs and this book is the first study written in English to examine in detail their unique qualities in a particular region, the five départements of the Pays de la Loire. It uncovers their... more
France is fabulously rich in incised effigial slabs and this book is the first study written in English to examine in detail their unique qualities in a particular region, the five départements of the Pays de la Loire. It uncovers their various meanings, as gravemarkers and tools to encourage intercession for those they commemorate, and how they were commissioned by a socially diverse range of patrons, from ecclesiastical grandees to the lesser clergy, and from knights and esquires to widows and members of the professional classes. The corpus even includes some royal tombs, for branches of the French national family and the ducs de Bretagne. The book records 187 known slabs in the region, dating between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries. First there are seven chapters providing an incisive introduction to the social and artistic history of the artform (pages 1-237), followed by a detailed inventory recording each slab in turn, with full analysis and references (pages 238-370), followed by glossary, bibliography and index and then a generous secton of nearly 250 colour plates, photographs of surviving slabs and reproductions of the famous drawings by Roger de Gaignières, courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The author lives in the Pays de la Loire and has researched the subject for several decades. The book is written in English for an international academic audience with all quotations and transcriptions given in their original form with a translation. The book is now ready for printing and is on a lavish scale: 446 pages of text plus 224 pages of colour plates on art paper, all to be properly sewn and bound in cloth.
Research Interests: High Middle Ages, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Funerary Archaeology, Memory Studies, and 11 moreCommemoration and Memory, Medieval France, Church monuments, Medieval communication, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Remembrance, Tomb Monuments, Medieval Devotional Culture, Monumental Brasses, Pays de la Loire, and Incised slabs
A special discount offer on the latest volume published by the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust which explores the duties of a king in the defence of the realm. Dr Sutton brings her unrivalled knowledge in this forensic examination... more
A special discount offer on the latest volume published by the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust which explores the duties of a king in the defence of the realm. Dr Sutton brings her unrivalled knowledge in this forensic examination of the defence of the north in the reigns of the Yorkist brothers, Edward IV and Richard III
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Special offer for the Tabula Gratulatoria for the festschrift for Prof. Nigel Saul! The reign of Richard II is well known for its political turmoil as well as its literary and artistic innovations, all areas explored by Professor Nigel... more
Special offer for the Tabula Gratulatoria for the festschrift for Prof. Nigel Saul!
The reign of Richard II is well known for its political turmoil as well as its literary and artistic innovations, all areas explored by Professor Nigel Saul during his distinguished career. The present volume interrogates many familiar literary and narrative sources, including works by Froissart, Gower, Chaucer, Clanvow, and the Continuation of the Eulogium Historiarum, along with those less well-known, such as coroner's inquests and gaol delivery proceedings. The reign is also notorious for its larger than life personalities-not least Richard himself. But how was he shaped by other personalities? A prosopographical study of Richard's bishops, a comparison of the literary biographies of his father the Black Prince, and Bertrand du Guesclin, and a reconsideration of Plantagenet family politics, all shed light on this question. Meanwhile, Richard II's tomb reflects his desire to shape a new vision of kingship. Commemoration more broadly was changing in the late fourteenth century, and this volume includes several studies of both individual and communal memorials of various types that illustrate this trend: again, appropriately for an area Professor Saul has made his own.
The reign of Richard II is well known for its political turmoil as well as its literary and artistic innovations, all areas explored by Professor Nigel Saul during his distinguished career. The present volume interrogates many familiar literary and narrative sources, including works by Froissart, Gower, Chaucer, Clanvow, and the Continuation of the Eulogium Historiarum, along with those less well-known, such as coroner's inquests and gaol delivery proceedings. The reign is also notorious for its larger than life personalities-not least Richard himself. But how was he shaped by other personalities? A prosopographical study of Richard's bishops, a comparison of the literary biographies of his father the Black Prince, and Bertrand du Guesclin, and a reconsideration of Plantagenet family politics, all shed light on this question. Meanwhile, Richard II's tomb reflects his desire to shape a new vision of kingship. Commemoration more broadly was changing in the late fourteenth century, and this volume includes several studies of both individual and communal memorials of various types that illustrate this trend: again, appropriately for an area Professor Saul has made his own.
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The 'Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society' for 2020 will be a memorial issue for a much loved, much missed and highly respected antiquarian, scholar and friend. A long-serving parish priest of the Oratory, Oxford and a... more
The 'Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society' for 2020 will be a memorial issue for a much loved, much missed and highly respected antiquarian, scholar and friend. A long-serving parish priest of the Oratory, Oxford and a vice-president of the Monumental Brass Society, Fr Jerome’s final years were a remarkable Indian summer of scholarship and productivity. This issue will contain reviews of his surveys of Oxfordshire and Sussex brasses (both published in 2019), and also two important articles by him. One examines the Tournai trade and his final work, a study of the brass of John Waltham, bishop of Salisbury
(d. 1395), in the Confessor’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.
(d. 1395), in the Confessor’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, History and Memory, Medieval Church History, Commemoration and Memory, and 12 moreDeath and Burial (Archaeology), Antiquarianism, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Remembrance, Middle Ages, Memorialisation, Westminster Abbey, Tournai, Funerary Monuments, Monumental Brasses, MONUMENTAL BRASSES, HERALDRY, ICONOGRAPHY, and Brasses and tombs
Shaun Tyas Publishing has a special offer in the summer of 2020 with huge reductions on the cost of the Harlaxton Medieval Series at knock-down prices! Hurry - several volumes in the series are either sold out, or close.
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This volume work records the inscriptions from monuments of the dead in the city of Oxford from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. It is the first of two volumes edited by the late Jerome Bertram and published by the Oxfordshire Record... more
This volume work records the inscriptions from monuments of the dead in the city of Oxford from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. It is the first of two volumes edited by the late Jerome Bertram and published by the Oxfordshire Record Society. The second volume will cover the epigraphy of mediaeval Oxfordshire and is forthcoming.
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C. H. (Hugh) Lawrence (1921–2018) was, perhaps, best known for his brilliant general survey Medieval Monasticism which was first published in 1984 and has gone into four editions and is still in print. But he also wrote scholarly... more
C. H. (Hugh) Lawrence (1921–2018) was, perhaps, best known for his brilliant general survey Medieval Monasticism which was first published in 1984 and has gone into four editions and is still in print. But he also wrote scholarly monographs, on Edmund of Abingdon and Adam Marsh. He did not write a great many articles, thirteen in all published between 1954 and 2018, but they are all works of careful and illuminating scholarship with their focus firmly on the thirteenth century.
The collected essays in this volume are: The Thirteenth Century ♦ The English Parish and Its Clergy in the Thirteenth Century ♦ St Richard of Chichester ♦ The Origins of the Chancellorship at Oxford ♦ The University in State and Church ♦ The University of Oxford and the Chronicle of the Barons’ Wars ♦ The Medieval Idea of a University ♦ Robert of Abingdon and Matthew Paris ♦ Edmund of Abingdon ♦ The Alleged Exile of Archbishop Edmund ♦ Homily on the 750th Anniversary of the Canonisation of St Edmund of Abingdon, 15 November 1996 ♦ Stephen of Lexington and Cistercian University Studies in the Thirteenth Century ♦ An English Endowment for the College Saint-Bernard ♦ The Letters of Adam Marsh and the Franciscan School at Oxford ♦ Adam Marsh at Oxford.
A bibliography of the writings of C. H. Lawrence is also included.
The collected essays in this volume are: The Thirteenth Century ♦ The English Parish and Its Clergy in the Thirteenth Century ♦ St Richard of Chichester ♦ The Origins of the Chancellorship at Oxford ♦ The University in State and Church ♦ The University of Oxford and the Chronicle of the Barons’ Wars ♦ The Medieval Idea of a University ♦ Robert of Abingdon and Matthew Paris ♦ Edmund of Abingdon ♦ The Alleged Exile of Archbishop Edmund ♦ Homily on the 750th Anniversary of the Canonisation of St Edmund of Abingdon, 15 November 1996 ♦ Stephen of Lexington and Cistercian University Studies in the Thirteenth Century ♦ An English Endowment for the College Saint-Bernard ♦ The Letters of Adam Marsh and the Franciscan School at Oxford ♦ Adam Marsh at Oxford.
A bibliography of the writings of C. H. Lawrence is also included.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Medieval Church History, Franciscan Studies, History of Roman Catholicism, and 12 moreChurch History, History of Religion (Medieval Studies), Mendicant Orders, Roman Catholicism, Religious Studies, Middle Ages, Church and State, Catholic Church History, History of the Franciscan Order, Medieval Universities, Thirteenth Century, and St Edmund of Abingdon
This Festschrift honours the late Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory and former Vice-President of the Monumental Brass Society, who admired, researched, lectured and wrote about monumental brasses and incised slabs for over fifty years.... more
This Festschrift honours the late Jerome Bertram of the Oxford Oratory and former Vice-President of the Monumental Brass Society, who admired, researched, lectured and wrote about monumental brasses and incised slabs for over fifty years. The essays in this volume represent the latest research from scholars who shed new light on all types of monument – cross-slabs, effigies, incised slabs and brasses, canopied tombs – as individual case studies and regional studies. They also consider the production process, workshops, antiquarian studies and the evidence for lost monuments not only in England and Wales but across mainland Europe. They range chronologically from as early as Christ’s tomb in ancient Jerusalem through the Roman, medieval and early modern periods and conclude with a study of a brass in nineteenth-century Oxford. These essays are a worthy tribute to an antiquary who did so much to promote the study of medieval funerary monuments.
Research Interests:
Medieval Londoners were a diverse group, some born in the city, and others drawn to the capital from across the realm and from overseas. For some, London became the sole focus of their lives, while others retained or developed networks... more
Medieval Londoners were a diverse group, some born in the city, and others drawn to the capital from across the realm and from overseas. For some, London became the sole focus of their lives, while others retained or developed networks and loyalties that spread far and wide. The rich evidence for the medieval city, including archaeological and documentary evidence, means that the study of London and its inhabitants remains a vibrant field. Medieval Londoners brings together archaeologists, historians, art-historians and literary scholars whose essays provide glimpses of medieval Londoners in all their breadth, depth and variety.
This volume is offered to Caroline M. Barron, Emeritus Professor of the History of London at Royal Holloway, University of London, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. Her remarkable career – over some fifty years – has revitalized the way in which we consider London and its people. This volume is a tribute to her scholarship and her friendship and encouragement to others. It is thanks to Caroline M. Barron that the study of medieval London remains as vibrant today as it has ever been.
This volume is offered to Caroline M. Barron, Emeritus Professor of the History of London at Royal Holloway, University of London, on the occasion of her 80th birthday. Her remarkable career – over some fifty years – has revitalized the way in which we consider London and its people. This volume is a tribute to her scholarship and her friendship and encouragement to others. It is thanks to Caroline M. Barron that the study of medieval London remains as vibrant today as it has ever been.
Research Interests:
The collected essays in this peer-reviewed volume bring together a range of experts on the English Church to reflect on the distinctive relationship between the Church, the parish and the urban environment. Urban religion in the later... more
The collected essays in this peer-reviewed volume bring together a range of experts on the English Church to reflect on the distinctive relationship between the Church, the parish and the urban environment. Urban religion in the later Middle Ages was characterised by competition and co-operation between wealthy lay patrons and the religious orders, especially the friars. Civic churches were made splendid through lay investment and their parishioners, wealthy and poor, benefited from a spectacular and diverse liturgy and mutual support in pursuit of salvation. The collected essays also reflect on the wide-ranging influence of the scholarship of Clive Burgess who, for over thirty years, has changed our understanding of religion, religious culture and the men and women whose lives were shaped by belief.
The volume includes contributions by: Amy Appleford, Caroline M. Barron, Julia Boffey, Gabriel Byng, James G. Clark, Justin Colson, Anna Eavis, Peter Fleming, Katherine L. French, Gary G. Gibbs, Vincent Gillespie, David Harry, Martin Heale, T. A. Heslop, Nick Holder, David Lepine, Julian Luxford, Nigel Morgan, Elizabeth New, Christian Steer, R. N. Swanson, Anne F. Sutton, Magnus Williamson and Robert A. Wood, and with an appreciation by Eamon Duffy.
The volume includes contributions by: Amy Appleford, Caroline M. Barron, Julia Boffey, Gabriel Byng, James G. Clark, Justin Colson, Anna Eavis, Peter Fleming, Katherine L. French, Gary G. Gibbs, Vincent Gillespie, David Harry, Martin Heale, T. A. Heslop, Nick Holder, David Lepine, Julian Luxford, Nigel Morgan, Elizabeth New, Christian Steer, R. N. Swanson, Anne F. Sutton, Magnus Williamson and Robert A. Wood, and with an appreciation by Eamon Duffy.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Late Medieval English History, Medieval Church History, Commemoration and Memory, Medieval London, and 14 moreGuilds, Friars, Medieval Monasteries, Sarum Use, Medieval Bishops, Urban Religion, Chaplains, Medieval city, Medieval Norwich, Parish Research, Prayer and Intercession, Charterhouses, churchwardens' accounts, and Clive Burgess historian
Memorializing the Middle Classes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe investigates commemorative practices in Cyprus, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Offering a... more
Memorializing the Middle Classes in Medieval and Renaissance Europe investigates commemorative practices in Cyprus, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Offering a broad overview of memorialization practices across Europe and the Mediterranean, individual chapters examine local customs through particular case studies. These essays explore complementary themes through the lens of commemorative art, including social status; personal and corporate identities; the intersections of mercantile, intellectual, and religious attitudes; upward (and downward) mobility; and the cross-cultural exchange of memorialization strategies.
Research Interests: Medieval History, Renaissance Studies, Cyprus Studies, Urban Studies, Memory Studies, and 15 moreCommemoration and Memory, History of Middle Classes, Church monuments, Tombs (Medieval Studies), Medieval London, Pisa, History of Venice, Renaissance in Tuscany, Strasbourg, Memorialisation, 15th Century Florence, Renaissance Florence, Effigies, Medieval Burgundy, and Monuments of the dead
Pre-publication offer (due out September 2018)
Research Interests: Commemoration and Memory, Church monuments, Tomb Monuments, St. John's College, Cambridge, Medieval Franciscans, and 8 moreKing's College, Cambridge, Monumental Brasses, Memory and Commemorations, University of Cambridge, Medieval Cambridge, Trinity Hall Cambridge, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and MONUMENTAL BRASSES, HERALDRY, ICONOGRAPHY
It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the evidence, both surviving monuments and written records, for burial and commemoration in the medieval city of London. Much of London’s ecclesiastical landscape – its parish churches,... more
It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the evidence, both surviving
monuments and written records, for burial and commemoration in the medieval city of London. Much of London’s ecclesiastical landscape – its parish churches, religious houses, and cathedral of St Paul’s – was lost during the Reformation of the sixteenth century and the Great Fire of 1666. Almost all the city’s monuments to the dead were destroyed, and little survives by way of material remains. This thesis will argue that the redevelopment of the city’s churches in the fifteenth century also contributed to these losses. However, despite the loss of the physical tombs, much evidence has survived in the written records and through the chance finds of re-used brass memorials. This thesis has also made use of the surviving testamentary evidence, represented by some 550 wills, to demonstrate patterns of memorialization within the parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral, the friaries, and London’s other religious houses, to demonstrate the preferences of particular social groups about where and how they wished to be remembered. Medieval tombs in the city of London were, however, only part of a much broader commemorative strategy which was concerned to secure intercession and remembrance as widely as possible.
monuments and written records, for burial and commemoration in the medieval city of London. Much of London’s ecclesiastical landscape – its parish churches, religious houses, and cathedral of St Paul’s – was lost during the Reformation of the sixteenth century and the Great Fire of 1666. Almost all the city’s monuments to the dead were destroyed, and little survives by way of material remains. This thesis will argue that the redevelopment of the city’s churches in the fifteenth century also contributed to these losses. However, despite the loss of the physical tombs, much evidence has survived in the written records and through the chance finds of re-used brass memorials. This thesis has also made use of the surviving testamentary evidence, represented by some 550 wills, to demonstrate patterns of memorialization within the parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral, the friaries, and London’s other religious houses, to demonstrate the preferences of particular social groups about where and how they wished to be remembered. Medieval tombs in the city of London were, however, only part of a much broader commemorative strategy which was concerned to secure intercession and remembrance as widely as possible.