Helen Birkett

I am a Lecturer in Medieval History and joined Exeter's history department in 2011. My main research interests concern monastic literary culture and the construction of texts and narratives in the central Middle Ages, with a particular focus on Britain and Ireland. I completed my doctorate under the supervision of Profs Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Christopher Norton at the University of York in 2009 and have since held postdoctoral fellowships at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh. I have published a monograph, The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics, as well as several articles. My current project investigates the transmission of visionary narratives by the Cistercians of Britain and Ireland c.1200. I am also in the process of starting a new project on news and communication in the Middle Ages.