Fragments of Medieval London: Visual Culture through the Museum of London's Archaeological Collection
Lead Research Organisation:
University of East Anglia
Department Name: Art, Media and American Studies
Abstract
Objects are not often made to last 700 years. When an object does exist unbroken for this amount of time either it was one of the few pieces that were created with longevity in mind, such as grand devotional gestures or dynastic vanity projects, or a series of owners have passed them down, each imprinting a new context into its lifecycle.
It is these objects that have been the subjects of the overwhelming majority of scholarship about the visual arts in the Middle Ages. Objects such as stained glass windows that have survived in their original context, or reliquaries designed to last until the world ended have dominated the study of the visual art of medieval religion and from these objects conclusions are drawn about the piety of the masses.
In the last 30 years, scholarship focussed on the laity has flourished with historians of the parish seeing the fourteenth century as a period of piety becoming more personal, citing as evidence the emergence of trends such as private chapels and vernacular religious texts. However these forms of religious expression touched the few rather than the many as they are dependent upon a level of literacy and investment unattainable to most people in medieval England.
In its study of medieval fragments, this project aims to embrace the broken majority of material that has survived by a combination of accident and neglect. In so doing it will take particular interest in ordinary lay people rather than medieval society's legacy makers. Building on the work of historians who have stressed the role of objects as performers in everyday life, this thesis aims to gather insights on the users and owners of these objects.
A fragment by definition is part of a whole but selecting fragments and treating them as if they were complete objects would miss the true potential of this project. I propose to use a methodology inspired by the archival principal of provenance whereby a fragment is not just studied individually but collections of fragments are looked at together so that patterns of survival can emerge.
I will also use sources relating to the London Diocese, such as bishops' registers and parish records such as church wardens' accounts, although few of these survive from before the 16th century, to assess the context of the fragments in the landscape of faith on a local level.
By addressing this question of personal piety through fragments of possessions, this thesis aims to fill a gap that has been left by historians of medieval religion, opening up observation of how medieval religion was experienced in the daily lives of a broader social spectrum of medieval society than just the educated, landed elite. In studying the material culture of fourteenth and fifteenth-century London, it is proposed here that small everyday gestures of religious devotion rather than grand, and expensive, gestures, will be revealed
It is these objects that have been the subjects of the overwhelming majority of scholarship about the visual arts in the Middle Ages. Objects such as stained glass windows that have survived in their original context, or reliquaries designed to last until the world ended have dominated the study of the visual art of medieval religion and from these objects conclusions are drawn about the piety of the masses.
In the last 30 years, scholarship focussed on the laity has flourished with historians of the parish seeing the fourteenth century as a period of piety becoming more personal, citing as evidence the emergence of trends such as private chapels and vernacular religious texts. However these forms of religious expression touched the few rather than the many as they are dependent upon a level of literacy and investment unattainable to most people in medieval England.
In its study of medieval fragments, this project aims to embrace the broken majority of material that has survived by a combination of accident and neglect. In so doing it will take particular interest in ordinary lay people rather than medieval society's legacy makers. Building on the work of historians who have stressed the role of objects as performers in everyday life, this thesis aims to gather insights on the users and owners of these objects.
A fragment by definition is part of a whole but selecting fragments and treating them as if they were complete objects would miss the true potential of this project. I propose to use a methodology inspired by the archival principal of provenance whereby a fragment is not just studied individually but collections of fragments are looked at together so that patterns of survival can emerge.
I will also use sources relating to the London Diocese, such as bishops' registers and parish records such as church wardens' accounts, although few of these survive from before the 16th century, to assess the context of the fragments in the landscape of faith on a local level.
By addressing this question of personal piety through fragments of possessions, this thesis aims to fill a gap that has been left by historians of medieval religion, opening up observation of how medieval religion was experienced in the daily lives of a broader social spectrum of medieval society than just the educated, landed elite. In studying the material culture of fourteenth and fifteenth-century London, it is proposed here that small everyday gestures of religious devotion rather than grand, and expensive, gestures, will be revealed
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jack Hartnell (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Olivia Croyle (Student) |