Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group/UWA Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies lecture
“The Luttrell Psalter: Imaging England on the Eve of the Black Death”, Michelle P. Brown, Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscripts, University of London

Date: Thursday 28 November 2013
Time: 6:00 PM
Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre (G21) Geography Building, UWA
Cost: Free, but RSVP to anne.scott@uwa.edu.au by Monday 25 November 2013

The Luttrell Psalter (now in the British Library, London) is oneof the most famous and colourful of medieval manuscripts. A menagerie of weird and wonderful grotesques populates its margins – some the stuff of nightmares, others acceptable household pets, others overt parodies of society and politics. It was made for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, Lord of the Manor of Irnham (Lincolnshire) in the 1330s and tells us more than any other medieval artwork about those who commissioned it and also, unusually, of the daily life of the folk who worked their land. The whole medieval microcosm is there, but how is it to be read and interpreted? Come along and find out!

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Michelle P. Brown is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and is a Visiting Professor at University College London and Baylor University (Texas). She was formerly the Curator of Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and a Lay Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. She has published, lectured, and broadcast widely on medieval cultural history and her books include the facsimile commentary for the Luttrell Psalter, The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Early Medieval World, The Holkham Bible Picture Book, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts, The Lion Companion to Christian Art, and The Book and the Transformation of Britain c500-1050.