Dr Rebecca Field, Trinity

rf429@cam.ac.uk

 

Biographical Information

I am currently a Junior Research Fellow in English at Trinity College. Prior to this, I completed my PhD and MPhil in Medieval Literature at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and a BA in English at Lincoln College, Oxford. 

Research Interests

The focus of much of my work is the anonymous fourteenth-century contemplative text, The Cloud of Unknowing, and its related treatises. I am currently working on a monograph, based on my PhD research, which investigates the pedagogic theory and practices of this anonymous author as he guides his disciples in a highly specialised method of contemplation. I also work on a variety of writers who may have influenced the Cloud-author, such as Aelred of Rievaulx, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Walter Hilton, as well as later writers and scholars who were influenced by the Cloud-author's work into the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. 

I am also working on a new project, entitled 'Soundscapes of Contemplation', which considers the importance of sound and silence for devotional practice in the Middle Ages. This project is partially practice-led, and involves producing (re-)imagined 'soundscapes' of medieval monastic sites. 

As well as this, I do a variety of practice-led work on medieval manuscript illumination. I make 'mock-up miniatures' with which to test hypotheses about medieval artistic materials and their durability. You can read about my latest experiments below. 

Selected Publications

Academic Publications:

'Listening to Mysticism: Hearing the Cloud as Sound Art', in Sound and Mysticism in Late Medieval England, ed. Denis Renevey and Tamás Karáth (University of Wales Press, forthcoming 2026)

'Interrupting God: Sounding out emergency in the Cloud and the Consuetudines', Journal of Medeival Religious Cultures 51 (2025), 171-186

'From Rhetorical Theory to Spiritual Pedagogy in The Cloud of Unknowing', Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 53 (2023), 261-285

'Experimenting with the Touch of Medieval Books. Part 2: The Practicalities', with Henry Ravenhall, Cambridge Manuscripts Lab (2022)

'The Epistle of Privy Counsel: MS Ii. 6. 31' (manuscript catalogue entry), Cambridge University Digital Library (2019)

 

Poetry: 

Silvestris (The Wildheart Press, 2025)