Dr. Lizzie Swarbrick

Biography

Lizzie Swarbrick's work focuses on late medieval Scotland, exploring a variety of media related to the pre-Reformation church including architecture, sculpture, furnishings, tombs, paintings, music, and liturgical performances. She joined the department in Autumn 2017 as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, working on a three-year project at Roslin Church (alternatively Rosslyn Chapel). Lizzie was awarded a PhD from the University of St Andrews for her thesis entitled 'The Medieval Art and Architecture of Scottish Collegiate Churches', supervised by Prof. Richard Fawcett and Dr. Julian Luxford. Her doctoral work examined the material culture of Scotland's forty-nine colleges between 1250 and 1560, with funding from the AHRC as part of the Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches project, and she received the Ochs Scholarship from the British Archaeological Association. Lizzie has presented her work widely and contributed an article to the British Archaeological Association volume on Medieval Art, Architecture, and Archaeology of the Dioceses of Aberdeen and Moray. Her current research project centers on the art and architecture of the 15th-century church of St. Matthew in Roslin, which has gained considerable attention due to its appearances in fiction and film. She aims to connect the material culture of Roslin to the wider cultural context of late medieval Scotland, Britain, and Europe while focusing on the church's institutional history, patronal involvement, and liturgical practices.

Research Interests