A History of London: 1066-1666 (Online)

Medieval London was a walled city of crowded streets and lanes, open air markets and half-timbered and stone houses, its inhabitants living perilously and piously amid a skyline of a hundred church spires. With the V&A’s collections and curators for inspiration, on this twelve-week course we will explore its dynamic and fascinating history from the Norman Conquest to the Great Fire. A city of learning and richly skilled crafts, during this period London went from being the prosperous capital of an emerging kingdom on the periphery of Christendom to being one of the greatest cities of Europe, the centre of a growing mercantile empire which looked outward to the Atlantic and beyond. London’s fame was built on the riches brought through trade and plunder, celebrated in plays and verse. Londoners surrounded themselves with the finery from the four corners of the world. Yet civil war, plague and fire forced a new city into being. 

Join Tracy Borman, Joint Chief Curator, English Heritage; Vanessa Harding, Emeritus Professor of London History, Birkbeck, University of London; Christine Stephenson, Professor of early modern art and architecture, the Courtauld Institute of Art and others