Matthew Firth
Matthew is Research Fellow in Medieval History, supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award: 'Contesting Conquest: Pre-Modern Attempts to come to Terms with the Past' (DE250100116). Matthew is also a Travelling Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (AAH) (2024), and an Early Career Fellow of both the Australian Historical Association (AHA) (2024) and the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS) (2023).
Matthew's research focuses on historiography, cultural memory, and the transmission of historical narrative across time and place. With research specialities in the history of early medieval England and its reception, as well as in Icelandic saga literature, he has published numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of society, culture and historiography in England and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, and their intersections.
Matthew's first monograph, Early English Queens, 850–1000: Potestas Reginae, is a biographical study of English royal women in the years 850-1000 that explores the development of queenship at a critical juncture in the history of early medieval England. It was published in Routledge's Lives of Royal Women series in 2024. His second monograph, Remembering England: Cultural Memory in the Sagas of Icelanders, examines depictions of Viking Age England in the Sagas of Icelanders and their utility as historical sources. It was published in Routledge's Studies in Medieval History and Culture series in 2025. Matthew's edited collection, Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception: Writing England's Past, brings together a collection of essays from notable scholars at various career stages who examine the reception of England's pre-Conquest past in the histories of later medieval commentators. It was published in 2025 in the York Medieval Press series, Writing History in the Middle Ages.
Matthew's research focuses on historiography, cultural memory, and the transmission of historical narrative across time and place. With research specialities in the history of early medieval England and its reception, as well as in Icelandic saga literature, he has published numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of society, culture and historiography in England and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, and their intersections.
Matthew's first monograph, Early English Queens, 850–1000: Potestas Reginae, is a biographical study of English royal women in the years 850-1000 that explores the development of queenship at a critical juncture in the history of early medieval England. It was published in Routledge's Lives of Royal Women series in 2024. His second monograph, Remembering England: Cultural Memory in the Sagas of Icelanders, examines depictions of Viking Age England in the Sagas of Icelanders and their utility as historical sources. It was published in Routledge's Studies in Medieval History and Culture series in 2025. Matthew's edited collection, Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception: Writing England's Past, brings together a collection of essays from notable scholars at various career stages who examine the reception of England's pre-Conquest past in the histories of later medieval commentators. It was published in 2025 in the York Medieval Press series, Writing History in the Middle Ages.
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Books by Matthew Firth
The Íslendingasögur present themselves as histories, but they are difficult historical sources. Their setting is the Saga Age, a period that begins with the settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century and ends along with the Viking Age in the late eleventh century – however, the saga texts are disconnected from this setting, having first been written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This book traces the transmission and development of Icelandic cultural memory of Saga Age England across this distance of centuries. It offers case study analyses of how historical time, place, cultures, and events are adapted and conceptualised in the Íslendingasögur and suggests methodological approaches to their study as historical literature.
Remembering England is an interdisciplinary book that will appeal to scholars and students of the history of pre-Norman England, the Icelandic sagas, medieval literature, and cultural memory.
This collection sheds new light on the perceptions and uses of the pre-Conquest past in post-Conquest historiography, drawing on a variety of approaches, from historical and literary studies, to codicology, historiography, memory theory and life writing. Its essays are arranged around two main interlinked themes: post-Conquest historiographical practice and how identities - institutional, regional and personal - could be constructed in reference to this past. Alongside their analyses of the works of Eadmer, William and Henry, contributors offer engaging studies of the works of such authors as Aelred of Rievaulx, Orderic Vitalis, Gervase of Canterbury, John of Worcester, Richard of Devizes, and Walter Map, as well as numerous anonymous hagiographies and histories.
The period 850–1000 is critical to the development of English queenship. In the aftermath of Viking invasion, the kings of Wessex expanded their hegemony over neighbouring regions, gradually establishing themselves as the kings of England. Parallel to this broad narrative of political change is the lesser-known story, told in this book, of the royal women who took part in it. The lives of three remarkable women – Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians and the West Saxon consorts Eadgifu and Ælfthryth – are central to the story, here retold through the careful analysis and reappraisal of source documents. These biographies set the stage for detailed study of the agency and advocacy of all women who held queenly office in England between 850 and 1000, as well as their legacies and reception by later generations.
Early English Queens 850–1000 gives important insights into the role women played in the first 150 years of the West Saxon dynasty, offering a compelling narrative that will appeal to students and scholars of early medieval England and royal studies.
Journal Articles by Matthew Firth