Keeping the King's Peace: the "Peace Gilds" of Athelstan's Reign' Professor Rory Naismith

The reign of Athelstan is best known for the military and political expansion of the English, but it was also a time of important developments within the English kingdom. This talk examines how life and social organisation changed in the early tenth century. Athelstan embarked on a campaign of public order, targeting theft in particular, and he did so by inviting the collaboration of local groups across the kingdom. By building relationships with the king, individual communities created an identity for themselves. This process is most visible at London, where the city's 'peace gilds' asserted the right to protect their property with lethal force. Actions like those undertaken in London laid the basis for more systematic forms of local government in later times.Professor Naismith studied as an undergraduate and graduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, between 2002 and 2009. In the latter year he completed a doctoral dissertation on 'Coinage and History in Southern England c. 750-865'. It has since been published by Cambridge University Press and the British Numismatic Society.
In October 2009 he took up a position as a Junior Research Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. From October 2012 until September 2014, he was a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, also in the University of Cambridge.
In October 2014 he took up a position as a Mellon Research Associate, based jointly in the Faculty of History, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Division of Archaeology and the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Since September 2015 he has been a lecturer in early medieval British history at King's College London and in 2019 he returned to the University of Cambridge, where he is now Professor of Early Medieval English History.1HVisit https://www.eamont927.co.uk/ for full information on the weekend event