The Art of Stone in Anglian York
Dr Jane Hawkes, Department of History of Art, University of York

Courtesy of York Museums Trust (Yorkshire Museum)

• Thursday 11 June 2015, 6.00PM to 6.50pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
  Book tickets
• K/133, King's Manor, Exhibition Square (map)

No wheelchair access

Event details

The lecture will focus on the art of stone sculpture produced in and around York in the seventh through ninth centuries. It will consider the varied forms selected for public display and the sources of inspiration lying behind them – of interest as the art of working in stone was not traditional to the Anglo-Saxons who came to settle in the area. The impact of the appearance of the sculptures will also be examined, as they were designed to be inset with paste glass and metal, and were brightly coloured – something that has been lost through the vagaries of time and various campaigns of destruction. The impact of their iconographic schemes will also be considered; these indicate the wide-spread contacts that existed between the region and the European mainland – extending through Gaul and Italy as far as Constantinople and the Holy Land. The sculpture will thus be considered as a major art form of the Church in Anglian York, which, along with the stone churches that were constructed, stood as permanent reminders of the ways in which the Church of the English People were intimately tied to the wider Christian world that stretched from the Middle East to Ireland.

Speaker biography

Jane Hawkes is a Reader in the History of Art. After receiving her first degree in English Literature (BA Hons, First Class), with the Barbara Strang Memorial Prize for Medieval Studies, Jane went on to pursue research for a PhD, funded by a British Academy scholarship. This was followed by a two-year post-doctoral Research Fellowship, awarded by the University of Newcastle. She currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate modules on late antique and Insular art in the Department of History of Art and the Centre for Medieval Studies. Her areas of interest lie in the art and architecture of late antiquity and early medieval Europe, with special reference to the roles of sculpture as public art in the Insular world, the cultural cross-currents between Ireland, Britain and Europe, and relationships between text and image. She is currently working on the historiography of insular sculpture, and its context in 19th and 20th century medievalism.

Eoforwic Ale

Using an authentic Anglo-Saxon recipe, Leeds Brewery is brewing some beer – Eoforwic Ale – for York Festival of Ideas. It will be on sale throughout the Festival at the Duke of York pub on King’s Square, York, and will also be available at the Back to the Beer-Hall: More Anglo-Saxon Poetry evening taking place in the pub on Thursday 11 June.

Guerilla Signs: In search of Anglian York

Eoforwic was the name for York during the four and a half centuries between Roman York and the Viking city. This period, the Anglian (or Anglo-Saxon) era was long, yet there are few visible reminders of it in the modern city. Guerilla signs made by the Friends of York’s Anglian Era will appear along the city walls and elsewhere near the city centre, to highlight the buried evidence and lost treasures of that time.

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