Dr Emily Davenport Guerry

My research focuses on saints, relics, diplomacy, and devotion in the medieval imagination.

I teach papers across medieval British, European, and world history, as well as options related to scholasticism, material culture, global expansionism, and material culture across the Middle Ages. I supervise dissertations on a range of subjects related to medieval art, architecture, and the politics of devotion.

My research examines the creation and transformation of relic cults across the global medieval imagination, focusing especially on the invention and diffusion of religious iconography. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to evidence gleaned from legal, liturgical, and hagiographical source material, some of my current projects examine the design of monumental Gothic artworks in Paris, Angers, and Westminster, thinking through cultural exchange between medieval France and Britain. This work benefits from access to new scanning technologies to facilitate the study of damaged murals. With the support of the AHRC and the British Academy, I have developed new approaches to digital heritage at Canterbury Cathedral and helped to organise academic and cultural engagement with the history and legacy of the cult of Saint Thomas Becket. 

I also work on the diplomatic missions of ambassadors (especially Dominicans) tasked with delivering and collecting sacred relics and other precious items. This includes the patronage of the Capetian kings of France and their attempts at an alliance with the Mongols. My work on the material culture of Franco-Mongolian diplomatic exchange forms part of a Getty-funded collaborative project, Mongol Connections, in which an international team of academics examine the intersecting, connecting, and competing histories of objects, artists, and technologies, across the Eurasian expanse of the Great Mongol State.

As of 2026, I have supervised 9 PhD students (all fully funded) to completion, and I currently supervise two doctoral candidates.