Archaeology and History

Photo of Professor Levi Roach

Professor Levi Roach

Associate Professor

L.Roach@exeter.ac.uk

4318

01392 724318

Overview

My teaching and research interests lie in the history of western Europe (in particular, England, Germany and northern Italy) in the early and high Middle Ages. My research monographs include Kingship and Consent in Anglo-Saxon England (Whitfield Prize 2014 proxime accessit); King Æthelred 'the Unready' (Longman-History Today Prize 2017; Labarge Prize 2017); and Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton University Press, 2021). I have also recently published a popular history of the Normans, Empires of the Normans.

My research has been supported by the AHRC (2017–19) and the Freunde der MGH e.V. (2022). Future projects include an edition of the Anglo-Saxon charters from continental houses, for the British Academy Anglo-Saxon Charters series; and a new edition of the East Frankish/German royal charters 911–1002 for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. I fully expect the latter task to take much of my remaining career.

I can be found on Twitter as @DrLRoach. For trade writing, I am represented by Laurie Robertson at Peters Fraser + Dunlop.

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Research

My background lies in the study of kingship and royal governance, particularly in using charters and other documentary sources for this purpose. Most of my early work was on later Anglo-Saxon England, but I increasingly work on France, northern Italy and (in particular) Germany, and the rich archival materials preserved there. I also have an active interest in modern debates about feudalism and the so-called mutation féodale ('Feudal Transformation/Mutation').

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Supervision

I am happy to supervise students working on the religious and political history of the British Isles and western Europe between c.800 and c.1200, particularly in the following areas:

  • Kingship and governance
  • Charters and diplomatic
  • Religious reform
  • Apocalypticism and prophecy
  • Feudalism and the 'Feudal Revolution/Transformation'

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 |

2024

  • Roach L. (2024) Zur Ausstellung und Datierung von D O I. 50 – Magdeburg, 5. Oktober 950?, Deutsches Archiv fur Erforschung des Mittelalters, volume 80.
  • Roach L. (2024) D O I. 1 – Eine Fälschung der frühen Salierzeit?, Archiv fur Diplomatik, Schriftgeschichte, Siegel- und Wappenkunde, volume 70.

2023

2022

  • Roach L. (2022) The 'Chancery' of Otto I Revisited, Deutsches Archiv fur Erforschung des Mittelalters, volume 78, pages 1-74.
  • Roach L. (2022) Leiheformen und -praktiken in der Reichshistoriographie der Spätsalier- und Frühstauferzeit, Tenere et habere – Praktiken und Konzepte der Leihe (9.–13. Jahrhundert).
  • Roach L. (2022) The Privilege of Liberty in Later Anglo-Saxon England, Magna Carta: New Approaches, Boydell and Brewer.

2021

2018

  • Roach L. (2018) The Ottonians and Italy, German History, volume 36, pages 349-364.
  • Roach L. (2018) Apocalypticism and the Rhetoric of Reform in Italy around the Year 1000, Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Routledge, 167-182.

2017

2016

  • Roach L. (2016) Æthelred The Unready, Yale University Press.

2015

  • Roach L. (2015) The Legacy of a Late Antique Prophecy: The Tiburtine Sibyl and the Italian Opposition to Otto III, The Mediaeval Journal, volume 5, no. 1, pages 1-33.
  • Roach L. (2015) Feudalism, The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed, Elsevier.

2014

2013

2012

  • ROACH L. (2012) Wills and Will‐Making in Anglo‐Saxon England – By Linda Tollerton, History, volume 97, no. 327, pages 479-480, DOI:10.1111/j.1468-229x.2012.00561_3.x.
  • Roach L. (2012) Penance, Submission and deditio: Religious Influences on Dispute Settlement in Later Anglo-Saxon England, 871–1066, Anglo-Saxon England, no. 41, pages 343-371.
  • Roach L. (2012) Submission and Homage: Feudo-Vassalic Bonds and the Settlement of Disputes in Ottonian Germany, History: the journal of the Historical Association, no. 97, pages 355-379.

2011

  • Roach L. (2011) Public Rites and Public Wrongs: Ritual Aspects of Diplomas in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England, Early Medieval Europe, no. 19, pages 182-203.
  • Roach L. (2011) Hosting the King: Hospitality and the Royal iter in Tenth-Century England, Journal of Medieval History, no. 37, pages 34-46.

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External impact and engagement

I enjoy sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm with a wider audience. I have spoken to a variety of local groups over the years, including the Exeter branch of the Historical Association, the Exeter Cathedral, the Boniface Link Group (Crediton) and the South West Trust. I also organised an exhibition on 'Forging the Past in Medieval Exeter' at the local Cathedral in May 2019.

Outside the South-West, I have spoken to audiences from Malmesbury in Wiltshire to Syndey in Australia, including the BBC History Weekend and the Sherborne Historical Society.



Contribution to discipline

  • Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (since 2014)
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (since 2015)
  • Member of the British Academy Anglo-Saxon Charters Committee (since 2016)
  • Member of the Viking Society for Northern Research (since 2017)
  • Associate Editor of Anglo-Saxon England (since 2020)
  • Associate Editor of Journal of British Studies (since 2023)
  • Member of the Advisory Editorial Board, History Today (since 2023)
  • Review Editor, The Medieval Review (2017–19)

Media

I regularly write for a wider audience, publishing articles and reviews in History Today, BBC History Magazine, the Literary Review and the Times Literary Supplement. I have also been quoted in the Mail Online and Independent, and appeared on BBC World and BBC Radio 4's When Greeks Flew Kites, discussing medieval promises and modern misuses of the Middle Ages.

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Biography

I studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, completing my PhD at the former in 2011. My doctoral work focused on royal assemblies in later Anglo-Saxon England and a revised version of my thesis was published by the Cambridge University Press in October 2013. From 2011-12 I held a Research Fellowship (Title A Fellowship) at St John's College, Cambridge. In 2012 I took up a lectureship at the University of Exeter.

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