History

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History 

Office: 106, 24 Gordon Square
Office hour: Mondays, 11-12pm
Or by appointment by email.
External phone: 020 7679 7123
Internal phone: 37123
E-mail: a.sennis@ucl.ac.uk

I am a cultural historian and my main focus is Western Europe in the period 800-1200. I teach the medieval section of the first-year lecture core course, 'From the Ancient Near East to the Twenty-First Century'; a general course on Europe in the Early Middle Ages, 400-1000; a two-term course entitled 'Rome AD 300-1000. Portraits of a City, Reflections of a Changing World'; and I also teach ‘Identity and Power in Medieval Europe, AD500-1300’, a course for the MA in Medieval Studies.

The combined use of a wide range of written and archaeological evidence characterises my past and most recent research. I have worked on: space and memory as ideological tools in medieval Europe; the relationship between power and territory in early medieval western Europe; the medieval Papacy; monastic lordships in medieval Italy; medieval monasteries and their chronicles; the memory of origins and the construction of identities in European monastic institutions.

My main research project at present is entitled The Beauty of Power: Representing Authority in Medieval Europe, c.800-c.1400. By analysing what were deemed to be appropriate (and inappropriate) physical characteristics for a person of authority in different contexts, my aim is to shed light on some of the fundamental principles through which medieval power was conferred, transmitted and legitimised.

I am also studying the practices, dynamics, and ritual patterns of the destruction of documents in early medieval societies.

I am currently the Director of UCL Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I am also co-ordinating editor of the journal Early Medieval Europe, member of the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters of the British School at Rome, and a Corresponding Editor of Reti Medievali. Online Initiatives for Medieval Studies.

Areas of Research Supervision: I would welcome PhD proposals on most aspects of the social, political, cultural and religious history of Western Europe in the period 800-1200 and, particularly, on the writing of history in the Middle Ages; on the relationships between monasteries and elites; on the representations of rulers; on the construction of religious identities; on the rise and development of papal power.

Theses Currently Supervised:

 -Christian Art in the Late Antique World: An Investigative Survey

 -Perceptions of Ethnicity in England and Francia in the Viking Age

 -A Study of Abortion in Late Antique and Early Medieval Europe

Select Publications

- 'Tradizione monastica e racconto delle origini in Italia centrale (secoli XI-XII)' [Monastic tradition and narratives of origins in Central Italy (11th-12th centuries)], Mélanges de l'École française de Rome, 115 (2003)
- '<<Omnia tollit aetas et cuncta tollit oblivio>>. Ricordi smarriti e memorie costruite nei monasteri altomedievali' ['Lost memories and constructed recollections in early medieval monasteries'], Bullettino dell 'Instituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 106 (2004)
- 'Narrating places: memory and space in medieval monasteries', in W Davies, G Halsall and A Reynolds (eds) People and Space in the Middle Ages, (2007) 275 – 294

- ‘The power of time: looking at the past in medieval monasteries’, in A. Müller and K. Stöber (eds.), Self-Representation of Medieval Religious Communities: the British Isles in Context, Vita Regularis, Abhandlungen Bd. 40 (LIT Verlag, 2009)

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