Friends of Reading Abbey AGM and Lecture

St George’s Chapel, the royal chapel within Windsor Castle, is familiar today as the home of royal weddings and funerals, the Order of the Garter, and the monarchy. But what was daily life like in the chapel and its resident college 500 years ago?

The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were a period of dramatic resilience and transformation which saw the college go from a state of practical bankruptcy to the building of the grand new chapel we see today. Dr Roger of The National Archives will explore the challenges faced by the late-medieval community at St George’s, and the experiences of daily life in a royal college during a period of civil war, epidemic disease and financial uncertainty; and will highlight stories of daily life at Windsor and the people who lived, prayed and worked within the castle in the difficult years of the late Fifteenth Century.

Dr Euan Roger is a Principal Medieval Specialist at The National Archives (UK), specialising in the records of late medieval and early Tudor English government, the central law courts, and the secular clergy. He has published widely, including the life-records of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, Tudor quarantine and social distancing, and the history of treason in the UK. His work has featured in the New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, and The Times. He is currently writing a book on the late medieval college of St George’s, Windsor, to be published with Boydell & Brewer.