School of History

Academic & Teaching staff

Dr Emilia Jamroziak

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History

e.m.jamroziak@leeds.ac.uk

+44 (0)113 34 33592

Biography

I graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Central European University in Budapest and received my PhD from the University of Leeds in 2001. Since then I held a lectureship in medieval history at the University of Southampton, a post of Research Officer at the Centre for Metropolitan History, University of London and I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of History and Classics, University of Edinburgh. I joined the University of Leeds in September 2005 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2008. I am also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

In spring 2009 I held a Fellowship at the Forschungsstelle für Vergleichende Ordensgeschichte.

Research interests

My research focuses on the interactions between religious institutions, especially Cistercian monasteries and the laity from the early twelfth to the late fourteenth century. Geographically my work spans Britain (particularly the North and Scotland), Central-Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic. My 2005 monograph on Cistercian Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire examined the workings of local social networks and reality of 'being a neighbour' of a powerful institution. I have also co-edited with Prof. Janet Burton a volume on the theme of religious and lay interactions in Northern and Western Europe between 1000 and 1400. My most recent monograph Survival and Success on Medieval Borders examines strategies of Cistercian communities on the frontiers of northern Europe. I have just completed a new synthesis of the medieval history of the Cistercian order and it will be published by Pearson in 2012.

Current Research Project

I am currently writing one chapter and co-writing another for the Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order (ed. Mette B. Bruun) and co-editing, with Karen Stöber, a collected volume of studies exploring the roles and strategies of monastic houses on the political and cultural frontiers of medieval Europe.

Beyond Leeds I have been associated with several projects and networks:

Between 2004-2010 I have been a member of the British Academy's Network for Medieval Friendship.

Between 2008-2011 I have been involved in the Continuity, Society, Everyday Life and Religion in Northern Europe, 1450-1600 project of the Academy of Finland and I am co-editing with Prof. Christian Krötzl a volume resulting from it.

I was a member of the international advisory board of the AHRC project 'The Paradox of Medieval Scotland 1093-1286 - Social Relationships and Identities before the Wars of Independence' and I have the same role for the new AHRC-funded project 'Breaking of Britain: cross-border society and Scottish independence 1216-1314' also at the University of Glasgow.

Past Research

Border loyalties and disloyalties: a comparative study

During 2007-08 academic year I completed the project 'Border loyalties and disloyalties: a comparative study', funded by the AHRC/ESRC grant of the Religion and Society programme, which considered the role of Cistercian monasteries on the frontiers of northern Europe. Spanning twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this project explored six case studies of Cistercian foundations in Pomerania and Neumark and on the Scottish-English border focusing on their involvement in the trans-border networks, relationships with the local and external centres of power as well as the impact of wars and other forms of violence on those monastic communities. Listen to my podcast in which I describe the project and some of its results.

The outcomes of the project are a monograph Survival and Success on Medieval Borders: Cistercian Houses in Medieval Scotland and Pomerania from the Twelfth to Late Fourteenth Century and a database of Melrose Abbey charters created by Dr Katharine Keats-Rohan and a collected volume resulting from the conference 'Monastic houses on the frontiers of medieval Europe' which took place at the University of Leeds in September 2008.

Postgraduate Supervision

I would particularly welcome supervision in the following areas:

social and religious history of Northern England and Scotland between 12th and 14th centuries
society and religion in high and late middle ages in Northern and Central-Eastern Europe
Cistercian order

Current PhD students

Kirsty Day: 'The imaginative construction of Franciscan identites in the 13th century' (funded by the AHRC block grant)
Paul Middleton: 'Heresy in the works of Peter Abelard'
Mike Spence: 'The influence of Cistercians on the North Craven'
Richard Thomason: 'Hospitality in a Cistercian abbey: The case of Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds in the later middle ages' (funded by the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award and co-supervised with Kat Baxter from the Leeds City Museums and Galleries).
Audrey Thorstad: 'From medieval castle to aristocratic residence in late medieval and early modern England'
Steve Werronen: T'he Minster and Borough of Ripon after the Black Death'

I also regularly supervise MA dissertations and research projects in the Institute for Medieval Studies.

Teaching

Undergraduate Modules

Medieval Europe (HIST 1090)
Anglo-Norman England (HIST 2210)
Cult of Saints (HIST 2110)
Popular Belief in Medieval Europe (HIST 3290)
Magic & the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (MEDV 3310)

Postgraduate Modules

Manuscript Studies (MEDV 5120)
Monasticism in the Early Medieval West (MEDV 5230)
Politics, Piety, and Profession (HIST5112) [joinly with Dr Paul Cavill]

Publications since 2001

Books

Jamroziak, E.M. (2011) Survival and Success on Medieval Borders: Cistercian Houses in Medieval Scotland and Pomerania from the Twelfth to Late Fourteenth Century, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe series. Brepols.

Jamroziak, E.M. and J.E. Burton (eds.) (2007) Religious and Laity in Northern Europe 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, 2, Brepols and Monash University

Jamroziak, E.M. (2005) Rievaulx abbey and its social context 1132-1300: memory, locality and networks. Brepols.

Articles and book chapters:

Jamroziak, E.M. (2010) 'Spaces of Lay-Religious Interaction in Cistercian Houses of Northern Europe', Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (2010), pp. 37-58.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2009) Cistercian Identities on the Northern Peripheries of Medieval Europe from twelfth to late fourteenth century. In: A. Müller, K. Stöber (eds.) Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities: the British Isles in Context ( LIT Verlag)

Jamroziak, E.M. (2009) Genealogy in the Monastic Chronicles in England . In: R. Radulescu and E. D. Kennedy (eds.) Broken Lines. Genealogical Literature in Medieval Britain , and France, (Brepols), pp. 101-120.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2008) Cistercians and border conflicts: Some comparison between the experience of Scotland and Pomerania . In: J. Burton and K. Stöber (eds.) Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages, Boydell Press, pp. 40-50.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2008) Border Communities between Violence and Opportunities: Scotland and Pomerania Compared. In: R. Unger (eds.) Britain and Poland-Lithuania: Contact and Comparison from the Middle Ages to 1795, Brill, pp. 123-136.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2007) How Rievaulx abbey remembered its benefactors. In: E.M. Jamroziak and J.E. Burton (eds.) Religious and Laity in Northern Europe 1000-1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, 2, Brepols and Monash University

Jamroziak, E.M. (2006) St Mary Graces: a Cistercian House in the Late Medieval London . In: P. Trio and M. De Smet (eds.) The Use and Abuse of Sacred Places in late Medieval Towns, 38 , Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 153-164.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2005) The Networks of Markets and Networks of Patronage in the 13th century England . In: M. Prestwich, R. Britnell, R. Frame (ed.) Thirteenth Century England, 10, Boydell and Brewer, pp. 41-49.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2005) Making friends beyond the grave: Melrose Abbey and its lay burials in the thirteenth century. Citeaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 56, pp. 323-336.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2004) Making and breaking the bonds: Yorkshire Cistercians and their Neighbours. In: Terryl Kinder (ed.) Perspectives for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercians, Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, 11, Brepols, pp.198-206.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2003) Rievaulx abbey as a wool producer in the late thirteenth century: Cistercians, sheep and big debts. Northern History, 40(2), pp. 197-218.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2002) Klosterstiftungen polnischer Adeligen im 12. Jahrhundert: Fragen nach Motiven und "Selbstdarstellung". East Central Europe = L'Europe du Centre-est, 29, pp. 155-166.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2002) Rievaulx Abbey and its Patrons: Between Cooperation and Conflict. Citeaux: Commentarii Cistercienses, 43, pp. 51-72.

Jamroziak, E.M. (2001) Considerate Brothers or Predatory Neighbours? Rievaulx Abbey and Other Monastic Houses in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 73, pp. 29-40.

On-line Publications

Markets and Fairs in Thirteenth-Century England Data Collection, 900-1516, S. Letters, D. Keene, E. Jamroziak , http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/SN 4969.

Reviews in:

Bulletin of International Medieval Research; Journal of Jewish Studies; Reviews in History; Northern History; Catholic Historical Review; Early Medieval Europe; English Historical Review.