Biography
My research centres on an English illustrated manuscript of histories and romance from 1338-40 (BL Egerton 3028). The project has led me to explore the role of images in chivalric pedagogies and the political function of history, especially the deep myth of Britain. It is AHRC-funded and my supervisor is Prof Paul Binski.
I began my academic career with medieval languages and literature, reading for a BA in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge. Learning Medieval Latin, Old English, script history (palaeography) and manuscript construction (codicology), introduced me to the world of medieval book culture. For the final year of my BA I transferred to History of Art, and wrote a dissertation on the Incipit pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the concept of literacy in the Northumbrian Golden Age.
During my MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art, I was introduced to the unusual fourteenth-century English manuscript that became the focus of my doctoral research. It contains three illustrated historico-romantic texts, all concerning British and French kings. Its many pictures depict an array of subjects including King Arthur, Stonehenge, giants, dragons and Charlemagne.
Other academic interests
The Digital Pilgrim Project
Alongside my PhD I co-convened the Digital Pilgrim Project, a Cambridge University project supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and partially based at the British Museum. It has created resources to aid engagement with and study of medieval badges and pilgrim souvenirs using 3D modelling and GIS mapping software. The project has fostered my interest into the emblematic language of medieval Christendom.
Publications
‘Techniques of 3D Modeling in Art Historical Research’, in The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History, edited by Kathryn Brown (New York: Routledge, forthcoming)
With Dr Gabriel Byng, ‘Pilgrim Souvenirs’, in A Companion to Medieval Pilgrimage, edited by Andrew Jotischky and William Purkis (Kalamazoo: Arc Humanities Press, forthcoming)
Medieval Illumination: Manuscript Art in England and France, 700-1200, edited by Kathleen Doyle and Charlotte Denoël (British Library, 2018)
‘A Rough Guide to Making a Manuscript’, in the British Library’s Medieval Manuscripts Blog (2017)
'One Object: Pilgrim Souvenir, Hood of Cherries' in, British Art Studies, Issue 6 (2017)
'One Object: Pilgrim Souvenir, Ampulla of Thomas Becket, in, British Art Studies, Issue 6 (2017)
'Review: Edward II: His Last Months and his Monument', in, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Vol. 169 (2016), pp.146-147