Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow Joins the IMS

Dr Fraser McNair, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, joined the IMS in May 2018 and is working on a project titled 'The Changing Authority of Kings and Bishops: France, c. 900-110'.

Dr Fraser McNair has joined the Institute of Medieval Studies (IMS) as a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow this month, and his research interests include the ideological bases of claims about authority, the development of medieval political thought, the interaction between personal histories and wider historical processes, and the production and use of charters.

His project as a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Leeds, 'The Changing Authority of Kings and Bishops: France, c. 900-110', examines the changing relationships between kings and bishops in a period vital for both the West Frankish kingdom and the medieval western Church. As McNair explained, 'my research hopes to make significant leaps forward in understanding this really dynamic time of change not just in political structures but in understandings of political authority itself'. 

McNair described the department as 'welcoming', and is 'really looking forward to when the seminar programme starts up next semester'.  

Other interests include blogging at The Historian's Sketchpad, which McNair introduced as 'a research tool' for exploring current research questions through writing about them.

McNair can be contacted via Twitter (@RalphTorta) as well as email (F.A.McNair@leeds.ac.uk).