Dr Elizabeth Gemmill

Dr Elizabeth Gemmill
Associate Professor in History; Fellow, Kellogg College
Kellogg College
01865 (2)80888
elizabeth.gemmill@conted.ox.ac.uk

My research and publications are on the society, economy and church of the later medieval period. My recent book, The Nobility and Ecclesiastical Patronage in Thirteenth-Century England (Boydell, 2013), is a study of the ways in which the nobility used their rights in churches and religious houses and the value placed on those rights as revealed in the political agenda of the day.  The research for the book has opened up a further line of investigation, into medieval inquisitions and their potential for informing us about changing patterns of prosperity, between regions and over time; while complementing that is my ongoing research into the prices contained in the  account rolls of Durham Cathedral Priory.   For further details, please see RESEARCH page.

 

See page on Kellogg College website

Research

My current research examines both medieval prices and valuations. The work on prices focusses on the medieval north east, and I am using the records of Durham Cathedral Priory to construct price series for a wide range of commodities from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. The aim is to gain a deeper understanding of the regional economy, and of the cathedral priory's place in it. My work on valuations complements this, being an investigation of the values of parish churches in inquisitions post mortem in the later medieval period. The purpose of this is to seek a better understanding of how these valuations were made, and to use them as a guide to regional variations and changing patterns of agricultural prosperity over time.

Publications

  • Debt, distraint, display, and dead men’s treasure: material culture in late medieval Aberdeen

    2020
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Journal of Medieval History

  • Register of John Salmon bishop of Norwich 1299-1325

    2019
    |
    c-book

  • Valuations of churches in medieval Norfolk

    2017
    |
    Conference paper

  • King John, Magna Carta and the Thirteenth-Century English Church

    2016
    |
    Chapter
    |
    The Rights and Aspirations of the Magna Carta

  • Prices from the Durham obedientiary account rolls, 1278 - 1367

    2013
    |
    Internet publication
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  • The Nobility and Ecclesiastical Patronage in Later Thirteenth Century England

    2013
    |
    Book
    A detailed examination of the patronage rights exerted over the church by the nobility, illuminating the complex network of relationships between them, the Church, and the clergy.

  • Prices from the Durham obedientiary account rolls, 1278-1367

    2013
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Archaeologia Aeliana

  • The Church on Earth and Its Secular Princes

    2012
    |
    Book

  • The Scottish Wool Trade, 1250-1450’ and ‘Trade and Craft Guilds, Scotland

    2011
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles
    History

  • Durham Grain Prices, 1278-1515

    2010
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Archaeologia Aeliana
    • More