Thomas Kearns

• History Department, Durham University
• Email: thomas.r.kearns@durham.ac.uk

I am using two collections of anonymous Old English sermons as sources to study and reassess our understanding of monastic reform in late-tenth-century England (950-1000). I specifically am attempting to settle long-standing debates about their geographical origins and their uses while also setting out their attitudes to Church hierarchy, lay religiosity, and theology alongside the views of other English writers in this period. The collections have not been studied in much detail for the historical value of their contents but I propose that by setting their ideas in their historical context we can see that a traditional ‘black-and-white’ understanding of reform in later Anglo-Saxon England simplifies a very complex intellectual and cultural landscape.

Supervisory Team: Dr Helen Foxhall-Forbes, History (Durham), Dr Erik Niblaeus, History (Durham)

Start Date: October 2016