Dan Armstrong earned his PhD in Medieval History at the University of St Andrews, where he was funded by the European Research Council. Before joining UCD, Dan was a Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto), a Royal Historical Society Centenary Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (London), and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He published his first article in the Haskins Society Journal on ‘The Norman Conquest of England, the Papacy, and the Papal Banner’ and recently co-edited a volume entitled ‘Borders and the Norman World: Frontiers and Boundaries in Medieval Europe’, which was published in December 2023 by The Boydell Press. Dan’s work focuses on papal relations with the periphery of Europe, especially the British-Irish Isles. His position at UCD is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, who have awarded him a Study Abroad Studentship to pursue a new project entitled ‘Rethinking the Anglo-Papal Past in the Aftermath of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066’. The project will examine how the Anglo-papal past was rewritten in the century after 1066 as a response to the Norman Conquest and the expansion of papal power.
2018-2022, University of St Andrews: PhD (passed with minor corrections) in Medieval History
2017-2018, University of East Anglia: MA (Distinction) in Medieval History
2014-2017, Downing College, University of Cambridge: BA Honours (First-Class) in History.
Employment
2024-2026, University College Dublin: Visting Assistant Professor (position funded by the Leverhulme Trust).
2023-2024, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto): Mellon Fellow.
2022, University of St Andrews: Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
2021-2022, Institute of Historical Research: Royal Historical Society Centenary Fellow.
Outreach activities
October 2022: BBC HistoryExtra Podcast: ‘1066: The Pope and the Conqueror’.
October 2021: History Hit Gone Medieval Podcast: ‘Did the Papacy Support the Norman Conquest?’
Publications
Books
Borders and the Norman World: Frontiers and Boundaries in Medieval Europe (with Áron Kecskés, Leonie V. Hicks, and Charles C. Rozier) (The Boydell Press, 2023). xx + 395 pp. ISBN: 978-1-78327-785-8.
Book Chapters
‘Gregory VII, Lanfranc, and Ireland: Papal Relations at the Periphery’, in Borders and the Norman World: Frontiers and Boundaries in Medieval Europe (The Boydell Press, 2023), pp. 149-70.
‘Writing the Borders of the Norman World’ (with Áron Kecskés), in Borders and the Norman World: Frontiers and Boundaries in Medieval Europe (The Boydell Press, 2023), pp. 1-13.
Peer Reviewed Journals
‘The Norman Conquest of England, the Papacy, and the Papal Banner’, Haskins Society Journal, 32 (2020), 47-72.
Reviews
Review of Nicholas Karn, Kings, Lords, and Courts in Anglo-Norman England (2020), History, 106 (2021), 302-4.
Review of Christina Antenhofer and Mark Mersiowsky (eds), The Roles of Medieval Chanceries: Negotiating Rules of Political Communications (2021), Speculum, 98 (2023), 829-30.
