Current Research
My research is focused on the religious practices and beliefs of lay people in England from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Much of this work has involved investigation of the relationship between orthodox and heterodox pieties. My monograph, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England, offers an interpretation of heterodoxy, in a major Lollard centre, through the close investigation of orthodox religiosities and detailed reconstruction of the social and economic dynamics that underpinned the fragmentation of collective religious life prior to the Reformation. Please see here for further details. I have also written on the nature of godparenthood in late medieval England and how spiritual kinship operated and was understood in relation to other types of kinship and the family.
More recently I have extended the scope of my research to consider the nature and dynamics of piety across the period c. 1400-1640. This led to the publication of a jointly edited collection of essays that highlight the centrality of processes of transition in the experience and practice of religion with the intention of raising theoretical and methodological issues in the study of late medieval and early modern pieties. An authored chapter within this collection investigates the ways in which pre-Reformation religious cultures in small urban centres helped to shape responses to reform and the development of Protestantism and Nonconformity in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Please see here for further details.
Articles and chapters include:
- " 'Love this Name that is IHC': Vernacular Prayers, Hymns and Lyrics to the Holy Name of Jesus in Pre-Reformation England" in E. Salter and H. Wicker (eds), Vernacularity in England and Wales c. 1350-1550, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy (Brepols, 2010)
- 'Lollardy, Orthodoxy and Cognitive Psychology', in M. Bose and P. Horbeck (eds), Wycliffite Controversies (Brepols, 2011)
- 'Heresy and Heterodoxy in Late Medieval Kent' in S. Sweetinburgh (ed.), Late Medieval Kent (Kent History Project, Boydell & Brewer, 2010)
- 'Vice, Virtue and Contemplation', in R. Hanna and T. Turville-Petre (eds), The Wollaton Medieval Manuscripts: Texts, Owners and Readers (Boydell & Brewer, 2010)
- 'Richard Guldeford's Pilgrimage: piety, cultural diversity and cultural change in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century England' (forthcoming)
I am currently working on a larger project that will lead to the publication of journal articles, book chapters and a monograph. This is concerned with exploring the nature and dynamics of cultural dissemination and transmission in locality and region through an investigation of the proliferation of Christocentric piety in late medieval England, in particular, the Mass of the Holy Name of Jesus. I am also interested in questions concerning the nature of memory in the Middle Ages and the application of ideas drawn from cognitive psychology and cognitive anthropology to representations of medieval memory and remembering.
Supervision
I am currently supervising the following PhD students:
- Alan Kissane, 'Sound, Noise and Silence in Late Medieval England' (University of Nottingham Funded, started October 2009)
- Matthew Ward, 'Affinity and commemoration in late-medieval England: the visual representation of Yorkist and Lancastrian livery collars on funerary monuments, church architecture and in documentary sources, c.1450 to c.1500' (University of Nottingham Funded, started October 2009)
- Marianne Wilson, 'The impact of Lincoln Cathedral upon religious practice in the city of Lincoln c.1400-1540' (University of Nottingham and AHRC funded, started October 2009)
Conferences
Conference papers:
'Lollardy, Orthodoxy and Cognitive Psychology', International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 2009
'Some approaches to the relationship between Lollardy and orthodoxy', Lollard Affiliations Conference, The Lollard Society, Oriel College, Oxford, July 2008
'Desperately seeking the "first person" narrative: heresy depositions', International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 2008
'John Foxe, Lollardy, heresy and the construction of Protestantism in Kent', University of Sheffield, John Foxe project workshop, April 2008
' "Love this name that is IHC": vernacular prayers, hymns and lyrics to the holy name of Jesus in pre-Reformation and Reformation England', Reformation Studies Colloquium, York, April 2008
'Cultural diversity, orthodoxy and heterodoxy in pre-reformation Kent', paper presented at Religious History of Britain, 1500-1800 seminar, Institute of Historical Research, November 2007
'The Proliferation of Vernacular Christocentric Prayers, Hymns and Lyrics in 15th and early 16th-Century England' paper presented at International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 2007
'Parochial religion, heterodoxy and Nonconformity in two Wealden parishes', paper presented at the Warwick Parish Research Workshop, University of Warwick, May 2007
'Psychology, Representation and Transmission: how might cognitive approaches contribute to the understanding of late medieval religious beliefs?', paper presented at the 'Social Church Workshop', Oriel College, Oxford, March 2007.
'Vocabularies of Anger and Trauma in the Early Reformation', paper presented at International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 2006
'Lifecycles of Piety: cultural transmission and transition in Richard Guldeford's pilgrimage text', paper presented at International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 2005
'Prayer, Imagination and the Construction of Pious Identities', paper presented at 'Praying and Reading' - A Manuscript Workshop, Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Tudor Studies, University of Kent, March 2005
'Geographies and Materialities of Piety: Exploring conflicting narratives of religious change in fifteenth and sixteenth century England', paper presented at History Department Research Seminar, Exeter University, January 2005 and Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Tudor Studies MA Seminar, University of Kent, February 2005
'Geographies and Materialities of Piety', paper presented at 'Performing Pieties, Practicing Belief' Symposium, School of English, Queen's University Belfast, October 2004
'New forms of Christocentric devotion in late medieval England: intention, expectation, and translation', workshop contribution, 'Recovering Reading' conference on reception histories and medieval texts at Queen's University, Belfast, April 2004
'Clergy, piety and the transmission of new ideas in the Weald of Kent and the Diocese of Canterbury, c. 1420 - c. 1540', paper presented at International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 2001
'Godparenthood, kinship and piety in the Weald of Kent 1450-1540', paper presented at International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 2000
'The diversity of late medieval piety in Tenterden c.1400-c.1550; some implications for Reformation studies', paper presented at History Seminar, University of Kent, 1999
'Heterodoxy and orthodoxy in the Lollard centre of Tenterden c.1420-c.1540', paper presented at London Medieval Society, Autumn Colloquium, 1998
'The social origins of parsimonious piety in pre-Reformation Tenterden', paper presented at Medieval and Tudor Studies Research Seminar, University of Kent, January 1998
'Creating and re-creating communities; parish, piety and identity in pre-Reformation Kent', paper presented at International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 1996
'Method and theory in the reconstruction of family piety in late medieval England', paper presented at 'M6 seminar', University of Manchester, November 1994
'Locating the limits of religious diversity; family piety in the Kentish Weald in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries', paper presented at the Summer Conference of the Ecclesiastical History Society, University of Nottingham, July 1994
'Licit and illicit piety; godly families in the late medieval Kentish Weald', paper presented at Medieval Studies Graduate Seminar, University of York, June 1994
'Approaches to the reconstruction of late medieval belief; individuality versus family and community', paper presented at Medieval and Tudor Studies Research Seminar, University of Kent, February 1993
'Heresy and industry in the countryside; the myth of a Lollard-artisan under-class', and 'Women, family and religion in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century Kent', papers presented at Joint Canterbury-York Graduate Conference, June 1992 and June 1993 respectively
Public lectures
'How Important was Religious Belief in the English Reformation', lecture delivered at the Leicester Grammar Annual Sixth-Form Conference, Leicester Grammar School, May 2007