About
Since April 2022, I am Postdoctoral researcher at Heidelberg University, internship coordinator and Secretary of the Institute for Regional History (
Institut für Fränkisch-Pfälzische Geschichte und Landeskunde).
My current project focuses on the
organisation, control and legitimation of physical violence in 11th-century East Francia and Lotharingia.
My first monograph,
Willibrord between Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (690-739). Beyond Mission, was published by Liverpool University Press on 1 October 2024 as part of their
Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Belief and Culture series.
I obtained my PhD in Medieval History from Trinity College Dublin in 2021. My doctoral thesis was supervised by Dr Immo Warntjes and funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (project code: WILL17).
For contact details and further information see the CV below and the
website of the Institute for Regional History.
Publications
Monographs
Willibrord between Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (690–739): Beyond Mission (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2024).
Journal articles
Summer, Michel, ‘Willibrord and the Christianisation of Europe’,
Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 33 (2022), pp. 297-306.
Book chapters
Studying the networks and the mobility of clerics between Ireland, Britain and Francia (c. 640-750), in: Laury Sarti and Helene von Trott zu Solz (eds),
Mobility in the Early Middle Ages, and Beyond. Interdisciplinary Approaches (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025), pp. 29-42.
[Open Access]
Summer, Michel,
‘”Vassal” or “political player”? Towards a re-assessment of Willibrord’s political activity in Merovingian Francia (AD 690–739)’, in S. Kubisch and H. Klinkott (eds),
Power of the Priests: Political Use of Religious Knowledge (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), pp. 141–158. (Note: The last sentence on p. 152 should read ‘[…] whereas the charters date their involvement to the time after the monastery’s foundation.’)
[Open Access]
Summer, Michel, ‘Early medieval “warrior” images and the concept of Gefolgschaft‘, in G. M. Berndt, L. Sarti, S. Esders and E. Bennett (eds),
Early Medieval Militarisation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), pp. 314-330.
Online and smaller publications
A ‘European before the European Union’? Studying and remembering early medieval missionaries in the 20th and 21st centuries,
Liverpool University Press blog, 26/03/2025.
‘Englänner, Lëtzebuerger, Europäer? Op de Spuere vum moderne Willibrord-Bild’,
Annuaire de la Ville d’Echternach, 2020–2022 (2023), pp. 109–117.
Summer, Michel, ‘Mittelalter-Cartoons auf Twitter: Ein Erfahrungsbericht’,
doing public history, 26/01/2022.
Summer, Michel, ‘Willibrord as a political actor between early medieval Ireland, Britain and Merovingian Francia (658-739)’, Mittelalter: Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Rezeptionsgeschichte, 4 (2021), pp. 51-57.
Reviews
Hémecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte;
H-Soz-Kult;
Le Moyen Âge;
Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland; Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique (see CV for full list of published reviews).
Conference Reports
Summer, Michel, ‘Bericht über die Tagung “Archäologie, Geschichte und Biowissenschaften: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven”, Freiburg 2015’, Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, 43 (2015), pp. 178-80.
Translations
Pierre Kauthen,
Willibrord: The Model of a Saint (L’Oeuvre St-Willibrord, 2020; from German into English).
MA Thesis
Summer, Michel,
“Gefolgschaft”: Interdisziplinäre Untersuchungen zu einem zentralen Begriff der Frühmittelalterforschung, unpublished MA thesis, University of Freiburg, 2017.
