Academic Research

I have previously been engaged in research at the University of Oxford, and I'm currently a panel tutor and Course Director in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Institute of Professional and Continuing Education, where I teach undergraduate courses on the medieval period. I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a member of the Editorial Board of the History of Lincolnshire and a member of the International Sachsensymposion. 

A key focus of much of my academic work has been the interdisciplinary study of early medieval Britain, making use of all of the available archaeological, historical, literary and linguistic evidence. Major topics discussed in my published work relating to this include the existence of a British polity in the post-Roman Lincoln region and the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; the nature and degree of Anglian–British interaction in the fifth to eighth centuries; Anglo-Saxon population groups, meeting-places, territories and administrative units in the landscape; and landscape history and archaeology. I am currently finalising the text of an academic monograph on the landscape of Anglo-Saxon and medieval Lincolnshire, focussing on the evolution and development of the Lincolnshire Marsh and Fens on the east coast, developed from research I undertook recently for Historic England/LCC.

I have also been engaged in considerable research relating to long-distance trade, migration & contact, especially with regard to trans-continental trading in Late Antiquity and Britain's pre-modern relationship with the wider world, and you will find a significant number of drafts and posts on these topics on this website. I'm particularly interested in links between Britain and the Byzantine Empire and Islamic world in the medieval era; finds of long-distance imports and coins in Britain; the archaeological and documentary evidence for long-distance migrants in pre-Modern Britain; and the evidence for direct contacts and travel, such as King Alfred's ninth-century embassy to southern India. Some of the fruits of this ongoing research project have already been published, whilst others are in the process of either being published or are currently being written up. In addition to writing up this research as academic papers, I am also working on a book dealing with Britain and the wider world in the medieval period.

Finally, I also have a significant research interest in the medieval Arthurian legend, early Welsh literary and historical texts, and medieval pseudo-histories set in the post-Roman period, with a number of academic pieces published on these topics.

Further details of my research interests and academic publications are available on my Cambridge staff page, and my Academia.edu site.

Selected recent publications

  • (In preparation) Britain and the Medieval World (monograph)
  • (In preparation) 'A long way from home: trade and travel to the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world and beyond', in Travel, Trade, and Commerce in the Early Medieval English World, ed. M. Hyer and G. Owen-Crocker (Liverpool University Press)
  • (In preparation) 'Britain as an "emporium of Byzantium and al-Andalus": the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam and its account of early medieval Britain’s long-distance trading connections'
  • C. Green, 'Alfred the Great's Indian Embassy', History Today 76.3 (March 2026), 16, available online at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/alfred-greats-indian-embassy
  • C. R. Green, 'King Alfred and India: an Anglo-Saxon embassy to southern India in the ninth century', Early Medieval England and its Neighbours (formerly Anglo-Saxon England), 52 (2026), e1, 1-34, https://doi.org/10.1017/ean.2025.5
  • C. R. Green, Land on the Edge: The Landscape Evolution of the Lincolnshire Coastline, Research Report, Historic England project number 8398 (2023), available online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379641016_LAND_ON_THE_EDGE_THE_LANDSCAPE_EVOLUTION_OF_THE_LINCOLNSHIRE_COASTLINE
  • C. R. Green, Land on the Edge: Headline Stories (2023) - summary report for dissemination, available online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379640847_Land_on_the_Edge_Headline_Stories
  • C. R. Green, 'Britain, the Byzantine Empire, and the concept of an Anglo-Saxon "Heptarchy": Hārūn ibn Yaḥyā’s ninth-century Arabic description of Britain', in Global Perspectives on Early Medieval England, ed. K. L. Jolly and B. Brooks (Woodbridge, 2022), pp. 94–114, doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800105089
  • C. R. Green, 'Land on the Edge: mapping a lost landscape of creeks, islands and salt-making sites', Saltcote 10 (2022), 7-10, available online.
  • C. R. Green, 'Early medieval treasures online: strategies for engagement', in The Public Archaeology of Treasure, ed. H. Williams, P. Reavill and S. Clague (Archaeopress, 2022), pp. 118-37, available online at https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803273105
  • C. R. Green, 'Al-Idrīsī’s twelfth-century description and map of Lincolnshire', Lincoln Record Society News Review 18 (2021), 2-4, available online.
  • C. R. Green, Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400-650, second edition (Lincoln, 2020), available online.
  • C. R. Green, 'A medieval New England: the Anglo-Saxons’ eastern odyssey', BBC History Magazine (December 2019), 43–47, available online
  • &c.
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