Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Professor of Medieval History
- Dept of History
- Faculty of S&HS
I joined UCL History as a permanent lecturer in 2002 after studying at the Warburg Institute, UCL and Cambridge. My PhD at the Warbug Institute was on 'Magic at St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, in the Late Middle Ages.'


I work in the area of European medieval magic and astrology, especially in relation to orthodox religion, natural philosophy, medicine and cosmology. I am also interested in the imagery of medieval magic, especially diagrams, and the history of animals in the Middle Ages.
My book Magic in the Cloister. Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (Penn State Press) will be published in October 2013.
In addition I have published an edited collection, The Unorthodox Imagination in Late Medieval Britain (Manchester University Press), articles on learned magic, astrology and the cultural history of animals, and two books with the British Library: Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts and Magic in Medieval Manuscripts.
I'm currently working on a book on animals and demons in the Middle Ages and an article on diagrams in medieval magic texts.
Undergraduate Courses
Europe in Late Middle Ages (ca.1000-1500)
The Medieval Universe
Animals, Demons and the Boundaries of the Human in the Middle Ages
MA Courses
Magic in the Middle Ages
Animals and the Medieval Imagination
Areas of Research Supervision: Medieval cultural history, especially the occult sciences (magic, astrology and alchemy) and their relationships to mainstream religion, natural philosophy, medicine and cosmology; the history of animals.
Theses Currently Supervised:
'Marino Sanudo: The Geographical Knowledge of an Italian Merchant in the Fourteenth Century'
Theses Previously Supervised:
Gold and the Medieval Art Nature Debate
Pet-keeping and Gender in the Middle Ages
01-SEP-2002 | Lecturer in Late Medieval History | History Department | University College London, United Kingdom |
2000 | Doctor of Philosophy | University of London | |
1994 | Bachelor of Arts | University of Cambridge | |
Certificate in Learning and Teaching in HE Part 1 | University College London | ||
1996 | Master of Arts | University College London |