Kathryn Hurlock

I am an historian of medieval Britain, with particular reference to the role of the crusades in British life. I also work on pilgrimage in medieval Wales from the twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries, which forms the focus of my next book.

My new research project on the Returning Soldier will work with colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University and elsewhere to examine the figure of the Returning Soldier from the Ancient World to the early twenty-first century. My particular interest in this lies in the impact of crusading on those who return from conflict, and the potential transformative impact of fighting a holy war. I am interested in how successful campaigns compared to those deemed failures, the impact of mental and physical injury, and the ways in which returning crusaders sought to remember, commemorate and deal with their own participation. My first article coming from this research on Geoffrey Dutton, a crusader who returned to Cheshire following the Fifth Crusade (c.1218-1222) was published in Northern History in 2017.