Biography

I received my BA from Sarah Lawrence College and then went on to do a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in History at the University of Oxford (St John’s College). I taught at the University of Manchester before moving to Toronto where I was a Mellon postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and where I received a post-doctoral Licentiate in Medieval Studies, summa cum laude. I was appointed as a Lecturer in Medieval History at Keele University in 2000 and was promoted first to Senior Lecturer in 2004 and then to Reader in 2007.

Research and scholarship

I am interested in the religious and social history of early medieval Europe, legal and intellectual history; hagiography and the cult of saints; and religious dissent especially between c. 900 and c. 1200.My work to date has focussed on the ‘Gregorian’ reform of the eleventh century, as well as the use of medieval canon law as a tool of polemic. More recently I have undertaken research in the transmission of canon law sources in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries and the place of penance in the reformers’ agendas. I am currently writing a book on the significance of monastic compilers of canon law.


Teaching

Undergraduate:

  • HIS-10030 Historical Research and Writing
  • HIS-10025 Medieval Europe
  • HIS-20072 Saints and Society in Medieval Europe
  • HIS-20062 English Radicals and Writers
  • HIS-20030 The Normans in Europe
  • HIS-20071 Castle and Cloister in Medieval Europe, c. 900-1250
  • HIS-20073 Heresy and Dissent in Medieval Europe, c.1000-c.1250
  • HIS-30024/30025 Encountering the Other: Genocide, Tolerance and the European Perspective
  • HIS-30096/30097 Spirituality and Social Change in the Eleventh Century

Postgraduate:

  • MRes supervision
  • HIS-40002 Approaches to Historical Research

Doctoral research:

I have supervised students on topics dealing with church reform in the eleventh century, identity and romanitas in medieval Europe c.800-1050, the apocalyptic year 1000, Ottonian Germany and other socio-religious topics. I am happy to supervise research into most aspects of religious and social history in the period c.900- c.1200, including the sources and transmission of pre-Gratian medieval canon law.


Publications

BOOKS


Reform and the Papacy in the Eleventh Century: Spirituality and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).

Papacy and Law in the Gregorian Revolution: The Canonistic Work of Anselm of Lucca (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1998).

EDITED BOOKS


Readers, Texts and Compilers in the Earlier Middle Ages: Studies in Medieval Canon Law in Honour of Linda
Fowler-Magerl, K.G. Cushing and M. Brett (eds) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), with authored article.

Bishops, Texts and the Use of Canon Law around the Year 1100, B. C. Brasington and K.G. Cushing (eds), (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), with authored article.

Ritual, Text and Law: Studies in Medieval Canon Law and Liturgy presented to Roger E. Reynolds, K. G. Cushing and R. Gyug (eds), (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), with authored article.

ARTICLES


‘Law and Reform: The Transmission of Burchard of Worms’ Liber decretorum’ in New Discourses in Medieval Canon Law Research: Challenging the Master Narrative, ed. Christof Rolker (Medieval Law and Its Practice; Leiden-New York: Brill, 2019), 33-43.

‘Gabriel Le Bras’ in Great Christian Jurists in French History, Olivier Descamps and Rafael Domingo (eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2019), 421-32.

‘Law and Disputation in the Libelli de lite’, The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration, 100-1234, Danica Summerlin and Melodie Eichbauer (eds) (Leiden-New York: Brill, 2018), 185-194.

‘Monastic “Centres” of Law? Some Evidence from Eleventh-century Italy’, From Learning to Love: Schools, Law and Pastoral Care in the Middle Ages, Tristan Sharp, Abigail Firey and Isabelle Cochelin (eds) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press, 2017), pp. 315-26.

‘Papal Authority and Its Limits’, The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, ed. John Arnold (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 515-30.

‘Law, Penance and the ‘Gregorian’ Reform: The Case of Padua, Biblioteca del seminario vescovile MS 529’, in Canon Law, Church and Councils, Uta-Renate Blumenthal and Anders Winroth (eds) (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 28-40.

‘Looking Behind Recension Bb of Anselm of Lucca’s Collectio canonum’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für
Rechtsgeschichte, kan. Abt., 95 (2009), 29-47.

‘The Problem of Minor and “Intermediate” Collections: the Case of the Collectio canonum Barberiniana’,
in Readers, Texts and Compilers in the Earlier Middle Ages: Studies in Medieval Canon Law in Honour of Linda
Fowler-Magerl, Kathleen G. Cushing and Martin Brett (eds) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 73-85.

‘Pueri, Iuvenes and Viri: Age and Utility in the “Gregorian” Reform’, Catholic Historical Review, 94/3, (2008), 435-49.

‘Polemic versus Episcopal Handbook? Recension Bb of Anselm of Lucca’s Collectio canonum’ in Bishops, Texts and the Use of Canon Law around the Year 1100, Bruce.C. Brasington and Kathleen G. Cushing (eds) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 69-77.

‘Cruel to be Kind: Penance and Excommunication in Gregorian Canonical Collections’ in Proceedings of the Eleventh International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Catania, Italy August 2000, Manlio Bellomo and Orazio Condorelli (eds) (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Subsidia; Vatican City, 2007), 529-38.

‘Of Locustae and Dangerous Men: Peter Damian, the Vallombrosans and Eleventh-century Reform’, Church History, 74 (2005), 740-57.

‘Text and Law’, in Ritual, Text and Law: Studies in Medieval Canon Law and Liturgy presented to Roger E. Reynolds, Kathleen G. Cushing and Richard Gyug (eds)(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 135-40.

‘Anselm of Lucca and Burchard of Worms: Re-Thinking the Sources of Anselm 11, De Penitentia’, in Ritual, Text and Law: Studies in Medieval Canon Law and Liturgy presented to Roger E. Reynolds, Kathleen G. Cushing and Richard Gyug (eds)(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 225-39.

‘Events that Led to Sainthood: Sanctity and the Reformers in the Eleventh Century’, Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages, Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser (eds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 187-96.

‘Anselm of Lucca and The Doctrine of Coercion: The Legal Impact of the Schism of 1080, The Catholic Historical Review, 81 (1995), 353-71.

 

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