Project “SENSES - Sensing Europe’s Court Spaces at the Crossroads of Past, Present and Future” (2025-2029)

SENSES brings together a team of researchers and other professionals, with the aim of combining their knowledge and finding new ways to present European court residences, seen as places of numerous sensory experiences. Straddling such fields of study as court studies, history of the senses and digital humanities, SENSES focuses on court residences in Europe from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. The objective is to understand the material and spatial environments prevailing in European courts between 1300 and 1800 in terms of their social context, at every level: from single building (or even a part of a single building) to the landscape created around it, right through to the supra-territorial network of residences to which it belonged.

We intend to explore the whole range of sensory experiences connected with court residences and life at court throughout history right up until today: from basic human activities like preparing food or making objects, to the grandest and most complicated examples, such as attending music and dance performances in specially designated areas, or the rituals surrounding meals.

Our objective is to better understand this complex cultural phenomenon in order to foster its long term survival as part of European heritage. To this end, SENSES is adopting a multidisciplinary and inter sectoral approach, building bridges between academic disciplines on the one hand, and between the worlds of research and cultural heritage on the other. Our ambition is to offer a rigorous platform, based on research, for developing new modes of sensory interaction between the general public (as audience) and the artistic heritage (art, architecture, music) of the past. By exploring new ways of making this artistic heritage relevant to audiences of the future, we hope to make an active contribution to building a true European identity.

Our action is built around four working groups:

 Religion: this group is looking at the sensory dimensions of religious practice in European court residences from 1300 to 1800. It will examine the diverse nature of sacred spaces – chapels, churches, monasteries, oratories – and how they interacted with the palace as a whole. These places, which were an integral part of how the whole court operated, were designed to elicit rich sensory experiences, particularly during solemn religious services, which engaged the sense of sight, hearing and smell as well as movement. In this way, the project will shed light on the importance of religious ritual in both everyday and ceremonial life at court.
 Meals: this group is looking at sensory experiences connected with meals at court. Here it is not just a question of taste and smell – other senses are also involved, such as touch (preparation), kinesthesis (transporting dishes), sound (music), sight (presentation of dishes, arrangement of the table) and light (candlelight or natural daylight). Spatial organisation – the journey from kitchen to dining-room, the placing of guests by rank – was a key player in setting the scene.
 Textiles: this group will explore the sensory use of textiles in the residences. Beyond their decorative or insulating properties, fabrics (curtains, wall hangings, tapestries) had a role to play in terms of perception, whether visual (colour, light), acoustic (sound attenuation) or tactile (textures, comfort). The group will seek to connect material and sensory history with current museographic concerns regarding the restitution of tactile sensations.
 Body: this group is studying everyday physical experiences, which are often overlooked in favour of solemn occasions. It will address practical aspects of life at court, such as waste management, the presence of animals, water supply, heating, and the crafts and domestic activities practised by the princes and ladies of the court.

COST et Cost Actions
COST is a European funding organisation set up to create research networks, called COST Actions.
COST actions are interdisciplinary research networks that bring together researchers and innovators for a period of four years so that they can explore a topic of their choice. The COST Actions are generally comprised of researchers from academia, SMEs, public institutions, and other relevant organisations or interested parties. Open to all fields of science and technology, including new and emerging fields, COST Actions offer an inclusive, pan-European environment for researchers at all levels of seniority to grow their professional research networks and give their own individual careers a new impetus.

Principal sponsor of the COST Action - SENSES
Prof. Dr. Konrad Ottenheym, professor of history and architecture at the université d’Utrecht
Action COST - SENSES participants representing the Centre de recherche
 Dr. Mathieu da Vinha, director
 Benjamin Ringot, Research coordinator; member of the management committee of the Cost Action SENSES.