Dr Faith Tibble – The Crown of Thorns: An Unexpected Triumph

Dr Faith Tibble will talk about how the ubiquitous imagery of the Crown of Thorns in Passion iconography – commonly symbolising torture, suffering and humiliation – is not at all what it seems, especially for the earliest Christians who first depicted this well-known adornment. This lecture will explode our assumptions about the Crown of Thorns. Her talk will show the audience that the first instance of the Crown of Thorns in Christian art is not what we expect. We find a serene Jesus, gently crowned by a Roman soldier with a leafy wreath. Where are the thorns, the blood, the suffering and humiliation? Perhaps surprisingly, the primary reason lies in the Crown’s military attributes. Particularly the expectations of Jesus as a Messiah, as well as the Roman understanding of triumph.

Louise Furse – But you’re not a monk! Lay Residents and Workers at Medieval Monasteries

This talk will focus on male religious communities in the Marches and discuss examples of lay folk spending time within monastery walls. A surprisingly wide range of people, who were not monks, were part of an abbey’s populace, or briefly came into direct contact with monastic houses. The paper will explore who those lay people were, seeking the understand the reasons for their presence as well as the effect that their proximity had on the professed religious community. By foregrounding the participation of lay people, the speaker intends to present a more nuanced picture of the diversity of the lived experience within the medieval monastic precinct.

Dr Ian L. Bass – An Ecclesiastical Mortimer: The Career or Edmund Mortimer in the Church

The life of Edmund Mortimer (d. 1304) is one of two halves. As a second son, he was not destined to inherit the lordship of Wigmore and so forged a career in the Church. Following his brother’s death in 1274 Edmund’s star changed and in 1282 when his father, Roger, died, Edmund became lord. However, despite the fact that Edmund spent almost as much time in the Church as he did lord of Wigmore, modern accounts of his life have focused primarily on the latter, scarcely acknowledging, let alone exploring, his early life as an ecclesiastic. Yet, this only offers half a story. In this paper, Edmund’s ecclesiastical career is revealed and is one not without controversy: even being threatened with excommunication twice. This paper demonstrates the rich potential to study lesser-known members of the Mortimers and their role in the Church.