Jake Stattel

PhD Candidate in Medieval History
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I am interested in political and social shifts in early medieval Britain, particularly surrounding the Danelaw and the viking legacy in England. My work has primarily approached these issues through law and attempting to illuminate legal cultures within early medieval communities. My current PhD project supervised by Tom Lambert and funded by the Cambridge Trust investigates and evaluates Scandinavian influences upon English legal culture leading up to the formation of common law.

I previously completed the MPhil in Medieval History at Cambridge with a dissertation on the Danelaw, which won the Members' History Prize, First Place. This work, now published as 'Legal Culture in the Danelaw: a Study of III Æthelred', has been awarded three publication prizes from scholarly societies including the Sutherland Prize for British Legal History. I hold a BA from Swarthmore College (PA, USA) where I majored in Classical Studies and earned a teaching certification.

I co-convene the Cambridge Medieval History Graduate Workshop and the Camedieval blog.

  • Early medieval Britain, especially late Anglo-Saxon England
  • The Danelaw and the Viking Age across Europe
  • Legal history, the development of English medieval law
  • Borders, jurisdiction, and community interactions across contested boundaries

Lecturing

  • Outline 1: Ancient and Medieval Societies and States over the First Millennium (2022-23)

Supervising

  • Outline 2: The British Isles in the Middle Ages, c. 800 to c. 1500 (2022-23)
  • Paper 2: British Political History, 380-1100 (2021-22)

'Viking Settlement in England: Seeing Legacies in the Law', invited talk for the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England [ISSEME], (Link, 2023)

'Collective Punishment in Anglo-Norman England and Its Precedents' (International Medieval Congress [IMC Leeds], 2023)

'The Danelaw', interview for the Gone Medieval podcast with Cat Jarman, (Link and accompanying blog post, 2023)

'Evaluating the Scandinavian Influence on English Law in the Viking Age' (German Influence in the Medieval Period, DAAD-Cambridge Research Hub Conference, 2022)

'Punishing Wrongdoing and the Border of the Danelaw' (IMC Leeds, 2022)

'Law, ‘Love’, and Vikings: Icelandic-style Dispute Settlement in Anglo-Saxon England?' (Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North, 2022)

'Thegns and Kings: Legal Authority in the Danelaw' (ISSEME Conference, 2021)

'Legal Culture in the Danelaw' (International Congress on Medieval Studies [ICMS], 2021)

'Looking for Danelaw' (Cambridge Graduate Early Medieval Seminar [GEMS], 2020)

Key Publications

'Legal Culture in the Danelaw: a Study of III Æthelred', Anglo-Saxon England 48 (2022) [2019], 163-203, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675121000065.