Alex Beste

DPhil Research Topic

Preventing suicide in Northern Europe, 1200-1500

Supervisor: Hannah Skoda

My research investigates the ways in which, and the reasons why, people tried to prevent suicide during the Middle Ages. Across miracle stories, legal records, imaginative literature, and visual culture, glimpses appear of medieval contemporaries – family members, neighbours, priests, legal officials – helping those at risk of suicide. By analysing these depictions, I aim to shed light on understandings of suicidality and the experience 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 feelings and behaviours, both at the personal and structural level? And what can such preventative efforts tell us about pastoral care, compassion, and interpersonal obligations in the medieval period? 

Taking a proactive rather than retroactive perspective, the project seeks to shift the conversation away from the aftermaths of a suicidal death, to the before. In this way, it hopes to offer the first early history of prevention, providing a 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 my 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 major German newspapers such as Der Tagesspiegel and Welt. 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

Liberal Arts Academic Prize, University of Durham, 2020

Faculty of Arts and Humanities Student Achievement Award, University of Durham, 2019