Contact
Expertise Summary
My expertise is in name-studies, with particular focus on place-names and their potential as tools for understanding past landscapes and medieval society and culture. My research and publications include etymological analyses as well as (collaborative) interdisciplinary explorations and I am particularly interested in developing methodologies that incorporate multiple disciplines.
Outreach and Public Engagement
I have contributed to public engagement and knowledge exchange activities associated with various projects, most recently The Place-Names of Shropshire (funded by the AHRC, 2013-16), and Learning the Landscape through Language (AHRC Follow-on Funding, 2019-21), working with schoolteachers and other educators in Shropshire. I am also currently involved in the Nottingham Schools, City and Slavery project (QR Funding, 2020-21), and the Place-Names of Staffordshire project, working with volunteers in Stafford and Lichfield.
Recent public talks and events include: 'Exploring the place-names of southern Shropshire' (with Jayne Carroll), St Laurence's Church, Ludlow, 19 November 2019; U3A Study Day focusing on place-names (with colleagues from the INS), University Park, Nottingham, 26 June 2018; 'Assembling Vikings: Thinking through Things in the East Midlands', part of the Bringing Vikings Back to the East Midlands lecture series at Lakeside Arts Centre, University of Nottingham, 6 December 2017.
Teaching Summary
My teaching focuses on name-studies and medieval languages and history.
Undergraduate modules taught
At Level 1 I contribute to Beginnings of English, one of our core modules, and to The Viking World. I teach on the Names and Identities module at Level 2 and the English Place-Names module at Level 3, as well as supervising undergraduate dissertations.
Postgraduate modules taught
At MA level I teach Research Methods in Viking and Early Medieval English Studies, and Place-Names in Context.
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome students interested in name-studies, particularly any aspect of place-name research, or students hoping to use onomastic evidence effectively as part of an interdisciplinary methodology.
Research Summary
I am based in the Institute for Name-Studies, and my research focuses on English place-names and the use of onomastic evidence in multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, especially in the study of… read more
Current Research
I am based in the Institute for Name-Studies, and my research focuses on English place-names and the use of onomastic evidence in multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, especially in the study of medieval history and landscape. I supervise students with a focus on Name-Studies, medieval landscape and history, and Viking Studies.
Past Research
My principal area of research is in place-names, and I have published work on etymology and on the wider significance of names for our understanding of the evolution of the landscape. I am especially interested in early medieval society and culture, the ways in which the evidence of place-names can contribute to their study, and the potential for a rigorous onomastic approach to inform and clarify interpretations, supplementing and testing the evidence of other disciplines. Much of my work therefore explores ways of bringing together and comparing data from different disciplines and examines the limits and possibilities of interdisciplinary methodologies.
My early publications made particular use of archaeological and onomastic evidence to throw light on the early post-Roman period in Britain and the identifiable cultural changes, to examine the potential for these forms of data to be used successfully in conjunction, and to test the basis for existing theories on issues such as place-name chronology.
I have worked in the Institute for Name-Studies (INS) since 2005.
From 2005 to 2008 I was Research Fellow on the Beyond the Burghal Hidage project, a collaboration between the INS and UCL Institute of Archaeology, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The aim of this project was to develope a multidisciplinary methodology in order to assess the wider landscape context of Anglo-Saxon civil defensive initiatives.
From 2009 to 2012 I worked on another Leverhulme Trust-funded project, Landscapes of Governance, involving colleagues at the INS, UCL and the University of Winchester. This built on the approach established by Beyond the Burghal Hidage, examining early medieval sites of public judicial assembly across England.
From January 2013 to December 2017 I worked on the Place-Names of Shropshire, funded by the AHRC and involving colleagues at the Institute for Name-Studies and the University of Wales. The project will bring to completion the English Place-Name Society county survey of Shropshire, begun by the late Margaret Gelling in the 1960s, with the publication of the final five volumes.