The CMS is delighted to welcome Professor Suzanne Wittekind as a Visiting Professor for the summer term 2015.
Susanne Wittekind is a Professor in the History of Art and speaker of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Cologne.
Her research has focused on German art of the 10th-13th Century and on Spanish art of the 12th-14th Century, especially on illuminated books und treasury art. She is interested in the use and function of art in the context of liturgy, in the medieval liturgy and the interaction of music, word, performance, space and art in it, in the role of art in the cult of the saints (media, strategies, historical incidents and backgrounds), and in art as a medium of personal or institutional memory. Her dissertation concerned illuminated commentaries on the psalter (1994), her second book treated abbot Wibald of Stavelot as a patron of art (2004). She edited the volume on Romanesque Art in Germany (2009) in a series from Prestel, and a conference transcript on illuminated law Manuscripts (2009).
She is currently working on two projects. The first is treating the reuse, the amendment and reworking of medieval art objects in the middle ages and early modern times. The second, which she will follow primarily in her time at the CMS, is focused on illuminated charters, cartularies, legal codifications, administrative manuals, and statutes of fraternities, hospitals, and guilds. During her last sabbatical (2010/11 in Spain) she had done research on these materials in Catalonia, Aragón and Castilia. Now her interest shifts to England to compare the different forms of organization, embedding, and transmission of charters and statutes, as well as the decoration of administrative manuals like the book of the exchequer or the domesday book. Why were these juridical or administrative texts illuminated, and how do they (re)present communities and their leadership?
She is based in Room K/181 in Headmaster’s House, King’s Manor, on ext. 3912. She is happy to meet and talk to everyone so feel free to knock on her door or send email to:
sw1757@york.ac.uk.
Medieval Studies at York 