Online History Talk - Medieval Graffiti

About

Matthew Champion opens a new series of the Cathedral's online History Talks with a lecture about the intrigue and mystery of historic scrawl.

Today most forms of graffiti are regarded as destructive, anti-social and certainly not something that we should encourage or welcome on our historic churches. However, that attitude is largely a modern one.

Prior to about 1850 all forms of graffiti were accepted. As a result our medieval churches are covered in hundreds of thousands of largely unrecorded inscriptions. These deal with matters of faith, of commerce, and of life and death. Waiting only for someone to read them. 

Like other old monuments across the UK, Peterborough Cathedral has its own share of ancient and modern grafitti, although Matthew's talk will not be focussed specifically on Peterborough.

Matthew is a multi-award winning archaeologist and historian who is widely regarded as England’s leading expert on medieval graffiti inscriptions. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and has worked with organisations such as English Heritage, the Churches Conservation Trust and the National Trust - as well as writing and lecturing extensively upon historical subjects. His most recent full-length work, Medieval Graffiti: the Lost Voices of England's Churches, was published by Ebury Press in 2016.

 

Tickets

£7 per viewing + booking fee. The Zoom link will be sent to ticket holders by email on the day of the event. 

Get a discount

There are other talks in our History Talks series during 2022. If you book for four or more of them at one time, you can get a discount. Follow this link to see the full series and to book. The discount is shown when you view your 'shopping cart' having selected tickets for each talk.