Professor William Purkis MA, PhD, FRHistS

I do not hold regular office hours, but if you would like to meet with me please contact Aishwarya Shriniketan (via a.shriniketan@bham.ac.uk) to arrange a convenient date and time.

• BA (Hons.) in History (Lancaster University)
• MA in Historical Research (Lancaster University)
• PhD in History (Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge)
• Postgraduate Certificate in Skills of Teaching to Inspire Learning (Royal Holloway, University of London)

I developed an enthusiasm for the Middle Ages as an undergraduate student at Lancaster University, where I completed a BA (Hons.) in History in 1999 and an MA in Historical Research in 2000. In October 2001 I began doctoral research at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where I worked under the supervision of Jonathan Riley-Smith. Upon completion of my PhD in September 2005, I taught for two years at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Queen Mary, University of London. I was appointed to a lectureship in medieval history at Birmingham in 2007, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012, to Reader in 2016, and to Professor in 2023. From January 2022 to July 2025 I was Head of School for the School of History and Cultures. I began my new role as Deputy Head of College for the College of Arts and Law in August 2025.

First year

• Living in the Middle Ages

Second year

• Radical Pieties: Militants, Martyrs and Mystics in Medieval Christianity and Islam

Third year

• Narratives of Conquest and Incomprehension

MA teaching

• Approaches to Medieval Studies
• Digital Heritage and the Medieval Past

I am currently supervising the following postgraduate research students and topics:

Rob Allen (PhD Medieval History PT, co-supervised with Dr Simon Yarrow), '‘Playing with Fire: The Cardinal Virtues and Anger in the Anglo-Norman Court, 1095–1215’
Liam McLeod (PhD Medieval History PT, co-supervised with Dr Daniel Reynolds), ‘Jerusalem in the Early Medieval West’
Hankyol Park (PhD Medieval History FT, co-supervised with Prof. Aengus Ward), ‘Rewriting the First Crusade at Monte Cassino: Memory, Identity, and Monastic Historiography’
Zhihang Zhou (PhD Medieval History FT, full AHRC M4C studentship, co-supervised with Prof. Aengus Ward), ‘Paths to Coexistence? The Mozarab Monastery in Medieval Northern Iberia’

My completed postgraduate research students are:

Michael Alley (MRes Medieval History FT), ‘Was the Norman Conquest of Sicily a Proto-Crusade?’ (2016)
Isabella Casciani Govan (MRes Medieval History FT, co-supervised with Dr Kate Sykes), ‘Uncovering the Voice of Beatrice of Nazareth and her Discursive Relationship with her Hagiographer’ (2024)
Dr Giles Connolly (PhD Medieval History FT, full Wolfson Scholarship, co-supervised with Dr Simon Yarrow), ‘“… and by God’s mercy annalists will surely not be wanting”: Thomas Becket, Memory, and Narrative in Annalistic Writing’ (2022)
Dr Frances Durkin (PhD Medieval History PT), ‘Crusade Preachers: Identities and Impact, 1095–c.1215’ (2020)
Dr Georgina Fitzgibbon (PhD Medieval History FT, full AHRC M3C studentship, co-supervised with Dr Simon Yarrow), ‘For Fear of the Multitudes: Disruptive Pilgrims and Appropriate Audiences for Cistercian Relics in the Twelfth Century’ (2019)
Moayad Hanoush (MRes Medieval History PT, co-supervised with Dr Arezou Azad), ‘Ibn al-Qalanisi, his Chronicle, and the Counter-Crusade 490/1097–520/1126’ (2017)
Dr James Kawalek (PhD Medieval History FT, full AHRC M4C studentship, co-supervised with Prof. Aengus Ward), ‘The Historia Compostellana, Its Authors, and Their Times (1088–1148): An Historiographical Study’ (2022)
Dr John Seasholtz (PhD Medieval History PT [DL], co-supervised with Dr Simon Yarrow), ‘Money, Markets and Morality on the Camino de Santiago (1085–1212)’ (2021)
Dr Beth Spacey (PhD Medieval History FT, full AHRC studentship), ‘Miracles and Marvels in Latin Narrative Histories of the Crusades, 1095–1204’ (2016)
Dr Ian Styler (PhD Medieval History PT, full UoB College of Arts and Law studentship, co-supervised with Dr Simon Yarrow), ‘The Story of an English Saint’s Cult: An Analysis of the Influence of St Æthelthryth of Ely, c.670–c.1540’ (2019)

Find out more - our PhD History  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

I am currently working on the following research projects:

Bearers of the Cross: Material Religion in the Crusading World, 1095–c.1300

I have been awarded an AHRC Leadership Fellows grant for this project, which will run from 2015 until 2017. The project is studying the lived, material religion of crusaders through a wide-ranging analysis of the texts, art, architecture and material culture associated with crusader belief. It explores the devotional worlds that those who ‘took the cross’ inhabited, examining the ritual practices crusaders observed, the religious objects and images they treasured, and the sacred spaces they shaped and were shaped by. The principal output of the project will be a monograph, to be published by Yale University Press. The project also involves collaboration with a post-doctoral research assistant and a partnership with the Museum of the Order of St John (MOSJ) - ‘a hidden jewel in the City of London’. With a direct connection to a religious order founded in Jerusalem in the early twelfth century, MOSJ has an important but little-known collection of crusader material culture. The project team are studying and raising awareness of this collection through the development of an open access database for use by scholars, MOSJ staff, volunteers and visitors, heritage professionals and a wider public. As part of the project there will also be a series of public lectures (2016–17), a conference on medieval material religion (June 2016), and a workshop on best practice in collaborations between academics and heritage professionals (December 2017). 

• Visit the Bearers of the Cross project website

In my past research I have worked on monastic influences on the religious ideas and devotional practices of the eleventh- and twelfth-century laity, with a focus on the spiritual ideals associated with crusading and pilgrimage in the Iberian peninsula and the eastern Mediterranean. In my first book, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, c.1095-c.1187, I placed the origins and evolution of crusading ideology within a broader context of ideas more normally associated with monastic reform; in particular, I considered how ideas of the imitation of Christ and the pursuit of an apostolic life influenced early crusader piety. I have also worked on the relationship between ideas of crusading and reconquest in eleventh- and twelfth-century Iberia and assessed the impact of crusading ideas on peninsular perceptions of the past. My most recent publications have examined the relationship between the Cistercian Order and the crusading movement, with a specific focus on the way that the Cistercians integrated their involvement in crusading into the Order’s sense of institutional memory and its traditions of storytelling.

I have also worked in collaboration with Dr Thomas Asbridge and Dr Nicholas Morton on the construction of an on-line historiographical database of scholars working in the field of crusader studies. The project’s website contains profiles of a range of individuals who have made significant contributions to the history of the crusades and the Latin East from the early nineteenth century to the present day

• Convenor of the Institute of Historical Research’s seminar series on the Crusades and the Latin East
• Editor of the Boydell & Brewer book series Crusading in Context
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Priory Librarian (the senior volunteer for heritage) for the Order of St John's Priory of England and the Islands