Historians

Our Favourite Historians

This page contains brief biographies of the chief historians of Simon de Montfort and his times, many of whom the Simon de Montfort Society is proud to be associated with.

Mini-biographies

Professor David Carpenter MA DPhil (Oxford)
Dr David Cox BA PhD (London) FSA FRHistS

Professor David Carpenter MA DPhil (Oxford)

Professor in Medieval History

David Carpenter is a leading authority on the history of Britain in the central middle ages. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He has a first class degree in History and a doctorate from Oxford University. Prior to coming to King's College he held lectureships at Christ Church and St. Hilda's College Oxford, at the University of Aberdeen and at Queen Mary College, London. Much of David Carpenter's research and writing has been about English history in the thirteenth century where he ranged widely through social, economic, architectural, military and political history. He is a particular exponent of 'thickened political narrative,' which he deployed in The Minority of Henry III (1990), a book which traced the complex political history of the years 1216 to 1227 out of which a new monarchy, limited by Magna Carta, emerged. David Carpenter has also fixed the true date of Magna Carta in 1215, revealed the causes of the great political revolution in 1258 and shown how peasants were fully engaged in the subsequent Montfortian period of reform and rebellion. Apart from The Minority of Henry III, David Carpenter's publications include The Battles of Lewes and Evesham 1264/1265 (1987) and The Reign of Henry III (1996). In important articles he has argued that feudalism was fundamental to the workings of English society and politics in the century after 1166, and has cast new light on the place of both the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey in England's polity. David also discovered how Henry III in the 1250s saved a vast treasure in gold, thus clarifying the reasons for the minting of England's first gold coinage in 1257. David Carpenter's most recent book is The Struggle for Mastery in Britain 1066-1284, a volume in the New Penguin History of Britain. This weaves together the histories of England, Scotland and Wales in a strikingly new way and argues that the rulers of all three, in their different fashions, were competing for mastery in Britain.

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Dr David Cox BA PhD (London) FSA FRHistS

Honorary position of Fellow of the University of Keele
David Cox is Editor of the Shropshire Record Series and County Editor of the Victoria History of Shropshire. He principle research interest is the topographical history of towns and villages in Shropshire. The results are published in the Victoria County History series. His other area of research is the early history of Evesham abbey, on which David has published widely. Among his publications, in addition to articles in the Victoria History of Shropshire, are: The Battle of Evesham (1989), 'This foolish business': Dr Nash and the Worcestershire collections (1993) and Sir Stephen Glynne's church notes for Shropshire (1997) and his articles include: 'The Vale estates of the church of Evesham c. 700-1086' (1975), 'The battle of Evesham in the Evesham chronicle' (1989) and the forthcoming: 'Cult and concealment: St Oswald of Worcester and Evesham abbey'.

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Last updated: 07 August 2005.