Sophia Dumoulin

A Subversive History of England’s ‘National Church’: Westminster Abbey, 1399-1603

Supervised by Dr Tom Nickson
Funded by The Courtauld Scholarship

My PhD explores how the erection of tombs, screens, chapels and temporary furnishings transformed the topography of Westminster Abbey between 1399 and 1603. I will interrogate how these privileged spaces catered to their elite patrons whilst marginalising others. Bridging the medieval and early modern periods, I will study the Abbey’s conversion at the Reformation from a royal Benedictine monastery into an Anglican church, focusing on how the nobility appropriated chapels as private burial sites. Such a study is only possible thanks to the exceptional survival of written and material evidence from this period in the Abbey’s history, and I will consider the extent to which England’s ‘national church’ can serve as a model for understanding transformations in other abbeys and churches in England and beyond. This project also redresses major gaps in an otherwise heavily studied building: the Abbey’s relationship with the Crown during the Wars of the Roses, the impact of the Reformation, and the patronage and embodied experiences of its monastic community, pilgrims and local citizens.