Jobs for Medievalists

Location: London / Leicester

Closes: 10 April 2017 (midday, London time)

ENGLAND AND FRANCE 700–1200: FRANCO-SAXON MANUSCRIPTS IN THE NINTH CENTURY

The British Library and the University of Leicester invite applications for a PhD studentship offered under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme, co-supervised by Joanna Story, professor of Early Medieval History at Leicester, and Dr Kathleen Doyle, Lead Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. This studentship, funded at standard AHRC rates, begins on 1 October 2017 and is based at the British Library in London.

Franco-Saxon Manuscripts in the ninth century

In the ninth century monasteries in the Pas de Calais, at Saint-Amand, Saint-Bertin, Corbie, and Saint-Riquier produced manuscripts that were characterised by the use of a highly distinctive style of ‘Franco-Saxon’ illumination. These monasteries were places of great wealth and patronage, and were ruled by abbots who had close links to the Carolingian court. Proximity to the Channel coast and to the trading emporium of Quentovic meant that there were also longstanding connections with Anglo-Saxon England. These links to places and people of power are manifest in the deluxe manuscripts that were produced in these monasteries in the ninth century, which combined the measured aesthetic of Carolingian epigraphic display scripts with an idiomatic use of Insular decoration.

This project offers opportunities for detailed historical research and direct engagement with manuscripts that reveal connections between England and France through texts, decoration, script and methods of manufacture. The project will focus on books in the British Library, and on codices that exemplify the Franco-Saxon style housed in London and elsewhere. The student will work with the supervisors to develop the project in ways that complement and extend their existing skills-set and interests.