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About Me

I am a Medieval Historian and Public Engagement Specialist working within Higher Education. My research interests cover late medieval social and cultural history including popular piety, mercantile communities and parish guilds from the late-fourteenth to the early-sixteenth centuries. I am the co-editor of the new Brepols series Reinterpreting the Middle Ages: From Medieval to Neo and I am currently working on a proposal to turn my doctoral thesis into my first book. I hold positions as an Associate Fellow with the Higher Education Academy, as the Engagement and Impact Specialist on the Historical Association’s Higher Education Committee and as the Digital Engagement Fellow with the British Association for Local History.

I have extensive experience in archival research, academic and report writing, educational resource development and media work. In 2019 I was one of the AHRC’s Creative Economy Engagement Fellows at The National Archives (London) and between 2017 and 2020 I was the Medieval Specialist on the £1 million National Lottery Heritage Fund Citizens Project at Royal Holloway, University of London. Since 2016 I have worked with the BBC, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4 and Channel 5, appearing as a featured contributor on programmes including ‘The Bone Detectives: Britain’s Buried Secrets’ and ‘Britain’s Most Historic Towns’. I am also a featured presenter on the History Hub YouTube channel and was recently interviewed for the History Hack podcast.

Recent Publications

Books

The Lincolnshire Guild Returns of 1389 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer for Lincoln Record Society, forthcoming).

Journal Articles

‘Digital Engagement Opportunities in Medieval Local History: A Community -Based Approach’ History: The Journal of the Historical Association, eds. Laura Doak, Hannah Parker, Annemieke Romein and Janet Weston (2021).

‘Developing Public Speaking Skills in Undergraduates: A Two-Day Event’, Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 1: 2 (2017), pp. 117-124

 Chapters in Edited Collections

 ‘The Fetishization of Medieval Fraternal Orders: The Portrayal and Perception of English Guilds, Fraternities and Brotherhoods c.1220 – 2020’ in Bringing ‘Sexy’ Back: Manipulating the ‘Medieval’ as ‘Other’, eds. Claire Kennan and Emma J. Wells (Brepols, 2022).

‘Rethinking “Revolting Peasants”: Medieval Research and Educational Impact in the 21^st Century’ in Decoding the Medieval: Teaching the Medieval in the Modern Age, eds. Claire Kennan and Emma J. Wells (Brepols, 2022).

‘Power, Piety and Presence: The Cult of Corpus Christi and the 1389 Guild Enquiry,’ in Richard II: Politics and Culture, eds. J. S. Hamilton and J. Lutkin (Boydell & Brewer, 2021).

‘On the Threshold? The Role of Women in Lincolnshire’s Late Medieval Parish Guilds’, in Gender: Places, Spaces and Thresholds, eds. Victoria Blud, Einat Klafter and Diane Heath (Institute of Historical Research, 2019), pp. 61-74.

Editorial Work

Series Co-Editor, Reinterpreting the Middle Ages: From Medieval to Neo (Brepols, 2020 onwards).

Book Reviews

Review of Carole Hill, Women and Religion in Late Medieval Norwich (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2017) in Urban History, 46:2 (2019), pp. 358-9.

Review of Anne F. Sutton, Wives and Windows of Medieval London (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2016) in Urban History, 45:3 (2018), pp. 564-6.

Magazine Articles

‘Pandemic in the Parish: A Medieval Approach to Emergency Planning’, History Today, 71:6 (2021).

‘The Long-Term Impact of the Black Death on Towns’, Teaching History, 180 (2020), pp. 40-1.

Media Coverage

Social Media

@ClaireKennan

Country Focus

Britain

Expertise by Geography

England, United Kingdom

Expertise by Chronology

Medieval

Expertise by Topic

Local & Regional, Public History, Religion, Urban History, Women