Björn Weiler

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Björn Weiler is a reader in medieval history at Aberystwyth University in Wales. He works primarily on cultural frameworks of political power in high medieval Europe (c. 950–c. 1250). His publications include King Henry III of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216–1272 (Royal Historical Society, 2006) and Kingship, Rebellion and Political Culture, England and Germany, c. 1215–c. 1250 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

At Radcliffe, Weiler will work on ideas of kingship in the period 950?1250. Although kingship emerged as the “natural” form of government in the West during these centuries, theoretical treatises on royal power, so popular in the early Middle Ages, ceased to be written in the same period. Using a wide array of sources—saints’ lives, liturgical texts, chronicles, letters, law codes—Weiler will explore how men and women in the high Middle Ages engaged with and thought about royal power. He will also ask questions about conflicting notions of power, the nature of political debate, and theoretical responses to social, economic, and cultural change.

Weiler has previously held visiting fellowships at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the Universitetet i Bergen in Norway. He has also received grants from the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Weiler earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.