Jessica Knowles

Jessica Katherine Knowles

I completed my BA and MA at the University of York, UK. My BA thesis explored marriage concepts in the Cathar heresy in high medieval France, whilst my MA thesis looked at the political rebellion of Archbishop Richard Scrope with regards to two mayoral elections in the late medieval city of York. I then moved to Switzerland, Bavaria and Vienna, teaching English and working in the wine industry.

Research interests: high and late medieval art; the constructions of visual, religious and political narratives; and the social and economic history of high and late medieval England.

Current research project: I am currently working on a PhD dissertation entitled Revelations in Glass: Doomsday Narratives in Late Medieval York. This project explores how the 1405 revolt and martyrdom of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York was expressed in two apocalyptic stained-glass narratives made approximately thirty years later and surviving in the church of All Saints, North Street in York. This stained-glass shows, in one window, the Fifteen Last Days at the End of the World, illustrating text drawn from the popular mid-fourteenth-century Prick of Conscience poem. This poem was written by the hermit and mystic Richard Rolle, and the glass expresses his mystical concepts. The second window draws directly from the Book of Revelations and adds commentary on the life of St. John. The narrative in this window reaches across the church to come together with the Fifteen Last Days window in scenes of the Last Judgement. The designers of this windows were two priests, both involved in the life and cult of Richard Scrope (also a patron of Rolle’s works), and readers of the works of Richard Rolle. The windows express a synthesis of the priests’ concern for the pastoral care of their parishioners and their interest in Rolle’s concept of the divine song of love.

Publications:

Knowles, J. K., 2016, Fourteenth Century England IX. Bothwell, J. & Dodd, G. (eds.). Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, p. 67-86