About

I am an Associate Lecturer in medieval literature and history at Flinders University. My research focuses on historiography, cultural memory, and the transmission of historical narrative across time and place. With research specialities in the history of early medieval England and in Scandinavian saga literature, I have published widely on various aspects of society and culture in England and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, and their intersections. My first monograph, a biographical study of English queens in the years 850-1000, was published in the Routledge Lives of Royal Women series in 2024.

Education

[2022] Flinders University, Adelaide

PhD – English/History

Thesis: English Kingship in the Saga Age: Memory, Transmission and the Evolution of Narrative

[2017] University of New England, Armidale

Graduate Certificate in Classical Languages (Latin)

[2017] University of New England, Armidale

Master of History

Thesis: Cultures of Punishment: Brutality and the Body in Anglo-Scandinavian England

[2003] University of Sydney

Bachelor of Arts (Studies of Religion)

Blog Posts

Publications

Matthew Firth, Early English Queens, 850-1000: Potestas reginae (Routledge, 2024) (link).

Erin Sebo, Matthew Firth and Daniel Anlezark (eds), Emotional Alterity in the Medieval North Sea World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) (link).

Matthew Firth, ‘Memories of Viking Age Cultural Contact: England in the Íslendingasögur‘, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, series 3, 17 (2023), 1-26 (link).

Matthew Firth, ‘Vikings and Francia, 799–936’, in Routledge Handbook of French History, ed. David Andress (Routledge, 2023) (link).

Erin Sebo and Matthew Firth, ‘Saxo Grammaticus’s Account of the Viking Age Site on the Danish Island of Hjarnø in Gesta Danorum’, Scandinavian Studies 95, 2 (2023), 166-82.

Matthew Firth, ‘Rage and Lust in the Afterlives of King Edgar the Peaceful’, in Emotional Alterity in the Medieval North Sea World, ed. Erin Sebo, Matthew Firth and Daniel Anlezark (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), 201-230 (link).

Matthew Firth, ‘Identifying Queenship in Pre-Conquest England’, in Norman to Early Plantaganet Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty, ed. Aidan Norrie et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), 17-45 (link).

Matthew Firth, ‘On the Dating of the Norse Siege of Chester,’ Notes and Queries 69 (2022) (link)

Matthew Firth, ‘Deconstructing the Female Antagonist of the Coronation Scandal in B’s Vita Dunstani,’ English Studies 103 (2022) (free eprint)

Matthew Firth, ‘Æthelred II ‘the Unready’ and the Role of Kingship in Gunnlaugs saga Ormstungu,’ The Court Historian 25 (no.1, 2020), 1-14 (free eprint).

Matthew Firth and Erin Sebo, ‘Kingship and Maritime Power in 10th-Century England,’ International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 49 (no. 2, 2020), 329-40 (free eprint).

Projects

Matthew Firth, Remembering England: Cultural Memory in the Sagas of Icelanders (Routledge, forthcoming)

Matthew Firth, ed., Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception (York Medieval Press, forthcoming)

Matthew Firth, ‘Eadwig’s Coronation Scandal: Sexuality, Rhetoric and the Vulnerability of Reputation’, in Premodern Ruling Sexualities: Representation, Identity, and Power, ed. G. Story and Z. Rohr (Manchester University Press, forthcoming).

Matthew Firth, ‘What’s in a Name? Tracing the Origins of Alfred’s “the Great”’, English Historical Review (forthcoming).

Memberships

Australian Early Medieval Association (Reviews Editor)

Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Communications Officer)

Royal Historical Society (Postgraduate Member)

Royal Studies Network

Viking Society for Northern Research

Matthew Firth

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