Conference: Church, Saints and Seals, 1150-1300, Canterbury Christ Church University, 8 May 2020

As part of Becket 2020, this one-day conference combines presentations by experts on seals with a visit to the Cathedral Archives and Conservation Studio. Speakers will discuss the iconography of seals, including representations of sacred buildings and Becket’s murder, as well as the materiality of seals and sealing practices.

Timetable:

10.00-10.30            Registration and Refreshments

10.30-11.15            Welcome and Session One: Professor Markus Späth

11.15-12.00            Session Two: Dr Lloyd de Beer and Professor Sandy Heslop

12.00-13.00            Lunch

13.00-13.45           Session Three: Dr Philippa Hoskin

13.45-14.30           Session Four: Dr Paul Dryburgh

14.30-15.00            Refreshments

15.00-15.45            Session Five: short presentations and concluding remarks

16.00-17.00            Visit to Cathedral Archives and Conservation Studio

Tickets: Full price (including lunch) £50; CCCU and Kent University students (including lunch) £25

Tickets and more information here: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-and-humanities/events/arts-and-humanities/ckhh/saints-and-seals.aspx

Postdoc: Postdoc in archaeology of the Mediterranean (200-1000 CE), University of Puget Sound, deadline: March 1, 2020

The University of Puget Sound invites applications for the Lora Bryning Redford Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Archaeology starting in Fall 2020. This is a nonrenewable one-year position.

Responsibilities:

The Redford Fellow will be expected to teach three undergraduate courses over the year: an introduction to archaeology (including archaeological methods) course in the fall and two more specialized courses in the spring, chosen in consultation with the faculty mentor.  The Fellow will also deliver a public lecture and serve as a campus resource for those interested in archaeology; this may include advising students, identifying summer excavations or field schools in which to participate, or finding graduate programs that meet students’ interests.  The Fellow will be assigned to an appropriate department (e.g. Art and Art History, Classics, History, Religious Studies, Sociology and Anthropology), where faculty will assist with professional development.

Qualifications:

We invite applications from scholars who have completed a Ph.D. in archaeology within the last three years. We seek a candidate who has expertise in the archaeology of the Mediterranean, broadly understood, from c. 200 to c. 1000 CE.  Specializations might include the late Roman world, Sassanian Empire, early Islamic civilization, Byzantine Empire, or early medieval western Europe.  Candidates with interests in cross-cultural encounters, gender roles, or religion are especially encouraged to apply.  Scholars who are able to make connections across disciplines and demonstrate the impact of archaeological work on a variety of fields in an undergraduate liberal arts setting are especially encouraged to apply.

Compensation and Benefits:

Rank: Post-Doctoral Fellow

The position offers a salary of $40,000 and comes with health and professional development benefits.  Puget Sound offers a generous benefits package. For more information, visit: http://www.pugetsound.edu/about/offices–services/human-resources/overview-of-university-benefit/.

About Puget Sound:

Puget Sound is a selective national liberal arts college in Tacoma, Washington, drawing 2,600 students from 48 states and 20 countries. Puget Sound graduates include Rhodes and Fulbright scholars, notables in the arts and culture, entrepreneurs and elected officials, and leaders in business and finance locally and throughout the world. A low student-faculty ratio provides Puget Sound students with personal attention from faculty who have a strong commitment to teaching and offer 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional and interdisciplinary fields. Puget Sound is the only nationally ranked independent undergraduate liberal arts college in Western Washington, and one of just five independent colleges in the Pacific Northwest granted a charter by Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s most prestigious academic honorary society. Visit “About Puget Sound” (http://www.pugetsound.edu/about) to learn more about the college.

Application Deadline: Interested individuals are encouraged to submit application materials no later than March 1, 2020 to ensure consideration.  

Required Documents:

Please submit curriculum vitae (CV) when prompted to submit resume. Additional documents can be attached within the application. Applications submitted without the documents requested below will not be considered:

  • Curriculum vitae
  • Letter of Interest
  • Diversity Statement (see prompt below)
  • Three (3) letters of reference. You will be asked to specify the email addresses of reference providers at the time of application and the system will email these providers on the next business day.

Commitment to Diversity: As a department and university, we are strongly committed to creating an inclusive and effective teaching, learning, and working environment for all. We ask applicants to submit a diversity statement, in which they comment on their ability to contribute meaningfully to our on-going commitment to be informed and competent with regard to issues of diversity, equity, and individual differences. We encourage applicants to reference the University of Puget Sound’s current Diversity Strategic Plan (DSP) at http://www.pugetsound.edu/about/diversity-at-puget-sound/diversity-strategic-plan/ prior to writing this statement. While not an exhaustive list, the following are some ways candidates can express their qualification:

  • Your lived experiences and/or identities that speak to the department and university’s commitment to inclusion and diversity;
  • Demonstration of your awareness of inequities for underrepresented student populations in education, research experience, and other opportunities;
  • Brief insights on why diversity is important at institutions like the University of Puget Sound;
  • Infusion of diversity and diversity-related issues into your research, pedagogy, and/or service;
  • Previous and/or current activities involving mentoring underrepresented student populations;
  • Creative ideas or strategies you could enact as a member of the University of Puget Sound campus community to support the university’s DSP;
  • Brief insights on how cultural competency increases one’s effectiveness as an educator and department/university colleague.

University Diversity Statement

  • We acknowledge the richness of commonalities and differences we share as a university community; the intrinsic worth of all who work and study here; that education is enhanced by investigation of and reflection upon multiple perspectives.
  • We aspire to create respect for and appreciation of all persons as a key characteristic of our campus community; to increase the diversity of all parts of our University community through commitment to diversity in our recruitment and retention efforts; to foster a spirit of openness to active engagement among all members of our campus community.
  • We act to achieve an environment that welcomes and supports diversity; to ensure full educational opportunity for all who teach and learn here; to prepare effectively citizen-leaders for a pluralistic world.

Puget Sound is committed to an environment that welcomes and supports diversity. We seek diversity of identity, thought, perspective, and background in our students, faculty, and staff. To learn more please visit: http://www.pugetsound.edu/about/diversity-at-puget-sound/

All offers of employment are contingent on successful completion of a background inquiry.

The University of Puget Sound is an equal opportunity employer.

Conference: The Intercultural Roots of Early Scholasticism – Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, 23-24 January 2020

23-24 January 2020, Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N 2AB

 Please register here:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-intercultural-roots-early-scholasticism-greek-hebrew-arabic-latin-tickets-80013698125

Please book lunch separately here: https://estore.kcl.ac.uk/product-catalogue/academic-faculties/faculty-of-arts-humanities/theology-religious-studies/lunch-for-the-intercultural-roots-of-early-scholasticism-conference

The late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries represent a dynamic period in Western intellectual history. These were years, before Aristotle’s works were fully digested, during which philosophical works written in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic were becoming available in Latin for the first time, skewing understanding of Aristotle considerably and introducing themes into Latin thought in their own right. The proposed workshop seeks to better understand the phenomenon of the confluence of Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic sources that influenced early scholastic interpretations of Aristotle as well as Latin authorities like Augustine by investigating more closely those sources and the phenomenon of their transmission into Latin. In this connection, papers will be offered on various aspects of the Greek/Arabic/Hebrew tradition that had an influence on early scholastic thought particularly in the late twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century.

Speakers

  • Amos Bertolacci (Lucca)
  • Charles Burnett (The Warburg Institute)
  • Alexander Fidora (ICREA—Barcelona)/ Nicola Polloni (Berlin)
  • Dag Hasse (Würzburg)
  • John Marenbon (Trinity College, Cambridge)
  • Lydia Schumacher (King’s College London)
  • Lesley Smith (Oxford)
  • Anna-Katharina Strohschneider (King’s College London)
  • Faith Wallis (McGill)

Provisional Schedule

Thursday 23 January

10:00-10:15     Welcome and Introduction

10:15-11:15     Paper 1: Charles Burnett (The Warburg Institute), ‘Arabic and Latin Summae’

11:15-11:45     Tea break

11:45-12:45     Paper 2: Dag Hasse (Würzburg), Translating Double Intentionality from Arabic into Latin

1:00-2:00         Lunch

2:00-3:00         Paper 3: Lesley Smith (Oxford), The Summa Halensis, William of Auvergne, Maimonides, and Avicenna

3:15-4:15         Paper 4: Faith Wallis (McGill), A Twelfth Century Physician Reflects on the Soul, the Spirits, and the Problems of Free Will

4:15-4:45         Tea break

4:45-5:45         Paper 5: José Meirinhos (Porto), Intellectus agens est triplex: Jean of la Rochelle and Petrus Hispanus Portugalensis

6:00-7:00         Opening Reception

Friday 24 January

10:00-10:15     Welcome and Introduction

10:15-11:15     Paper 6: Amos Bertolacci (Lucca), Averroist or Anti-Averroist? On Albert the Great’s Attitude towards Averroes in the Commentary on the Metaphysics

11:15-11:45     Tea break

11:45-12:45     Paper 7: Alexander Fidora (ICREA—Barcelona)/Nicola Polloni (Berlin), Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Reception of Arabic Philosophy in the 13th Century

1:00-2:00         Lunch

2:00-3:00         Paper 8: John Marenbon (Cambridge), The Intercultural Roots of Early Scholasticism: Towards a New Historiography

3:15-4:15         Paper 9: Anna-Katharina Strohschneider (King’s College London)

4:15-4:45         Tea break

4:45-5:45         Paper 10: Lydia Schumacher (King’s College London), Early Franciscan Psychology: A Milestone in the Reception of Islamic and Jewish Philosophy

Seminar Series: Murray Seminars on Medieval and Renaissance Art at Birkbeck, London, Spring Term 2020

3rd February 2020:
James Hall, ‘Embattled Exclusivity: the Aesthetics and Politics of Michelangelo’s Attack on Flemish Painting’.

In a dialogue composed by Francisco de Holanda, Michelangelo launches a diatribe against painting produced in Europe north of the Alps, attacking what he sees as its crowdedness and materialism; its lack of order and discrimination; its sentimentality and its popularity with the ignorant and especially with women. This talk explores Michelangelo’s disparagement of Flemish painting within its rich cultural and political context. His antipathy draws on a historic association between those who lived north of the Alps with the Goths and Vandals who destroyed ancient Rome. Their modern mercenary descendants were still invading Italy, and their artforms – musical as well as visual – had done so too. However, Michelangelo’s main concern was less with Flemish art, than with the fact that it was so influential on Italian artists, including Michelangelo himself. To make matters worse, he was working in the Sistine Chapel, filled with supreme products of Flemish culture, and things were not going well.
25th February 2020:  
Federico Botana, ‘A gift for Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici? The Aritmetica by Filippo Calandri’ 
The Aritmetica (Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2669, c. 1485) is one of the most lavish libri d’abbaco (mathematical treatises) that has come down to us from Renaissance Florence. The Aritmetica is illustrated with sixty-five miniatures, many consisting of lively scenes relating to trade, crafts and games. It has been thought that the manuscript was created for Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici. The evidence that will be presented in this seminar, however, strongly suggests that a member of the Dell’Antella family commissioned the manuscript, and that it was later given to Lorenzo for use by his son Giuliano, the future Duke of Nemours.  In addition to presenting evidence on the original ownership of the manuscript, the paper discusses the contents and readership of libri d’abbaco, and the personality and intellect of Giuliano de’ Medici, which at a young age made him a worthy recipient for such a gift.

 

16th March 2020:  

Sarah Ferrari ‘Provenance matters: acquisitions of Venetian Renaissance art in Northern Europe between the First and the Second World War’.

 

This paper sheds new light on the dynamics of the European art market by investigating a group of paintings that were acquired by the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden, between 1917 and 1954. The group includes works attributed to Titian, Tintoretto, Schiavone and Veronese, some of which were once part of the celebrated collection of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689). The paper offers an account of both documentary sources and material aspects, in order to identify the network of collectors and dealers involved, while at the same time analyzing the role of national identity as a driving force in the context of these acquisitions.
Information:
Seminars take place at 5pm in the History of Art Department (43, Gordon Sq., London WC1H 0PD) in The Keynes Library (Room 114), unless stated otherwise.
Talks finish by 5.50pm to allow those with other commitments to leave, and are then followed by discussion and refreshments.
These talks are supported by the Murray Bequest in memory of the Department’s founder Peter Murray, and are open to all.

Conference: ‘Our Aelred’: Friendship, Leadership and Sainthood at Rievaulx Abbey, 3-4th July 2020

Join English Heritage at this major conference focused on Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx between 1147 and 1167.

Called ‘our Aelred’ by his monks, the abbot was one of the most important monastic leaders of the Middle Ages and remains an inspirational figure to this day.

Bringing together leading academics and heritage professionals, this conference provides a unique opportunity to examine Aelred’s impact on the architectural development of Rievaulx, his role in the Cistercian settlement of northern England and his activities as an author. Speakers will address the abbot’s impact in the wider monastic world and Aelred’s legacy, including his veneration as a saint and how his extraordinary life and achievements can be interpreted for 21st-century visitors to Rievaulx.

The event also features a round-table discussion focused on debates about Aelred’s sexuality.

The international panel of speakers includes Professor Janet Burton, Dr Michael Carter, Professor Marsha Dutton, Professor Peter Fergusson, Dr Elizabeth Freeman, Dr Alexandra Gajewski, Professor Brian Golding, Dr Katherine Harvey and Professor Emilia Jamroziak.

The registration fee includes entry to all the conference sessions, an evening drinks reception on 3 July and refreshments and lunch on 4 July.

The conference is timed to coincide with the Leeds International Medieval Conference (6-9 July), registration for which is separate.

A full programme will be available in early spring 2020.

Tickets and more information here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/our-aelred-friendship-leadership-and-sainthood-at-rievaulx-abbey-tickets-90598335059

CFP: ‘Travelling Objects, Travelling People: Art and Artists of Late Medieval and Renaissance Iberia and Beyond, c. 1400–1550’, The Courtauld Institute of Art, deadline 10 January 2020

Travelling Objects, Travelling People aims to nuance our understanding of the exchanges and influences that shaped the artistic landscape of Medieval and Renaissance Iberia. Traditional narratives hold that late fifteenth-century Iberian art and architecture were transformed by the arrival of artists, objects and ideas from France and the Low Countries, while 1492 marked a chronological rupture and the beginning of global encounters. Challenging these perceptions, this conference will reconsider the dynamics of artistic influence in late medieval Iberia, and place European exchanges in a global context, from Madeira to Santo Domingo. Bringing together international scholars working on Spain, Portugal and a range of related geographies, it seeks to address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and issues of migration and non-linear transfers of materials, techniques and iconographies.

The theme of ‘travellers’—artists who reached or departed the region, at times more than once in their lives, but also objects and concepts imported and exported—will expand and inflect traditional narratives of late medieval and Renaissance art, underscoring the complexity of global interactions and exchanges which connected the Iberian peninsula to Europe and beyond. Bringing together international scholars working on Iberia and a range of related geographies, the conference seeks to address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and to expand the field of analysis beyond Europe to encompass relationships with newly acquired dominions, from Madeira to Santo Domingo.

Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:

  • Iberian artists employed abroad, from the master mason Guillelm Sagrera in Naples, to the sculptor Juan de la Huerta at the Chartreuse de Champmol
  • The close imitation of northern artists in such works as the Portuguese copies of Quentin Metsys’s The Angel Appearing to Saints Clara, Colette and Agnes (early 16th century, Museu de Setúbal / Convento de Jesus, Portugal)
  • ‘Iberian’ objects produced elsewhere, for example Christian ivory carvings made in Goa or Kongo, Afro-Portuguese spoons, and Mexican ‘feather-work’ adopting the vocabulary of northern European late Gothic painting
  • Works made for a non-Iberian audience but purchased and displayed by local patrons.

By encouraging conversations across such seemingly disparate topics and geographies, the conference aims to position the Iberian artistic landscape within the networks of artistic exchange that spanned the medieval and Renaissance worlds, challenging the significance of 1492 as a moment of rupture between the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods.

Proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines. Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words together with a short CV and 100-word biography to Costanza.Beltrami@courtauld.ac.uk and Sylvia.Alvares-Correa@history.ox.ac.uk by Friday 10 January 2020.

Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Successful candidates will be notified by 17 February. In the first instance, applicants are encouraged to apply to their home institution for travel and accommodation funding. The organisers hope to provide financial support for travel and accommodation to speakers who require it. This conference is made possible by the kind generosity of Sam Fogg.

Please click here for more information.

Seminar: Relics and monastic identity in late medieval England, Michael Carter, 12 November 2019

Michael Carter, Senior Historian at English Heritage, analyses the importance of relics in the construction of monastic identities in late medieval England. It will focus on two Benedictine (Battle and Whitby) and two Cistercian (Hailes and Rievaulx) abbeys. He will demonstrate that these monasteries used relics to promote and sustain their wider religious role until the time of the Suppression, and that relics were also used to affirm relations between religious houses. Relics and the development of local liturgical observance will also be discussed. Calling upon relic lists, chronicles, heraldry, wills and extant material remains, Michael will also give an idea of the broad range of sources available for the study of the cult of relics at English monasteries, and show that significant material remains unexplored or capable of reinterpretation. The talk is a work in progress, and presents preliminary findings from a projected large-scale study into relics and monasteries in the two centuries before the Suppression.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The talk takes place on Tuesday 12th November, at 5pm in the History of Art Department (43, Gordon Sq., London WC1H 0PD) in The Keynes Library (Room 114).

Like all the seminars, the talk will finish by 5.50pm to allow those with other commitments to leave, and is then followed by discussion and refreshments.  

These talks are supported by the Murray Bequest in memory of the Department’s founder Peter Murray, and are open to all.

No booking required, but if you are sure you are coming it can be helpful to our planning if you let us know here  http://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=8569

New Publication: Pleasure and Politics at the Court of France: The Artistic Patronage of Queen Marie of Brabant (1260-1321), by Tracy Chapman Hamilton

For her commissioning and performance of a French vernacular version of the Arabic tale of the Thousand and One Nights – recorded in one of the most vivid and sumptuous extant late thirteenth-century manuscripts – as well as for her numerous other commissions, Queen Marie of Brabant (1260-1321) was heralded as an intellectual and literary patron comparable to Alexander the Great and Charlemagne. Nevertheless, classic studies of the late medieval period understate Marie’s connection to the contemporary rise of secular interests at the French court.

Pleasure and Politics seeks to reshape that conversation by illustrating how the historical and material record reveals the queen’s essential contributions to the burgeoning court. This emerging importance of the secular and redefinition of the sacred during the last decades of Capetian rule becomes all the more striking when juxtaposed to the pious tone of the lengthy reign of Louis IX (1214-1270), which had ended just four years before Marie’s marriage to his son. That Marie often chose innovative materials and iconographies for these objects — ones that would later in the fourteenth century become the norm — signals her impact on late medieval patronage.

Pleasure and Politics examines Marie’s life beginning with her youth in Brabant, to her entry into Paris in 1274 accompanied by her retinue of courtiers, artists, objects, and ideas from the northern courts of Brabant, Flanders, and Artois. It continues with her elaborate coronation held for the first time in the Sainte-Chapelle the following year, her years as queen of France — often full of intrigue — and her long, productive widowhood, until her death and burial in 1321. With a focus on her Brabantine and Carolingian heritage joined to her status as French queen — often expressed through pioneering styles of heraldry — her commissions included ceremonies, marriage treaties, and intercessions, as well as a stunning collection of jewels, seals, manuscripts, reliquaries, sculpture, stained glass, and architecture that she gathered and built around her. This study also reveals Marie’s regular collaboration with family, friends, and artists, in particular that with the poet Adenet le Roi, women of the French court like Blanche of France (1252-1320), and relatives from the north like Robert of Artois (1250-1302). With this broader view, it also analyzes the dynamics of Marie’s patronage and its impact on contemporary and future women and men of the royal house.

Court, culture, politics, and gender — these are the themes that flow throughout Marie of Brabant’s life and tie together the material effects of a long, pleasure-filled existence enlivened by the politics of Europe on the cusp of a new age.

328 p., 37 b/w ills, 140 col. ills, ISBN 978-1-905375-68-4

More Info: http://bit.ly/2ov6q0r

Scholarship: British Archaeological Association travel scholarship to April 2020 Romanesque Conference, Hildesheim, deadline 15 November 2019

The British Archaeological Association has a limited number of scholarships for their 2020 Romanesque Conference in Hildesheim. These scholarships are aimed towards students studying Early Medieval Art History/Archaeology or Architecture, especially those studying Romanesque.

Send a short CV & referee details to jsmcneill@btinternet.com or rplant62@hotmail.com by 15th November 2019.

More information about the conference:

The Year 1000 in Romanesque Art and Architecture

Date(s): 14 – 16 Apr 2020

Venue: Hildesheim, Germany

The British Archaeological Association will hold the sixth in its biennial International Romanesque conference series in conjunction with the Dommuseum in Hildesheim on 14-16 April, 2020. The theme is Romanesque and the Year 1000, and the aim is to examine transformations in the art and architecture of the Latin Church around
the turn of the millennium. The Conference will take place at the Cathedral Museum in Hildesheim, with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque monuments on 17-18 April. The 30 years to either side of the year 1000 witnessed remarkable developments in iconography and stylistic expression. It saw portable devotional statues come into being, the revival of bronze-casting, the reemergence of architectural relief sculpture, and the application of novel, or at least re-understood, architectural forms. In addition to the above, individual papers are concerned with the impact of objects from the Carolingian past and Byzantine present, royal patronage, monastic reform, the organization of scriptoria, ‘authorship’, changes in representational strategies, and regional affiliation.

Speakers include Marcello Angheben, Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Michael Brandt, Jordi Camps, Hugh Doherty, Eric Fernie, Shirin Fozi, Barbara Franzé, Richard Gem, Agata Gomolka, Lindy Grant, Cecily Hennessy, Wilfried Keil, Sophie Kelly, Bruno Klein, Florian Meunier, Jesús Rodríguez Viejo, Tobias Schoo, Markus Späth, Béla Zsolt Szakács, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo, Eliane Vergnolle, Michele Vescovi, Rose Walker, and Tomasz Weclawowicz

Found out more here: https://thebaa.org/event/hildesheim/

CFP: ‘Working Materials and Materials at Work in Medieval Art and Architecture’, 25th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 7 February 2020, deadline 22 November 2019

Materials mattered in the Middle Ages. Only with the right materials could artists produce works of art of the highest quality, from jewel-encrusted crosses, gilded and enamelled chalices and ivory plaques to large-scale tapestries, wooden stave churches and stone cathedrals. This conference seeks to explore the qualities and properties of materials for the people who sourced, crafted and used them.

A critical examination of the physical aspect of materials, including stone, wood, metal, jewels, and textiles, can lead art historians to a deeper understanding of objects and their context. Medieval materials did not function as frictionless vehicles for immaterial meaning: materials, their sourcing, trade and manufacture all contributed to the reception and value of the object. In the vein of scholars like Michael Baxandall (The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, 1980) and more recently Paul Binski (Gothic Sculpture, 2019), this conference asks participants to ground their papers in the messy realities of crafting materials, and to situate the object and its materials within a network of social, political and economic factors.

The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 25th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium invites speakers to build out from the object and consider the ways in which physical materials were used, manipulated and interpreted by craftspeople, patrons and audiences throughout the medieval world (understood in its broadest geographical and chronological terms). The colloquium encourages contributions from a range of backgrounds including but not limited to the art historical, technical, scientific and economic. Speakers are invited to consider the following and related questions:

Sourcing and Trade

  • What economic factors determined the value of medieval materials?
  • How did geography and trade impact the availability and use of materials?
  • How and in what quantities were materials sourced and did that affect the form and function of the art object?
  • How was the quality of materials determined and controlled?
  • Was trade in certain materials restricted to certain classes or groups of people?

Crafting and Making

  • How did the physical and technical requirements of working with different media shape objects for artists and how attuned were viewers to those requirements?
  • What technical virtuosity and experience did different materials demand and how did craftspeople learn and pass on these skills?
  • Did technical virtuosity affect the value of the object?
  • What do we know of the tools craftspeople used? Were the same tools used in different places and in different periods? What effect does this have on the use and shape of materials?
  • Medieval craftsmen occasionally manipulated certain materials to resemble others. Was this process of imitation always obvious to medieval viewers and how did they interpret this?

Function and Manipulation

  • How did the spaces or locations for which objects were intended shape the choice of materials?
  • Did the function of an object determine the materials of which it was made?
  • Were certain materials more attractive to certain patrons than others and why?
  • Do some medieval objects reveal deliberate references to their facture?
  • How did different materials cater to each of the senses?
  • Did materials always matter – is there a competitive/contested relationship between material reality and immaterial imagination?

The colloquium offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the United Kingdom and abroad to present, discuss and promote their research. To apply, please send a proposal of up to 250 words for a twenty-minute paper, together with a CV, to Harry.Prance@courtauld.ac.uk, Nicholas.Flory@courtauld.ac.uk and Charlotte.Wytema@courtauld.ac.uk no later than 22 November 2019.