Professor Michelle Brown Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies Course Tutor to the History of the Book MA PhD Supervisor Tel:  020 7664 4858 Email: michelle.brown@sas.ac.uk

Research interests:

The role of the book as a cultural medium. The palaeography, codicology, art history and socio-historical context of medieval manuscripts. Late antique and early medieval history and the material culture of Europe and the Levant. Art and spirituality, historic and contemporary.

Major Positions:

1986-2004 Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts
2002-4 Curatorial Loans Officer for the Western Manuscript collections
2004-8 British Library's Outreach Officer (part- time), including Reaching the Regions Programme
2008-British Library Project Officer, Scholarship and Collections (part-time) and Advisor to British Library Publications
2005-Course Tutor and Core Course Lecturer (part-time), History of the Book M.A., Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London (part-time).
2006-Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies (part-time), School of Advanced Study, University of London

Miscellaneous and external roles:

•  Approved Teacher and External Examiner, MA, SAS, Univ. of London and, latterly, Course Tutor.
•  Teacher of a Survey of Historical Scripts from Antiquity-1600, Cambridge University, 1995.
•  Advisory Committee for the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (former member).
•  Former Referee for the Getty Grant Program.
•  British delegate to the ESF, Transformation of the Roman World Project (1992-7).
•  Adviser to the Rawlinson Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, Western Michigan University.
•  Adviser to the Levantine Foundation (regd Charity).
•  Member of the RSLP Advisory Board for Palaeography, Univ. of London Library.
•  Elected member of IAUPE (Int. Assoc. of University Professors of English).
•  Member of AMARC, Wynkyn de Worde Soc., Henry Bradshaw Society.
•  Co-founder of the Research Centre for Illuminated Manuscript Studies, Courtauld Inst., London.
•  Former Vice-President of APICES (Association Paléographique Internationale, Culture, Ecriture, Société).
•  Elected Member of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine.
•  Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
•  Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Courtauld Institute, London.
•  Senior Research Fellow of the Inst. of English Studies, Univ. of London.
•  Fellow of the Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society.
•  Hon. Fellow of the Soc. of Scribes and Illuminators.
•  Visiting Research Fellow, School of Advanced Study, Univ. of London 2001-2
•  Holder of Millennium Skills Award 2001 (Resource funded).
•  Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Advanced Study, Univ. of London, 2003-
•  Lay Canon and Member of Chapter, St Paul 's Cathedral, London, 2004-
•  Visiting Professor, University of Leeds, Institute of Medieval Studies, 2005-8
•  Member of the Iconic Book Symposium, University of Syracuse, USA, 2006-7.
•  Chair of Lincoln Cathdral Library Board, 2008-
•  Trustee of Wallspace art gallery, 2008-

Conferences:

Speaker, chair and session organiser at numerous international conferences and seminars, including the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer School, Leeds Medieval Congress, International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, the Age of Migrating Ideas conference on Insular Art, The Saint Cuthbert conference; the Book of Kells conference, speaker at AMARC conferences, delivered the opening address at the 'Under the Influence' conference, RCIMS, Courtauld Inst., the European Science Foundation's Transformation of the Roman World international colloquia, the International Colloquia of Medievalists at Kalamazoo and Leeds (including organising sessions, chairing plenary lectures, delivering keynote lectures and session papers), Oxford Seminar in the History of the Book. Brixworth Lecture 2001. Organised conference on the Lindisfarne Gospels at the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, Univ. of London, 2002. Delivered Rawlinson Lecture, Kalamazoo 1998, Jarrow Lecture 2000.

Invited Keynote Lecturer to the CIPL Colloque, 2003. Delivered the University of London 's Annual Palaeography Lecture, 2004 and keynote lectures to the Inst. of Medieval Studies, Univ. of New Mexico, 2006, to Medieval Academy of America, 2006, and at retirement colloque for Nick Doane, Univ. of Wisconsin, 2007. Co-organiser of ISAS conference, London, 2007. Invited to deliver the Toller lecture (Manchester Univ.) and Sandars Lectures, Cambridge University Library, in 2009.

Recent invited lecture tours have included venues in the US (Columbia, Stanford, Madison, New Mexico), Canada (St John's and Univ. of Toronto), Japan (Kobe, Tokyo - HUMI etc), 2004-5 and Croatia 2007).

Publications

Editorial:

1996-2007 Series and Commissioning Editor for British Library Studies in Medieval Culture, which produced 2-4 monographs or electronic publications per annum which set the book in its broader historical and social context (from late Antiquity to the Renaissance; northern Europe, the Mediterranean and near East).

2006- Advisory Board member for British Library Publications

2000- Advisory Board member, the Richard Rawlinson Center, University of W. Michigan, Kalamazoo

Books (sole author, unless otherwise stated):

1. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto, 1990; revd edn, p/b 1994; 1999), pp. 138.
2. J. Bately, M. P. Brown & J. Roberts, eds, A Palaeographer's View: Selected Writings of Julian Brown (Harvey Miller: London, 1991), pp. 371; in addition to editing, I wrote the introduction and researched the accompanying plates.
3. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (British Library: London, 1991), pp. 80.
4. Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: a Glossary of Technical Terms (British Library and J. Paul Getty Museum: London & Malibu, 1994), pp. 128. Also appears online as the glossary to: the British Library's online Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts; The Parker Library Online; the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, National Library of Hungary.
5. The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England (British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto, 1996), pp. 252.
6. M. P. Brown & L. Webster , eds, The Transformation of the Roman World (British Museum Press: London, 1997),pp. 258, being the combined catalogues of a series of exhibitions organised by the editors around Europe to mark the culmination of the ESF programme 'The Transformation of the Roman World'.
7. M. P. Brown and S. McKendrick , eds, The Illuminated Book in the Later Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Janet Backhouse (British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto, 1997), pp. 314.
8. The British Library Guide to Writing and Scripts. History and Techniques (British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto, 1998), pp. 96.
9. Michelle P. Brown & Patricia Lovett , The British Library Historical Source-Book for Scribes (British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto, 1999), pp. 128.
10. M. P. Brown & C. Farr, eds, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (Leicester University Press: Leicester , 2001; h/b and p/b edns), pp. 386.
11. The Sherborne Missal, Turning the Pages CD-Rom (British Library: London , 2002).
12. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (British Library, Faksimile Verlag & Toronto University Press: London , Lucerne & Toronto 2003), pp. 479. Issued in h/b and p/b, as a stand alone book (nominated for the British Academy Prize and the TLS International Book of the Year; reviewed in the TLS and the NY Review of Books, inter alia ) and as a commentary volume accompanying the facsimile of The Lindisfarne Gospels (Faksimile Verlag & British Library: Lucerne and London , 2003).
13. Painted Labyrinth. The World of the Lindisfarne Gospels (British Library: London, 2003).
14. M. P. Brown and R. J. Kelly, eds, You're History: How People Make the Difference (Continuum: London, 2006), pp. 425. Authored introduction and own essay, 'It's Positively Medieval', and commissioned 60% of the contributors, including Sir Bob Geldof, who wrote a preface, Terry Waite and John Simpson.
15. How Christianity Came to Britain and Ireland (Lion Hudson : Oxford, 2006), pp. 208. Reissued as Pagans and Priests: The Coming of Christianity to Britain and Ireland (Reader's Digest, 2007).
16. St Paul 's Cathedral (Jarrold: Norwich, 2006), pp. 80.
17. M. P. Brown, ed., In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, exhibition cat., Freer and Sackler Museum, Smithsonian Inst. (Smithsonian Institute: Washington DC , 2006), pp. 360. Authored all text (introduction, own essay, all link texts and catalogue entries) except for essays by H. Gamble, H. Kessler, M. Blanchard and A. Gunther.
18. The Luttrell Psalter, a facsimile with accompanying commentary, pp. 206 (Folio Society & British Library: London , 2006), Folio Soc. edn and BL trade edn.
19. The World of the Luttrell Psalter (British Library: London, 2006), pp. 96.
20. The Lion Companion to Christian Art (Lion Hudson : Oxford, 2008), pp. 448. Authored all •  text, except 16 double page spreads which I commissioned from international guest contributors.
21. Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age ( British Library & Toronto University Press: London & Toronto , 2008), pp. 184.
22. The Holkham Bible Picture-Book , a facsimile with accompanying commentary, transcription and translation, pp. 90 (Folio Society & British Library: London, 2008), Folio Soc. and BL edns.

Articles and chapters:

1. `Paris , Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 10861 and the Scriptorium of Christ Church, Canterbury', Anglo-Saxon England 15 (1987), 119-137.
2. `T.J. Brown, an affectionate memoir', Scrittura e Civilta 12 (1988).
3. `The Lindisfarne Scriptorium from the late seventh to the early ninth century', in St Cuthbert, his cult and his community, edd. G. Bonner et al . (Boydell & Brewer: Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 151-164.
4. `A new fragment of a ninth-century English Bible', Anglo-Saxon England 18 (1990), 33-43.
5. Major contributor (essay and a third of the catalogue entries) to The Making of England : Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture, 600-900 AD , edd. J.M. Backhouse & L. Webster ,BM / BL exhibition catalogue (British Museum Press: London, 1991).
6. `Continental Symptoms in Insular Codicology: Historical Perspectives', in Pergament, ed. P. Ruck (Thorbecke: Sigmaringen, 1991), pp. 57-62.
7. M. P. Brown & P, Barber,`The Aslake World Map', Imago Mundi 44 (1992), 24-44.
8. `Paten and Purpose: the Derrynaflan Paten Inscriptions', in The Age of Migrating Ideas, edd. J. Higgitt & M. Spearman (National Museums of Scotland: Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 162-7.
9. `Echoes: the Book of Kells and Southern English Manuscript Production', in F. O'Mahony, ed., The Book of Kells. Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College Dublin , 1992 (Ashgate: Aldershot, 1994).
10. `The Role of the Wax Tablet in Medieval Literacy: a reconsideration in light of a recent find from York', British Library Journal 20, no. 1, (Spring, 1994), 1-15.
11. `Pigments and their uses in Insular manuscripts', in J. Sharpe, ed., The Compleat Binder: Studies in Book-making and Conservation in Honour of Roger Powell (Brepols: Turnhout, 1996).
12. `Embodying Exegesis: Depictions of the Evangelists in Insular Manuscripts', in A. M. Luiselli Fadda and É. Ó Carragáin, eds, Le Isole Britanniche e Roma in Età Romanobarbarica , Quadrini di Romano Barbarica (Rome, 1998), pp. 109-127.
13. M. P. Brown & J. Carley, `A Fifteenth-Century Revision of the Glastonbury Epitaph to King Arthur', Arthurian Literature 12 (1993), 179-192. Reptd in J. Carley, ed., Glastonbury Abbey and the Arthurian Tradition (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2000).
14. '"In the Beginning was the Word": Books and Faith in the Age of Bede', The Jarrow Lecture, 2000 ( Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2000).
15. 'The Benedictional of St Ethelwold', The New Bookbinder (2000).
16. 'Female book-ownership and production in Anglo-Saxon England: the Evidence of the Ninth-Century Prayerbooks', in C. Kay & L. Sylvester, eds, Lexis and Texts in Early English: Papers in Honour of Jane Roberts (Brill: Amsterdam, 2001), pp. 45-68.
17. 'The Life of St Fursey: what we know and why it matters', The Inaugural Fursey Lecture (Diocese of Norwich: Norwich, 2001).
18. 'Mercian Manuscripts? The 'Tiberius' Group and its Historical Context', in M. P. Brown and C. Farr, eds, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (Leicester University Press: Leicester, 2002), pp. 278-291.
19. 'Gerald of Wales and the 'Marvels of the East': the role of the author in the development of marginal illustration', in English Manuscript Studies Vol X: Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (British Library: London, 2002); reptd in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of the Irish Language, Japan, 2005.
20. 'House-Style in the Scriptorium: Scribal Reality and Scholarly Myth', in G. Brown & C. Karkov, eds, Anglo-Saxon Styles (New York, 2003), pp. 131-150.
21. 'The Tower of Babel: the architecture of the early western written vernaculars', in A. J. Duggan, J. Greatrex and B. Bolton, eds, Omnia Disce. Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P. (Ashgate, Aldershot , 2005), pp.109-128.
22. 'Fifty Years of Insular Palaeography, 1953-2003: an Outline of some Landmarks and Issues', in W. Koch & T. Kölzer, eds, Archiv fur Diplomatik: Schriftgeschichte Siegel- und Wappenkunde (Proceedings of the CIPL conference, 2003) (Böhlau Verlag: Cologne, Weimar & Vienna, 2005), pp. 277-325.
23. 'The Insular Contribution to the Transmission of Biblical Texts', a chapter in the Vatican's History of the Bible, La Bibbia, Formi e Modeli , ed. P. Cherubini (Vatican Publications: Vatican City, 2005).
24. 'A British Curator Abroad: Curating 'In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000',Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institute, Washingon DC , October 2006-January 2007'; AMARC Newsletter (2007), 3-4.
25. 'Illuminating the Middle Ages', Illustration (2007), 19-24.
26. 'The Medieval Museum', in C. Rudolph, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Medieval Art (Blackwell: Oxford and Malden, MA, 2007), pp. 639-655.
27. 'The Triumph of the Codex: the manuscript book before 1100', in S. Eliot and J. Rose, eds, The Blackwell Companion to the History of the Book (Oxford, 2007), pp. 179-193.
28. 'The Barberini Gospels: Context and Intertextuality', in A. Minnis and J. Roberts, eds, Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in honour of Eamonn Ó Carragáin (Brepols: Turnhout, 2007), pp. 89-116.
29. 'Sidelong Glances and Silent Screams: the Emotional World of the Luttrell Psalter', in M. Hofmann & C. Zöhl, eds, Quand La Peinture était dans les Manuscrits: Melanges Francois Avril (Bibl. Nat. de France & Brepols: Paris , 2007), pp. 45-56.
30. 'The Book as Sacred Space', in J. and P. North, eds, Sacred Space: House of God, Gate of Heaven, a Celebration of the 75 th Anniversary of the Anglican Shrine of Walsingham (Continuum: London, 2007).
31. 'The Lichfield Angel and the Manuscript Context: Lichfield as a Centre of Insular Art', Journal of the British Archaeological Association 160 (2007), 8-19.
32. 'The Lichfield / Llandeilo Gospels Reinterpreted' in R. Kennedy and S. Meecham-Jones, eds, Authority and Subjugation in Writing of Medieval Wales (Palgrave Macmillan: New York & Basingstoke, 2008), pp. 57-70.
33. 'The Holkham Bible Picture Book: picturing London in the age of Chaucer', Art Quarterly (2008), 50-55.
34. 'Janet Backhouse', Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography (Oxford, 2008).
35. 'When illuminated manuscripts are not what they seem: the cases of the Holkham Bible Picture Book and a newly discovered Croatian altarpiece', Ikon 1 (2008).
36. 'An Early Outbreak of 'Influenza'? Aspects of Influence, Medieval and Modern', in A. Bovey and J. Lowden, eds, Under the Influence: The Concept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts (Brepols: Turnhout, 2008), pp. 1-10.
37. 'Making History at the British Library' for the Making History online project, IHR, SAS, University of London (2008).
38. 'Excavating" Northumbrian Manuscripts: reappraising regionalism in Insular manuscript studies', in S. Turner, and D. Petts, eds, Early Medieval Northumbria: Kingdoms and Communities, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming, 2009).
39. 'Writing in the Insular World' chapter for R. G. Gameson, ed., A History of the Book in Britain Volume 1: From the Romans to the Normans (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, forthcoming).
40. The Eastwardness of Things: Relationships between the Christian Cultures of the Middle East and the Insular World ', in M. Hussey and J. D. Niles, eds, The Genesis of Books: Studies in the Interactions of Words, Text, and Print in Honor of A.N. Doane (Brepols: Turnhout, forthcoming, 2009).
41. 'From Jerusalem to Jarrow: the Christian Cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean and post-Roman Britain and Ireland', Ars Tranylvaniae (forthcoming, 2009).
42. 'The Cross and the Book: the Cross-Carpet Pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels as Sacred Figurae ', in K. Jolly, C. Karkov and S. Keefer, eds, The Cross and Cruciform in the Anglo-Saxon World (W. Virginia University Press: Morgantown, WV, forthcoming, 2009).
43. 'The Scribe as Evangelist: Illuminated images of biblical transmission, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the York Gospels', for a festschrift for Jennifer O'Reilly, ed. E. Mullin (forthcoming, 2009).
44. M. P. Brown and E. Okasha, 'The Lead Tablet', in C. Loveluck et al ., eds, Rural Settlement, Lifestyles and Social Change in the Later First Millennium AD at Flixborough, Lincolnshire: Anglo-Saxon Flixborough in Its Wider Context (Excavations at Flixborough) vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxbow, forthcoming, 2009).

Contributions on palaeography to the following facsimile volumes:

N. J. Morgan, ed., The Lambeth Apocalypse (Harvey Miller: London, 1990)
N. J. Morgan, ed., The Gulbenkian Apocalypse (Moleiro: Barcelona, 2002).

Encyclopaedia entries, Reviews etc.:

Reviews & articles for The Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, The Book Collector, The Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, The Library, The Journal of Theological Studies, Speculum, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Medieval World Magazine, Art and Christianity Enquiry etc.

Entries on Palaeography, Script, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts etc., for: the Enciclopedia del'Arte Medievale; the Macmillan Dictionary of Art; The Middle Ages, a Concise Encyclopaedia, ed. H.R. Loyn (Longman: London, 1989); Blackwell's Companion to Anglo-Saxon England; The Oxford Companion to Western Art.

Exhibitions Curated:

•  Co-curated The Making of England : Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900, BM / BL, 1991.
•  Co-curated The Transformation of the Roman World, a combined series of exhibitions which I co-organised for the European Science Foundation in 1997, including The Heirs of Rome, BM / BL, 1997.
•  Co-curated the semi-permanent exhibition galleries at the new British Library Building (The Treasures Gallery, the Pearson Gallery and the Workshop Gallery), opened in 1998.
•  Sole Curator of The Story of Writing, BL, 1998.
•  Content creation for the Holy Island Heritage Centre permanent exhibition, 1999 and 2004 and for the Laing Gallery's Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition, 2000.
•  Sole Curator of Painted Labyrinth: the World of the Lindisfarne Gospels, BL, 2003. Attended by over 141,440.
•  Content planning and creation for 'Treasures from the British Library, with a Northern Focus', a travelling exhibition initially at Leeds Public Library, June-July 2004, and for several regional panel / IT exhibitions focusing on a regional 'treasure' from the BL's collections, 2004-7.
•  Guest Curator of 'In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000' at the Smithsonian Institute, Oct. 2006-Jan. 2007. Atten Attended by almost 200,000 and accompanied by a two-day conference which I co-organised.

British Library Projects, highlights:

Broadcasts for TV and Radio:

News at Ten; BBC News; Down to Earth; Time Team; The Celts; The Barbarians; Michael Wood's 'In Search of the Anglo-Saxons' and 'Christina - Life in 14 th -century England'; A History of Christianity (Channel 4, also acted as historical consultant); Songs of Praise; Melvyn Bragg's 'In our time'; The Today Programme; Woman's Hour; BBC North, etc.