1st Edition
Writing the Lives of People and Things, AD 500-1700 A Multi-disciplinary Future for Biography
Foreword; Introduction, Robert F.W. Smith and Gemma L. Watson. Part I Rescuing Forgotten Lives: The (truncated) life of Alice de Solers Rufus née de Huntingfield: medieval hostage, wife and widow, Katherine Weikert; Writing the lives of legal writers: the use of prosopography in medieval legal history, Kitrina Bevan; The scandalous life of a puritan divine: John Harmar at Winchester College, 1569-1613, Robert F.W. Smith. Part II The Lives of Objects and their Owners: The lives and deaths of people and things: biographical approaches to dress in early Anglo-Saxon England, Toby F. Martin; Roger Machado: a life in objects, Gemma L. Watson; Mary Beale (1633-1699) and her objects of affection, Helen Draper; ‘Look here upon this picture’: how Hamlet reads portraits as biographical texts, Yolana Wassersug. Part III The Life of the Book: Textual criticism, biography and the case of William White, printer, Natalie C. Aldred; Scriptural truths? Calvinist internationalism and military professionalism in the bible of Philip Skippon, Ismini Pells; Books and their lives: the Petworth House plays, Maria Kirk. Part IV Communities and Individuals: Patrons and their commissions: the uses of biography in understanding the construction of the nave of Hole Trinity, Bottisham, Gabriel Byng; Writing community: the opportunities and challenges of group biography in the case of Wilton Abbey, Kathryn Maude. Part V Representing Lives: Hagiography as institutional biography: medieval and modern uses of the 13th-century Vitae of Clare of Assisi, Kirsty Day; Functions of anchoritic spaces and the implications of omission in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, Justin M. Byron-Davies. Index.
Biography
Robert F. W. Smith is an independent researcher in early modern history, based in Norfolk. He completed a PhD at the University of Southampton in 2014, and is currently training as an archivist. Gemma L. Watson is an archaeologist specialising in later medieval material culture and currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Reading.
