Home Mobility of Objects: Medieval floor tiles from the Grosvenor Museum, Chester

Mobility of Objects: Medieval floor tiles from the Grosvenor Museum, Chester

What did floor tiles in churches and elite domestic interiors look like in medieval times? This film is part of the Mobility of Objects Across Boundaries (MOB) network, a collaborative, interdisciplinary project funded by an AHRC network grant, which reconsiders the history of material culture in the period AD 1000-1700. This film starts with an introduction of the MOB project by Dr Leah R. Clark (The Open University) and Dr Katherine Wilson (University of Chester). This is followed by a close examination of medieval floor tiles by Elizabeth Montgomery (Collections and Interpretation Officer) in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. This includes a discussion of the design on these colourful tiles, including the famous 3-hare tile from Chester cathedral, which copies motifs from a cave in Dunhuang China, dating from the 6th/7th centuries CE, demonstrating how motifs and ideas circulated long distances in the medieval period.