Staff profile

I write about towns in the late Middle Ages (13th-16th centuries). Most of my published research focuses on English medieval towns, but I study them comparatively. In particular, I write urban history that seeks to overcome the distorting effects of national historiographical traditions, which emerged in the 19th century, but which persist today. In decentring the nation-state, I study towns in their own right. What does this mean? I am interested in the concept of 'town-ness' and in the distinctiveness of the urban place. In his classic study of the contemporary American city, The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life, the sociologist Richard Sennett wrote animatedly of the ‘essence of urban life', which he found in 'its diversity and possibilities for complex existence’. Sennett thought that these qualities had been lost in the modern city, but what draws me to urban history is the sense of the town as a site of intellectual and physical labour, of manufacture, a process as much as a place, a permanent work in progress that is always in flux, unstable yet dynamic. Where did (and does) authority lie in such a space? Complexity, fluidity, and instability were basic, functioning conditions of urban living in the Middle Ages.

I wrote my first book on relations between major provincial cities and the English crown during the Hundred Years War. After this initial study of English towns, I had the opportunity to research the history of the palatinate of Durham (or the bishopric of Durham, as it was known in the Middle Ages). In the English historiography, Durham had been seen as an anomaly or problem, an exception to the general rule of England's precocious centralization as a single, coherent, well-defined, and stable nation-state. I explored how members of rural society interacted with each other and with the institutions of palatine government. In identifying the existence of a vigorous, local political culture, which was very different from what I had been taught to expect, I became more convinced that it was possible, and desirable, to move away from master narratives of national history towards a comparative and connected history of towns. 

After my research on Durham, I returned to urban history. Between 2007 and 2012 I was an associate editor of the journal Urban History, for which I wrote an annual review (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012). Funded by a British Academy Small Research Grant (2009-11) and by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2014-15), my last book, The Politics of Citizenship in English Towns, examined the multiple and sometimes conflicting meanings of citizenship in late medieval English towns. 

My interest in the relationship between ideas of citizenship and practices of resistance led to my role as the academic curator of the Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt exhibition, which was held in the summer of 2015 at Palace Green Library. To accompany the exhibition, I also organized a public lecture series on the theme of citizenship. The lectures remain available on the Durham University YouTube channel, Magna Carta play list. Speakers included Professor Guy Standing, author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class and A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens.

My current research project is a comparative study of urban families in different parts of late medieval Europe (including England). It develops my engagement with a social history of politics that approaches politics from the ground up and from social practice. I place the history of family and lineage at the centre of the study of northern European cities. Specifically, I wish to test the oft-repeated argument that families in late medieval English towns were short-lived, in marked contrast to the situation in continental Europe where urban families and their lineages persisted. This was a pattern that would influence the future shape and direction of European history: the roots of capitalism and economic modernization; the trajectories and types of state formation; and the dynamics of social mobility.

Between March and April 2024, I was 'Professeur invité' at the Sorbonne, where I delivered a series of lectures on 'Urban Life in the Middle Ages'. I will be Visiting Professor at the University of Turin between March and April 2025. I am keen to accept PhD applications from students interested in any aspect of medieval urban history.

 

• Family and lineage
• Home and household
• Citizenship
• Popular revolt and popular protest
• Medieval towns
• Comparative urban history

Authored book

• Liddy, C. D. (2017). Contesting the City: The Politics of Citizenship in English Towns, 1250 - 1530. Oxford University Press
• Liddy, C. D. (2008). The Bishopric of Durham in the Late Middle Ages: Lordship,Community and the Cult of St Cuthbert. Boydell Press
• Liddy, C. (2005). War, Politics and Finance in Late Medieval English Towns: Bristol, York and the Crown, 1350-1400. Boydell & Brewer

Chapter in book

• Liddy, C. D. Urban Revolt, Citizenship and Town Politics. In P. Lantschner, & M. Prak (Eds.), Cambridge Urban History of Europe, Volume II: Medieval and Early Modern. Cambridge University Press
• Haemers, J., & Liddy, C. (2021). Conclusion. Medieval households, families and lineages: towards a comparative history of Northern and Southern Europe. In J. Solórzano Telechea, J. Haemers, & C. Liddy (Eds.), La familia urbana: matrimonio, parentesco y linaje en la Edad Media (517-525). Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, Logroño
• Liddy, C. D., & Lambert, B. (2017). The Civic Franchise and the Regulation of Aliens in Great Yarmouth, c. 1430-c. 1490. In W. M. Ormrod, N. Mcdonald, & C. Taylor (Eds.), Resident aliens in later medieval England (125-143). Brepols Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1484/m.seuh-eb.5.114462
• Liddy, C. D. (2016). Cultures of Surveillance in Late Medieval English Towns: The Monitoring of Speech and the Fear of Revolt. In J. Firnhaber-Baker, & D. Schoenaers (Eds.), The Routledge history handbook of medieval revolt (311-329). Routledge
• Liddy, C. (2011). "Bee war of gyle in borugh". Taxation and political discourse in late medieval English towns. In A. Gamberini, J.-P. Genet, & A. Zorzi (Eds.), The Languages of Political Society, Western Europe, 14th -17th Centuries (461-485). Viella
• Liddy, C. (2011). Bill casting and political communication: A public sphere in late medieval English towns?. In J. A. S. Telechea, & B. A. Bolumburu (Eds.), La Gobernanza de la Ciudad Europea en la Edad Media (447-61). Instituto de Estudios Riojanos
• Liddy, C. (2011). Political Contract in Late Medieval English Towns. In F. Foronda (Ed.), Avant le Contrat Social: Le Contrat Politique dans l’Occident médiéval XIIIe-XVe siècle (397-416). Publications de la Sorbonne
• Holford, M., King, A., & Liddy, C. (2007). North-East England in the late middle ages: rivers, boundaries and identities, 1296-1461. In A. Green, & A. J. Pollard (Eds.), Regional Identities in North-East England, 1300-2000 (27-47). Boydell
• Liddy, C. (2007). William Frost, the City of York and Scrope's rebellion of 1405. In P. Goldberg (Ed.), Richard Scrope: Archbishop, Rebel, Martyr (64-85). Shaun Tyas
• Liddy, C. (2006). The politics of privilege: Thomas Hatfield and the palatinate of Durham, 1345-81. In J. Hamilton (Ed.), Fourteenth Century England IV (61-79). Boydell & Brewer
• Liddy, C. (2005). Land, legend and gentility in the Palatinate of Durham: the Pollards of Pollard Hall. In C. Liddy, & R. Britnell (Eds.), North-east England in the later Middle Ages (75-95). Boydell & Brewer
• Liddy, C. (2004). Bristol and the crown, 1326-31: local and national politics in the early years of Edward III’s reign. In W. Ormrod (Ed.), Fourteenth Century England III (47-65). Boydell & Brewer

Edited book

• Solórzano Telechea, J., Haemers, J., & Liddy, C. (Eds.). (in press). La familia urbana: matrimonio, parentesco y linaje en la Edad Media. Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, Logroño
• Liddy, C., & Dodds, B. (Eds.). (2011). Commercial Activity, Markets and Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Richard Britnell. Boydell Press
• Liddy, C., & Britnell, R. (Eds.). (2005). North-east England in the Later Middle Ages. Boydell & Brewer

Journal Article

• Liddy, C. (2024). The making of towns, the making of polities: Towns and lords in late medieval Europe. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 264(1), 3-47. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtad030
• Liddy, C. D. (2024). The household, the citizen, and the city: towards a social history of urban politics in the late Middle Ages. Social History, 49(3), 261-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2024.2351752
• Liddy, C. D. (2021). Who decides? Urban councils and consensus in the late Middle Ages. Social History, 46(4), 406-434. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2021.1967640
• Liddy, C. (2020). Family, lineage and dynasty in the late medieval city: Re-thinking the English evidence. Urban History, 47(4), 648-670. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0963926819000671
• Liddy, C. D. (2017). 'Sir ye be not kyng': Citizenship and Speech in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. Historical Journal, 60(3), 571-596. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x16000108
• Liddy, C. D. (2015). Urban enclosure riots: Risings of the commons in English towns, 1480-1525. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 226(1), 41-77. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtu038
• Liddy, C., & Haemers, J. (2013). Popular Politics in the late medieval city: York and Bruges. The English Historical Review, 128(533), 771-805. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cet107
• Liddy, C. (2012). Urban politics and material culture at the end of the Middle Ages: the Coventry tapestry in St Mary's Hall. Urban History, 39(2), 203-224. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0963926812000028
• Liddy, C., & Steer, C. (2010). John Lord Lumley and the creation and commemoration of lineage in Early Modern England. Archaeological Journal, 167, 197-227
• Liddy, C. (2003). Urban conflict in late fourteenth-century England: the case of York in 1380-1. The English Historical Review, 118(475), 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/118.475.1
• Liddy, C. (2002). The rhetoric of the royal chamber in late medieval London, York and Coventry. Urban History, 29(3), 323-349. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0963926802003012
• Liddy, C. (2001). The estate of merchants in the parliament of 1381. Historical Research, 74(185), 331-345
• Liddy, C. (1997). The Palmers’ gild window, St Lawrence’s Church, Ludlow: a study of the construction of gild identity in medieval stained glass