Having studied at the Universities of Manchester and St Andrews, I held research positions at King’s College London, the University of the Basque Country and the University of Liverpool. I then taught at the University of Kent for eight years before returning to King’s in 2026.

I am a historian of early medieval Europe with broad interests in politics, culture and law. Much of my research focuses on the tenth century, exploring how Western European political, religious and social institutions were transformed and consolidated after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in 888. I have published on historical writing, documentary culture, languages and communication, bishops, and the development of religious law. I’m currently completing a book that examines the relationship between local applications of canon law and the growth of the institutional church between c.900 and c.1050.

My research has been generously funded by the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy.

Research interests

• The Carolingian Empire and its successor states (c.800 – c.1100)
• The institutions of the church and their impact on society
• Canon law and the development of medieval legal systems
• Charters and documentary practices
• Early medieval literature and languages

I would be happy to hear from prospective research students who wish to work on any aspect of European or British history, c.800 – c.1100.

Teaching

I teach modules at all undergraduate and graduate levels that cover many aspects of late antique and early medieval history (c.300 – c.1100), with particular attention to the development of political institutions, social history, legal culture, and the Carolingian and Ottonian periods.

Expertise and public engagement

I am lead convenor of the Earlier Middle Ages seminar at the Institute of Historical Research. I’m also the reviews editor for Early Medieval Europe and an editor of Brill’s Series on the Early Middle Ages. 

Selected publications

‘Languages, communication and power in Ottonian Europe’, in Lenguas e identidades en el Occidente altomedieval. LI Semana internacional de estudios medievales, 15/18 julio 2025 (Pamplona: Publicaciones del Gobierno de Navarra, 2026), pp. 115-37.

‘Bishops, canon law and governance in tenth-century England: the Constitutiones of Oda of Canterbury’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 76 (2025), 25-54.

The Languages of Early Medieval Charters: Latin, Germanic Vernaculars and the Written Word, edited with Robert Gallagher and Francesca Tinti (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

Flodoard of Rheims and the Writing of History in the Tenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

‘Bishops on the move: Rather of Verona, Pseudo-Isidore and episcopal translation’, The Medieval Low Countries 6 (2019), 117-38.