Overview
I specialise in the language, literature and history of medieval Wales. My interests range across early Welsh poetry, historical writing, and manuscripts, as well as early Insular history. I have a special interest in medieval Welsh texts that convey contemporary political views through representations of the Welsh past. I have conducted extensive research on the tradition of Welsh genealogical writing, from the early medieval to early modern period, and this is the subject of my monograph. I am currently a Research Associate working on the earliest poems in the Welsh Merlin tradition.
Biography
Academic positions:
- March 2022 - present: Research Associate, Welsh Merlin poetry project, Cardiff University
- September 2020 - March 2022: Teaching Associate in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge
- October 2017 - August 2020: Junior Research Fellow, Robinson College, Cambridge
- January 2017 - September 2017: Research Associate, Vitae Sanctorum Cambriae project, University of Cambridge
Education and qualifications
- 2019 Postgraduate Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, University of Cambridge
- 2016 PhD Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge
- 2013 MA History, Brown University
- 2012 BA Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge
My research interests include:
- Early Welsh poetry
- Medieval genealogical writing
- Medieval Welsh chronicles
- Welsh manuscripts
- Early Welsh Latin texts (Historia Brittonum, saints' Lives, charters)
- The Anglo-Welsh border in the early Middle Ages
- The native Welsh princes
- The development of Welsh orthography
Publications:
2021
‘Misunderstanding Old Welsh Orthography and Insular Script in the Jesus College 20 Genealogies’, Celtica 33 (2021), 59–96.
2020
2019
'Rheinwg: The Lost Kingdom of South Wales', Peritia 30 (2019), 97–121.
2018
‘The Life of St Dyfrig and the Lost Charters of Moccas (Mochros), Herefordshire’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 75 (2018), 1–37.
‘Gerald and Welsh Genealogical Learning’, in Gerald of Wales: New Perspectives on a Medieval Writer and Critic, ed. G. Henley and A. J. McMullen (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2018), pp. 47–61.
2016
‘The Textual History of the Harleian Genealogies’, Welsh History Review 28 (2016), 1–25.
2015
‘Egerton Phillimore (1856–1937) and the Study of Welsh Historical Texts’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, new series, 21 (2015), 36–50.
‘The Origins of the Compilation of Welsh Historical Texts in Harley 3859’, Studia Celtica 49 (2015), 21–56.
2014
‘A Second Witness to the Welsh Material in Harley 3859’, Quaestio Insularis: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic 15 (2014), 72–91.
‘The Breton Migration: A New Synthesis’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 61 (2014), 101–56.
2012
Reviews
Review of I. Daniel, Llythyr Gildas a Dinistr Prydain (2019), in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 80 (2020), 104–7.
Review of P. Sims-Williams, The Book of Llandaf as a Historical Source (2019), in Morgannwg (2020), 225–9.
Review of Lindy Brady, Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England (2017), in English Historical Review 134 (2019), 947–9.
Review of Lynette Olson, ed., St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales (2017), in English Historical Review 134 (2019), 176–7.