Research Interests
Licence is a specialist on the eleventh and twelfth centuries. His research focuses on the Norman Conquest, kings, saints, and Latin literature of the period.
Professor Tom Licence
Professor Tom Licence is a Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene.
Tom Licence has been elected to a Senior Research Fellowship for three years from September 2022. He was an undergraduate, postgraduate and Junior Research Fellow at Magdalene from 1999 to 2009. In 2009, he was appointed Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, rising to Professor in 2019.
His publications include England’s Hermits and Recluses, 970-1220 (Oxford University Press, 2011), the edition and translation of the Latin Miracles of St Edmund (Oxford Medieval Texts, 2014), and Edward the Confessor: Last of the Royal Blood, for the Yale English Monarchs series (2020). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2011) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2011).
In 2021, Tom was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which buys him out of teaching for three years to write the Yale English Monarchs biography of Harold Godwinson (d. 1066).
For a hobby, Tom digs up Victorian rubbish and publishes on the origins of the throwaway society, appearing in TV documentaries such as The Secret Life of Landfill (BBC, 2018). He lives in Essex with his husband Ben Ross (Sidney Sussex, 1999), whom he met as an undergraduate in 2000. He is delighted to be returning to Magdalene to write his biography of Harold, renew old friendships, and resume the life of the College.
Qualifications
MA Hons, MPhil, PhD
Career / Research Highlights
Tom Licence was an undergraduate, postgraduate and Junior Research Fellow at Magdalene from 1999 to 2009. In 2009, he was appointed Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, rising to Professor in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2011) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2011). In 2021, he was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for three years to write the biography of Harold Godwinson (d. 1066), which has been commissioned for Yale English Monarchs.
Professional Affiliations
- Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
- Fellow of the Higher Educational Academy
Selected Publications
‘Anchorites, Wise Folk and Magical Practitioners in Twelfth-Century England’, History 106 (2021), 709-26
Edward the Confessor (Yale English Monarchs: London/ New Haven, 2020)
‘The Cult of St Guthlac after the Norman Conquest’, in J. Roberts and A. Thacker (ed.) Guthlac, Crowland’s Saint (Sean Tyas: Donington, Lincs, 2020), 385-407 (with T. A. Heslop), ‘1066 and the Church’, in D. Bates (ed.) 1066 in Perspective (Leeds, 2018), 156-75
‘A New Source for the Vita Ædwardi regis’, Journal of Medieval Latin 29 (2020), 1-19
‘Edward the Confessor and the Succession Question: A Fresh Look at the Sources’, Anglo-Norman Studies 39 (2017), 113-27
‘The date and authorship of the Vita Ædwardi regis’, Anglo-Saxon England 44 (2016), 259-85
(ed. & tr.) Miracles of St Edmund (Oxford Medieval Texts: OUP, Oxford, 2014)
(ed.) Bury St Edmunds and the Norman Conquest (Boydell: Woodbridge, 2014)
‘Robert of Jumièges, Archbishop in Exile’, Anglo-Saxon England 42 (2013), 313-29
‘Herbert Losinga’s Trip to Rome and the Bishopric of Bury St Edmunds’, Anglo-Norman Studies 34 (2012), 151-68
‘Public Spectacle’, in E. van Houts and J. Crick (ed.) A Social History of England, 900-1200 (CUP, Cambridge, 2011)
Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1250 (OUP, Oxford, 2011)
‘History and Hagiography in the Late Eleventh Century: the Life and Work of Herman the Archdeacon, Monk of Bury St Edmunds’, English Historical Review 124 (2009), 1-29
‘The Norwich Narrative and the East Anglian Bishopric’, Norfolk Archaeology 45 (2007), 198-204
‘Evidence of Recluses in Eleventh-Century England’, Anglo-Saxon England 36 (2007), 221-34
‘Goscelin of Saint-Bertin and the Hagiography of St Eadwold of Cerne’, Journal of Medieval Latin 16 (2007), 182-207
‘Military Orders as Monastic Orders’, Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East Journal, Crusades Vol. 5 (2006), 39-53
‘The Origins of the Monastic Communities of St Benedict at Holme and Bury St Edmunds’, Revue bénédictine 116 (2006), 42-61
‘The Life and Miracles of Godric of Throckenholt’, Analecta Bollandiana 124 (2006), 15-43
‘The Templars and the Hospitallers, Christ and the Saints’, Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East Journal, Crusades Vol. 4 (2005), 39-57
‘Suneman and Wulfric: Two Forgotten Saints of St Benedict’s Abbey at Holme in Norfolk’, Analecta Bollandiana 122 (2004), 361-72
‘The Gift of Seeing Demons in Early Cistercian Spirituality, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 39 (2004), 49-65
‘The Benedictines, the Cistercians and the Acquisition of a Hermitage in Twelfth-Century Durham’, Journal of Medieval History 29 (2003), 315-29