Laura Carlson

Lady Margaret Hall

Supervisors: Chris Wickham and Conrad Leyser

Thesis title:
Carolingian attitudes towards sight: 770–850

Research Interests

For my DPhil research, I am examining the complex nature of sight within the Carolingian period. The period is known as one of of intense manuscript production and decoration, and I argue that the sensory experience of sight was factored into the composition of these codices, particularly those of the Bible. As this was also the time of Byzantine Iconoclasm, Carolingians reconsidered their own attitudes to the nature of images as potentially dangerous to the untrained eye. The idea that sight as a concept extended beyond the sensory experience of vision was a philosophy inherited from those two mainstays of early medieval scholarship, St. Augustine and Gregory the Great. I aim to see how their understanding of sight as a tripartite experience, corresponding to the corporeal, intellectual/rational, and spiritual parts of mankind, can be found in the basis behind Carolingian liturgical and educational reform. I also hope to link this perspective towards sight with manuscript developments during the period, particularly the growth of single volume decorated Bibles.

Projects and Teaching

Gen. Hist. I: Transformation of the Ancient World
History of the British Isles II: 1042–1330

Publications

“Thomas Fisher MS 5288: A Late Link in the Transmission of Augustine”, Halycon: Journal of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Issue No. 40, December 2007