About us
Danica Summerlin, University of Sheffield
Danica's University staff page
My research interests focus on ecclesiastical – or canon – law in the period between around 1000 and 1300. In particular, I’m interested in questions of the overlap of religious and secular laws, how papal authority has been constructed and then experienced across what is now Europe, and how historians can employ legal texts and ideas to understand the papacy, the Catholic Church, and religion more generally.
Together with Matt, I organised a series of Leeds IMC sessions on the sources of legal authority a few years ago, which eventually morphed into this project.
Although I’m ostensibly the PI for this project, which is being run out of Sheffield, it’s very much a collective endeavour amongst us and the network rather than being ‘mine’.
Matt McHaffie, University of St Andrews
My research interests centre on customary law in France over the period 950–1250, with particular focuses on the intersections between customary law and political structures; the overlap between customary law and so-called learned law; and the roles played by law and institutions in shaping and constraining the exercise of power.
This project is the (significantly) more mature endeavour that grows out of a strand of Leeds IMC sessions exploring ideas of legal authority comparatively across legal systems organised by Danica and me a number of years ago.
Alice Taylor, King’s College London
I’m broadly interested in the intersection between law and government in Europe during the central Middle Ages, and particularly in how far developing governmental forms affect the content and scope of law over the 12th century. I have a longstanding interest in Scotland, and have spent far too long editing and translating the earliest texts surviving from the Scottish kingdom.
I became involved in this project through participating in a ridiculously interesting round table at the International Medieval Congress in 2017. I then helped to write the bid for this project, and here we all are.
Jason Taliadoros, Deakin Law School, Deakin University, Melbourne
I research the history of legal ideas in their historical and religious contexts, particularly the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the European High Middle Ages. I am particularly interested in the intersection of legal ideas in the nascent English common law with the IUS commune.
I became interested in the notion of multi-legalism when invited by organisers Danica and Matt to be part of a roundtable at the 2017 International Medieval Congress reflecting on the meanings of ‘legal authority’. This brought together my tentative explorations into legal theory with my previous research in medieval legal history.
Helle Vogt, University of Copenhagen
My research covers Danish and Nordic legal history from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, but my special interest is comparative studies of Nordic law and legal practice primarily in the High and Late Middle Ages. A big part of my work has focused on penal laws, kinship, the construction of family, and how local law interacted with religious norms and learned law. I have been in charge of translating and publishing the Danish provincial laws into English.
I have been working with Matt in several projects about medieval law and known Danica for years, and I was more than happy to join this great project.