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Dr Bryony Coombs is a Teaching Fellow specialising in late-medieval art in northern Europe. She studied Fine Art as an undergraduate and her doctorate at Edinburgh University focussed on Franco-Scottish cultural connections during the late-medieval and early-modern periods: ‘Distantia Jungit,’ Scots Patronage of the Visual Arts in France, c.1445 – c.1545. Her research interests include the transfer of ideas in northern Europe and text and image relationships in late-medieval manuscripts.

Her recent published works include ‘Material Diplomacy: French Manuscripts and the Stuart Kings of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, MS 195’ SHR (2019), and ‘From Dunbar to Rome: John Stuart, Duke of Albany and his Contribution to the Theory and Practice of Military Science in Scotland and Italy, 1514-1536.’ PSAS (2019), which was awarded the Murray Medal for History. In 2021 she received the Jack Medal from the IASSL for her work ‘Albany and the Poets: John Stuart, Duke of Albany, and the Transfer of Ideas Between Scotland and the Continent 1509-1536.’

She is currently writing a monograph under contract with Edinburgh University Press entitled Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance: Scotland, France and National Identity c.1420-1550.

Current research projects include:

• Chapters entitled ‘Illuminations and Miniatures’ and ‘Imported Manuscripts’ for The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, volume 1 (to 1707) (E.U.P).
• Work on cultural hybridity in Renaissance France.
• ‘Repetition and Innovation: Scottish Patrons & Netherlandish Artists, Visual & Archival Evidence’ for the forthcoming book: Reviving the Trinity; Networks and Materialities in Scotland and Europe 1400-1600 (Brepols).
• Editor and contributor to the forthcoming volume Anselm Adornes: Art, Commerce and Piety in Fifteenth Century Scotland, Bruges and Beyond, with a chapter entitled: ‘Lost Books: The Manuscript Patronage of James III and Anselm Adornes.’
• Books, Trees and Pagan Gods in Renaissance Scotland. A collaborative project looking at illustrated printed books and nascent humanism in Scotland.

Recent Publications

Books and Monographs

Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance: Scotland, France and National Identity c.1420-1550 (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming)

Anselm Adornes: Art, Commerce and Piety in Fifteenth Century Scotland, Bruges and the Mediterranean, eds. Bryony Coombs, Jill Harrison and Giovanna Guidicini (Brepols, forthcoming)

Refereed Journal Articles

‘Icon to Image: René of Anjou, Cultural Hybridity, and Aesthetics of the East’, Viator (forthcoming).

‘An Optical Revolution in the Digital Age.’ Review of the online exhibition and of the catalogue ‘Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution’ (Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten), Renaissance Studies (2021).

‘Les Abus du Monde: A French Manuscript Produced for James IV, c. 1509, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M. 42.’ The Scottish Historical Review (April 2021).

‘Drawing Blood: The Visual Patronage of Robert Stuart d’Aubigny, Maréchal of France, in relation to James V’s French Sojourn in 1536.’ Études Épistémè, 37 (2020).

‘From Dunbar to Rome: John Stuart, Duke of Albany and his Contribution to the Theory and Practice of Military Science in Scotland and Italy, 1514-1536.’ The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 148 (2019), 231-266. This paper was awarded the Murray Medal for History.

‘Material Diplomacy: French Manuscripts and the Stuart Kings of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, MS 195’ The Scottish Historical Review, 98: 2 (2019), 183-213.

‘The Tapestries of St Anatoile (1502-1506): Burgundian Perceptions of a ‘Scottish Saint’ and the Royal House of Scotland at the turn of the Sixteenth Century.’ The Innes Review, 70.1 (2019), 1-35.

‘The Artistic Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany 1520-1530: Vic-le-Comte, the Last Sainte-Chapelle.’ The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 147 (2017), 175-217.

‘Identity and Agency in the Patronage of Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny: the Political Self-Fashioning of a Franco-Scottish Soldier and Diplomat.’ The Medieval Journal, 7:1 (2017), 89-143.

‘Are the Petites Heures d’Anne de Bretagne really the Petites Heures de Jeanne de France?’ Reinardus, 27 (2015), 58-87.

‘The Artistic Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany 1518-19: The “Discovery” of the Artist and Author, Bremond Domat.’ The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 144 (2014), 277-309.

Chapters and Edited Collections

‘Repetition and Innovation: Scottish Patrons and Netherlandish Artist’s: Visual and Archival Evidence,’ in Reviving the Trinity: Networks and Materialities in Scotland and Europe, 1400-1600 (Brepols, forthcoming 2024).

‘Illuminations and Miniatures’ in The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, volume 1 (to 1707) eds. Daryl Green, Alastair Mann, Joseph Marshall, Emily Wingfield (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2024).

‘Imported Manuscripts’ in The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, volume 1 (to 1707) eds. Daryl Green, Alastair Mann, Joseph Marshall, Emily Wingfield (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2024).

‘Translating Identities: Tracing the Transfer of a Scottish Origin Myth from Scotland to France c. 1519.’ in Writing Scottishness: literature and the shaping of Scottish national identities eds. Ian Brown and Clarisse Godard Desmarest (Association for Scottish Literature, forthcoming).

‘Albany and the Poets: John Stuart, Duke of Albany, and the transfer of ideas between Scotland and the Continent, 1509-1536.’ this paper is forthcoming in Britain and its Neighbours: Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2021). This paper was awarded the Jack Medal.

Dirk H. Steinforth, Bryony Coombs, and Charles C. Rozier, ‘Introduction,’ Britain and its Neighbours: Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2021)

 

Selected Conference Papers

‘People and Books in Fifteenth Century Scotland and England: Fresh Research Directions’ Part of Book Week Scotland, Aberdeen University, 15 Nov. 2023.

‘Imagined Communities’: Franco-Scottish Books and their Images 1420-1540′ Invited keynote at the 17th International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language, Literature and Culture, St Andrews University, 18th-23 July 2023.

‘Scottishness in the Margins’ the Institute of Scottish Historical Research Seminar Series, 23 March 2023, St Andrews University.

‘Lost Books: The Manuscript Patronage of James III and Anselm Adornes’ Anselm Adornes Discussion Day, 23 November 2022.

‘Den Kunig der Wilden Leut:’ European Perceptions of Scots and their Monarchs 1500-1560’ at the conference, Bridging the Flodden Gap: Scotland in the age of James V c.1500-c.1560 (24-25 September 2022, The University of St Andrews).

‘Repetition and Innovation: Scottish Patrons and Netherlandish Artists, Visual and Archival Evidence’ Trinity Network Seminar Series, 16 March 2022.

‘Creating Identities: Tracing the Transfer of a Scottish Origin Myth from Scotland to France c. 1519’ Scotland and Nationalism: cultural and political aspects of Scottish identity from the medieval period to the present, 20th Congress of the Société Française d’Études Écossaises, Université de Picardie Jules-Verne, Amiens, October 2021.

‘Immytateur de madame Nature,’ Jean Perréal and the Problem with Images in Early-Sixteenth Century France. Edinburgh University History of Art Research Seminar Series, 17 March 2021.

‘Artistic Continuity in Late Medieval Scotland: James III, James IV, and the Artists of Ghent’, Reviving the Trinity: New Perspectives on 15th Century Scottish Culture, Edinburgh, 27 March 2021.

‘Migrating Manuscripts: Tracing the Transfer of a Scottish Origin Myth from Scotland to France c. 1519’. Reviving the Scottish Renaissance: New perspectives on old alliances, the 67th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Dublin, April 2021.

‘Devotion in Text and Stone: Female Authority and Agency in Margaret of Scotland’s Foundation of a Royal Chapel at Thouars and the deposit of her ‘Speciosissimas’ Book of Hours.’ Remarkable Women’: Female patronage of religious institutions, 1350-1550. Courtauld Institute of Art, 29 February 2021.

‘From Dunbar to Rome: John Stuart, Duke of Albany and his contribution to the theory and practice of military science in Scotland and Italy, 1514-1536.’ Britain and its Neighbours: Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Swansea University, 28-29 June 2018.

Invited and funded talk: ‘John Stuart, Duke of Albany: an expensive luxury that Scotland could ill afford?’ Mary of Guise as a conduit between Lorraine, France and Scotland, Rambouillet, Paris (June, 2017).

‘Dual Identities: Scots Patronage of the Visual Arts in France in the Early Modern Era.’ New Perspectives on the ‘Auld Alliance’: Scotland, France and their Neighbours in the Early Modern Era, University of Kent (June, 2016).

‘Creating Identities: Scots Patronage of the Visual Arts in France 1490-1530.’ The Scottish History Network: The State of the Field (April, 2016).

‘Scottish Identities in France 1490-1530.’
Renaissance and Early Modern Discussion Group, Edinburgh University (April, 2016).

Media Coverage

Social Media

@BryonyCoombs

Country Focus

Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Europe more broadly

Expertise by Geography

British Isles, France, United Kingdom, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

Medieval, Pre-17th century, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Book History, Diplomacy, Libraries & Archives, Material Culture, Military