Contact
Biography
I joined the department in 2023, initially as a teaching associate before beginning a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in September 2024. I completed my PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in 2023. I previously completed an MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, as well as undergraduate degrees in History and Classics at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
Research
My British Academy project is on 'The Beginnings of Biblical Interpretation in Northumbria, c.650-800'. Between the establishment of Christianity in the early seventh century and the death of Alcuin in 804 there was a remarkable period of cultural production in the kingdom of Northumbria, particularly in the field of biblical exegesis - the interpretation of the Bible through commentary, glossing, paraphrase and translation. While the biblical commentaries of the Northumbrian monk Bede have received much scholarly attention, no one has yet produced a comprehensive study of the broader development of biblical interpretation in this kingdom. My project will offer a complete reassessment of exegetical material produced in or strongly influenced by Northumbria before the Viking Age, including recently discovered and previously unstudied material. The research will set Bede's writings in their proper context and shed light on larger problems in early English history, including the process of Christianisation and the shifting nature of ecclesiastical and intellectual authority.
The first fruits of this research has recently been published in Early Medieval Europe. My article examines a neglected fragment of a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, which survives as binding material in a later medieval manuscript held in Hereford Cathedral Library. I show that this commentary was copied at Bede's monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow, most likely before 720AD. This makes it a unique witness to the intellectual culture of Wearmouth-Jarrow in the years when Bede was only beginning to establish himself as a scholar.
I am also currently working on my first monograph, which is under contract from British Academy Monographs. This work will offer the first history of the development of the idea of evangelisation in the Latin West from the Early Church to the eighth century. In addition, I am working on a translation of Bede's Retractatio on the Acts of the Apostles for Liverpool University Press. I have previously published on ideas of nationhood and kingship in Bede and contemporary authors, as well as on the development of Christian ideas of marriage in later Anglo-Saxon England. I have further interests across the broad spectrum of early medieval studies, including Old and Middle English literature, early Welsh literature and history, the relationship between England and Ireland, and the influence of the 'Vikings' on the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Teaching
I teach across the whole period from c.400 to c.1100AD. Although early medieval Northumbria (especially before the 'Viking Age') is my heartland, I also enjoy teaching early medieval British, Irish and Scandinavian history, as well as the history of the post-Roman world in the West. I have particular interests in teaching Latin and palaeography (the study of ancient handwriting and book production).
Recent Publications
SAMUEL CARDWELL, 2021. Augustine, Prosper and the Stirrings of Missionary Consciousness Studia Patristica. 119, 117-28