Academic interests
I work on the history of lordship in late medieval France, especially during the first half of the Hundred Years' War (c. 1337–1453). I'm interested in how both women and men acquired, distributed, and understood power in an aristocratic context, and how these complicated norms and relationships can help us push back against simplified views of politics in this period.
My first book project used the legal and administrative records of Duchess Jeanne of Brittany (c. 1326–84) to examine the interplay between rank, gender, and collaborative power within a single individual's career. Whereas we often focus on how medieval princes tried to act as much like kings as possible, I show that princely power could instead depend on adapting flexibly to a variety of contradictory demands. This malleability also continued to play out in the chronicle accounts that later attempted to make sense of the problems of legitimate lordship in a period of internal conflict.
Since then, I've expanded to constructing regional profiles of the lesser aristocracy across this diverse kingdom, starting with Languedoc in the south. The capital city of Paris has so successfully taken over the French national story that the ongoing importance of local lordship has been largely overlooked, particularly in the late Middle Ages when many European kings supposedly began centralizing their power on the way to creating modern states. But because lords were still the first port of call in the maintenance of public order, I argue it was just as necessary for the royal government to support their authority and reinforce traditional frameworks of political interaction.
Building on these issues of reciprocity and delegation, I am currently researching co-lordship, where two (or more!) lords held power in the same lordship. This collective authority was common across France and beyond, but historians have long assumed that such fragmentation of power was a disadvantage. I propose instead that its persistence was a method for satisfying the complicated needs of local elite families, and am identifying and comparing patterns in this practice to better define the contexts in which it functioned best.
My work is heavily based on original archival research, and I have produced several critical editions of charters, financial accounts, and legal texts. I am also interested in how digital methods for quantitative and spatial analysis can enhance our understanding of lordship as the fundamental basis for power for several centuries of European history.
Teaching and supervision
Courses at UiO
- HIS1200: Interrogating Joan of Arc (særemne for Eldre historie fram til ca. 1800)
- HIS2125/4125: Power, Violence and Politics during the Viking Raids and the Hundred Years’ War
- HIS3090: Advanced Thesis in History
- HIS4217: History of the World in the Year 1000
Areas of supervision
- Medieval politics and political culture
- Medieval gender history
- Chronicles, charters, and editions
- Digital and quantitative methodologies
- Premodern France
- Medievalism/reception history
Doctoral theses supervised
- Ysaline Bourgine de Meder, ‘Lords and Lordship in the Bailliage of Caen, 1400–1552’ (Ghent University 2023, co-supervisor)
- Gert-Jan Van de Voorde, ‘Lords and Lordship in Languedoc (1400–1541)’ (Ghent University 2023, co-supervisor)
Background
Education
- PhD in History, University of York (UK), 2017
- MA (distinction) in Medieval Studies, University of York (UK), 2012
- BA (honors) in History with Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Grinnell College (USA), 2010
Previous positions
- Lecturer in Late Medieval History, Durham University (UK), 2021–23
- FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, Ghent University (Belgium), 2020–23: ‘Lordship as Corporative Government across Late Medieval France’
- ERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Ghent University (Belgium), 2016–20: ‘Lordship and the Rise of States in Western Europe, 1300–1600’
Awards and grants
- Gladstone Book Prize (runner-up), Royal Historical Society, 2021
- Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship, Research Foundation – Flanders, 2020
- Overseas Research Scholarship, University of York, 2012
Appointments and affiliations
- Associate Editor, French History
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 2021
- Editorial Board Member, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium
- Member, Society for the Study of French History
Media appearances
‘In Our Time: The Battle of Crécy’, BBC Radio 4
Publications
Books
- Princely Power in Late Medieval France: Jeanne de Penthièvre and the War for Brittany (Cambridge, 2020)
- Lordship and the Decentralised State in Late Medieval Europe, edited with Jim van der Meulen and Frederik Buylaert (British Academy/Oxford, in press)
- Shared Power and Gendered Reputations in the Breton Civil War (1341–1365) (Arc Humanities, under contract)
Articles
- ‘Aristocratic Involvement in Charles VI’s Royal Progress in Languedoc, 1389–1390’, Historical Research 95 (2022)
- ‘Empowering Lordship in the Registers of Homage to Charles VI (Languedoc, 1389–1390)’, French Historical Studies 45 (2022)
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‘Authority, Reputation, and the Roles of Jeanne de Penthièvre in Book I of Froissart’s Chroniques’, Journal of Medieval History 45 (2019)
Book chapters
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‘Prince and Principality in Late Medieval Brittany’, in The Routledge Handbook of French History (Routledge, 2024)
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‘Integrative Approaches to (Co-)Lordship in Late Medieval Languedoc’, in Lordship and the Decentralised State in Late Medieval Europe (British Academy/Oxford, in press)
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‘Dynasties and Dynastic Rule between Elite Reproduction and State Building in Europe’, with Thalia Brero and Frederik Buylaert, in Unions and Divisions: New Forms of Rule in Late Medieval Europe (Routledge, 2022)
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‘Une principauté décentrée? Perspectives offertes par la vicomté de Limoges à partir de 1341’, in Gouverner et administrer les principautés des Aples aux Pyrénées (XIIIe–début XVIe siècle) (Ausonius, 2023).
Critical editions
- Aux origines de la guerre de succession de Bretagne: documents (1341–1342), edited with Michael Jones and Bertrand Yeurc’h (Rennes, 2019)
- ‘Les Comptes de l’hôtel de Marie, duchesse d’Anjou (1365–1366): édition critique du ms. Archives nationales, KK 241’, Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest 132 (2023)
- ‘Charles de Blois et Jeanne de Penthièvre, duc et duchesse de Bretagne et leur vicomté de Limoges: l’évidence des comptes’, edited with Michael Jones, Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest 126 (2019)
Reference works
- ‘Princely Power: Duchies in France’, Routledge Resources Online: Medieval Studies, forthcoming