Dr Helen Gittos

BA Newcastle, MSt DPhil Oxf
Associate Professor, Colyer-Fergusson Fellow and Tutor in Early Medieval History

Academic subject(s):

History
  • Core subject area: Medieval history
  • Teaching: I teach undergraduate papers on the Middle Ages, including History of the British Isles I (c.300−1087) and History of the British Isles II (1042−1330). I also teach the first-year papers General History I: 370–900 (The Transformation of the Ancient World) and The Age of Bede, and the second-year paper Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. At graduate level, I supervise students working on Anglo-Saxon England and medieval church history and would be happy to hear from students wishing to work on related topics.
  • Research interests: I am particularly interested in the history of the church and its rituals in the Middle Ages, and I am as keen on buildings, objects and archaeological evidence as on written texts. My first book was Liturgy, Architecture and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (2013); I have also co-edited two collections of essays on the topic: The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (2005) and Understanding Medieval Liturgy (2015). A second strand of my research has been about language, and in particular the role and status of English in relation to Latin; I am currently writing a book on English in the Liturgy before the Reformation.