Holly James-Maddocks is currently resident in Cambridge as the Society for Renaissance Studies Postdoctoral Fellow.

Her project, ‘Medieval’ Illuminators in ‘Early Modern’ Books: A Survey of English Illumination in Incunables, 1455-1500, assesses the extent to which England’s illuminators saw the first printed books as an opportunity to diversify their trade. The aim is to situate each illuminated incunable within a group of manuscripts produced by the same border artist; in doing so, she hopes to determine whether the location, status, and manuscript work of these artists were relevant factors in their diversification at this critical and transitional stage in the history of the book.

Holly can also frequently be found in the Wren Library, Trinity College, cataloguing images in manuscripts for a fascicle in the Harvey Miller/Brepols series, An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VII c. 1380- c.1509 – a reference work listing representations of all types, from miniatures to catchwords.

Holly’s main research interest is in the 100+ illuminated manuscripts of poems by Chaucer, Lydgate, and Gower, particularly in using the border artist as a means of better understanding the relative position and status of books of Middle English literature within the rich variety of late medieval textual culture. By foregrounding the non-literary output of the same artists – from the liturgical to the legal, and in languages other than Middle English – she is finding that these wider activities prove a useful tool in demonstrating the specific circumstances surrounding the production of individual copies of works by Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate.

Holly will be in Cambridge until the summer and can be contacted on hnjm500[at]york.ac.uk.

***

If you’re a visiting scholar or know of other visiting scholars please let us know. It would be great to foster more links between those visiting and other researchers in Cambridge.