I am a specialist in late medieval and early Renaissance art and social history in Europe, with a particular interest in the visualiation of sin and morality. My research focuses on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century wall painting and frescoes, with a particular focus on patronage, viewership, and reception. I am interested in how patrons or organisations used images to construct and communicate their own moral identities, while simultaneously shaping how others were expected to think, feel, and behave. More broadly, my work explores how emotions and behaviour were conceptualised, communicated, and moralised, and how images could participate in the formation of both individual and collective ideas of moral conduct, and emotional and behavioural norms.
These themes were explored in my PhD thesis, Sin and Self-Reflection : The Iconography, Patronage, and Reception of the ‘Moralities’ in English Medieval Wall Paintings, 1300-1450. The thesis looked at iconographic subjects such as the Seven Deadly Sins and the Warning of the Gossipers which focused on defining, categorising, and offering judgement on human behaviour. It offered an expanded understanding of morality wall paintings, incorporating analyses within their specific spatial and social contexts, as images intentionally commissioned and existing within particular communities, and within the broader philosophical, theological, and popular culture of morality in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. It sought to shift understanding of these murals away from ideas of church education and towards their more dynamic functions: communicating and reinforcing complex doctrinal, ethical, and psychological understandings of morality, shaping the public perception of their patrons, and encouraging a particularised form of self-reflection. This informs my current research projects, including an article on the early-fourteenth century wall paintings scheme at Longthorpe Tower.
Education
2021-2026: PhD, The Courtauld Institute of Art
2020-2021: MSt Interdisciplinary Historical Research (Medieval Studies), University of Oxford
2017-2020: BA (Hons.) History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art
Research Grants, Scholarships, and Awards
2021-2025: AHRC Doctoral Studentship, Consortium for the Humanities and Arts South-East England
2020-2021: Clarendon Scholarship, University of Oxford
2020: The Sam Fogg Dissertation Prize, The Courtauld Institute of Art
Research Interests
- History of emotions and behaviour (in particular emotional and behavioural ‘norms’)
- History of the philosophy of morality and conscience
- History of psychology and theories of cognition
- Evaluating the visual as a source for social history
- European wall paintings and art 1200-1500
Publications and Reviews
‘The Great Chamber Mural Scheme at Longthorpe Tower’ (Work in progress).
‘Review: Managing Emotions in the Middle Ages, edited by Flocel Sabaté (Brill, 2025)’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 70 (forthcoming, 2027).
‘Navigating the Challenges of Researching Wall Paintings’, Records of Care: Informing Approaches to the Conservation of Britain’s Wall Paintings, Proceedings of a symposium held in January 2025 at The Courtauld Institute of Art, edited by Emily Howe (The National Wall Paintings Survey, The Courtauld Institute of Art online publications, 2025).
‘Review: Kate Giles, The Wall Paintings of Pickering Church: Their Discovery, Restoration and Meaning (Shaun Dyas, 2022)’, The Ricardian XXXIV (2024).
Articles for ‘Introducing Medieval Christianity’, by Dr Eleanor Parker (University of Oxford), 2019 – 2020. A website for researchers to provide an accessible introduction to medieval Christianity for an undergraduate audience. See for example, ‘The Seven Deadly Sins and Their Antidotes’. Republished on Oxford Medieval Studies Blog: https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/the-seven-deadly-sins-and-their-antidotes (2020).
Select Conferences, Workshops, & Talks
Navigating the Challenges of Researching Wall Paintings’, Records of Care: informing approaches to the conservation of Britain’s wall paintings, Symposium, The Courtauld, January 2025
‘Material Crisis, Research Crisis: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Medieval Wall Paintings’, Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 2024
‘Full of All the Seven Deadly Sins: What do late medieval ‘Morality’ wall paintings have to do with emotional and bodily perception?’, Medieval Research Seminar, Centre for Medieval Studies University of Exeter, 22 May 2024
‘Confronting Death: Viewing the Three Living and Three Dead at Longthorpe Tower’, Courtauld Postgraduate Symposium, 17 May 2024
‘Self-Identification in a Late Medieval English Wall Painting of Sin’, Authority and Identity in the Middle Ages, Courtauld Medieval Postgraduate Symposium, 15 March 2024
‘Charitable Salvation: Morality and Identity in the Wall Paintings at Trotton’, British Archaeological Association, Chichester Conference, 4-8 September 2023
‘Researching Medieval Wall Paintings’ Workshop, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 17 May 2023 (CHASE funded) (Paper given: ‘Conservation, Copies, and Conundrums: The Wall Paintings at Corby Glen, Lincolnshire’)
‘The Iconography and Viewership of ‘Morality Images’ in English Wall Painting, c.1300-1450’, 2nd Year Medieval Symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2 May 2023
Curatorial Work and Public Engagement
Research Associate, St Patrick’s Chapel and Mary Magdalene, Glastonbury Abbey, 2026
Doctoral Placement, Buildings Curation, Hampton Court Palace, 2024
Doctoral Placement, Project for visitor interpretation: ‘Viewing the Medieval Wall Paintings at Canterbury’, Archives, Canterbury Cathedral, 2023
Teaching and Academic Activities
Teaching Fellow in the History of Art, Autumn 2026
Guest Lecturer, MA Special Option: ‘Art, Scale and the Body in Medieval Europe, 1200-1550’, Autumn 2025 and Autumn 2026
Associate Lecturer, BA1 Topic Course, ‘Seeing Medieval and Early Renaissance Art’ (designed and delivered), The Courtauld Institute of Art, Autumn 2024
Teaching Assistant, BA2 Physical Histories, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Autumn 2023
Teaching Assistant, Summer University, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Summer 2023
Reviews Editor: Immediations Postgraduate Journal, 2022 and 2023
Postgraduate Assistant: National Wall Paintings Survey Project, 2022
Founder and Co-convenor with Katharine Waldron (University of Oxford and Hamilton Kerr Institute), Medieval Wall Paintings Group, 2023-2025