Dr Merridee Bailey

Dr Merridee Bailey
  • Biography/ Background

    I am a social and cultural historian of late medieval and early modern England looking at the history of morality. I take a social and cultural history approach to late medieval and early modern moral thinking by looking at the different guises through which morality was understood and practiced by ordinary people. My first book explored morality and courtesy in late medieval socialising discourses for young people. I'm interested in how moral ideas and codes were disseminated and the behavioral practices around that. While at the ARC Centre for the History of Emotions I pursued these ideas by looking at the language of emotions and moral discourse in legal and literary sources. Now, I'm moving on to look at how morality played out in the particular concept of meekness from the Middle Ages to the present and how the moral value of meekness was transmitted and changed over this time.

    I have several side interests in the history of the book, the late medieval and early modern economy, city spaces and the history of law and emotions. I co-founded the History of Law and Emotions research cluster in 2015 with Kimberley-Joy Knight and John Hudson http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/history-of-law-and-emotions/ In 2014 I co-founded the Space, Cities and Emotions research cluster. http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/space-cities-and-emotion/ I recently co-edited a collection on women's work in pre-modern Europe (Routledge) and on rituals and emotions (Palgrave).

    I held a Visiting Fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford, for the 2015-2016 academic year and was the S. Ernest Sprott Fellow from 2018-2019, funded by The University of Melbourne. I am a Visiting Research Fellow at the Univeristy of Adelaide until 2021.

    I am currently an Associate Member of the History Faculty, University of Oxford.

     

  • Qualifications

    PhD, Between the Household and the School: Socialising the Child in England, c. 1400-1600 (Australian National University)
    MA, A Delightful Instruction: The World of the Child Reader in the 15th to 18th Centuries (Australian National University)
    BA, History and Archaeology (Australian National University)

  • Awards & Achievements

    2017-ongoing, Associate Member, History Faculty, University of Oxford
    2018-2019 S. Ernest Sprott Fellowship, The University of Melbourne ($44,500)
    2016 Scouloudi Historical Awards, Institute of Historical Research UK. Publication grant for Women and Work in Premodern Europe: Experiences, Relationships and Cultural Representation (£645)
    2015-2016 Visiting Fellow, Oriel College, University of Oxford
    2013-2018 ARC Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
    2012 Unit commendation, HIST111 Medieval Europe, University of New England
    2012 Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions ($3000)
    2012 Nominated, National Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
    2012 Nominated, Australian National University Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Excellence in Education
    2011 Won, Excellence in Tutoring Award, Australian National University
    2011 ANU Council and Boards Secretariat, Publishing Subsidy towards costs of publishing Socialising the Child in Late Medieval England, c. 1400-1600 ($1300)
    2010 Australian Academy of the Humanities, International Research Fellowship ($5000)
    2010 Visiting Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, London
    2009 The Scouloudi Foundation Historical Awards (£881.00)
    2008 ARC, Network for Early European Research, ‘Children in Europe and the Australian Colonies c. 1300-1850' Travel Grant
    2007 Australian National University, Vice-Chancellor's Travel Grant
    2007 ARC, Network for Early European Research, ‘Children in Europe and the Australian Colonies c. 1300-1850' Travel Grant
    2006 Richard III Society Bursary Prize (£500)
    2006 UK Bibliographical Society, Minor Grants (£200)
    2005 ARC, Network for Early European Research Travel Grant ($540)
    2004 Australian National University, Fieldwork Grant ($6000)
    2003 Australian National University, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Fieldwork Grant ($4000)
    2003 Australian National University, Endowment for Excellence PhD Scholarship (c. $60,000)

  • Teaching Interests

    Current Research Students
    Ms Jasmin Parasiers, ‘Miscreant Youth in Early Modern England', PhD

    Past Students
    Mr Justin Boden, Honours
    Ms Elizabeth Tunstall, ‘English Foreign Policy During the Reign of Elizabeth I' , MPhil

  • Research Interests

    My project as a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for the History of Emotions investigated emotional discourses surrounding merchant practices in London over the late medieval and early modern period, c. 1450-1650. Drawing on an array of sources, from court records to popular printed didactic texts and plays, I examined the central role of emotions and morality in London merchant activities and the ways in which moral emotions, vices and emotional expressions of good economic conduct were represented. In addition, my research explored the language of emotions in literary texts and legal records. This work has been published in English StudiesThe Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience, Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and in a special issue in the Journal of Legal History.

    I am now writing a book on the history of meekness over the medieval to modern period exploring how the moral value of meekness has been transmitted and changed over time.

    I co-convene the research cluster 'Law and Emotions' http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/history-of-law-and-emotions/

    and also co-convened the research cluster 'Space, Cities and Emotions' http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-clusters/space-cities-and-emotion/ 

  • Publications

    BOOKS

    1. Socialising the Child in Late Medieval England, c. 1400-1600. York Medieval Press/Boydell Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-903153-42-0. 269pp. (hdbk published 2012; pbk published Spring 2018)

    JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE

    2. ‘Emotions in Legal History', Journal of Legal History 38.2 (2017): 117-227, with Kimberley-Joy Knight.

    EDITED COLLECTIONS

    3. Working for Women: experiences, relationships and cultural representation in pre-modern Europe (Routledge, 2018). ISBN: 978-1-4724-8832-9, with Tania M. Colwell, Julie Hotchin.

    4. Emotion, Ritual and Power in Europe, 1200 - 1920: Family, State and Church. (Palgrave, 2017), 268pp. ISNB 978-3-319-44184-9, with Katie Barclay.

    REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES

    5. ‘A Previously Unnoticed Copy of the Articles of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, 1528', Notes and Queries 2021 https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjab003

    6.‘Early English Dictionaries and the History of Meekness', Philological Quarterly, 98.3 (2019): 243-71.

    7.‘ "most hevynesse and sorowe": The Presence of Emotions in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Court of Chancery', Law and History Review 37.1 (2019): 1-28.

    8.‘The Importance of Equilibrium in Thomas Dekker's A Worke For Armourers (1609)', English Studies 99.2 (2018): 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2017.1418041 

    9.‘Writing Histories of Law and Emotion', Journal of Legal History 38.2 (2017): 117-29, with Kimberley-Joy Knight.

    10.‘Reconsidering Religious Vitality in Catholic England: Household Aspirations and Educating the Laity in Richard Whitford's A werke for housholders', Viator 47.2 (2016): 331-50.

    11.‘Old Age and Economic Practices: Court of Chancery Cases Involving Richard Pynson, King's Printer', Journal of the Early Book Society 17 (2014): 307-315.

    12.‘Hornbooks', Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 6.1 (2013): 5-14.

    13.‘What history reveals about reactions to climate debates', Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 26.12 (2011): 615-6. Impact factor 15.748.

    14.‘In Service and at Home: Didactic Texts for Children and Young People, c. 1400-1600', Parergon, 24.2 (2007): 23-46.

    BOOK CHAPTERS

    15.‘ "thus of War, a Paradox I write" ': Thomas Dekker and a Londoner's View of War and Peace', in Writing War in Britain and France, 1370-1854: A History of Emotions, edited by Stephanie Downes, Andrew Lynch and Katrina O'Loughlin (Routledge, 2019): 89-105.

    16.‘Approaching Women and Work in Pre-modern Europe', in Working for Women: experiences, relationships and cultural representation in pre-modern Europe (Routledge, 2018), with Tania M. Colwell, Julie Hotchin: 1-29.

    17.‘Shaping London merchant identities: emotions, reputation and power in the Court of Chancery', in Deborah Simonton (Gen. Ed.) The Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience (Routledge, 2017): 327-37.

    18. ‘Emotion, Ritual and Power: From Family to Nation' in Emotion, Ritual and Power in Europe, 1200 - 1920: Family, State and Church. (Palgrave, 2017): 1-20, with Katie Barclay.

    19.‘Educational treatises: Sources and Methodologies for Early Modern Emotions', in Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction (ed.) Susan Broomhall (Routledge, 2017): 99-102.

    20.‘Economic records: Sources and Methodologies for Early Modern Emotions', in Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction (ed.) Susan Broomhall (Routledge, 2017): 108-12.

    21.‘Anxieties with Political and Social Order in Fifteenth Century England', Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (ed.) Susan Broomhall (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015): 84-105.

    22.‘A Formula for Courtesy in some English Vernacular Poems: Conventional Traits, the use of Common Language, and the Creation of ‘Genre' in, La formule dans la littérature et la civilisation du Moyen Âge anglais ed. by Colette Stévanovitch, Élise Louviot, Philippe Mahoux-Pauzin and Dominique Hascoët (Nancy: Association des Médiévistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 2011): 121-136.

    NON-REFEREED ARTICLES

    23.‘Formulaic Emotions and Why They Matter in Historical Research', The Docket, 2019. https://lawandhistoryreview.org/article/formulaic-emotions-and-why-they-matter-in-historical-research/

    24.‘Love and Marriage in History: Devotion, Lust, Despair and Betrayal' in, Singing Emotions: Voices from History ed. by Jane Davidson and Rebekah Prince (CHE/Musica Viva, November 2012, ISBN 978-1-74052-258-8): 44-50.

    BOOK REVIEWS

    25.Naama Cohen-Hanegbi, Caring for the Living Soul: Emotions, Medicine and Penance in the Late Medieval Mediterranean (Leiden: Brill, 2017), for English Historical Review 135 (2020): 663-65 (1000 words). https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/135/574/663/5885153

    26.Bernard Capp, The Ties that Bind: Siblings, Family, and Society in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), for Emotions: History, Culture, Society 3 (2019): 321-23 (1000 words)

    27.Adrienne E. Gavin,ed.,The Child in British Literature: Literary Constructions of Childhood, Medieval to Contemporary, for the Journal British Studies 53 (2014), pp. 505-7 (800-1000 words)

    28.Blaine Greteman, The Poetics and Politics of Youth in Milton's England Book (Cambridge University Press) for Review of English Studies 2015. doi: 10.1093/res/hgv024

    MEDIA

    29.October 2018, Blog post, 'Socialising the Child in Late Medieval England', Proofed (A Boydell & Brewer Blog) https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/socialising-the-child-in-late-medieval-england/

    30.‘Liveable cities: who decides what that means and how we achieve it?', The Conversation https://theconversation.com/liveable-cities-who-decides-what-that-means-and-how-we-achieve-it-48825, 27 October 2015. Collaboratively written with members of the Space, Cities and Emotions Research Cluster.

    31.June 2015, Blog post, 'Why education matters: breaking cycles of child labour in the past and the present' for World Against Child Labour Day, with Katie Barclay http://historiesofemotion.com/2015/06/15/yes-to-quality-education/

    32.April 2013, Blog post, ‘This Month in History - April 1529', http://history.cass.anu.edu.au/monthinhistory/londons-letter-books-april-1529

     

     

     

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Entry last updated: Thursday, 8 Apr 2021