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Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales / JESSICA MCGRATH

Swansea University Author: JESSICA MCGRATH

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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.69793

Abstract

This thesis investigates how the visual culture of commemoration in the Elizabethan parish church changed in response to the theological upheavals of the Reformation, namely the refutation of the belief in purgatory and the introduction of a predestinate approach to salvation. The specific focus of...

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Published: Swansea, Wales, UK 2025
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Poertner, Regina
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69793
first_indexed 2025-06-23T11:38:19Z
last_indexed 2025-07-04T03:55:35Z
id cronfa69793
recordtype RisThesis
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The specific focus of this thesis is on a selected body of nine painted works commissioned for display in provincial parish churches across southern England and Wales during the period c.1585-c.1603. These paintings are complex cultural products, and this thesis will present and interrogate the ways that they function as forms of spiritual and social self-fashioning. These paintings are rare examples of objects that sit at the intersection between late-sixteenth century civic and memento mori domestic portraiture, and funeral monuments found within the parish church setting. A composite object type, often functioning as both a commemorative portrait and a church monument, these painted church portrait memorials were created and commissioned during a time of immense political and spiritual upheaval. As such, a primary aim of this thesis is to evidence the late sixteenth century English and Welsh provincial lay experience of mortality and salvation as inherently nuanced and complicated; with the existence of a cross-confessional populace and soteriological beliefs from across the religious spectrum influencing the possible meanings and functions of these memorial paintings, and the way that viewers may have responded to them. The overarching aim of this thesis is to highlight painted ecclesiological memoria, created outside of the court-based, London environment, as an important area of sixteenth century scholarship. Some of these paintings are relatively well known and others have been little published: the Memorial to William Smart in Ipswich; the Portrait of Sir Henry Unton once in Faringdon; the Memorial to Thomas and Mary More in Adderbury, the Memorial to a Child of the Harewell Family in Besford; the Cornewall Family Memorial in Burford, the Memorial to Margery Downes in Bishop&#x2019;s Frome, and the three Stradling Family Memorial Panels once in St Donat&#x2019;s. 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spelling 2025-07-02T17:21:26.9924635 v2 69793 2025-06-23 Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales 5d232841fb678ef88af5d834d3795434 JESSICA MCGRATH JESSICA MCGRATH true false 2025-06-23 This thesis investigates how the visual culture of commemoration in the Elizabethan parish church changed in response to the theological upheavals of the Reformation, namely the refutation of the belief in purgatory and the introduction of a predestinate approach to salvation. The specific focus of this thesis is on a selected body of nine painted works commissioned for display in provincial parish churches across southern England and Wales during the period c.1585-c.1603. These paintings are complex cultural products, and this thesis will present and interrogate the ways that they function as forms of spiritual and social self-fashioning. These paintings are rare examples of objects that sit at the intersection between late-sixteenth century civic and memento mori domestic portraiture, and funeral monuments found within the parish church setting. A composite object type, often functioning as both a commemorative portrait and a church monument, these painted church portrait memorials were created and commissioned during a time of immense political and spiritual upheaval. As such, a primary aim of this thesis is to evidence the late sixteenth century English and Welsh provincial lay experience of mortality and salvation as inherently nuanced and complicated; with the existence of a cross-confessional populace and soteriological beliefs from across the religious spectrum influencing the possible meanings and functions of these memorial paintings, and the way that viewers may have responded to them. The overarching aim of this thesis is to highlight painted ecclesiological memoria, created outside of the court-based, London environment, as an important area of sixteenth century scholarship. Some of these paintings are relatively well known and others have been little published: the Memorial to William Smart in Ipswich; the Portrait of Sir Henry Unton once in Faringdon; the Memorial to Thomas and Mary More in Adderbury, the Memorial to a Child of the Harewell Family in Besford; the Cornewall Family Memorial in Burford, the Memorial to Margery Downes in Bishop’s Frome, and the three Stradling Family Memorial Panels once in St Donat’s. This thesis will explain and evidence the various factors that influenced their patrons and which account for the different representational strategies employed by the artists: from medieval ecclesiological art and memoria, to the culture of sixteenth century civic and domestic portraiture, and the challenges of a life lived against the backdrop of the Reformation. E-Thesis Swansea, Wales, UK Death, Mortality, Portraiture, Tudor, Reformation, Salvation, Theology, History, History of Art 10 6 2025 2025-06-10 10.23889/SUthesis.69793 Author: Jessica Rosenthal Mcgrath COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Poertner, Regina Doctoral Ph.D AHRC, Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, Swansea University and National Portrait Gallery AHRC, Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, Swansea University and National Portrait Gallery 2025-07-02T17:21:26.9924635 2025-06-23T12:34:50.3154303 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - History JESSICA MCGRATH 1 69793__34543__01f5e0f6ad1f4049a6053ab67f02c117.pdf Rosenthal-Mcgrath_Jessica_PhD_Thesis_Final_Cronfa.pdf 2025-06-23T13:04:41.2632017 Output 8072255 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true Copyright: The Author, Jessica Rosenthal Mcgrath, 2025. true eng
title Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
spellingShingle Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
JESSICA MCGRATH
title_short Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
title_full Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
title_fullStr Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
title_full_unstemmed Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
title_sort Redeeming Death: Mortality, Portraiture and the Quest for Salvation in Tudor England and Wales
author_id_str_mv 5d232841fb678ef88af5d834d3795434
author_id_fullname_str_mv 5d232841fb678ef88af5d834d3795434_***_JESSICA MCGRATH
author JESSICA MCGRATH
author2 JESSICA MCGRATH
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/SUthesis.69793
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - History{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - History
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description This thesis investigates how the visual culture of commemoration in the Elizabethan parish church changed in response to the theological upheavals of the Reformation, namely the refutation of the belief in purgatory and the introduction of a predestinate approach to salvation. The specific focus of this thesis is on a selected body of nine painted works commissioned for display in provincial parish churches across southern England and Wales during the period c.1585-c.1603. These paintings are complex cultural products, and this thesis will present and interrogate the ways that they function as forms of spiritual and social self-fashioning. These paintings are rare examples of objects that sit at the intersection between late-sixteenth century civic and memento mori domestic portraiture, and funeral monuments found within the parish church setting. A composite object type, often functioning as both a commemorative portrait and a church monument, these painted church portrait memorials were created and commissioned during a time of immense political and spiritual upheaval. As such, a primary aim of this thesis is to evidence the late sixteenth century English and Welsh provincial lay experience of mortality and salvation as inherently nuanced and complicated; with the existence of a cross-confessional populace and soteriological beliefs from across the religious spectrum influencing the possible meanings and functions of these memorial paintings, and the way that viewers may have responded to them. The overarching aim of this thesis is to highlight painted ecclesiological memoria, created outside of the court-based, London environment, as an important area of sixteenth century scholarship. Some of these paintings are relatively well known and others have been little published: the Memorial to William Smart in Ipswich; the Portrait of Sir Henry Unton once in Faringdon; the Memorial to Thomas and Mary More in Adderbury, the Memorial to a Child of the Harewell Family in Besford; the Cornewall Family Memorial in Burford, the Memorial to Margery Downes in Bishop’s Frome, and the three Stradling Family Memorial Panels once in St Donat’s. This thesis will explain and evidence the various factors that influenced their patrons and which account for the different representational strategies employed by the artists: from medieval ecclesiological art and memoria, to the culture of sixteenth century civic and domestic portraiture, and the challenges of a life lived against the backdrop of the Reformation.
published_date 2025-06-10T05:24:24Z
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