Faye Taylor
I lead on research policy at University Alliance, including research and innovation funding and the impact of academic research on public policy making.
In my previous role at Cumberland Lodge I researched a range of subjects of ethical and social concern to public policy, with a particular focus on Higher Education and including wealth inequalities, bilingualism, and language and history education.
I taught medieval history at King's College London and the University of Nottingham. My doctoral thesis, examined by Professors Chris Wickham and Julia Barrow, analysed the role of religious institutions in the context of the often violent social and political transformations occurring across Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
My broader research interests lie in the creation and abuse of historiography and social memory. I am particularly interested in the use of GIS (geographic information system) technologies to explore symbolic and material representations of space, and how these can be converted digitally for public engagement and knowledge exchange.
In my previous role at Cumberland Lodge I researched a range of subjects of ethical and social concern to public policy, with a particular focus on Higher Education and including wealth inequalities, bilingualism, and language and history education.
I taught medieval history at King's College London and the University of Nottingham. My doctoral thesis, examined by Professors Chris Wickham and Julia Barrow, analysed the role of religious institutions in the context of the often violent social and political transformations occurring across Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
My broader research interests lie in the creation and abuse of historiography and social memory. I am particularly interested in the use of GIS (geographic information system) technologies to explore symbolic and material representations of space, and how these can be converted digitally for public engagement and knowledge exchange.
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conflict in tenth-century Italy, in an area and period in which other narrative sources are lacking. It recalls a
translatio strategy to Hugh of Provence’s royal court in 929 in response to the incursions of Bishop Guido
of Piacenza. When these events were redacted decades later, a different sort of diocesan threat presented
itself—this time by Bishop Giseprand of Tortona, who used his position as abbot of Bobbio to alienate
lands. The Miracula reveal a shift in the nature of episcopal ambition towards private patronage, and a proactive
(if ever-changing) relationship between “royal” monastery and sovereign, during a time when the
landscape of royal power was shifting. Cultic innovations and accompanying hagiographic material provide
an often-neglected perspective onto the agency of institutions and the use of institutional memory and the
public sphere to negotiate and contest their rights.
"
This report sets how to future proof Britain’s research ecosystem, by encouraging four essential characteristics. It should be:
- selective so the UK continues to develop world-leading expertise
- collaborative to maximise complementary strengths
- responsive and relevant to the rest of society and industry, and
- committed to nurturing future capability.
Conference Presentations
Thesis Chapters
Parts II and III consider Bobbio and Conques, and their miracula (dedicated to San Colombano and Sainte Foy) within their respective socio-political environments, since the best of the recent scholarship concerning the millennial period has emphasized the specificity of regional experience. At Bobbio the closeness of the king physically and some continuity in royal practices between the tenth and eleventh centuries shaped monastic experience. It directed and sometimes restricted monastic discourse, which maintained an older tradition of general service to the kingdom, although innovations in relic usage helped monastic negotiations with the sovereign. At Conques, the waning of royal control created space for literary and cultic advances that served to bolster the monastery’s position within local power structures. In this landscape older forms of public authority were purposefully minimized and hierarchy and landownership was negotiated between aristocrats, including Sainte Foy at the head of Conques.
Whilst the categories of the ‘feudal transformation’ debate can offer a useful framework for the analysis of two very different monasteries and their local societies, the comparison demonstrates that placing monasteries at the centre of our debate is crucial to understanding the documents they produce, and therefore questions the potential that these have to shed light on wider societal change. Concerns over land and autonomy were central to both institutions, although these operated on different conceptual planes, because of different bases of landed patrimony dating back much further than the tenth century. Each monastery negotiated hierarchy and clientele through their miracula and according to local socio-political rules. Therefore, whilst related documentary and cultic transformations were inseparable from socio-political pressures, these were not necessarily pressures simply reacting to mutation féodale, but were formative processes in the direction and shape of social change.
conflict in tenth-century Italy, in an area and period in which other narrative sources are lacking. It recalls a
translatio strategy to Hugh of Provence’s royal court in 929 in response to the incursions of Bishop Guido
of Piacenza. When these events were redacted decades later, a different sort of diocesan threat presented
itself—this time by Bishop Giseprand of Tortona, who used his position as abbot of Bobbio to alienate
lands. The Miracula reveal a shift in the nature of episcopal ambition towards private patronage, and a proactive
(if ever-changing) relationship between “royal” monastery and sovereign, during a time when the
landscape of royal power was shifting. Cultic innovations and accompanying hagiographic material provide
an often-neglected perspective onto the agency of institutions and the use of institutional memory and the
public sphere to negotiate and contest their rights.
"
This report sets how to future proof Britain’s research ecosystem, by encouraging four essential characteristics. It should be:
- selective so the UK continues to develop world-leading expertise
- collaborative to maximise complementary strengths
- responsive and relevant to the rest of society and industry, and
- committed to nurturing future capability.
Parts II and III consider Bobbio and Conques, and their miracula (dedicated to San Colombano and Sainte Foy) within their respective socio-political environments, since the best of the recent scholarship concerning the millennial period has emphasized the specificity of regional experience. At Bobbio the closeness of the king physically and some continuity in royal practices between the tenth and eleventh centuries shaped monastic experience. It directed and sometimes restricted monastic discourse, which maintained an older tradition of general service to the kingdom, although innovations in relic usage helped monastic negotiations with the sovereign. At Conques, the waning of royal control created space for literary and cultic advances that served to bolster the monastery’s position within local power structures. In this landscape older forms of public authority were purposefully minimized and hierarchy and landownership was negotiated between aristocrats, including Sainte Foy at the head of Conques.
Whilst the categories of the ‘feudal transformation’ debate can offer a useful framework for the analysis of two very different monasteries and their local societies, the comparison demonstrates that placing monasteries at the centre of our debate is crucial to understanding the documents they produce, and therefore questions the potential that these have to shed light on wider societal change. Concerns over land and autonomy were central to both institutions, although these operated on different conceptual planes, because of different bases of landed patrimony dating back much further than the tenth century. Each monastery negotiated hierarchy and clientele through their miracula and according to local socio-political rules. Therefore, whilst related documentary and cultic transformations were inseparable from socio-political pressures, these were not necessarily pressures simply reacting to mutation féodale, but were formative processes in the direction and shape of social change.