Selected Publications
- International Law in Europe 700-1200 (Manchester, 2022; pbk, 2023)
- ‘The Ordeal of the Lynx: Peacemaking in the Ruodlieb’, Fabula / Les colloques, Fiat pax. Le désir de paix dans la littérature médiévale (2023)
- ‘The Earliest Arbitration Treaty? A Re-assessment of the Anglo-Norman Treaty of 991’, Historical Research, 93 (2020)
- ‘Law or Treaty? Defining the Edge of Legal Studies in the Early and High Medieval Periods’, Historical Research, 86 (2013)
- Peacemaking in the Middle Ages: Principles and Practice (Manchester, 2011)
FRIAS Project
Espionage in the Middle Ages
Espionage is one of the most fundamental principles by which leaders and their political entities obtain and maintain their positions. By gathering, creating, exploiting and protecting intelligence and information, leaders seek to reduce risks, to mitigate threats, to influence others, and to create and use opportunities to win and preserve what they see as their interests. In the modern world, the connection between espionage, diplomacy, and statecraft is well known. The absence of academic literature on spies and espionage in the intense political, social and cultural rivalry of the High Middle Ages (11th to 14th centuries) – a period which saw the emergence of many of the entities we still recognise today – is a significant lacuna. By supplementing literary evidence with historical records and material culture, this project builds up a richer, more diverse, picture of medieval espionage that goes beyond the current historiographical focus on military contexts and revises our understanding of how medieval politics worked.