Dr Charles Insley
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History
Research Profile:
Dr Charles Insley; Senior Lecturer in Medieval History
Research Profile:
1. Tenth and Eleventh Century England
As an undergraduate I became interested in the workings of late Anglo-Saxon government and administration; this led to my editing a collection of Anglo-Saxon charters for my doctorate. This edition of the pre-Conquest charters of Exeter Cathedral is shortly to be published in the British Academy/Royal Historical Society Anglo-Saxon charter series. Initially my research followed the well-worn path of looking at charters as essentially a function of Anglo-Saxon government and its institutions; my first article looked at the debate over the existence of an Anglo-Saxon chancery. Since then, however, although Anglo-Saxon charters and diplomatic still form the core of my research, the focus has shifted away from institutions towards using charters to look at questions of commemoration, political ideology, political debate and the role of charters in and as witnesses to symbolic communication as part of political action. Underlying this research is a basic assumption, first outlined in a 2002 article in Anglo-Norman Studies, that Anglo-Saxon charters are much more than a quarry of dates, itineraries and people; that the long and often highly rhetorical proems or narrative sections of charters, frequently ignored by many who use charters as sources, served a function in terms of articulating particular ideologies. From this I have argued that the decline in the numbers and diplomatic sophistication of charters in the eleventh century is indicative of a very different royal and aristocratic culture at the court of Cnut (1016-35) and his Anglo-Danish successors; this runs counter to much recent historiography about Cnut which stresses the continuities in his kingship with his tenth century predecessors ('Where did all the Charters go? Anglo-Saxon Charters and the New Politics of the Eleventh Century', Anglo-Norman Studies 24 (2002).
2. Medieval Wales
Alongside the world of tenth-century charters, politics and kingship, I also have deep interest in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Welsh history, a function of working with Professor Huw Pryce on a project, published in 2005, to edit the surviving charters of the Welsh princes 1120-1283. Like my earlier work on Anglo-Saxon charters, the research undertaken in editing the Welsh material was a way into wider questions of state formation, identity, commemoration, the fruits of which have been published in three recent articles, the most recent of which looked at the political culture in the twelfth century.
3. Current and Future Projects
(i) Ritual and Symbolic Communication
Recently I have begun to explore the notion that the language of penance in late tenth-century charters reflects developments in the style of kingship of kings of England from Edgar (959-75) onwards, developments that can be paralleled in the contemporary kingship of the Ottonian emperors in Germany, the first fruits of which are due to be published later in 2009 ('Rhetoric and Ritual in Late Anglo-Saxon Charters', P. Barnwell and M. Mostert (eds.), Medieval Legal Process: Physical, Spoken and Written Performance in the Middle Ages (Brepols, 2009)).
(ii) Lay Archives
I am also part of a research network, consisting of British and North American scholars, who are interested in the way in which lay people used, preserved and generally interacted with documents in the early medieval west, roughly c.550-c.1000. Currently in progress is a volume based on the work of the group, edited by Warren Brown, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes and Adam Kosto, which seeks to construct a new narrative of lay documentary culture in the early Middle Ages.
(iii) Athelstan
Finally, my abiding interest in Charters and wider questions of identity, ideology and the formation of political communities will come together in one of my current research projects, a biography of Athelstan, first king of all the English (924-939), to be published by Longmans in the Medieval World series. This biography does not follow the chronological or life-cycle pattern conventionally followed by biographies, instead exploring some of the key themes that animated Athelstan's kingship, in particular the conjunction of a powerful intellectual culture at the king's court with a vision of English imperial rule over Britain. This biography is on schedule to be completed during 2010.
Recent publications:
Edited Volumes
2007 Victoria County History of Northamptonshire Vol.65:Transport, Communications and Modern Industry, ed. C.L.G. Insley (Boydell and Brewer, 2007).
Collaborative Volumes
2005 The Acts of Welsh Ruler 1120-1283, ed. H. Pryce with C.L.G. Insley (Cardiff, 2005).
Articles/Book Chapters
2009 'Rhetoric and Ritual in Late Anglo-Saxon Charters', P. Barnwell and M. Mostert (eds.), Medieval Legal Process: Physical, Spoken and Written Performance in the Middle Ages (Brepols, 2009).
2009 'Southumbria', P. Stafford (ed.), A Companion to the Early Middle Ages. Britain and Ireland (Blackwell, 2009), pp. 322-40.
2008 'Kings, Lords, Charters and the Political Culture of Twelfth-Century Wales', Anglo-Norman Studies 30 (2007), pp. 133-54.
2005 'Athelstan, Charters and the English in Cornwall' in J. Green and M.T. Flanagan (eds.), Changing Charters: Charters and Charter Scholarship in the British Isles (Palgrave, 2004).
2004 'Charters and Assemblies in Late Anglo-Saxon England' in P. Barnwell and M. Mostert, Assemblies in the Early Medieval West (Brepols, 2004).
2003 'The Wilderness Years of Llywelyn the Great', 13th Century England 9 (2003).
2002 'Where did all the Charters go?', Anglo-Norman Studies 24 (2002).
Description of content of most significant piece of recent research:
Anglo-Saxon Charters XV: the Charters of Crediton and Exeter (O.U.P, forthcoming in 2010). This is a scholarly edition of the Anglo-Saxon charters belonging to Exeter cathedral. The volume includes an extensive exploration of the church in Devon and Cornwall in the early medieval period. There is also an extensive analysis and contextualisation of the diplomatic of the charters and which makes the case for a distinctive regional diplomatic tradition in the south-west, as opposed to the production of charters within a royal chancery. Each charter text is also accompanied by a detailed commentary exploring the particular circumstances of the grant/episode recording, including a topographical discussion of their boundary clauses.
Recent research/conference papers:
July 2009: 'The family of Wulfric Spott: a Mercian Marcher Dynasty' (16th Leeds International Medieval Congress)
May 2009: 'Prostrate Kings: Demonstrative Kingship in Late Anglo-Saxon Charters' (Symposium in Honour of Pauline Stafford, Institute of Historical Research)
January 2009: 'Kings and Lords in Conquest Cornwall' (Institute of Historical Research)
July 2008: 'Looking for Charters that aren't there: Lost Anglo-Saxon Charters and Archival Footprints' (15th Leeds International Medieval Congress)
December 2007: 'Remembering Communities Past: Exeter Cathedral in the Eleventh Century' (Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict, Canterbury Christ Church University)
August 2007: 'Kings, Lords, Charters and the Political Culture of Twelfth- Century Wales' (30th Battle Conference of Anglo-Norman Historians, University of Wales, Gregynog)
October 2006: 'The West-Wealas in the 10th century' (3rd Colloquium on Medieval Wales, University of Wales Bangor)
July 2006: 'Demonstrative Kingship in Late Anglo-Saxon Charters (13th Leeds International Medieval Congress)