Medieval Week Special Lecture: Stephen Church

Medieval Week Special Lecture: Everyday Life at the Court of King John, by Stephen Church, Research Professor in Medieval Studies, University of Lincoln

The Medieval Studies Research Group is delighted to welcome to the University of Lincoln our new Research Professor in Medieval Studies, Stephen Church, to deliver our Medieval Week Special Lecture on life at the court of medieval England’s most notorious king.

The everyday life of King John and his court was extraordinary, both by today’s standards and by those of his own day. His court was nomadic, seldom staying more than a few days in one place, and his coming was proclaimed by the arrival of his lion with his tamer, decked out in the king’s coat of arms. At his court, the highest business of the land was conducted, and his barons and bishops came to hear him pronounce judgment on legal cases. It was here, too, that the king dispensed his patronage, making and breaking men and their families at his will.

Stephen Church is a scholar of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England and Europe, specialising in the Angevin lands and in the life of King John. His 2015 biography of King John was the Financial Times’s Book of the Year for 2015. He is currently writing the Yale English Monarchs volume on King John.

This talk is free to attend and will take place on Thursday 14 March at 5.30 pm in the Co-op lecture theatre, Minerva Building (MB 0312).

Please register to attend using this link: https://forms.office.com/e/aE0M80xBfv.

Story submitted by Graham Barrett
gbarrett@lincoln.ac.uk