Bio
I am a historian of western Europe and the Mediterranean, primarily during the high and late Middle Ages. Much of my research tries to understand how law and society interact with each other, especially where legal norms conflict with social practices. Another strand of my research explores the history of economic life and economic thought, especially medieval debates over usury and moneylending. I have also written on the circulation of goods, people, and ideas in the medieval Mediterranean.
My current book project (Conflicts of Interest: Jews, Christian Moneylenders, and the Rise of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe) uses the banishment of Jewish and Christian moneylenders to explore the rise of mass expulsion as a widespread practice in the later Middle Ages. A second ongoing project examines the ways in which medieval canon law was adapted, reinterpreted, or resisted in local contexts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The latter builds on Corpus Synodalium, a searchable full-text database of late medieval local ecclesiastical legislation that I have been developing since 2016, with assistance from colleagues around the world.
Born and raised in western Canada, I did my undergraduate and doctoral work at Harvard University, earning an MPhil in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge along the way. Before coming to Stanford, I was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.
Academic Appointments
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Assistant Professor, History
2020-21 Courses
- Core Colloquium: Graduate Readings in Medieval History
HISTORY 313 (Aut) - Doing Legal History
HISTORY 200A (Win) - Out of Eden: Deportation, Exile, and Expulsion from Antiquity to the Renaissance
HISTORY 211, HISTORY 311 (Win) - Traders and Crusaders in the Medieval Mediterranean
HISTORY 116, HISTORY 16 (Aut) -
Independent Studies (7)
- Curricular Practical Training
HISTORY 299F (Sum) - Graduate Directed Reading
HISTORY 399W (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Research
HISTORY 499X (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Senior Research I
HISTORY 299A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research II
HISTORY 299B (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research III
HISTORY 299C (Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing
HISTORY 299S (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Curricular Practical Training
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Prior Year Courses
2019-20 Courses
- Blood and Money: The Origins of Antisemitism
HISTORY 86Q, JEWISHST 86Q (Aut) - Core Colloquium: Graduate Readings in Medieval History
HISTORY 313 (Aut) - Out of Eden: Deportation, Exile, and Expulsion from Antiquity to the Renaissance
HISTORY 211, HISTORY 311 (Spr) - Traders and Crusaders in the Medieval Mediterranean
HISTORY 116, HISTORY 16 (Spr)
2018-19 Courses
- Doing Legal History
HISTORY 200A (Win) - Making and Interpreting Historical Records, 100-1600
ENGLISH 212, ENGLISH 312A, HISTORY 208E, HISTORY 308E (Aut) - Making the Middle Ages
HISTORY 14N (Spr) - Research Seminar in Medieval History
HISTORY 414A (Win) - Research Seminar in Medieval History
HISTORY 414B (Spr)
2017-18 Courses
- Blood and Money: The Origins of Antisemitism
HISTORY 86Q, JEWISHST 86Q (Aut) - Making the Middle Ages
HISTORY 14N (Win) - Traders and Crusaders in the Medieval Mediterranean
HISTORY 116, HISTORY 16 (Win)
- Blood and Money: The Origins of Antisemitism
Stanford Advisees
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Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Jonathan Quick, Padraic Rohan -
Orals Evaluator
Joe Amato -
Doctoral (Program)
Lane Baker