Professor Nora Berend
Medieval history, and the use of medieval themes in modern nationalism. I have worked on the changing regulation of child oblation in canon law; the place of non-Christians in medieval Christian society, including economic, social, legal, and religious interaction; medieval frontiers; Christianization and state-building - http://christianization.hist.cam.ac.uk; historical regions; sanctity; violence and identity. My current work focuses on the formation of identity in medieval and modern times.
Part I Medieval European history, c. 1000-c. 1500 (I supervise for Paper 14). Part II Specified Paper on the ways in which medieval violence is portrayed and used in modern nationalism. I also do graduate teaching and supervision in fields linked to my research interests.
Contact
Tags & Themes
St Catharine's College
Cambridge CB2 1RL
Office Phone: 01223 7 65164
Key Publications
- At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary c. 1000- c. 1300. Cambridge University Press, 2001 (awarded the Gladstone Prize for non-British history by The Royal Historical Society).
- co-edited with David Abulafia, Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices. Ashgate 2002.
- edited, Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
- edited, The Expansion of Central Europe in the Middle Ages. Ashgate 2013
- with Przemysław Urbańczyk and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
- edited with John Tolan, Capucine Nemo-Pekelman and Youna Masset, Religious Minorities in Christian, Jewish and Muslim Law (5th – 15th centuries). Turnhout: Brepols, 2017 (454 p.).
- guest editor, Minority Influences in Medieval Society. Special Issue of Journal of Medieval History 45, no. 3 (July 2019), republished as a book, London: Routledge, 2021 (142 p.).
- guest editor with Étienne Anheim, Medieval Knowledge Exchange: The Movement of People and Texts. Special Issue of Medieval Encounters 29, nos. 2-3 (2023).
- ‘The mirage of East-Central Europe: historical regions in a comparative perspective.’ In Medieval East Central Europe in a comparative perspective, Gerhard Jaritz and Katalin Szende, eds. London: Routledge, 2016, 9-23.
- ‘Les récits de la migration dans la Hongrie médiévale’. In Annales HSS, 76, 3 (2021): 457-488; in English, ‘Tales of migration in medieval Hungary’ forthcoming in Annales HSS.
- ‘The concept of Christendom: christianitas as a call to action’. In Order into Action: How Large-Scale Concepts of World-Order Determine Practices in the Premodern World, Christoph Mauntel and Klaus Oschema, eds., Cursor Mundi 40 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), 71-95.
- ‘Interconnection and Separation: Medieval Perspectives on the Modern Problem of the “Global Middle Ages”’. In Medieval Encounters 29, nos. 2-3 (2023): 285-314.