Dr David Griffith BA, PhD, FSA

Department of English Literature
Senior Lecturer in English Medieval Studies

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 3251
Email: d.m.griffith@bham.ac.uk

Address: Arts Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

My primary area of research is the later medieval period into the early sixteenth century. I work on medieval epigraphy, vernacularity, memorialisation, antiquarianism, and relations between textual and visual cultures, with a particular focus upon in the parish church. I also have interests in writings of and about the First World War, especially prose writers of the 1910s and 20s and modern writers such as Peter Whelan and Susan Hill.

Qualifications

I studied at the University of Exeter: a BA in English Medieval Studies followed by a PhD on popular culture and medieval English romance narratives.

Teaching

I teach and lecture primarily later medieval and Tudor literature but happily venture into the modern period. I currently convene a number of drama modules: Plays and Performance (year 1), Tragedy (year 2) and the final year option The Birth of English Theatre: from the Mystery Plays to Jacobean City Comedy (from 2016-17). My other particular interest is the First World War and I co-teach (with Dr Deborah Longworth) the final year module Remembering World War One.

Postgraduate supervision

I am pleased to supervise MA, MPhil and PhD students on literary and cross-disciplinary subjects. Current and recent students have worked on:

• ‘The political appropriation of John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes: a manuscript study of British Library, MS Harley 1766’ (PhD)
• ‘Asceticism in late-medieval religious writing: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 114’ (PhD)
• ‘A revelation of purgatory to ane holy woman (1422).’ (MPhil)
• ‘Magical rings in Middle English Romance: an interdisciplinary study’ (MPhil)
• ‘The medieval house and curtilage: domestic spaces in the English medieval romance’ (MPhil)
• ‘Literary representations of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the sixteenth century’ (MA)
• 'Early Modern Dream Visions' (PhD) (co-supervision with Gillian Wright)
• 'The foliate head in medieval English ecclesiastical buildings' (MLitt)
• 'Politics and Sainthood: Literary Representations of St Margaret of Scotland from the C11th to the C15th in England and Scotland' (PhD) (co-supervision with Emily Wingfield)
• 'Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Chronicle (c.1420)' (PhD) (co-supervision with Emily Wingfield)

I welcome enquiries from prospective graduate students looking to work in the following areas: epigraphy, medieval English textual and vernacular cultures, art and culture of the medieval English parish church, late-medieval devotional and mystical writing, religious and secular iconographic traditions, romance genre and the culture of chivalry, Tudor writing (esp. religious) the impact of the Reformation on artistic production, antiquaries and antiquarians.
I also welcome students with projects on writing of or about the First World War (from 1914 to the present day).

Find out more - our PhD English Literature page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

David Griffith's research activity is cross-disciplinary and is concerned with correlations between textual, artistic and material cultures in England in the medieval and early modern periods. He is currently developing related projects on the large and, for the most part, unstudied body of vernacular inscriptions produced in England between the Conquest and the Tudor reformations. An interpretative study will be followed by a major catalogue of the corpus, which extends to thousands of extant and lost inscriptions in a number of languages (including English, insular French, Cornish, Welsh, Dutch and Hebrew). This research has led to interests in antiquaries, especially John Weever, and antiquarian responses to the medieval period.

Other activities

I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and am involved in societies and organizations concerned with the preservation and understanding of medieval literary, artistic and material cultures. I am an active member of The Church Monuments Society and of The Monumental Brass Society (The MBS archive is housed in the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham.) I'm also a member of The Suffolk Records Society, The Norfolk Churches Trust, the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, and the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society.

I'm a member of The Early English Text Society, and I sit on the advisory board of the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Adlington, H, Griffith, D & Hamling, T 2015, 'Beyond the page: Quarles's Emblemes, Wall Paintings, and Godly Interiors in Seventeenth-Century York', Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 3, pp. 521-551. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hlq.2015.78.3.521>

Griffith, D 2013, 'A living language of the dead? French commemorative inscriptions on fifteenth-century English monuments', The Mediaeval Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 69-136. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.TMJ.1.103439

Griffith, D 2011, 'A newly identified verse item by John Lydgate at Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk', Notes and Queries, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 364-67. https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjr113

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Griffith, D 2017, Texts and detexting on late medieval English church screens. in R Marks, S Bucklow & L Wrapson (eds), The Art and Science of the Church Screen in Medieval Europe: Making, Meaning, Preservation. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, pp. 71-99.

Chapter

Griffith, D & Canty, R 2015, The Passion Cycle in English Wall Paintings and Manuscript Art: Readers and Spectators in Midlands Communities in the Later Medieval Period. in R Perry & S Kelly (eds), Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ's Life. Medieval Church Studies, vol. 31, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium, pp. 267-89.

Griffith, D, Barron, CF & Burgess, C 2010, Late Medieval English Commemorative Inscriptions: Some Literary Dimensions. in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England. vol. XXII.

Griffith, D & Wolfreys, J 2010, Medieval Literature. in The English Literature Companion.

Conference contribution

Griffith, D 2012, The Seven Works of Mercy in the English Parish Church: the development of a vernacular tradition. in P Binski & EA New (eds), Patrons and Professionals in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2010 Harlaxton Symposium. Shaun Tyas, The 27th Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, Harlaxton, United Kingdom, 20/07/10.