People and Power in the Medieval and Early Modern North Sea and the European World
This research theme is inspired by the Centre for History’s location at the North Sea, facing outward towards Europe and beyond. Our projects focus on a range of Scottish, British Isles, North Sea, Baltic and Mediterranean contexts across the medieval and early modern period, with significant and internationally recognised research expertise in military, diplomatic, royal/dynastic, ceremonial, emigration, gender, riverine, coastal and maritime histories.
Our projects are committed to exploring themes like kingship, power, performance, and the experience of warfare in different medieval and early modern geopolitical regions. We also have a strong expertise in the study of material culture and public history and are working closely with organisations like Perth and Kinross Archives, Historic Environment Scotland and others.
We take a leading role in the interdisciplinary Renaissance and Early Modern Research Alliance (REMRA) and Medieval Studies Hub (MeSH) which connect us to scholars in other institutions within UHI, including the Institute for Northern Studies, the Archaeology Institute, UHI Inverness, and Highland Theological College. Our Masters and PhD students are invited to participate in these collaborative and welcoming research groups to experience the benefits of a supportive research environment.
Our research expertise and enthusiasm is strongly linked to all levels of our curriculum.
Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg - Map of Bremen (between 1572 and 1618) [image on Wikimedia Commons]
Staff
Staff
- Dr Lucy Dean is a late medieval and early modern historian who works on Scotland and Europe with a keen interest in ceremony and ritual, monarchy and kingship, gender and masculinity, coming of age and the life cycle, material culture and public history.
- Dr Linsey Hunter (teaching-focused) has diverse research interests spanning medieval to modern. She is currently researching politics, emotions, law and gender in late medieval Scottish chronicle narratives and the lives and afterlives of the tenth-century figure, Finella, Lady of the Mearns, a project which encompasses local and place-based history and medievalisms.
- Dr Iain MacInnes' research focusses on medieval Scottish political and military history.
- Dr Iain Robertson is a social and cultural historian of local community and landscape change with a particular emphasis on historical and cultural processes shaping the landscape of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Highland Scotland.
- Dr Philippa Woodcock is a historian of early modern European history and visual culture with special interest in European Reformation, landscape and fashion history, as well as political and cultural interchange, especially between France and Italy.
- Dr Kathrin Zickermann's research interests focus on the early modern Scottish and European commercial links and migration with a particular focus on family networks and the importance of riverine systems as facilitators of trade and communication.
PG Researchers
PG Researchers
- Siobhán Beatson, Life on the Margins: The Sealoch Communities of the Northwest Highlands in the Sixteenth Century
- Charlotte Evans, ‘Eighteenth-Century Women & Their Clothes: Understanding Emotional, Personal and Physical Connections in Female Sartorial Choices
- Frances Liddle, Governance and Diplomacy, the Anglo-Scottish Border, the East and Middle Marches 1489-1560
- Oisín Ó Ruacháinn, Concepts of Violence in the Early and High Medieval Irish Church
- Alexander Ryland, co-supervised by Dr Helen Pierce (Art History, University of Aberdeen), working on the construction of royal legitimacy in the visual culture of the post-restoration Stuart monarchy through the lens of masculinities and gender studies, primarily utilising printed images and material culture
Current Research Projects
Current Research Projects
- Perth Charterhouse Project, a collaborative project with UHI History, University of Stirling, and Culture Perth and Kinross to locate and recreate the city’s lost Charterhouse and the Royal Tombs of the medieval Stewart dynasty which it contained.
- ”They wept together”: Investigating miscarriage, taboo and support in early modern Scotland, Dr Philippa Woodcock's project explores early modern Scottish emotional and medical history in cases of miscarriage.
Resources and Collaborations
Resources and Collaborations
- Renaissance and Early Modern Research Alliance (REMRA) - is a multidisciplinary research hub convened by Dr Kathrin Zickermann and designed to support research in a meaningful way and to present UHI's research activities to the wider academic world.
- Medieval Studies Hub (MeSH) - co-lead by Dr Linsey Hunter, brings together UHI medievalists across multiple disciplines to share research and ideas, and to forge new collaborations.
- Swedish Defence University (SEDU)- UHI and SEDU signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2024, facilitated by Dr Kathrin Zickermann