Prize Scholar: Elena Lichmanova

Why acrobats, chess players, monkeys riding ostriches and centaurs shooting arrows are depicted in a serious medieval prayer book such as the Psalter is the question at the heart of my studies. I focus on the little-researched early tradition of this striking mode of book illumination – marginal imagery – and draw on religious, social, artistic, and book history perspectives to examine its rise. The centrepiece of my research is the Rutland Psalter  (BL Add MS 62925, ca. before 1258), a devotional manuscript containing the earliest extensive Western cycle of profane subjects in the margins. 'Such a book! my eyes! and I am beating my brains to see if I can find any thread of an intrigue to begin upon', allegedly said  William Morris about this book in 1896. 

A key ‘thread’ that I pursue is the connection between the rise of profane imagery in devotional books and the advent of mendicant preaching. Preachers, encouraged by the Fourth Lateran Council to make religious truths more accessible and relevant for lay audiences, increased the use of illustrative stories – exempla – that were often humorous. My study of the thirteenth-century exempla collections shows that their thematic structure is almost identical to the first extensive cycles of images in the margins of English Psalters. I argue that the earliest Psalters with profane marginalia reflect the medieval culture of religious storytelling that entered the realm of private devotion. 

I discovered at Merton a beautiful community and a perfect place for my research on the history of the book. Merton has been instrumental in setting up the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group that I co-founded together with several other students and early career researchers.