Biography
John Munns works on the history and art history of the long twelfth century, with a particular focus on Britain and Ireland and their neighbours. His publications include Cross and Culture in Anglo-Norman England (2016) and (as co-editor with William Kynan-Wilson) Henry of Blois: New Interpretations (2021). In 2017 he edited a collection of essays that started life as a departmental Medieval Art Seminar series under the title: Decorated Revisited: English Architectural Style in Context, 1250-1400.
John completed his PhD in the Department in 2010 under the supervision of Professor Paul Binski and, with the exception of a brief nomadic period in 2010-11, has been in Cambridge ever since. He has taught at all levels in the History of Art Department, and spent two years as a temporary University Lecturer in the Department before moving to his current post in 2014. He now teaches primarily in the Faculty of History but remains involved in departmental life and continues to direct studies in the History of Art for Magdalene and Robinson colleges. John is a Fellow and Associate Professor in History and Art History at Magdalene. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham University, Editor of the Journal of the British Archaeological Association and Chair of the British Academy Research Project, the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. A former Admissions Tutor at Magdalene, he recently completed a five-year term as a trustee of The Brilliant Club, an award-winning charity working to expand access to the most competitive universities.
Research
John’s primary research interests lie in the interplay of images, ideas and devotional practices in the long twelfth century. His current book-length projects include a study of twelfth-century English episcopal patronage and a one-volume survey of English visual culture in the century after the Norman invasion of 1066, provisionally entitled The Art of Norman England. Other research interests include the role and agency of vision and imagination in high-medieval culture; Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations and cultural exchange; multi-sector heritage research; and Anglo-Norman prosopography. He has a secondary research interest in aspects of eighteenth-century antiquarianism, especially as it relates to the collection and preservation of medieval art.
John has received research funding from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Marc Fitch Fund, among others, and residential visiting fellowships from Durham and Yale universities. During his doctoral studies, he spent two periods of funded research as a visiting student at Princeton. From April 2024 he will be the Principal Investigator (Co-I: Prof. Giles Gasper, Durham University) for an AHRC-funded Research Network: ‘Hidden Heritage: Multi-disciplinary and Multi-Sector Perspectives on the Norman Chapel, Durham Castle’.
