Dr Ryan Lavelle
Senior Lecturer in Medieval History
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Ryan.Lavelle@winchester.ac.uk
01962 827137
University of Winchester
Sparkford Road
Winchester
Hampshire SO22 4NR
Biography
Ryan Lavelle gained his first degree at Royal Holloway, University of London, and an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York. He studied for a PhD at Winchester, which he was awarded in 2002.
Expertise
My research interests include royal landholding in Anglo-Saxon Wessex (for which I have published a monograph based on my PhD research), the politics of the Late Anglo-Saxon kingdom and early medieval warfare. I would be pleased to supervise PhD projects associated with these areas and would be happy to discuss them with prospective postgraduate students.
My teaching interests include Anglo-Saxon England, the Normans and the Norman Conquest, and the Carolingian Renaissance.
Publications
Books
Alfred's Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age, Warfare in History series (Woodbridge: Boydell 2010)
Royal Estates in Anglo-Saxon Wessex: Land, Politics and Family Strategies, British Archaeological Reports British Series 439 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007)
Aethelred II: King of the English, 978-1016 (Stroud: Tempus, 2002; revised edition, 2008)
Fortifications in Wessex, c. 800-1066 (Oxford: Osprey, 2003) [64-page booklet]
Articles/Chapters
‘Geographies of Power in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Royal Estates of Wessex’, in A.D. Jorgensen (ed.), Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Language, Literature, History, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 23 (Turnhout: Brepols 2010), 187-219
‘The Politics of Rebellion: The Ætheling Æthelwold and West Saxon Royal Succession, 899-902’, in P. Skinner (ed.), Challenging the Boundaries of Medieval History: the Legacy of Timothy Reuter, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 51-80
‘A Territorial Landscape: The Late Anglo-Saxon and Post-Conquest Estates', in B. Cunliffe, The Danebury Environs Roman Programme, Volume 1 : Overview (Oxford: Institute of Archaeology, 2008), 133-57
‘The King's Wife and Family Property Strategies: Late Anglo-Saxon Wessex, 871-1066’, Anglo-Norman Studies 29 (2007), 84-99
‘The Use and Abuse of Hostages in Later Anglo-Saxon England’, Early Medieval Europe 13.3 (2006), 269-96 [link available via Blackwell synergy website; please email for a pdf copy]
‘Why Grateley? Reflections on Anglo-Saxon Kingship in a Hampshire Landscape’, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 60 (2005), 154-69
‘All the King’s Men? Land and Royal Service in Eleventh-Century Wessex’, Southern History 26 (2004), 1-37
‘Review Article: Documenting Winchester’s Minsters’, Southern History 26 (2004), 141-50
‘The “Farm of One Night” and the Organisation of Royal Estates in Late Anglo-Saxon Wessex’, Haskins Society Journal 14 (2005 for 2003), 53-82
‘Towards a Political Contextualization of Peacemaking and Peace Agreements in Anglo-Saxon England’, in D. Wolfthal (ed.), Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 39-55
Other publications
‘Fighting the Vikings’, BBC History Magazine 12:1 (January 2011), 22-28.
Entries on works concerning King Æthelred II, Earl Godwine of Wessex, King Edward the Martyr and a review of general works on Anglo-Saxon England for D. Loades (ed.), Reader’s Guide to British History (New York and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003)
‘Ethnic Cleansing in Anglo-Saxon England’ (on the St Brice’s Day Massacre, 1002), BBC History Magazine 3:11 (November 2002), 42-4
‘The Bayeux Tapestry: Images of Battle in the Eleventh Century’, Osprey Military Journal 4:3 (2002), 7-10
‘Æthelwold of Wessex: “King of the Pagans”’, Osprey Military Journal 2:6 (2000), 15-24
Research Interests
Late Anglo-Saxon political history, especially Wessex
Funding Awards and Professional Membership