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Department of History of Art

 

Biography

Laura Slater completed her AHRC-funded PhD in History of Art at King’s College, University of Cambridge. She has been a Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin on the FP7-funded ‘History Books in the Anglo-Norman World’ project; a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of York on the ERC-funded ‘Visual Translations of Jerusalem in Europe’ project; an Affiliated Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Cambridge and a Teaching Fellow in History of Art at UCL.  In 2015-2016, she held a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. Before returning to Cambridge, she was a Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford, whilst working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ERC-funded ‘Music and Late Medieval European Court Cultures’ project.

Research

Laura's strongly interdisciplinary research interests centre on the relationships between art, ideas, power and politics in medieval Britain and Europe. Her book investigated the imagined nature of power and political society in medieval England, offering a new assessment of the role of images in medieval political thought and a new interpretation of English political culture. Laura has a continuing interest in female cultural patronage in the Middle Ages. She is currently working on a study of Queen Philippa of Hainault, looking particularly at the illuminated manuscripts associated with her and their unusual musical content.

A second research focus is on the artistic and cultural consequences of medieval violence, especially in relation to conquest and crusade. She has written on monumental recreations of Jerusalem in Europe and their political as well as commemorative and devotional significances. Laura is particularly interested in medieval responses to antiquity in relation to the Holy Land. Her future research projects include a study of medieval Egyptology and a cultural history of the Anglo-Scottish Wars.

Publications

Key publications: 

Books

Art and Political Thought in Medieval England c. 1150-1350 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2018)

Joanna Bellis and Laura Slater, ed. Representing War and Violence 1250-1600 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016)

Book Chapters and Articles

'Translating Jerusalem into Anglo-Norman Lordship', in Bianca Kühnel, Neta Bodner and Renana Bartal, ed. Projections of Jerusalem in Europe (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2023)

‘Bodies or Buildings? Visual Translations of Jerusalem and Dynastic Memories in Medieval England’, in Kathryn Hurlock and Laura J. Whtatley, ed. Crusading and Ideas of the Holy Land in Medieval Britain (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022) 

‘Musical Wit and Courtly Connections at Cogges’, in Julian Luxford, ed. Tributes to Paul Binski. Medieval Gothic: Art, Architecture and Ideals (London: Harvey Miller, 2021)

'Rumour and Reputation Management in Fourteenth-Century England: Isabella of France in Text and Image', Journal of Medieval History 47.2 (2021): 257-292. Available open-access at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2021.1891449

‘Matthew Paris, Cecilia de Sanford and the Early Readership of the Vie de Seint Auban’ in Laura Cleaver and Andrea Worm, ed. Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World. Manuscripts, Makers and Readers c. 1066- c. 1250 (York: York Medieval Press, 2018)

‘Imagining Place and Moralising Space: Jerusalem at Medieval Westminster,’ British Art Studies 6 (2017): http://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-6/moralizing-space

‘Lessons in Leadership and Liturgy in the Winchcombe Psalter,’ English Studies 98.1 (2017): 49-62

‘“Representation” and Medieval Mediations of Violence,’ co-authored with Joanna Bellis in Joanna Bellis and Laura Slater, ed. Representing War and Violence 1250-1600 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016), pp. 1-22

‘Representing Political Violence in La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei,’ in Joanna Bellis and Laura Slater, ed. Representing War and Violence 1250-1600 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016), pp. 116-136

‘Recreating the Judean Hills? English Hermits and the Holy Land,’ Journal of Medieval History 42.5 (2016): 603-626

‘Jerusalem Transformed in Post-Reformation England: The Case of the Cliffords and Beamsley Hospital,’ Northern History 53:1 (2016): 69-79

‘Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London, c.1300-1358,’Gender & History 27:1 (2015): 53-76

‘Visual Reflections on History and Kingship in the Medieval English Great Church,’ Journal of the British Archaeological Association 167 (2014): 83-108

‘Finding Jerusalem in Medieval Pontefract,’ Northern History 51:2 (2014): 211-220

‘Queen Isabella of France and the Politics of the Taymouth Hours,’ Viator 43 (2012): 209-245

    

University Lecturer in the History of Medieval Art
Deputy Head of Department
Director of MPhil Studies
Director of Postgraduate Education (Michaelmas 2024)
Fellow of Peterhouse
Director of Studies in History of Art, Peterhouse
Dr Laura  Slater

Contact Details

01223 746486

Affiliations