Jennifer Coulton

Research Topic

‘Don’t Try This at Home’: The Nature of, and Attitudes Towards, Early Medieval English Domestic Religion (c.650-1150 CE)

My research explores religion in the early medieval English household (c.650-1150CE). Using both archaeological and written sources, I aim to tease out evidence about the different types of religious rituals that occurred within domestic complexes, and explore how these practices changed over time. In doing so, I also intend to examine how clerical attitudes towards household religion developed, and how ‘orthodox’ faith coincided, competed, and converged with idiosyncratic practices. I aim to not only fill a chronological gap in the scholarship, but also highlight how far periodisation and disciplinary boundaries have concealed continuity and change.

Prior to my DPhil, I completed my BA in History, and an interdisciplinary MSt in Medieval Studies, both from the University of Oxford (Hertford and Wolfson Colleges, respectively). In the time between my MSt and DPhil, I worked with Durham University’s Archives and Special Collections Library Department as a graduate intern.

My research is generously funded by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP, the Clarendon Fund and Corpus Christi College’s Cowley Scholarship.

Supervisors: Helen Gittos and Helena Hamerow