Role
Deputy Head of School of Humanities and Performing Arts
Qualifications & background
B.A. (Hons) in History, University of London
D.Phil in History, University of Oxford
P.G.C.E. in Secondary History, University of London
Roles on external bodies
Member of editorial board and reviews' editor of journal Urban History 1997-2002.
Teaching interests
Early Modern Europe 1450-1700
Reformation Europe
Early Modern France
Late Medieval and Counter Reformation Church History, especially popular piety.
Staff serving as external examiners
External examiner to History Department (taught courses, Ba & MA), University of the West of England, from Sept. 2007.
External examiner for MA in Early Modern European History, History Dept, University of Birmingham, from Sept. 2007.
Examiner for PhD in School of Divinity, University of Aberdeen, Sept. 2008.
Research interests
Wars of Religion in France 1550-1600
Catholic and Counter Reformation Piety in France and Spain 1500-1700
UoP Research group membership
Centre for Humanities, Music and Performing Arts Research (HuMPA)
History
Other research
Chair of European Reformation Research Group 2008-2010
Member of the Society for the Study of French History
Member of Ecclesiastical History Society
Grants & contracts
2006 Gerald Finzi Trust Award of £2,400 for research into chantries and liturgy in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Brittany, France.
2009 Mercers' Company of London grant for History and Chaplaincy to sponsor a lecture series on History and Faith at the University of Plymouth. £2,000.
Award of a residential sabbatical at St Deiniol's Library, March 2011.
Scouloudi Foundation Publication Grant June 2011 to complete Purgatory and Piety in Brittany 1480-1720.
Conferences organised
European Reformation Research Group Conference, University of Northampton, August 2004.
European Reformation Research Group Conference, University of Plymouth, September 2009.
Mercers' Lecture Series for Peninsular Arts, Plymouth 'History and Faith', January to March 2010.
Additional information
My research interests fall within two areas, the French Wars of Religion 1555-1600 and the Catholic and Counter Reformations 1500-1700, particularly in western France. I am currently working on a project entitled 'Purgatory and the Counter Reformation' in which I am looking at Catholic Reform ideas and popular conceptions abouth the destination of the soul after death. I am examining contemporary literature and sermons on purgatory and the afterlife across the period 1500-1700. This is combined with a study of the institutions of post-mortem intercession, chantries, confraternities, charities and and indulgences, within parishes, cathedrals and religious houses, in the province of Brittany.
