Books by Tom Nickson
Edited special issues by Tom Nickson
Journal of the British Archaeological Association, Special Issue, 2020
Publication of this special issue in 2020 is timed to coincide with the 850th anniversary of the ... more Publication of this special issue in 2020 is timed to coincide with the 850th anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket on 29 December 1170, and his translation to a new shrine in Canterbury Cathedral on 7 July 1220. Those anniversaries were to be marked by special services at Canterbury Cathedral and a major new exhibition at the British Museum, together with several other events in the UK and beyond. 2020 will not be remembered for these events, however, but for the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to loss, sickness, anxiety, radical shifts in working patterns and unexpected childcare commitments, the contributors to this special issue also had to navigate their way through the closure of libraries, archives and monuments, and I am grateful to them to for their perseverance, and to those who kindly offered peer reviews under difficult circumstances. It was fortunate that in December 2019, just a few months before the pandemic erupted, the contributors met for an extremely stimulating workshop at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, the culmination of a series of events in Canterbury, the British Museum, the British Library and The Courtauld. We are grateful to CHASE, The Courtauld’s Research Forum, and especially to Sam Fogg for supporting these events.
‘Ubi est Thomas Beketh?’ shouted Becket’s assassins, in a calculated act of disrespect shortly before his murder. Like his reputation, the name of Canterbury’s most famous archbishop shifted in his lifetime and after his death: Thomas of London, Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, blessed Thomas, saint Thomas of Canterbury, saint Thomas martyr, ‘England’s holy blissful martyr’, Thomas of Cankerbury, Thomas à Becket, Young Beckie. In the early 16th century some Canterbury monks reclaimed ‘Thomas Becket’ as their adopted name, but in November 1538 Henry VIII decreed that ‘Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed, named, reputed, nor called a saint, but bishop Becket’. It is fitting that he appears under multiple guises in the pages of this special issue, which is dedicated to consideration of the art, relics and liturgy of ‘Saint Thomas Becket’, an anachronistic conflation that implies no particular historical or political stance. The essays explore materials dating from the 12th century to the present day, offering reconsideration of the immediate consequences of those fateful events of December 1170, but also, and deliberately, exploration of the cult of saint Thomas in the later Middle Ages and after the Reformation. Canterbury naturally features heavily, but the essays range across Britain and Europe, and include discussion of manuscripts, seals, wall painting, metalwork, stained glass, vestments, architecture and engravings, as well as body-parts, virtual reconstructions, song, liturgy and light.
papers from a conference held in 2014
Hispanic Research Journal, 2012
Articles by Tom Nickson
PMC Notes 21, 2022
A short, public-facing piece, available online https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/about/newsletter
Revista de Poetica Medieval, 2021
Freely available online at https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/revpm/article/view/88793/67086
This a... more Freely available online at https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/revpm/article/view/88793/67086
This article examines the architectural patronage of King Alfonso X and the notion of a ‘Court Style’ in thirteenth-century Gothic architecture. Following brief consideration of problems of evidence, I briefly sketch common characteristics of the architectural patronage of Alfonso’s royal rivals and allies across Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. This prompts reassessment of the king’s relationships with mendicant and Cistercian orders, and then detailed consideration of his financial contributions to the cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and León. Although royal heraldry and imagery is prominent in all three cathedrals, I argue that Alfonso probably did not play a significant role in promoting rayonnant architecture in his kingdom. The most distinctive feature of his patronage lies in his support for work on the converted mosque-cathedrals of Seville and especially Córdoba. Finally, I consider a number of projects associated with Alfonso in Seville, notably the Gothic palace in the Alcázar.
Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 2020
FIRST 50 DOWNLOADS ARE FREE! Light imagery is prominent in the lives, miracles, liturgy and cult ... more FIRST 50 DOWNLOADS ARE FREE! Light imagery is prominent in the lives, miracles, liturgy and cult of St Thomas of Canterbury. The Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas, composed in 1428, also shows that light was carefully regulated in Canterbury Cathedral, with the most spectacular display of artificial light (i.e., candlelight) reserved for Thomas’s December Passion feast. This
article considers the symbolic significance of light in Thomas’s cult, and how artificial and natural light were managed and enhanced by the settings of his tomb and shrine in Canterbury Cathedral’s east end.
Codex Aquilarensis, 2019
Free onlne at http://www.romanicodigital.com/contenidos/CODEX-AQUILARENSIS/codex-aquilarensis-35.... more Free onlne at http://www.romanicodigital.com/contenidos/CODEX-AQUILARENSIS/codex-aquilarensis-35.aspx
At their conquests in 1236 and 1248, Córdoba and Seville were among the most architecturally sophisticated cities in Europe, with monuments of near unparalleled size and height. I first explore the contemporary chronicles and verses that responded to these heroic cityscapes, understood within a long tradition of urban panegyric and polemics about religious sound. Numerous sources also record that the great minarets in these cities were climbed by their new Christian conquerors, and in the second part of this article I consider intersections of surveying and surveillance in relation to towers, and aesthetic responses to urban and rural views. I conclude with a survey of the tradition of climbing towers in medieval Europe, and consider its possible repercussions for surveying and the creation of urban panoramas in the later Middle Ages and the modern era.
Oxford Bibliographies Online, 2019
Iberia’s medieval history has traditionally been understood in relation to a series of key events... more Iberia’s medieval history has traditionally been understood in relation to a series of key events: 711–714, when Muslim forces from North Africa began their conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsula; 1031, when the Cordoban caliphate finally collapsed, and 1085, when Alfonso VI captured Islamic Toledo (Tulaytula), marking a significant shift in the balance of power in the peninsula; 1128–1179, when the kingdom of Portugal was founded and officially recognized; 1282, when Peter III of Aragon was crowned king of Sicily, cementing the political and mercantile power of Aragon-Catalonia in the Mediterranean; 1492, when Columbus first landed in the Americas, when Jews were expelled from Spain (and from Portugal in 1496), and when Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon and Castile captured Nasrid Granada, Iberia’s last Islamic polity; and 1497–1499, when Vasco da Gama made his first sea voyage to India. In terms of its arts, however, Iberia’s medieval period may be pushed back to the 6th century, to the earliest Visigothic metalwork and architecture, and moved forward well into the 16th century, when gothic traditions mingled with Italianate motifs in Lisbon, Salamanca, and Palma, while Nasrid marquetry techniques (taracea) continued to flourish in Andalucia. Political, linguistic, and cultural borders shifted significantly in this period, and they continue to condition modern art-historical scholarship, whether divisions among Jewish, Islamic, and Christian/ “Western” art histories or the intense regionalism – reinforced by modern political and institutional structures—that has atomized art-historical studies on medieval Iberia. Insofar as the scholarship allows—and partly to complement it—this article thus deliberately resists traditional classifications by geography, confession, period, and medium. More focused bibliographies can be found in the Oxford Bibliographies in Art History articles, “Jewish Art, Medieval to Early Modern” and “Islamic Art and Architecture in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula”; and Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation article “Spanish Art.” This article, therefore, focuses broadly on resources rather than specific studies, with a preference for sources in English, when available.
Art History, 38: 5, 2015
This article examines how inscriptions and ornament articulate political, religious and social id... more This article examines how inscriptions and ornament articulate political, religious and social ideas and customs, focusing on southern Iberia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a period of major transformation from Islamic (Almohad) to Christian (Castilian) power. I first describe some remarkable gold coins produced for Alfonso VIII of Castile, and then turn to a detailed analysis of the early thirteenth-century bronze doors of Seville’s Almohad mosque, still hanging today in Seville cathedral’s Pardon Portal. I consider the specificity of the doors’ inscriptions, their apotropaic power, and their relationship to the doors’ design and production, arguing that the repetition of texts and geometric designs is essential to the doors’ visual and ritual charisma, and their apotropaic potency. I conclude by examining the survival of the doors after Seville’s Christian capture in 1248, understood in the context of the wider preservation of objects, customs and technologies.
Art In Translation, 7:1, 2015
This essay explores the meaning, functions, and significance of the Arabic, Latin, and Castilian ... more This essay explores the meaning, functions, and significance of the Arabic, Latin, and Castilian inscriptions that feature on the “Botica de los Templarios,” a fourteenth-century “cupboard” from Toledo (Victoria and Albert Museum). Such inscriptions belong to a wider context in which texts were used to imbue architectural surfaces or objects with magical power. Apotropaic power did not depend on legibility. For example, the illegibility of unfamiliar Arabic inscriptions only enhanced their magic quality. Although Latin and Castilian apotropaic inscriptions in medieval Castile echo formulae used throughout Europe, they relate to earlier Andalusi traditions, thereby providing a new perspective on mudéjar art and architecture. The essay also touches on historiographical issues and reflects on the impact of new technologies on art historical studies.
Toledo Cathedral’s stone choir screen was carved by local artists in the late fourteenth century,... more Toledo Cathedral’s stone choir screen was carved by local artists in the late fourteenth century, during a period of heightened anti-Jewish rhetoric and widespread conversion. Its fifty-six large reliefs show stories from Genesis and Exodus, and stand out from contemporary choir screens and sculpted ensembles due to the inclusion of rarely-depicted apocryphal legends and the absence of New Testament stories. The extensive narratives of the Creation, the life of Cain, the death of Adam, the plagues in Egypt and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt are particularly unusual. The presence of some of these stories can be explained within a specific local devotional and liturgical context, in which the screen served as a backdrop for processions, preaching and baptismal ceremonies. The unprecedented iconography of Cain biting Abel at the neck betrays an engagement with Hebrew scholarship, and should be understood in the light of patristic and polemical texts then found in the cathedral library. Recurrent themes include an emphasis on stories that were commonly considered to be types for the division of Jews and Christians. Reliefs showing the Israelites in the desert can be read as a critique of Jewish idolatry, whilst also articulating ideas about the proper veneration of images in the Christian church.
Medieval History Journal, 15: 2, 2012
In recent years scholars have increasingly scrutinised the relationship between medieval Iberia’s... more In recent years scholars have increasingly scrutinised the relationship between medieval Iberia’s material culture and its relatively plural society, one in which Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities lived together—peacefully or otherwise. In this article, I consider the reception of Islamicate architectural forms by focusing on the city of Toledo in central Spain, drawing conclusions of wider relevance for the study of Islamicate art and architecture. Following its conquest by king Alfonso VI of Castile in 1085, the Friday mosque of Toledo (Muslim Ṭulayṭulah) was converted into a cathedral, and then replaced in the thirteenth century by a building long celebrated for its combination of Gothic and Islamicate architectural elements. I reconstruct the appearance of Toledo’s lost mosque and propose possible motivations for the imitation of French and Andalusí buildings in its extant replacement. Building on Richard Krautheimer’s pioneering study of medieval architectural copies, I examine how these designs might have been transmitted in the thirteenth century, and how they can be understood ‘iconographically’. In considering inter-cultural exchange, scholars need, I argue, to take greater account of the available technologies of transmission and the distortions and possibilities they afforded.
Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 72: 1, 2009
Architectural History, 2005
Book section by Tom Nickson
Art, Power, and Resistance in the Middle Ages, 2024
A detailed study of the Puerta del Perdon in Cordoba cathedral
The Routledge Companion to the Global Renaissance, 2024
Online, Open Access: 10.4324/9781003294986 Reflections on tower climbing across the world, and ho... more Online, Open Access: 10.4324/9781003294986 Reflections on tower climbing across the world, and how architecture can be integrated in studies of 'Global Art History'. A published version of my lecture, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwQc3xKAzH8
El Mundo de las catedrales: Pasado, presente y futuro (online at https://www.congresointernacionaldecatedrales.com/media/DOC/40F0EEAF-D66E-6D58-F9E089556334EA06.PDF), 2022
The architectural patronage of Fernando III is here re-examined. I compare it with that his conte... more The architectural patronage of Fernando III is here re-examined. I compare it with that his contemporaries, and closely scrutinize the documentary evidence for specific references to royal support for construction. I consider Fernando’s relationship to Burgos cathedral, propose a new reading for its cloister sculpture, and suggest that Fernando’s architectural patronage was much more limited than traditionally believed.
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Books by Tom Nickson
Edited special issues by Tom Nickson
‘Ubi est Thomas Beketh?’ shouted Becket’s assassins, in a calculated act of disrespect shortly before his murder. Like his reputation, the name of Canterbury’s most famous archbishop shifted in his lifetime and after his death: Thomas of London, Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, blessed Thomas, saint Thomas of Canterbury, saint Thomas martyr, ‘England’s holy blissful martyr’, Thomas of Cankerbury, Thomas à Becket, Young Beckie. In the early 16th century some Canterbury monks reclaimed ‘Thomas Becket’ as their adopted name, but in November 1538 Henry VIII decreed that ‘Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed, named, reputed, nor called a saint, but bishop Becket’. It is fitting that he appears under multiple guises in the pages of this special issue, which is dedicated to consideration of the art, relics and liturgy of ‘Saint Thomas Becket’, an anachronistic conflation that implies no particular historical or political stance. The essays explore materials dating from the 12th century to the present day, offering reconsideration of the immediate consequences of those fateful events of December 1170, but also, and deliberately, exploration of the cult of saint Thomas in the later Middle Ages and after the Reformation. Canterbury naturally features heavily, but the essays range across Britain and Europe, and include discussion of manuscripts, seals, wall painting, metalwork, stained glass, vestments, architecture and engravings, as well as body-parts, virtual reconstructions, song, liturgy and light.
Articles by Tom Nickson
This article examines the architectural patronage of King Alfonso X and the notion of a ‘Court Style’ in thirteenth-century Gothic architecture. Following brief consideration of problems of evidence, I briefly sketch common characteristics of the architectural patronage of Alfonso’s royal rivals and allies across Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. This prompts reassessment of the king’s relationships with mendicant and Cistercian orders, and then detailed consideration of his financial contributions to the cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and León. Although royal heraldry and imagery is prominent in all three cathedrals, I argue that Alfonso probably did not play a significant role in promoting rayonnant architecture in his kingdom. The most distinctive feature of his patronage lies in his support for work on the converted mosque-cathedrals of Seville and especially Córdoba. Finally, I consider a number of projects associated with Alfonso in Seville, notably the Gothic palace in the Alcázar.
article considers the symbolic significance of light in Thomas’s cult, and how artificial and natural light were managed and enhanced by the settings of his tomb and shrine in Canterbury Cathedral’s east end.
At their conquests in 1236 and 1248, Córdoba and Seville were among the most architecturally sophisticated cities in Europe, with monuments of near unparalleled size and height. I first explore the contemporary chronicles and verses that responded to these heroic cityscapes, understood within a long tradition of urban panegyric and polemics about religious sound. Numerous sources also record that the great minarets in these cities were climbed by their new Christian conquerors, and in the second part of this article I consider intersections of surveying and surveillance in relation to towers, and aesthetic responses to urban and rural views. I conclude with a survey of the tradition of climbing towers in medieval Europe, and consider its possible repercussions for surveying and the creation of urban panoramas in the later Middle Ages and the modern era.
Book section by Tom Nickson
‘Ubi est Thomas Beketh?’ shouted Becket’s assassins, in a calculated act of disrespect shortly before his murder. Like his reputation, the name of Canterbury’s most famous archbishop shifted in his lifetime and after his death: Thomas of London, Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, blessed Thomas, saint Thomas of Canterbury, saint Thomas martyr, ‘England’s holy blissful martyr’, Thomas of Cankerbury, Thomas à Becket, Young Beckie. In the early 16th century some Canterbury monks reclaimed ‘Thomas Becket’ as their adopted name, but in November 1538 Henry VIII decreed that ‘Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed, named, reputed, nor called a saint, but bishop Becket’. It is fitting that he appears under multiple guises in the pages of this special issue, which is dedicated to consideration of the art, relics and liturgy of ‘Saint Thomas Becket’, an anachronistic conflation that implies no particular historical or political stance. The essays explore materials dating from the 12th century to the present day, offering reconsideration of the immediate consequences of those fateful events of December 1170, but also, and deliberately, exploration of the cult of saint Thomas in the later Middle Ages and after the Reformation. Canterbury naturally features heavily, but the essays range across Britain and Europe, and include discussion of manuscripts, seals, wall painting, metalwork, stained glass, vestments, architecture and engravings, as well as body-parts, virtual reconstructions, song, liturgy and light.
This article examines the architectural patronage of King Alfonso X and the notion of a ‘Court Style’ in thirteenth-century Gothic architecture. Following brief consideration of problems of evidence, I briefly sketch common characteristics of the architectural patronage of Alfonso’s royal rivals and allies across Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. This prompts reassessment of the king’s relationships with mendicant and Cistercian orders, and then detailed consideration of his financial contributions to the cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and León. Although royal heraldry and imagery is prominent in all three cathedrals, I argue that Alfonso probably did not play a significant role in promoting rayonnant architecture in his kingdom. The most distinctive feature of his patronage lies in his support for work on the converted mosque-cathedrals of Seville and especially Córdoba. Finally, I consider a number of projects associated with Alfonso in Seville, notably the Gothic palace in the Alcázar.
article considers the symbolic significance of light in Thomas’s cult, and how artificial and natural light were managed and enhanced by the settings of his tomb and shrine in Canterbury Cathedral’s east end.
At their conquests in 1236 and 1248, Córdoba and Seville were among the most architecturally sophisticated cities in Europe, with monuments of near unparalleled size and height. I first explore the contemporary chronicles and verses that responded to these heroic cityscapes, understood within a long tradition of urban panegyric and polemics about religious sound. Numerous sources also record that the great minarets in these cities were climbed by their new Christian conquerors, and in the second part of this article I consider intersections of surveying and surveillance in relation to towers, and aesthetic responses to urban and rural views. I conclude with a survey of the tradition of climbing towers in medieval Europe, and consider its possible repercussions for surveying and the creation of urban panoramas in the later Middle Ages and the modern era.
These two sessions will investigate how perceptions of light and darkness informed the ways in which art across Europe and the Mediterranean was produced, viewed and understood in the period 1200–1450. In the late 12th century a key set of optical writings was translated from Arabic into Latin, providing new theoretical paradigms for addressing questions of physical sight and illumination across Europe. At this time theologies of light also gained renewed popularity in the eastern Mediterranean – particularly as a result of the Hesychast controversy in Byzantium, and in connection with Sufi notions of divine illumination in Islam. What correlations can be traced between theories of optics, theologies of light, practices of illumination, and modes of viewing in the Middle Ages? Are there similarities in the ways different religious or cultural communities conceptualised light and used it in everyday life or ritual settings?
These sessions invite specialists of Christian, Islamic and Jewish art and culture to explore the status of light in broader discourses around visuality, visibility and materiality; the interconnections between conceptualizations of light and coeval attitudes towards objectivity and naturalism; and the ways in which light can articulate political, social or divine authority and hierarchies. The session will also welcome papers that address such broad methodological questions as: can the investigation of light in art prompt reconsideration of well established periodizations and interpretative paradigms of art history? How was the dramatic interplay between light and obscurity exploited in the secular and religious architecture of Europe and the medieval Mediterranean in order to organise space, direct viewers and convey meaning? How carefully were light effects taken into account in the display of images and portable objects, and how does consideration of luminosity, shadow and darkness hone our understanding of the agency of medieval objects? Finally, to what extent is light's ephemeral and fleeting nature disguised by changing fashions of display and technologies of reproduction, and – crucially – how do these affect our ability to apprehend and explain medieval approaches to light?
Proposals for 20 min papers should include an abstract (max.250 words) and brief CV. Proposals should be submitted by 10 September 2016 to the session organizers: Stefania Gerevini (stefania.gerevini@unibocconi.it) and Tom Nickson (tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk).
Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA-sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 ($1200 for transatlantic travel). If available, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. Speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions will be refunded only after the conference, against travel receipts.