page_title: England in the Late Middle Ages
section_title: Art
hierarchical_section_title: England in the Late Middle Ages / Arts / Art
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Début du Conte du Chevalier dans le manuscrit Ellesmere. Image dans le domaine public.
context_page_description: England in the Late Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the late medieval period, from the thirteenth century, the end of the Angevins, and the accession of Henry III – considered by many to mark the start of the Plantagenet dynasty – until the accession to the throne of the Tudor dynasty in 1485, which is often taken as the most convenient marker for the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the English Renaissance and early modern Britain.
  At the accession of Henry III only a remnant of English holdings remained in Gascony, for which English kings had to pay homage to the French, and the barons were in revolt. Royal authority was restored by his son who inherited the throne in 1272 as Edward I. He reorganized his possessions, and gained control of Wales and most of Scotland. His son Edward II was defeated at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and lost control of Scotland. He was eventually deposed in a coup and from 1330 his son Edward III took control of the kingdom.
context_section_description: Medieval England produced art in the form of paintings, carvings, books, fabrics and many functional but beautiful objects. A wide range of materials were used, including gold, glass and ivory, the art usually drawing overt attention to the materials utilised in the designs. Stained glass became a common form of English art during this period, although the coloured glass for these works was almost entirely imported from Europe. Little early stained glass in England has survived, but it typically had both an ornamental and educational function, while later works also commemorated the sponsors of the windows into the designs. English embroidery in the early fourteenth century was of an especially high quality, and revived its international reputation from Anglo-Saxon times; works produced by nuns and London professionals were exported across Europe, known as opus anglicanum.
  During the period manuscript painting in England became again the equal of any in Europe, in Romanesque works like the Winchester Bible and the St Albans Psalter, and then early Gothic ones like the Queen Mary Psalter and Tickhill Psalter. English illumination fell away in the final phase of the Gothic period as elite patrons began instead to commission works from Paris and then Flanders. Competition from a strong French industry also eclipsed English ivory-carving. Some of the extremely rare survivals of English medieval panel paintings, like the Westminster Retable and Wilton Diptych (the artist's nationality here is uncertain), are of the highest quality. Wall-paintings were very common in both churches and palaces, but now very little survives. There was an industry producing Nottingham alabaster reliefs, made in Nottingham, but also Burton-on-Trent, Coventry, and perhaps Lincoln and London, ranging from commissioned altarpieces to single figures and narrative panels, which were exported across Europe. English monumental carving in stone and wood was often of very high quality, and much of it survived the Reformation.
caption: The Ellesmere illuminated manuscript of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, early fifteenth-century, showing the Knight (right)
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