UCL History Welcomes John Merrington as Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

John’s Leverhulme project considers medieval ideas of progress. The Middle Ages are often imagined as an era of social and cultural stagnation. It is perhaps surprising, then, that the men and women of the period were so intensely preoccupied with the notion of progress. John’s project will address this remarkable paradox. Focusing on medieval readings of biblical history, he will show that medieval Christians placed themselves at the vanguard of a process of world-historical development. These ideas mattered beyond the classroom. Medieval Christians used theories of progress to help understand how the Church might evolve in their own time, as well as to understand the ostensibly ‘backward’ mentalities of those – such as Jews and ‘pagans’ – who did not adhere to the Christian way of life. 

John completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Oxford. Between 2018 and 2025, he was an Examination Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He has also held research positions in Princeton, Durham, Vienna and Berlin. His first book (forthcoming with Oxford University Press) asks why the five senses became focal points of moral anxiety in early medieval Europe. The book will be titled Morality and the Five Senses in Early Medieval Europe: the Windows of the Soul. 

Image: Luttrell Psalter (fourteenth century, based at the British Library), folio 74v.