Alex Beste
DPhil Student - Merton College
DPhil Research Topic: Navigating Suicidality in medieval Germany, c. 1200-1530
Supervisor: Hannah Skoda
My research explores the social and emotional landscapes of suicidality in German-speaking regions during the later Middle Ages. Across miracle stories, legal records, and visual culture, glimpses appear of medieval contemporaries – family members, neighbours, priests, and legal officials – struggling with feelings of suicide or helping those at risk of harm. By analysing these depictions, I aim to shed light on experiences of mental health in medieval Europe. The project takes a three-pronged approach, guided by the following questions: How did medieval contemporaries describe, enact, and conceptualise suicidal experiences? What possibilities existed to treat, prevent, or cure suicidal thoughts and behaviours? And how did individuals, families, and communities continue after a suicide attempt?
Taking a proactive rather than a retroactive perspective, this project seeks to shift the conversation away from the aftermaths of a suicidal death, to the before. It aims to view suicide as more than a single action, a terminus, and rather as a longer process of being. In this way, we can investigate what suicidality reveals about pastoral care, compassion, and interpersonal responsibility in the medieval period and beyond, paving the path to a first early history of prevention, and providing crucial context for later mental health developments.
My doctoral research is funded by the Clarendon Fund and the Merton College Carne Family Scholarship in History.
Academic and Professional Profile
I completed a BA in Liberal Arts with a focus on History and English Literature at the University of Durham in 2020, and an MPhil in Medieval History at the University of Cambridge in 2025. I worked as a journalist in Berlin for several years, writing for German newspapers such as Der Tagesspiegel. I have also volunteered with proactive suicide prevention charities based in the United States.
Scholarships and Awards
- Clarendon Fund, University of Oxford, 2025-2028
- Merton College Carne Family Scholarship in History, University of Oxford, 2025-2028
- Simms Prize for Educational Achievement, University of Cambridge, 2025
- Liberal Arts Academic Prize, University of Durham, 2020
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities Student Achievement Award, University of Durham, 2019
