Laura Atkinson

Research

Research

My research focuses on archiepiscopacy in late thirteenth-century York and approaches archiepiscopal registers as both a product of and contributor to this. My thesis takes a comparative approach to the registers of Archbishops of York, William Wickwane and John le Romeyn. I consider how these men understood, negotiated, and performed the office of the archbishop of York and the role of the registers in this. In doing so, I draw upon new understandings of written records to explore the registers' agency in constructing an image of archiepiscopacy that would outlast the individual archbishop.

My project is funded by WRoCAH and the AHRC and draws on the 'York's Archbishops Registers Revealed' project at the University of York, which has digitised the York registers from 1225 to 1650.

Papers and Publications

‘The Register of Archbishop William Wickwane (1279-85): Record-Keeping and Episcopacy,’ York-Bielefeld-Lund Graduate Conference, June 2021.
‘The Problem of Personality in the Register of Archbishop William Wickwane (1279-85),’ White Rose Medieval Graduate Conference, June 2021.
‘Archbishop Wickwane’s Register and the Question of Reform,’ The Northern Way Conference, September 2021.
‘Connections in the Registers of Archbishops Wickwane and Romeyn (1279-96),’ Leeds International Medieval Congress, July 2023.