Dr Tobias Capwell

In one day we venture back across time and space to explore the visual, literary, and material culture surrounding one of the core icons of European civilisation - the medieval knight. The armoured horseman is one of the most fundamental images in western art, and yet most art historians and enthusiasts tend to know little about him. The knight was a deadly warrior, trained from childhood in the arts of war, but he was also social and political figure, a heroic symbol, an economic problem, a demonstration of high technology, and a professional sportsman. Exploring ten centuries of the knight as both a symbol and as a real person - the legend and the reality - the day delves into portrayals of the knights by poets, historians and, most importantly, by artists and their patrons- from filmmakers in the 20th century, painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, antiquarians in the Age of Enlightenment, princes of the Renaissance, all the way back to the emergence of the first true knights of the 11th century.  

The day will comprise of two lectures, lunch and a third lecture accompanied by opportunities to handle pieces of armour and other objects. 

Further details and a booking form will be sent out nearer the date.

Toby Capwell is Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London and an internationally-acknowledged authority on Medieval and Renaissance weapons. He is the author of numerous books on the subject of arms and armour, including Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection (2011; Apollo Magazine Book of the Year 2012); The Noble Art of the Sword: Fashion and Fencing in Renaissance Europe 1520-1630, ex. cat. (2012); Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450 (2015; Military History Monthly Illustrated Book of the Year 2017); ans most recently Arms and Armour of the Medieval Joust (2018). Toby also appears regularly on television, most recently on A Stitch in Time (2018; BBC4); as presenter and armour advisor on Richard III: The New Evidence (2014; C4), and as the writer and presenter of Metalworks: The Knight's Tale (2012; BBC4). In 2015 Toby had the unusual honour of serving as one of the two fully armoured horsemen escorting the remains of King Richard III, from the battlefield at Bosworth to their final resting place in Leicester Cathedral.