Dr David Harry | University of Chester

Deputy Head of Department; Senior Lecturer in History

I am a senior lecturer in early modern History at the University of Chester. I previously worked at the University of Bristol, the University of the West of England and the University of Kent. Between 2013 and 2018 I was co-secretary of the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy.

I would be happy to supervise MRes or PhD students on topics related to witchcraft (past and present), the religion and culture of unreformed and Catholic worship, and the colonial missions of the counter-reformation Church.

If it happened in the past, I have probably taught about it. At the moment my teaching at Chester is focused on the areas of medieval drama, witchcraft and the colonial missions of the Tridentine church.

I lead and deliver the following modules:

HI5130: Witchcraze

HI6143: Heresy and Unbelief in an Age of Reform

HI6144: Historical Sources for Heresy and Unbelief

HI7348: Killing in the Name: Colonial Missions in Africa, Asia and the Americas, 1400-1600.

At present, my research examines three different strands of history, local and global: the Chester Mystery Plays; witchcraft and magic in England and the theology of colonisation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

My first monograph was more modestly focused on medieval London: [i] Constructing a Civic Community in Late Medieval London: the Common Profit, Charity and Commemoration [/i], published by Boydell in 2019. [i] The Urban Church in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Clive Burgess [/i], co-edited with Christian Steer, was also published in 2019 by Shaun Tyas. I am also preparing, with Dr Steer, an edition of the churchwardens accounts of St Nicholas Shambles (Newgate) for the London Record Society. I have also published on the church in London, the macabre, the early printed book, monumental brasses and Catholic martyrdom in the sixteenth century. I have recently been involved in the Paul Mellon funded project 'Saints Shrines as Tangible Art: A Digital Barometer' in collaboration with the University of Lancaster.

Publications

David Harry, Constructing a Civic Community in Late Medieval London: the Common Profit, Charity and Commemoration (Boydell, 2019).

David Harry and Christian Steer (eds), The Urban Church in Late Medeival England: Essays in Honour of Clive Burgess (Shaun Tyas, 2019).

David Harry, ‘Martyrdom and Marriage: The Death of John Fisher Reconsidered’, in Sue Powell (ed.), Saints in the Middle Ages (Shaun Tyas, 2017), pp. 124-39.

David Harry, 'A Cadaver in Context: The Brass of John Brigge Reconsidered’, Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society 19 (2015), 101-10.

David Harry, 'Caxton and Commemorative Culture in Fifteenth-Century England’, in Linda Clark (ed), Exploring the Evidence: Commemoration, Administration and the Economy (Boydell, 2014), pp. 63-80.

David Harry, ‘Learning to Die in Yorkist England: Earl Rivers’ Cordial’, in Hannes Kleineke and Christian Steer (eds), The Yorkist Age (Shaun Tyas, 2013), pp. 380-98.

BA (UEA)
MA
PhD (Bristol)