I studied medieval history at the University of Birmingham and digital humanities at King's College London, and between 1995 and 2006 I worked at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and King’s College London (KCL). In 2006 I joined the University of Roehampton as Director of the British Academy Hearth Tax Project & Centre for Hearth Tax Research, and in 2007 I was promoted to reader in medieval economic history.  My research and teaching is focused upon medieval economic and social history between the ninth and eleventh centuries and the Restoration hearth tax. In 2018 I was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

B.A. Hons. in medieval and modern history

M.A. in the digital humanities

Ph.D in medieval history

PGCE in history and geography

My doctorate, supervised by Professor Nicholas Brooks FBA, was a regional study of East Anglia, published as Lords and Communities in Early Medieval East Anglia (Boydell, 2005). This book discussed how aristocratic families and ecclesiastical communities in a range of landscapes responded to the pressures and opportunities of crises and conquests between the late tenth and the early twelfth centuries. My work for the Victoria County History at the IHR included conducting research on the history of Cambridgeshire, published in VCH Cambridgeshire x, North-eastern Cambridgeshire (OUP, 2002), pp. xxiv, 617.

Since 2004 I have developed a second research strand on the Restoration hearth tax (1662-89). An MA thesis on computing applications of the Restoration hearth tax identified how ICT could be used to enhance the research potential of the hearth tax. As Director of the Hearth Tax Project and Centre I have edited hearth tax editions, including the two-volume edition of the 1666 return for London and Middlesex, published in the joint British Academy and British Record Society series, in tandem with the publication of ariticles in journals; e.g. Economic History Review (2017); Local Historian (2011). 

My research on Anglo-Saxon history has recently been extended to an investigation of the church’s contribution to the formation of the English state between the ninth and the early eleventh centuries in a comparative/Global history context. Some of this work-in-progress has been published in articles in Anglo-Norman Studies (2013), Economic History Review (2012) and Medieval Worlds (2017). 

• British Academy Hearth Tax Project (funded by the British Academy
• The London and Middlesex Hearth Tax Project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
• The Landscape of Poverty in later Stuart Essex funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Counci

• Other research projects on the hearth tax have been supported by a various national and local research and charitable organizations, including the Aurelius Trust and the Marc Fitch Foundation.

With the support of the British Academy and the University of Roehampton, the Hearth Tax Project and Centre is working in partnership with the University of the Third Age on a Shared Learning Project on the lost histories of local communities during the Restoration period.

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

The Hearth Tax Project and Centre provides advice to members of the general public interested in their seventeenth-century ancestors and family history, and assists heritage, media and research organizations (e.g. The National Trust).

Current undergraduate teaching

HSA020C111A Living and Dying in Europe 1000-1600 - HE level 1 course

HSA020N268S Domesday Book: Exploring Anglo-Norman England - HE level 2 course

HSA020X363A Prosperity and Violence in the age of the Vikings c. 870-1020 - HE level 3 course)

Current postgraduate teaching

HIS020L426S Pathways to Genocide: origins and aspects of state persecution in Britain, Europe and Africa (medieval element) 

http://www.hearthtax.org.uk/about/index.html

http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Research-Centres/Centre-for-Hearth-Tax-Research/