Therese

Martin

Therese Martin is Research Professor (Profesora de Investigación) and Head of the Department of Medieval Studies at the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) in Madrid. She has been awarded fellowships from Fulbright, Mellon, de Montêquin, Kress, Getty, and CASVA in support of her research on the intersections of medieval Iberia’s multiple cultures, women’s involvement with art and architecture in the central Middle Ages, and Romanesque construction and decoration.

Her prize-winning publications include “The Art of a Reigning Queen as Dynastic Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain,” Speculum (2005); “Crouching Crossbowmen in Early Twelfth-Century Sculpture: A Nasty, Brutish, and Short(-Lived) Iconography,” Gesta (2015); and “The Margin to Act: A Framework of Investigation for Women’s (and Men’s) Medieval Art-Making,” in ‘Me fecit.’ Making Medieval Art (History), a special issue she edited of the Journal of Medieval History (2016). She is the author of Queen as King: Politics and Architectural Propaganda in Twelfth-Century Spain (Brill, 2006), and the editor of Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture (Brill, 2012; paperback 2015). The latter publication resulted from her international research project of the same name, funded by a 1.2 million euro European Research Council Starting Grant (2010-2015).

Her Spanish nationally funded research projects include “The Medieval Treasury across Frontiers and Generations: The Kingdom of León-Castilla in the Context of Muslim-Christian Interchange, c. 1050-1200” (2016-2018), and “The Medieval Iberian Treasury in Context: Collections, Connections, and Representations on the Peninsula and Beyond” (2019-2022). Among her recent edited volumes are The Medieval Iberian Treasury in the Context of Cultural Interchange, Expanded Edition (Brill, 2020; open access https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004424593), Stone Building as Material and Metaphor in Southern Europe (1050-1300), Petrifying Wealth 4 (Brepols, 2025; open access https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.132989), and Medieval Treasures of Toledo Cathedral: Artworks, Relics, Texts, and Textiles (Brill, 2026).

An elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, she previously served on the Editorial Board of Gesta, as an International Associate on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Medieval Art, and as a Councillor of the Medieval Academy of America. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies.