THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART AND THE COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART RESEARCH FORUM PRESENT:
SCRIPTURE TRANSFORMED IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: THE RELIGIOUS, ARTISTIC, AND SOCIAL WORLDS OF THE WELLES-ROS BIBLE (PARIS, BNF MS FR. 1)
KATHRYN A. SMITH
PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
14 October 2020, 5:00pm - 6:00pm BST
Live online event
REGISTER HERE
Initial for Ecclesiasticus, Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1, fol. 205v)
About the talk:
This introduces to a wider audience the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the first full prose vernacular Bible produced in England. I argue that this grand, multilingual manuscript and the vernacular translation preserved in its pages were probably commissioned in the 1360s by the widowed baroness Maud de Ros to serve as a primer, mirror, guide, family archive, and source of consolation for her son, John, 5th Baron Welles of Welle, Lincolnshire, and other estates. I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume's functions and principal intended audience; and show how the Bible's rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history. In addition, I show how the manuscript's main artist strove to visualize scripture in a manner that was at once faithful to the particularities of the vernacular biblical text, evocative of its most elevated themes, and relevant to the values, environment, and lived experience of its principal intended reader-viewer. My talk contributes to our picture of lay literate and religious aspiration; women's cultural patronage; artists' literacy and working methods; the history of Bible translation and reception; the fundamental roles of images in lay religious experience; late medieval ideas about sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English society and culture after the Black Death.
ICMA AT THE COURTAULD LECTURE
Series made possible through the generosity of William M. Voelkle
Wednesday 14 October 2020
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm BST
REGISTER HERE
This is a live online event.
Please register for more details. The platform and log in details will be sent to attendees at least 48 hours before the event. Please note that registration closes one hour before the event start time.
If you have not received the log in details or have any further queries, please contact researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk.
Organized by
Dr. Alixe Bovey - The Courtauld Institute of Art
Dr. Tom Nickson - The Courtauld Institute of Art