Violet Pritchard (née Bannerman;[1] 2 May 1899[2] – 20 October 1993)[3] was a British historian and writer who published the first full-length study in English of medieval graffiti.
[4][5][6] Violet Pritchard published English Medieval Graffiti in 1967, the result of research undertaken predominantly in churches in and around Cambridge.
[4] The book was the first full-length work in English to be written on church graffiti, and became the key study for scholars and enthusiasts in the following decades.
[8][5] The book contained more than 200 rubbings illustrating the graffiti, and was described as demonstrating "the remarkable richness and variety of medieval drawings and inscriptions on the walls of churches".
[11]Antonio Castillo Gómez has noted the significance of Pritchard's approach, suggesting that her "work staked a claim for the importance of writings and drawings on walls for our knowledge of the economy, social structure and way of life of a given place and time, and she treated them as historical sources".