Hands That Heal, Looks That Kill: A Fabulous History of Marian Architecture

The Virgin Mary might be said to reign over the arts of later medieval Britain. It is well established that Britain was a fertile centre for Marian devotion during the Middle Ages, with key pilgrimage sites at Glastonbury and Walsingham, and lesser centres across the British Isles. Marian devotion in Britain created new iconographies to celebrate the Virgin such as the Coronation of the Virgin, new categories of manuscript (the Book of Hours) and new architectural typologies in the Lady Chapel. Focusing on the settings of Marian devotion and their imagery, Matthew describes them as fabulous in two senses: first, they are inspired by fabula or stories, namely the many Marian miracles that frequently informed the making and perception of Marian art and architecture; second, they are fabulous in being – technically speaking – superlatively crafted works of art. The reason for this, Matthew proposes, is found in the very character of the Virgin herself. In her miracles, the Virgin emerges not only as a miraculous fabricator of flawless art and architecture but also as a paradigm of exquisite aesthetic judgment in the later Middle Ages. Imagined as settings to house the Virgin’s heavenly court, Marian buildings were designed as extensions of the Virgin’s own highly charismatic and overtly glamorous character as the Queen of Heaven. 

Speaker biography

Professor Matthew M. Reeve FSA FRHistS is a professor of art history at Queen’s University, Belfast. He specialises in later medieval art in Northern Europe with a particular focus on Britain, although he also has long-standing interests in the history of architecture in general and the history of sexuality. Working on art in all media, he has published extended accounts of Salisbury and Wells cathedrals, art and architecture in the secular world, the historiography of medieval art and the arts of Marian devotion. He has also explored the afterlife of medieval art and ideas (medievalism) in the oeuvre of Horace Walpole and the Grand Tours of Walpole and his companions, and the heritage of medievalist art and politics in Canadian art and architecture. 

Image caption: The Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral, Cambridge. Image courtesy of Wikimedia

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