Below are listed contact details and research interest information for medievalists in various departments at the University of Cambridge. The information presented on this page is intended to enable other medievalists at Cambridge and around the world to contact scholars with similar interests and to exchange ideas.

We hope that our Cambridge Contacts and UK & Worldwide Contacts pages will continue to grow with contributions from fellow medievalists around the world. If you would like to submit your own contact and research interest information, please complete our Submit Contact Information form. It will be forwarded to us, and we will post your information on our website as soon as possible. We also encourage you to register for our online Forum, a message board that allows users to converse online in real time.

In addition to this list of graduate contacts, there is the very useful Register of Cambridge Medievalists, which can be downloaded in PDF format here. To be included in the Register, please contact either Christof Rolker (cr314 at cam.ac.uk) or Charles West (cmaw2 at cam.ac.uk).

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Joanna Bellis
Email: jrm78 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1600
Research: Theories of Language and Etymology in the Middle Ages, particularly in the construction of history, shared identity and nationality.
Aisling Byrne
Email: anb36 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1400
Research: Other Worlds in British and Irish Romance.
Megan Leitch
Email: mgl25 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: Treason in Fifteenth-Century Prose Romance.
Laura Ashe
Email: la211 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 900-1500
Research: My thesis was on eleventh- and twelfth-century insular and Norman texts (French and Latin: Fantosme's Chronicle, the Romance of Horn, the Roman d'Eneas, the Song of Dermot and the Earl, Gerald of Wales' Expugnatio Hibernica, Wace's Rou, and, oddly, the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as lots of comparative stuff) and I try particularly to be interdisciplinary in history and literature: the stuff I write is, I think, cultural history. I have a lot of ideological things to say about that, and about the old text/context debate, but I'll spare you here. I'm now writing a few papers - on Chaucer among other things - and looking for a second big project. Which may be in the Renaissance... or may not. Perhaps I shall hit the thirteenth century next and move forward in an orderly manner.
Mary Flannery
Email: mcf28 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: I am most interested in the relationship between fifteenth-century English law, literature, history, and politics, particularly from 1377 to 1509. My MPhil thesis focused on the relationship between poet and patron as it is portrayed in John Lydgate's Fall of Princes. Currently, I am researching the role of fama in the same text, and this work has introduced me to the study of rumour, gossip, and the medieval ordeal. Other interests include Arthurian romance and Shakespeare's history plays (particularly the Henriad). I am proficient in modern Spanish and Italian, and am trying desperately to acquire some Latin.
Julian Hendrix
Email: jh421 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: King's College, Cambridge
Period: 500-1100
Research: My dissertation is on monastic liturgy for the dead in the Carolingian period. Wider interests include: early medieval cultural history with particular focuses on monasticism, ritual, Iberia, and Italy.
Sarah James
Email: sj206 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1500
Research: 15th-century religious writing in English; Lollardy; female education and learning in 14th-15th centuries; hagiography. Languages: some Old French/Anglo-Norman; medieval Latin.
Hope Johnston
Email: rogue_river (@juno.com)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 900-1500
Research: I am interested in medieval Scottish texts, references to geography and allusions to music in medieval writing. I've studied Old and Middle English, Old French and Latin.

I received my BA in English from the College of William & Mary (1995); MA in English and American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1998); MPhil in Medieval and Renaissance Literature from the University of Cambridge (2003). Between my degrees I worked as a researcher for AT&T Law and Government Affairs in Washington, DC.
Nicola Jones
Email: nicolajones (@fastmail.fm)
Institution: Department of Italian, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: I am currently working on the development of the short story collection in late Medieval Italy and France. I'm interested in the potential for reading the framework of exchange so characteristic of the genre alongside the actual movement and gift-giving of the manuscripts themselves. I'm particularly focusing on the potential of the frame to trap/position the reader within a particular approach to the text. Within this general theme, I'm also interested in the role of illustration within the framwork of the medieval text. I work mainly in Italian and French, but also make use of English, Spanish, German and some (limited, but getting there!) Arabic source material. More specifically, the texts I'm currently working on are: Italian - Il Novellino; Decameron; Novelle (Sercambi); (Salernitano) French - Les Sept Sages de Rome; Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (1464); L'Heptameron.

Posted 2004-2005

Tom Licence
Email: tol21 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 900-1300
Research: My PhD aims to provide a history of England's hermits c. 970 - c. 1215. Beyond this I enjoy researching all aspects of monasticism from ancient to modern (spirituality, literature, organisation, benefaction etc). Oh - and Oliver Cromwell.

Posted 2004-2005

Helen Martin
Email: hmm25 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: My PhD research focuses upon the history of fifteenth-century English towns. I am considering how late medieval, urban governments created a corporate civic identity through their records, artwork and buildings. In particular, my thesis concentrates upon Bristol, Chester and Norwich, but I am also considering other late medieval towns. Last year I completed an MA in Late Medieval Studies from the University of York and my dissertation was entitled 'John Carpenter's Liber Albus: the civic context'. My dissertation examined this London custumal in detail, with particular reference to the earlier political context of Richard II's seizure of London's liberties in 1392 and the Northampton-Brembre disputes of the 1370s and 1380s.

Posted 2004-2005

Simon Meecham-Jones
Email: stmj2 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1500
Research: Chaucer and Gower; Medieval Latin lyric; Historical linguistics/ language and cultural contact.

Posted 2004-2005

Maria-Kristina Perez
Email: mkp24 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: French Department, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 900-1100
Research: I am researching the transmission of the role of Morgan la Fey from Celtic Sovereignty Goddess to Old French/Middle English representations. I hope to expand the study to include translations into Old Norse, Spanish and Italian as well.

Posted 2004-2005

Aleks Pluskowski
Email: agp21 (@cam.ac.uk)
Website: www.beasts-in-the-woods.org
Institution: Department of Archaeology/Clare College
Period: 700-1500
Research: 1) Medieval ecology: the diversity of human-animal-environment relationships across Europe, focusing on a range of environmental and social contexts from the 11th-15th centuries, using archaeological, artistic and written sources supported by ecological and ethological analogues.

2) Physical and conceptualised predator-prey relationships in medieval culture and comparisons from other societies, including present-day Europe and North America. My Ph.D. explored human responses to the wolf and its environment in Britain and Scandinavia from the 8th-14th centuries.

3) Religious diversity across medieval Europe, particularly exploring the spectrum from pagan-Christian in Scandinavia and the Baltic region from the Viking Age into the late medieval period.

4) Seigneurial culture and expressions of �lite identity in art, literature, architecture and landscapes, with a focus on hunting in northern Europe, particularly from the 11th century.

Additional languages: fluent Polish, enough French and German for academic reading but not really conversation. Have experience of Old English, Old Norse and Latin through PhD research.

Posted 2004-2005

Christof Rolker
Email: cr314 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution:Queens'
Period: 700-1300
Research: Medieval canon law; intellectual history 11th/12th c.; medieval marriage. France is my major geographical area of interest.

Languages include Latin, German, French, Italian, and Greek.

Posted 2004-2005

John Spence
Email: jbws2 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English and Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1500
Research: I am in the third year of my PhD, studying Anglo-Norman historical literature in prose, mostly from the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. I am particularly interested in the conceptual frameworks of these texts and their connections with English noble families. My MPhil looked at representations of giants in Anglo-Norman and Middle English chronicles and romances, and I remain interested in romances. I am also enthusiastic about Chaucer and fifteenth-century English poetry.

Posted 2004-2005

Anke Timmermann
Email: at364 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: HPS, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: My research focuses on late medieval alchemical poetry (fifteenth century) and its reception in Britain and continental Europe up to the mid-seventeenth century. Interdisciplinary approach (my background is in English literature and linguistics, Philosophy and Maths), multilingual materials (the majority of texts I am working on are written in English, but I am also considering Latin, French and German versions � interest in early modern practice of translation and adaptation of scientific texts).

Posted 2004-2005

Sandy Vaughan
Email: sandy_vaughan (@yahoo.com)
Institution: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1300
Research: My PhD research concerns the three versions of the life of St Dunstan written in England between 1090 and 1130. My primary interests are the way in which meaning is conveyed within each text and the influences upon each writer's use of their source material. My wider concern is the cultural and religious history of England from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the aftermath of the twelfth century civil war (c1000 - 1200) and the reflection of this period within contemporary Latin historical writing. I have some German, a little French and hopefully improving Latin.

Posted 2004-2005

Katie Walter
Email: klw35 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1300-1500
Research: I am currently researching the 'Medieval Mouth' in late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century English material, with a specific focus on Piers Plowman, Mirk's Festial and Lydgate's The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man. I am also interested in the medieval phyisological and natural philosophic understanding of the mouth, and hope to do some work on medieval dentistry.

More generally, my research interests include the body, notions of the sacred and the grotesque, and the medieval English mystical tradition. My modern French is passable, so I hope to branch out into medieval French texts at some stage too.

Posted 2004-2005

Paul Webster
Email: pw235 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 1100-1300
Research: My PhD is focused on the piety of the Angevin kings of England c.1154 - c.1216, in particular that of King John. By using a combination of chronicles and administrative sources, I am seeking to approach the subject from a range of different angles, and to consider the development of royal piety over time, as well as comparing Angevin piety with that of other European kings, in particular those of Capetian France.

Posted 2004-2005

Charles West
Email: cmaw2 (@cam.ac.uk)
Institution: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, UK
Period: 700-1300
Research: My research interests focus on the comparative post-Carolingian (c.850-1100) political development of the regions of Champagne and Upper Lotharingia (broadly from the Ile de France across to the Vosges). This research seeks to address the problematic of the mechanism and meaning of the transformation of the Carolingian world, at the local level. At present I am looking at the transformation of the institution of advocacy: counties and the principalities are next on the list. Thematic interests include the vexing question of 'the public' as well as the nature of lordship in these regions.

Posted 2004-2005