Professor Sophie Page

Sophie Page joined UCL History as a permanent lecturer in 2002 after studying at the Warburg Institute, UCL and Cambridge.

Sophie works in the area of European medieval magic and astrology, especially in relation to religion, natural philosophy, and cosmology. She is also interested in the imagery of medieval magic, especially diagrams, and in the history of animals.

Sophie's publications include Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (2013), two edited collections, The Unorthodox Imagination in Late Medieval Britain (2011) and the Routledge history of Medieval Magic and two books published with the British Library: Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts and Magic in Medieval Manuscripts. Sophie is currently working on a book on Nature and Magic in Medieval Europe. Sophie was the curator of Spellbound: Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft (Ashmolean Museum, August 2018 –January 2019)

PhD supervision

Sophie is interested in receiving research proposals from prospective students on topics in medieval cultural and intellectual history, especially on the occult sciences, the visual culture of magic and the history of animals.

Current students: Jacqueline Derrick, 'Marino Sanudo: Merchant Manuals, Crusade Proposals, and Geographical Knowledge in the Fourteenth Century', Jack Ford, 'The five senses and "affectivity" in the late Middle Ages' and Vanessa Silva Baptista, ‘A Cultural History of Magic Tricks in the Late Middle Ages’

Previous students: Kathleen Walker-Meikle, 'Late Medieval Pet-Keeping: Gender, Status, and Emotions'

Major publications

• ‘Medieval Magic Figures: Between Image and Text’ in S. Page and C. Rider, eds,  Routledge History of Medieval Magic (2019), pp.432-7
• ‘Love in a Time of Demons: Magic and the Medieval Cosmos’ in S. Page and M. Wallace, eds, Spellbound; Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft (2019), pp.19-63
• Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe, University Park: Pennsylvania State Press, (2013).
• Good Creation and Demonic Illusions: The Medieval Universe of Creatures', in B. Resl and L. Kalof, eds, A Cultural History of Animals, vol. 2, The Medieval Age (1000-1400) (2007), pp.27-57.

For a full list of publications, see Sophie's Iris profile.

Grants/projects

2015-18: Co-investigator on the three-year Leverhulme-funded research project Inner Lives: Emotions, Identity, and the Supernatural, 1300-1900.

Media and Public Engagement

• The Lost Species Handbook and Lost Species Mask kit: a collaboration with artist Lucy Orta (free downloadable resources)
• Curator of the exhibition, Spellbound: Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft at the Ashmolean Museum (2018-9)
• UCL European Institute video, Angels, Demons and Hungry Dogs: Magic in the Middle Ages (2019)
• Website design and text, http://medievaluniverse.com/
• Contributed text to Hayden Chisholm’s musical interpretation of the medieval cosmos, The Medieval Jukebox 
• Collaboration with artists Annie Cattrell and Katharine Dowson on a film and sculpture: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/magical-thinking-past-and-present

Teaching

• The Medieval Universe (second and third-year undergraduate thematic module)
• Magic, Science and Witchcraft in late Medieval Europe (second-year research seminar)
• Magic in the Middle Ages (MA Medieval and Renaissance Studies elective module)
• Identity, Cosmology and the Supernatural (Special Subject: third-year paper)