Research Interests

With a background in teaching and research spanning the central and later Middle Ages in the Atlantic Archipelago and across Christendom, my current research is a new history of war in Britain c.1100-1400. The reach of this project is broad, taking in: the behaviour of strategic actors, including in military recruitment; the experiences of low-status combatants and war-torn populations; battlefield medicine; battlefields and conflict landscapes; and the shifting patterns of thought concerning personal responsibility in conflict, including post-conflict justice and the history of treason. The project thus excavates the archival and physical remnants of war across the period’s civil and inter-polity conflicts, drawing from legal, environmental, and landscape history, cross-chronological insights, and other disciplines (notably archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, law and medicine). It incorporates extensive new archival research and investigation of battlefields and other conflict landscapes, including those at Evesham (Worcestershire) and Lowther (Cumbria). Elements of this research can be found (Open Access) in two recent articles: ‘The Dark Trophies of The Battle of Evesham, the Northumbrian Cult of Simon de Montfort and the War of the Welsh Marches (1264-1265)’ in English Historical Review, and ‘The Common Law and Civil War in Fourteenth-Century England: The Prosecution of Treason and Rebellion Under Edward II, 1322-1326’, in The Journal of Legal History. This project will lead to my third book. I also work with third-sector organisations committed to preserving, researching, and bringing new audiences to heritage sites and landscapes, notably Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust in Cumbria and, nationally, the Battlefields Trust. Combining this work with my interest in conflict landscape, I lead the Lowther Medieval Castle and Village project, which unites History and Archaeology to uncover the Norman conquest and colonisation of the Kingdom of Cumbria in 1092. Relatedly, I am interested in the history of war tout court, and how understanding the deep (and broad) history of war can inform current thinking. I recently published a chapter in The Cambridge History of Strategy, Volume 1: From Antiquity to the American War of Independence, edited by Isabelle Duyvesteyn and Beatrice Heuser. The series aims to be the first global history of strategic practice and asks whether there is universality in strategic practice, revealing how a longue durée and global view can inform concepts and help overcome potential biases in strategic assessment today.

These interests build on my previous research on the ethics and practice of war, politics, rebellion and revolution in medieval Britain, which focused on the question: what could people do when they were dissatisfied with their government? My work has charted the ideas and actions of different constituencies that tackled rulers who contravened the legal limits of their office or failed in their duty. This includes the role of Magna Carta in political life and revolutionary politics, and the early life of parliament, for instance in my article 'Magna Carta: Its Confirmation at Simon de Montfort's Parliament of 1265', in English Historical Review. My second monograph explored the life of Simon de Montfort earl of Leicester (d.1265), who seized power from King Henry III and established a council to govern with the help of parliament: England's first revolution. Simon amassed a vast popular following, many of whom died with him at the Battle of Evesham fighting as avowed crusaders. The Song of Simon de Montfort: England's First Revolutionary and the Death of Chivalry was published by Picador in May 2019 in the UK and Commonwealth, with publication in the USA following with OUP in September 2019. My first monograph, Bishops in the Political Community of England, 1213–1272, was published with OUP in January 2017. This explored the role of bishops in rebellion and revolution in thirteenth-century England, looking at the interaction of political thought and action in the age of Magna Carta and the Montfortian revolution.

Read more about my work via Georgina Capel Associates Ltd, and via my Bookshop.org page, where you can also see my recommended reading on the Middle Ages.

Career Details

I'm a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and enjoy writing for and speaking to a broad public audience, through TV, radio and print. I've appeared on BBC2's Digging for Britain, BBC Radio 4's In our Time, and various documentaries, as well as podcasts, including BBC History Extra (see 'Web Links', below, for highlights). In 2020 I was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in History, and in 2022 I was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. I joined Lancaster in 2017; previously I was at the University of East Anglia, where I was a researcher on the AHRC's Magna Carta Project, and from 2012-13 I was a researcher on the People of Northern England database 1216-1286, part of the AHRC's Breaking of Britain project, which explored the period leading up to the Scottish Wars of Independence. I undertook an AHRC-funded PhD at King's College London with joint supervision at University College London, and was Thornley Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.

Research Grants

I am currently working on four projects.

• My major ongoing project explores war in Britain c.1100-1400. This takes in: the behaviour of strategic actors, including in military recruitment; the experiences of low-status combatants and war-torn populations; battlefield medicine; battlefields and conflict landscapes; and the shifting patterns of thought concerning personal responsibility in conflict, including post-conflict justice and the history of treason. Funded by a Philip Leverhulme Prize, it incorporates extensive new archival research and investigation of conflict landscapes. It will lead to a new book, with preliminary articles and chapters appearing in 2023-25 (see 'Publications', below).
• The Lowther Medieval Castle and Village Project unites an array of evidence and methods - from archaeology to archives, landscape and sculpture - to investigate the North Park at Lowther Castle and Gardens in Cumbria. The park contains a ringwork castle and attached village potentially dating to the conquest and colonisation of the Kingdom of Cumbria by the Normans in 1092, and overwriting an early medieval Cumbrian church site. The project is funded by the Castle Studies Trust, the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, and the Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust, and brings together Lancaster University, Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust, UCLan, and Allen Archaeology.
• Archives of the Borderlands, with Prof Fiona Edmonds at Lancaster, investigates the extensive medieval archives of three houses on the Anglo-Scottish border: Alnwick, Howard and Lowther. It is funded by the Friends of the Cumbria Archive Service.
• 'The Records of the Medieval Duchy of Lancaster' investigates the medieval origins of the Duchy of Lancaster, and is a collaboration involving the University of Lincoln, Lancaster University (including its Regional Heritage Centre), the University of Cambridge and The National Archives (UK). It incorporates two projects at Lancaster (with Fiona Edmonds): ‘The Duchy of Lancaster’s Lancashire Records, 1267-1348’, funded by the Society of Antiquaries of London, and ‘Settlement and Landscape in Medieval Lancashire: The Records of the Forest Justice’, funded by the Medieval Settlement Research Group.

Web Links

BBC History Extra podcast: 'The Second Norman Conquest' - the conquest of the Kingdom of Cumbria by William Rufus in 1092

BBC History Extra podcast: 'Dismemberment and disgrace: The grisly fate of Simon de Montfort'

BBC2's Digging for Britain (S11E1): consulting for and appearing on an extended feature on the Lowther Medieval Castle and Village Project

BBC Radio 4's In Our Time: The Second Barons' War

History Hit: Rebellion in the North (Ep1, 'The Harrying of the North')

Channel 4: Bone Detectives: Britain's Buried Secrets (S1E3: A Hampshire Cemetery)

Cabinet Office podcast with Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, 'Why Parliament Works'

BBC History Extra podcast: 'Simon de Montfort's Medieval Revolution'

BBC History Weekend: 'Simon de Montfort and England's First Revolution'

Channel 4: Walking Through History (S4E5, 'King John's Ruin')

BBC's Democracy Day: showcasing the 'first House of Commons' in 1265, with live interviews in Westminster Hall on BBC Breakfast, and consulting for and appearing in an extended feature for BBC Parliament and Daily Politics, a radio version of which was also aired on the Today Programme.

External Roles

• Co-convenor of the Late Medieval Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research.
• Secretary of the Pipe Roll Society.
• Trustee of Lowther Castle and Gardens Trust.
• Panel Member, Battlefields Trust's Battlefields Panel, providing expert advice on battlefield research, development threats, and strategy and policy.
• Council Member and Trustee, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society.
• Member of the AHRC-funded research network Noblesse Oblige? 'Barons' and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia.
• Member of the AHRC-funded research network Treason. A Global History.
• Member of Steering Committee, Northern Network for the Study of the Crusades.
• Editorial Advisory Board member: History: The Journal of the Historical Association
• Advisory Board member: International Journal of Military History and Historiography.
• Editorial Board member: Diplomacy and Statecraft.

Current Teaching

In 2024-25, I am teaching 'Death: From the Fall of Rome to the Reformation' (HIST216) and 'Crusade and Jihad: Holy War in the Middle East, 1095-1291' (HIST208), and contribution sessions on the High Middle Ages and Disputed Histories: Death in the Middle Ages to 'From Medieval to Modern: History and Historians' (HIST100), and sessions on English judicial and government records, and on canonization proceedings, to the MA module 'Medieval Primary Sources: Genre, Rhetoric and Transmission (HIST424). For enquires about the modules 'From Rebellion to Revolution: The War for the Throne, 1199-1265' (HIST316) and 'Warfare in the Medieval World, 1100-1500' (HIST444), please contact Dr Lorenzo Caravaggi.

New module for 2024-25: 'Death: From the Fall of Rome to the Reformation’ (HIST216). What does it mean to die? Does it hurt? Is it frightening? Will I see those I love again? What does it mean to kill, whether an enemy, a friend, or myself? Death is a universal human experience, a cataclysm, triumph or adventure we all confront. But how we do that has varied vastly across history. In the European Middle Ages, the Church’s doctrines shaped ideas of death, from burial in the consecrated ground of churchyards to the theology of heaven, hell and purgatory. The living and the dead were a community: those on earth could speed the dead through their passage in the afterlife, and those in heaven could intercede for the living. Yet at the margins lay a shadowy world, in which the restless dead returned to haunt those left on earth, and the despairing took their lives in an act known as ‘self-murder’. In this module, we explore varied experiences of death across the medieval centuries in the Christian West, from end-of-life care to execution, and from battlefields to the Black Death. And we discover the different means of investigating death, from the chronicles that describe the walking dead, to the archaeology of burial practice, and from murder trials to palaeogenetics, unlocking the passage of disease. This is, by nature, a disturbing field of study. But what we learn cuts to the heart of what it means to be human – in the past and today.

Qualifications

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

PhD Supervision Interests

I welcome enquiries from potential doctoral and postdoctoral candidates interested in the military, political, landscape and legal history of Britain, western Europe and the crusader states c.1100-1400.

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