William North

Education & Professional History

Princeton University, AB; University of California (Berkeley), MA, PhD

Fellowships

Fellow in Post-classical Humanistic Studies, American Academy in Rome, 1995-1996

Fellow in Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, 1998-1999

Highlights & Recent Activity

Book Review Editor (Church History), Speculum (Medieval Academy of America)

President, Haskins Society, 2019-present;

Associate Editor, Haskins Society Journal, 2015-present; Editor, 2007-2015

Visiting Docente, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche, e dell’Antichità, Università degli Studi, Padova (Spring 2020)

Recent and Forthcoming Publications

• “Erudition, Documentation, and Organization in the Making of Early Modern Byzantine Studies. The Case of Martin Hanke’s De Byzantinarum rerum scriptoribus Graecis liber (1677).” In Inventing Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, ed. Nate Aschenbrenner and Jake Ransohoff (Washington, DC,  2021)
• “Reforming Readers, Reforming Texts: The Making of a Discursive Community in Gregorian Rome.” in Urban Developments in Late Antue and Medieval Rome: Revising the Narrative of Renewal, ed. Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk (Amsterdam, 2021)
• “Bonizo of Sutri, the Dicta Bonizonis, and the Development of the Jurisprudence of Canon Law before Gratian.” In The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration, 1000-1234 (Leiden, 2018), 159-184.
• “Bonsai of the Consanguinities: The Control of Incest as a Problem of Understanding in Bonizo of Sutri’s Liber de Vita Christiana.” Early Medieval Europe 23:4 (2015), 478–499.

Organizations & Scholarly Affiliations

American Historical Association

Byzantine Studies Association of North America

Episcopus

Haskins Society 

International Society of Medieval Canon Law (ICMAC)

International Center for Medieval Art

Medieval Academy of America

Society for Italian Historical Studies

Società Internazionale degli storici medievisti

Current Projects

Upcoming Conference Presentations

• “Remaking the Middling Mind: Narrative, Allegory, and Cognitive Reform in the Works of Galand of Reigny.” Cistercian Worlds. University of York. 1-2 July 2021. (virtual)

Recent and Current Courses

GEO 245 “When the Earth Shook…” Earthquakes in Human History

HIST 100 Immigration, Conversion and Cultural Change in Early England and Ireland

HIST 131 Saints and Society in Late Antiquity

HIST 133 Crisis, Creativity and Tranformation in Late Antiquity

HIST 135 Making and Breaking Institutions in the Middle Ages

HIST 137 Early Medieval Worlds in Transformation

HIST 201 Building Power and Piety in Medieval Italy, CE 300-1150 (OCS Rome)

HIST 233 Cultures of Empire: Byzantium, 710-1453

HIST 288 Reason, Authority, and Love in Medieval France

HIST 289 Gender and Ethics in Late Medieval France

HIST 298 Junior Colloquium

HIST 330 Ideas Incarnate: Institutional Formation, Reform, and Governance in the Middle Ages

HIST 332 Image Makers and Breakers in the Premodern World

IDSC 100 Civil Discourse in a Troubled Age

LATN 243 Medieval Latin

Articles, Book Chapters, and Translations (last 6 years)

• “Erudition, Documentation, and Organization in the Making of Early Modern Byzantine Studies. The Case of Martin Hanke’s De Byzantinarum rerum$scriptoribus Graecis liber (1677).” In Inventing Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, ed. Nate Aschenbrenner and Jake Ransohoff (Washington, DC, forthcoming 2021)
• “Reforming Readers, Reforming Texts: The Making of a Discursive Community in Gregorian Rome.” in Urban Developments in Late Antue and Medieval Rome: Revising the Narrative of Renewal, ed. Gregor Kalas and Ann van Dijk (Amsterdam, forthcoming 2021)
• “Bonizo of Sutri, the Dicta Bonizonis, and the Development of the Jurisprudence of Canon Law before Gratian.” In The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration, 1000-1234 (Leiden, 2018), 159-184.
• “Bonsai of the Consanguinities: The Control of Incest as a Problem of Understanding in Bonizo of Sutri’s Liber de Vita Christiana.” Early Medieval Europe 23:4 (2015), 478–499.
• Translation of Bartolomeo da Giano, Letter on the Cruelty of the Turks, in Perspectives on the Past, ed. James Brophy et al. (6^th ed., New York: WW Norton, 2016).
• Translation of Agobard of Lyon, “On the Insolence of the Jews,” in The Jew in the Middle Ages, ed. Jacob Marcus & Marc Saperstein (rev. ed. Hebrew Union College Press, 2015).

Subjects:  History (all periods and regions), Late Antiquity, medieval history, transmission of classical culture, history of monasticism & asceticism, history of Christian thought, sociology, esp. sociology of institutions and cognitive sociology, manuscript studies and paleography, history of libraries, continental philosophy, classics, translation studies, radio/podcasting, all things Italian (music, food, history, language, art)

Languages: Latin, Greek, Italian, French, German, Spanish, some Modern Greek and Turkish

Other Involvements: Friends and Foundation of the Northfield Public Library (since 2006), Haskins Society (a medieval history society)

Hobbies: Hiking & walking, reading, talking with people about their lives, playing with pets, guitar, being with family, anything involving Italian.