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Rosamond McKitterick | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Rosamond Deborah Pierce (1949-05-31)31 May 1949 (age 76) Chesterfield, England |
| Spouse | |
| Awards | Heineken Prize (2010) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | The Carolingian Renaissance (1976) |
| Doctoral advisor | Walter Ullmann |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
| Sub-discipline | Medieval history |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral students | |
| Main interests | Franks |
Rosamond Deborah McKitterick (born 31 May 1949) is an Englishmedievalhistorian. She is an expert on theFrankish kingdoms in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, who usespalaeographical and manuscript studies to illuminate aspects of thepolitical,cultural,intellectual,religious, andsocial history of theEarly Middle Ages. From 1999 until 2016 she wasProfessor of Medieval History and director of research at theUniversity of Cambridge.[1] She is a Fellow ofSidney Sussex College andProfessor Emerita of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge.[2]
McKitterick was born Rosamond Pierce inChesterfield,Derbyshire, England, on 31 May 1949. From 1951 to 1956 she lived in Cambridge, England, where her father had a position atMagdalene College. In 1956 she moved with her family toWestern Australia where she completed primary and secondary school and completed an honours degree at theUniversity of Western Australia. She holds the degrees of MA, PhD, and LittD from the University of Cambridge.[2]
McKitterick's doctoral thesis was entitledTheCarolingian Renaissance: A Study in the Education of a Society. It was submitted under McKitterick's maiden name of Pierce. The thesis was approved on 24 February 1976.[3] McKitterick's supervisor wasWalter Ullmann.[4]
In 1971 she returned to Cambridge University to pursue her career. She was a Fellow ofNewnham College, Cambridge and then became a professorial fellow ofSidney Sussex College. McKitterick has been described as a "doyenne in her field; her decades of tireless research and teaching have been poured into a steady stream of major publications on Carolingian subjects."[5] Thomas F. X. Noble considers McKitterick to be "one of the most original and productive historians of Europe's early Middle Ages".[4] She has supervised 42 PhD theses to completion, as of October 2015, with five more in progress.[4] She has been a member of the council of theBritish School at Rome.[6]
McKitterick was a Balsdon Fellow at the British School in Rome, April–June 2002. Her research focus was "Charlemagne in Italy".[7] From 2005 to 2006 she was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study.[8]
In 2010 McKitterick was awarded theDr A. H. Heineken International Prize for History by the Royal Dutch Academy.[9] The prize was established in 1990 and is awarded bi-annually for outstanding scholarly achievement in the field of history.[10] Other awardees includeJudith Herrin andAleida Assman. In 2015 McKitterick was elected to the Lectio Chair at theKatholieke Universiteit of Leuven's Centre for the Transmission of Texts and Ideas in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.[11]
On 16 March 2017, McKitterick was elected aFellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA).[12] She is also an electedFellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and aFellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).[13] She was the President of theEcclesiastical History Society (2018–19). McKitterick is a Fellow of theMedieval Academy of America,Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and theAustrian Academy of Sciences.[14]
On 15 October 2018 McKitterick delivered the James Lydon Lecture in Medieval History and Culture atTrinity College Dublin with "Rome and the Invention of the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages".[15]
In 2018 McKitterick was honoured with aFestschrift,Writing the Early Medieval West, to mark her retirement in September 2016. The volume consists of contributions from fifteen of McKitterick's former students.[4]
She marriedDavid McKitterick, Librarian ofTrinity College, Cambridge,[16] in 1976. They have one daughter.[17]
In May 2016, McKitterick was one of 300 prominent historians, includingSimon Schama andNiall Ferguson, who were signatories to a letter toThe Guardian, telling voters that if they chose to leave theEuropean Union on 23 June, they would be condemning Britain to irrelevance.[18][19]
Edited volumes
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Professor of Medieval History at theUniversity of Cambridge 1999–2016 | Succeeded by |
| Professional and academic associations | ||
| Preceded by | President of theEcclesiastical History Society 2018–2019 | Succeeded by |
