Richard Allen
Archivist and Records Manager
Magdalen College
My research primarily concerns the ecclesiastical history of northern France in the High Middle Ages, with a particular focus on ducal Normandy (911-1204). I work mainly with charters and other such administrative records, and I am particularly interested in what this material can reveal about the political, legal, economic, and cultural circumstances of the societies in which it was produced.
I have published widely on topics ranging from ecclesiastical rivalry, through excommunication, the nature of episcopal power, the Cistercian abbey of Savigny, miracles, and the role of relics in the Middle Ages. I have also begun to work on the history of medieval hospitals, especially those based in Oxford and its surrounding counties, and on the scribal culture of rural England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. To this end, I am currently preparing an edition of the cartulary and charters of the hospital of St John the Baptist, Oxford, which occupied the site where Magdalen College now stands.
Publications
The Aynho Cartulary and its Documentary Culture: Study, Text, and Translation
Edited and translated by Richard Allen, Benjamin Pohl
A major contribution to scholarship on medieval roll cartularies, shedding light both on the Aynho Cartulary itself and on the wider social, political, and economic culture that produced it.
Despite being one of the earliest and best preserved of its type in Britain and Ireland, the thirteenth-century roll cartulary of the wayfarer hospital of SS James and John in Aynho, Northamptonshire, has received almost no scholarly attention to date.
This book offers the first full study of this fascinating document, which is now conserved in the archives of Magdalen College, Oxford, together with a critical edition and translation. Combining extensive historical and prosopographical research with a focussed examination of the cartulary’s contents and a forensic scribal and material analysis, it takes an holistic approach to – and aims to provide a model for – the study of these types of artefacts and the documentary cultures and societies that produced them. Uniting three areas of scholarship which are rarely brought into dialogue (the study of medieval cartularies, rolls, and hospitals), the volume’s innovative approach demonstrates how such an examination of the Aynho Cartulary can shed light on the social, political, economic, spiritual, and scribal networks within which this relatively obscure but well-connected hospital was situated. Written with experienced researchers and students in mind, this book is designed to be a go-to resource for both.