Academic Research

Up until recently, I was engaged in research at the University of Oxford, and I'm currently a panel tutor and Course Director at the University of Cambridge, Institute of Continuing Education, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; I am also a member of the Editorial Board of the History of Lincolnshire and of the International Sachsensymposion. 

The main focus of much of my academic work has been the interdisciplinary study of early medieval eastern Britain from c. AD 400–850, making use of all of the available archaeological, historical, literary and linguistic evidence. Key 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; the origins of Lindisfarne and the kingdom of Bernicia; and the importance of metal-detecting and place-names to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon history. I am currently working on an academic monograph on the landscape of Anglo-Saxon and medieval Lincolnshire, including the evolution and development of the Lincolnshire Marsh on the east coast.

In recent years, I have also been increasingly engaged in a new research focus 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 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, 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.

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. I have several further pieces in preparation on this.

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