UCD School of History & Archives

Dr Michael Staunton is a medieval historian, specializing in historical and hagiographical writing, intellectual life and the relationship between religion and politics in the middle ages. He has published numerous books and scholarly articles, his most recent book being Thomas Becket and his Biographers (Boydell and Brewer, 2006). He is currently completing a book on historical interpretation in late twelfth and early thirteenth-century England. This project was facilitated by a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship (2008-9) and a Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, New York (2008-10).

After a B.A. and M.A. at University College Cork and a PhD at Cambridge University he worked as Research Associate on the Acta of Henry II and Richard I project at the Faculty of History, Cambridge, and lectured at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. At UCD he has taught survey courses on medieval Europe and specialist courses on medieval Ireland and Britain, biography and autobiography in the middle ages, twelfth-century intellectual life and the crisis of the fourteenth century. He currently contributes to the Level 1 module 'Rome to Renaissance', teaches a Level 2/3 option on 'The Irish and their Neighbours in the Middle Ages' and a course on Research Skills for Level 3 Single Subject Honours students, as well as contributing to the Medieval M.A. and PhD supervision. He received a College Teaching Award in 2010, and in 2011 was appointed Fellow in Teaching and Academic Development.

He is currently completing a book on the historians of Angevin England (1154-1216). It examines how such writers as Roger of Howden, Ralph of Diceto, William of Newburgh, Gerald of Wales, Gervase of Canterbury and Ralph of Coggeshall interpreted events which they themselves lived through, and in particular how they drew on Christian intellectual and literary tradition in doing so. The book seeks to provide i. the first comprehensive analysis of this group of histories; ii. a fresh perspective on such topics as the relations between King Henry II and his sons, reactions to the Third Crusade and attitudes towards 'others' such as the Irish and the Jews; iii. a contribution to the understanding of historical writing and thought in the middle ages. Articles on related subjects are forthcoming.