Research
Research Interest 1
My PhD thesis is a study of Count Geoffrey V of Anjou (1129-51), the first modern study to deal with the 'founder' of the Plantagenet dynasty. In the future I hope to publish a monograph on the subject, and to produce a critical edition of the c.180 charters and other diplomatic texts extant from his reigns as both count of Anjou and duke of Normandy.
I am interested in the nature of non-royal power and authority, and in elite culture, courts and activities more generally, with a focus on the twelfth century. Much of my research is focused on charters and other non-chronicle material, and I am interested in the uses and limits of this kind of evidence, particularly from courts and cultures which did not possess advanced methods of producing these texts.
I am also interested in religious patronage, and how this might intersect with politics and power.
In the past I have also worked on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English material such as Pipe Rolls in conjunction with the earlier evidence of Domesday Book to examine the administrative history of the county of Cheshire, which for many years existed somewhat separately to the rest of England. More recently, I have also worked as a research assistant on the AHRC project 'The Paradox of Medieval Scotland, 1093-1286', for which I catalogued and described several hundred private, royal and ecclesiastical seal matrices pertaining to individuals and groups recorded in this database.