Dr Christopher Briggs

My research addresses a number of questions relating to society, economy, and the law in England and Europe during the later middle ages (1200-1500).  My doctoral research was on the history of credit in the rural economy in fourteenth-century England, and in 2009 my book on this subject appeared in the British Academy’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs series. I am also interested in the place of law and institutions in medieval society and economy, and in particular their role in allowing people to enforce agreements and commercial transactions. Another ongoing focus of my research is the participation of medieval English peasants in the wider legal system beyond the village, in particular the royal courts. In 2016-20 I was co-investigator on the interdisciplinary research project 'Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households 1300-1600', funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and I continue to work on this theme. This involves exploring the possessions of rural people in the later middle ages, as part of an attempt to chart long term changes in living standards.

I am very interested in supervising graduate students working on any aspect of the economic or social history of England between c.1200 and c.1500.

Lectures and supervisions for Part IA Outline 2, The British Isles in the Middles Ages c.800-c.1500. I co-teach (with Andrew Spencer) a 3rd year Special Subject: 'The Little Lion - Edward III's England, 1327-1347'. I also contribute to teaching for the IA Sources paper 'Making and Spending Money in the Middle Ages', and to the M.Phils in Economic and Social History and Medieval History.

I am an Advisory Editor of Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, and President of the Cambridgeshire Records Society.