Nicholas Vincent

Medieval history; Plantagenet kingship; Thomas Becket; relics and charters; Magna Carta.

Nicholas Vincent has published two dozen books and some 150 academic articles on various aspects of English and European history in the 12th and 13th centuries.  Having taught at Oxford, Cambridge, Paris and Canterbury, he has been based at UEA since 2003.  For the British Academy, he is engaged in an edition of the charters of the Plantagenet kings and queens, from Henry II to King John.  The first six volumes of this (The Letters and Charters of Henry II) were published in 2020.  A seventh is due to appear early in 2026, and an eighth shortly thereafter.  These are to be followed soon by an edition of the letters and charters of Henry II's Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Gathered from materials scattered internationally across more than 300 libraries and archives, these volumes are intended to enhance understanding of English, French, and northern European history, in the broad period from 1150 onwards.  For the 800th anniversary celebrations of 2015, he led a major project researching the background to Magna Carta, including the discovery of a new original of the charter, now displayed in its own museum in Kent.  In collaboration with Professor David Carpenter of King's College London, in 2026 he authenticated and traced the (extraordinary) origins of another original Magna Carta, discovered by Carpenter in the collections of the Harvard Law Library.  From 2020 to 2025, with Professor Joerg Peltzer (Heidelberg and UEA), he led a project researching the life and letters of 'Richard of Cornwall (d.1271): Germany's First (and Only) English King'. 

At undergraduate level, he teaches courses in medieval British and European History.  He is happy to supervise graduate students in most subjects relating to the period 1000-1300 AD, with an additional and particular interest in medievalism and the post-medieval reception of the medieval past.  He has thus far supervised to completion more than a dozen PhD theses, with ongoing MA or doctoral candidates working on such themes as the court of King Henry III, the reception of the works of Caesarius of Heisterbach, the early accounts of Canterbury Cathedral Priory, and the monastic archives of Revesby and Walsingham.  

He is an elected Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Poitiers, and at the École des Chartes in Paris.  For the year 2027-8, he is elected Ford's Lecturer in British History at the University of Oxford.