Annual Clarendon lecture 2025: Henry III: Palaces, Politics and Piety by Dr Jonathan Foyle

This talk investigates some examples of medieval political art that help to place the redevelopment of Henry III’s Clarendon Palace into context. Primary among them is the painted nave ceiling of Peterborough Cathedral created after 1238, to date misinterpreted as a harmonious assembly of generic kings and bishops, whereas on closer examination it reveals educated bishops and archbishops lecturing a parade of tyrannical English kings starting with Henry I (1100-35), until the current monarch Henry III is heralded in a more positive light. The power struggle between Church and State that this ceiling represents is a span of over a century, involving the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164 and Henry’s self-presentation at the lost palace at the time the ceiling was being designed and painted.