In the last of her posts on the Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny, Laura considers he Tree of Jesse, a unique surviving monumental sculpture. The images of saints, apostles and martyrs on the Herbert tombs at Abergavenny are not the only rare survivals in the church. The […]
On 5-7th April 2018, project member Laura Slater attended the ‘Association for Art History’ annual conference in London, held at the Strand campus of King’s College London and The Courtauld Institute of Art. She gave a research presentation on ‘Devotional Soundscapes in the Psalter of Queen Philippa’ as part a thematic strand organised by Margit Thøfner and Tim Shephard. More excitingly, she contributed to a live musical event held at The Courtauld Gallery, organised by Dr Charlotte de Mille, founder and curator of the music programme at The Courtauld Gallery.
In her last post, Laura introduced us to the elaborate tombs of the Hastings family at St Mary’s priory Abergavenny, and showed what they can reveal about attitudes towards memorial and self-image amongst late-medieval nobles. This time, Laura turns her attention to other tombs at St Mary’s, and the difficulties of studying medieval art in Britain.
In the second of her posts on commemoration, Laura shows the role that effigies could play in creating dynastic identity.
In the first of a series of posts on commemoration, MALMECC’s art historian Laura Slater looks at the phenomenon of the ‘Eleanor Crosses’ – a very visible memorial to Eleanor of Castile…
In the second part of her ‘Sex at Court’ series, Laura Slater looks at the phenomenon of prostitutes at court, and the various measures – including licensing, imprisonment and taxes – that were taken in order to try and regulate them.
As we saw in the ‘Marriage at Court’ posts, matters of romance were not always plain sailing… In the first of a series of posts on ‘Sex at Court’, Laura Slater looks at some notable examples of marital breakdown and adultery in medieval England.
So what happened once you were married in the courts of medieval Europe? The Victorian idea of ‘separate spheres’- men dominating the public world of work and politics, women responsible for the private, domestic life of home and children- does not apply in the Middle Ages. We cannot make a clear distinction between the public and the private, or even between work and home.
In the second part of her ‘Marriage at Court’ series, Laura looks at the pressures faced by young royal brides to start paying their ‘marital debt’, and its potentially life-threatening consequences.
In the first of a three-part series on ‘Marriage at Court’, researcher Laura Slater explains how aristocratic marriages were brokered, and how love was mostly for the lower orders of society.
