Felicity Hill

Felicity Hill's research is focused on social and religious history. Her forthcoming book, Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England: Community, Politics and Publicity (Oxford University Press), examines the social, political and spiritual consequences of the medieval church’s most severe sanction. Focusing on the practice of excommunication, she examines how the censure was used, and how it affected the consciences and reputations of those sentenced. Her research on excommunication has led to interest in pastoral care, lay piety, ecclesiastical law, defamation, scandal and ostracism, and particularly communication. The considerable publicity afforded sentences of excommunication profoundly affected medieval society, and her new project builds upon her work on excommunication as a means of mass communication. This looks at 'common knowledge' in medieval England and France, in particular what secular and ecclesiastical authorities sought to communicate to the wider populace in oral proclamations and announcements.

Felicity Hill came to St Andrews in 2019 from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where she held a research fellowship. Before that she was a fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, and studied at Manchester, UCL and UEA.