Professor Alice Rio

I was born and raised in Paris. I did my PhD at King’s under the supervision of Jinty Nelson; after that I was Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford, then Fellow and College Lecturer at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, before coming back to King’s as a lecturer in 2009.

My first two monographs were Legal Practice and the Written Word: Frankish Formulae, c. 500-1000 (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Slavery After Rome, c. 500-1100 (Oxford University Press, 2017). I am currently working on a history of early medieval Europe (6th-10th centuries AD), told through the lives of various women who moved around between different regions. These experiences of migration took place for all kinds of reasons - joining a convent, getting married, being sold as a slave - but taken together they can help to gain a new kind of insight into the profound changes that took place in the Europe at that time, from Ireland to the Caucasus.

As of October 2022, I co-edit the journal Past & Present, which I joined as a member of the editorial board in 2011. In past years I also served as editor of the Past & Present supplements and book series, as editorial board member for Early Medieval Europe, and as advisory editor for the Cambridge Medieval Life and Thought book series.

Research interests and PhD supervision

I would be pleased to hear from prospective PhD students interested in working on any aspect of early medieval Western Europe. My own areas of interest include:

• The Frankish kingdoms under the Merovingians and the Carolingians
• Slavery and unfreedom
• The history of women and gender
• Law and legal culture
• Literature

But your own research interests don't have to coincide with my own in order for me to be happy to supervise you; the main thing is whether you have a good project.

For more details, please see my full research profile.

Selected publications

• The Formularies of Angers and Marculf: Two Merovingian Legal Handbooks, Translated Texts for Historians 46 (Liverpool University Press, 2008).
• Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages: Frankish Formulae c. 500–1000 (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
• Slavery After Rome, 500–1100 (Oxford University Press, 2017).
• ‘Libre ou non libre dans le royaume des Francs: comment savoir, et pour quoi faire ? Andernach, IXe s.’, in Paulin Ismard et al. eds, Histoire mondiale de l’esclavage (Paris: Seuil, 2021), 101-108.
• ‘Nearly-not miracles of the Carolingian era: a hypothesis’, Haskins Society Journal 32 (2021 for 2020), 1-21 

Teaching

I teach the history of the early middle ages: worldwide in the first year, then working my way in progressively to teach essentially the Merovingians and Carolingians in the third year and at MA level (with some Vikings, slavery, and the sociology / anthropology of the Middle Ages along the way).

Expertise and public engagement

Co-host (with Dr Alice Taylor) of ‘Medieval History For Fun And Profit’, a podcast answering questions sent in by listeners about the middle ages.