Michelle P. Brown
Populating Paternoster Row
The Holkham Bible Picture Book
and manuscript production in medieval London

Third annual Justin Howes memorial lecture
Tuesday 26 February 2008 at 7pm

Admission free
Venue: Bridewell Hall, St Bride Foundation
Michelle Brown is Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies and Course Tutor to the History of the Book MA at the Institute of English Studies, University of London. She was formerly Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, where she continues part-time as Outreach Officer. She is also a Lay Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral.

This talk will take as its focus one of the British Library’s treasures, the Holkham Bible Picture Book, which was made in Paternoster Row, next to St Paul’s, in the 1330s on the eve of the Black Death. It offers a fascinating insight into the way in which a London artisan viewed his world and his place in the bigger picture, and into the media that influenced him: street theatre, popular preaching, text and image. Together these inspired him to make the first ‘poor man’s Bible’, conveyed through captioned images. From this springboard the city space of Paternoster Square re-emerges as a radical publishing hub, peopled with colourful contributors to the early London book trade.