Madeleine Bracey

Reconstructing Coventry Early Modern Grammar School

Founded in 1545, Coventry's original Grammar School building still stands in the City Centre. The School housed a library of national significance. This project is supervised by Alice Leonard and Patricia Phillippy.

Working closely with Coventry Archives and items from Cambridge University Library, Madeleine is using palaeographical and bibliographical techniques to investigate the extensive sources from the School. These include Early Modern books that were held by the library and now reside in Coventry Archives, as well as a library catalogue and a record of book donors from the seventeenth century. The results of Madeleine's research will be communicated to the public using multiple platforms, contributing to the legacy of the Coventry City of Culture 2021. This dissemination will take the form of a digital humanities project supervised by Jacqueline Cawston.

Outside of her PhD project, Madeleine is interested in Early Modern drama, with a particular focus on the relationship between the theatre, music, musicians, and the view the theatregoing audience had of these elements, both individually and together.

Madeleine's Master's project looked at the audience reception of music in four of Shakespeare's comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It. She used an interdisciplinary approach, combining historical, literary, and musicological techniques to understand how the Early Modern theatregoing audience interacted with music both within and without the playhouse.