Recycling and reinvention in Reformation England: Medieval religious textiles in Tudor homes and families, c. 1540 - c.1603

The closure of hundreds of churches, chapels and chantries between 1536 and 1549 dispersed countless medieval textiles and other artworks accrued over centuries past. Many of them, and the textiles especially, were preserved, gifted or sold into private ownership to be placed in an entirely different social, cultural and confessional environment. Their passage into this reformed, Renaissance England, their role in the evolution of Tudor domestic interiors, and the expression of dynastic and individual identities when political, social and cultural authority was contested, have never been studied in depth. The sources for such research are rich: many of the inventories compiled by the crown commissioners charged with implementing reformation statutes still survive; a cross-section of the religious textiles and associated artefacts retained and reused in the later sixteenth century remain; many more are attested in household accounts. Their story can contribute to the material turn in Reformation studies which has brought critical attention to the physical and material environment of the Tudor transformations; and they present an opportunity to explore with wider audiences the cultural and social, domestic and personal consequences of sudden and sweeping regime change.

Studies of medieval religious artworks have concentrated on patronage, the process of manufacture and the original context and use, while those concerned with the Tudor period are confined either to iconoclastic destruction or the Counter-Reformation reaction. This project will connect preserved textiles and other religious artworks with the wider social experience of Reformation and the ideological battles and cultural revolution it entailed. It bridges the gap in knowledge of the dispersal, preservation and domestic reuse of English religious art by connecting the material culture with the archival record. It explains the impulses that informed the development of Tudor interior design; and it connects the heritage interpretation of these spaces with the challenges of beliefs and values which marked this moment in time. A better understanding of the changing fortunes of these artefacts can create a point-of-contact for curators and audiences in themes of contemporary relevance: the social and cultural effects of ideological conflict; the expression of personal and social identity in the face of repression; even the art and craft of recycling in the home.

The project builds on the common ground between Emma Slocombe's interpretation priorities for the Reformation textiles held at Hardwick Hall, and Exeter historian James Clark's archival research on the cultural impact of the Tudor dissolutions. NT collections provide a substantial evidence-base for the project: textiles at Hardwick, Coughton, Cotehele, Kingston Lacy, Moseley Old Hall and Trelissick, together with some religious plate and panel painting in the same collections and the household and personal (e.g. probate) inventories that track their passage through homes and families. Exeter as HEI partner brings to the project a profile in innovative, digitally-enabled interdisciplinary research together with Clark's expert knowledge of the archival environment and experience of knowledge exchange and public engagement programmes in the heritage sector.

The central themes of the project connect with the interests of conservators and curators. and also reach the audiences for their collections and settings; in fact, they open fresh points-of-entry for constituencies less inclined to investigate such heritage sites by revealing the recognisable impulses that shaped them.
The project will deliver a dissertation that adds to the knowledge and understanding of unique collections of international significance. It will create a critical framework for further study of the medieval afterlife of other religious artforms and establish a template for their application in engagement initiatives with diverse publics