Meg Bernstein

Meg Bernstein is a 2013 ISM/YDS graduate (M.A.R. in religion and visual culture), who received her Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. in the history of art in 2019.  She returns to Yale to work on a book project, “The Lives of the Laity: Parochial Architecture, 1150-1300,” to challenge the assumption that medieval parochial architecture simply derived from that of larger, more important churches by proposing the parish church as a distinct genre, examining its emergence and codification in response to the changing needs of the medieval laity. She argues that changes in the architectural typology of the period were driven by social, economic, liturgical, and theological factors, particularly the emergence of a new gentry class, Eucharistic developments, and the solidification of the doctrine of Purgatory.