Dr Katherine Cross

Teaching

I draw on my interdisciplinary background to teach on the Liberal Arts Foundation Year.

Research

My research explores the relationship between historical narratives and identity. My work intervenes in debates about the intergenerational transmission of bodily and personal characteristics in the Early Middle Ages, and their modern relevance.

My monograph, 'Heirs of the Vikings', and related articles, presented a comparison of viking identities in England and Normandy in the 10th and 11th centuries. By investigating a broad range of written sources, I argue for the importance of the local, political significance of the viking past and the strategic use of Scandinavian identity.

During my postdoctoral research on the Empires of Faith project (British Museum/University of Oxford), I began to work more with museum objects. I grew interested in how historical narratives were transmitted by means of material culture. I have recently published a chapter integrating approaches to texts and objects in the study of origin legends, which takes the Horn of Ulf in York Minster as a case study.

My latest research explores perceptions of the boundaries between cultural and biological inheritance in post-Roman Europe through a focus on infant feeding. I suggest that early medieval people were aware that infant feeding practices had significance to the identity and structure of their societies, and that they used breastfeeding and weaning as metaphors for cultural reproduction.

Publications and conferences

Monograph

Heirs of the Vikings: History and Identity in Normandy and England, c.950-c.1015 (York Medieval Press, 2018; paperback edition 2021)

Reviewed in English Historical Review, Social History, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, French History, The Medieval Review, Medieval Archaeology, Parergon, Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, Comitatus, Medium Aevum, Speculum, Deutsches Archiv

"an original and thought-provoking contribution… this book is of great value for its in-depth exploration of textual evidence showing the ongoing creative manipulation of the past" – Clare Downham in JEGP.

"highly relevant in today's political climate, with increasing nationalism and focus on ethnic identities… Cross convincingly shows that past and seemingly well-known ethnic identities are the result of conscious creations … would be a useful read also for a wider audience" – Alexandra Sanmark in Medieval Archaeology.

"Solid and well-researched… The book's successful comparison raises questions for further comparative study" – Emily Winkler in EHR.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• 'Byrhtferth's Historia regum and the transformation of the Alfredian past', Haskins Society Journal, 27 (2016 for 2015), 55-78.
• 'The Mediterranean Scenes on the Franks Casket: narrative and exegesis', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 78 (2015), 1-40.

Peer-reviewed book chapters

• 'Comparing Material Texts', in Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity across Eurasia, ed. Jaś Elsner and Rachel Wood (British Museum Press, 2021), pp. 40-43.
• 'Response to C. Karkov, "Empire and Faith: The Heterotopian Space of the Franks Casket"', in Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity across Eurasia, ed. Jaś Elsner and Rachel Wood (British Museum Press, 2021), pp. 92-94.
• 'Barbarians at the British Museum: Anglo-Saxon art, race, and religion’' in Empires of Faith in Late Antiquity: Histories of Art and Religion from India to Ireland, ed. Jaś Elsner (CUP, 2020), pp. 396-433.
• '"But that will not be the end of the calamity": why emphasise viking disruption?', Stasis in the Medieval West?, ed. by Michael Bintley, Martin Locker, Victoria Symons and Mary Wellesley (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 155-177.
• 'Moving on from the "milk of simpler teaching": weaning and religious education in early medieval England', in Early Medieval English Life Courses: Cultural-Historical Perspectives, ed. T. Porck and H. Soper (Brill, Explorations in Medieval Culture, 2021).
• '"Anglo-Saxon" artefacts in English "world" museums, 1851-1906', in Transmissions and Translations in Medieval Literary and Material Culture, ed. Amanda Doviak and Megan Henvey with Jane Hawkes (Brill, Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 2021).
• (in press) 'Origin Legends and Objects', in Origin Legends in Medieval Europe, ed. Lindy Brady and Patrick Wadden (Brill, Reading Medieval Sources series, forthcoming 2022).

Chapters in exhibition catalogue

• 'Christianity in the British Isles', 'Stone Sculpture' and 'Travelling Objects', in Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions exhibition catalogue, Jaś Elsner, Stefanie Lenk et al. (Ashmolean Museum, 2017), pp. 167-95, 196-9, 203-4.

Book reviews

• 'Mark Atherton, The Making of England (2018)', The Medieval Review (11.04.19).
• 'Jeremy DeAngelo, Outlawry, Liminality and Sanctity in the Literature of the Early Medieval North Atlantic (2019)', Medieval Archaeology, 63.2 (2019), 462-3.
• 'Mark Hagger, Norman Rule in Normandy, 911-1144 (2017)', Óenach Reviews 10 (2020)
• 'Thijs Porck, Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History (2018)', Folklore 132 (2021)

Professional activities

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the Haskins Society and the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I was co-curator of the Ashmolean exhibition 'Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions' (2017-18) and am committed to working with museum colleagues to inspire students and the public in their learning.

I have consulted for TV programmes and a book series on Viking-Age history.