anne Josephine Duggan

Biography

Having lectured at Queen Mary College from 1963, Anne Duggan joined the King’s History Department in 1988 and formally retired in 2004, with the title of Emeritus, although she has a standing commitment to deliver the undergraduate lecture on the political ideas of Thomas Aquinas every year and her research output on a wide range of topics continues apace. She became a fellow of King’s in 2000, was elected a Corresponding Member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 2002 and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2012. She is also a founder member of the Ecclesiastical History Society and a General Editor of the Ashgate Series, ‘Church, Faith and Culture in the Middle Ages’ (now published by Amsterdam University Press). She organized three international conferences at King’s (on Kings and Kingship [1992], Queens and Queenship [1995], and Nobles and Nobility [1998]), from whose proceedings she edited three very successful books, two of which (Queens and Nobles) were reprinted in paperback and issued online.   Having lectured at Queen Mary College from 1963, Anne Duggan joined the King’s History Department in 1988 and formally retired in 2004, with the title of Emeritus, although she has a standing commitment to deliver the undergraduate lecture on the political ideas of Thomas Aquinas every year and her research output on a wide range of topics continues apace. She became a fellow of King’s in 2000, was elected a Corresponding Member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 2002 and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2012. She is also a founder member of the Ecclesiastical History Society and a General Editor of the Ashgate Series, ‘Church, Faith and Culture in the Middle Ages’ (now published by Amsterdam University Press). She organized three international conferences at King’s (on Kings and Kingship [1992], Queens and Queenship [1995], and Nobles and Nobility [1998]), from whose proceedings she edited three very successful books, two of which (Queens and Nobles) were reprinted in paperback and issued online.  

Research Interest

Although Anne is the world expert on Thomas Becket (having edited and translated his ‘Correspondence’ for Oxford Medieval Texts [2000] and written an acclaimed biography [2004] and numerous other studies), her interests and expertise include intellectual and legal history, especially the context and impact of the revival of Roman and canon law in the twelfth century and the creation of the ius commune. Her published work ranges from nobility and queenship to canon and Roman law, from manuscripts and diplomatic to marriage, liturgy and the cult of saints, including a special emphasis on Scandinavian lands. In recent years, she has focused especially on the legal activity of five twelfth-century popes (Innocent II, Adrian IV, Eugenius III [in press], Alexander III, Celestine III), and studies on the four short pontificates of Lucius III, Urban III, Gregory VIII, and Clement III are in progress.