John Sabapathy is Professor of History and works on the comparative history of Europe/Christendom primarily in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. He also works on the Anthropocene (the proposed epoch in which humans became geological forces globally) and co-convenes MyAV·¶ Anthropocene â a major initiative in this area.
His monograph , a study of English officers in a European context, won for 2015. An edited collection on Individuals and Institutions in Medieval Scholasticism was published in 2020. John is working on two projects. One is a wide-ranging study of thirteenth-century Europe for the new Oxford History of Medieval Europe series. The second explores the place and contribution of history in the Anthropocene.Ìę
Before returning to MyAV·¶ (where he took his PhD), he was a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford. Between his BA and graduate degrees, John worked in public policy on sustainable development and corporate accountability with a range of international think tanks, NGOs, corporations, and British and European governmental bodies.
PhD supervision
John is happy to discuss research proposals from students on topics addressing the political, intellectual, religious and/or cultural history of medieval Europe as well as the Anthropocene. Please get in touch at the start of the academic year in which you wish to apply.
Supervision: John currently supervises Genevieve Caulfield (sight and trust in medieval optics and theology; LAHP funded); Joe Hopper (writing and redemption at St Victor; MyAV·¶ funded); and Hugo Raine (Italian communal economic and legal thinking in practice; MyAV·¶ funded); he second supervises Vanessa Da Silva Baptista (medieval magic tricks). He has supervised/co-supervised theses on Polish ecclesiastical institutions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Dr Agata Zielinska, LAHP funded) and thirteenth-century queensâ letters (Dr AnaĂŻs Waag) and second supervised theses on lying, deceit and casuistry (Dr Emily Corran, LAHP funded), ideals of elite conduct in Norway, Denmark and England (Dr Louisa Taylor), and papal overlordship (Dr Benedict Wiedemann, LAHP funded).
Major publications
- âCannibal, scorpion, horse, owl: institutional hypocrites and the early fourteenth-century churchâ, The Church, Hypocrisy and Dissimulation, (2024), pp. 91-120
- âGui Foucois, la « rĂ©forme », le Midi et lâAngleterreâ, Pape ClĂ©ment IV, et le Midi, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 57 (2023), pp. 299-333
- âThe emperor between person and institution: officer, office and accountability in Danteâs imperial thinkingâ, in MarĂa Ăngeles MartĂn Romera and Hannes Ziegler (ed.), Ìę, Studies of the German Historical Institute, London (Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. 53â75
- in Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge, ed. Christine van Oertzen and Sebastian Felten, Journal for the History of Knowledge 1/1 (2020), pp. 1-21
- Individuals and Institutions in Medieval Scholasticism, co-edited with Antonia Fitzpatrick (Royal Historical Society/Institute of Historical Research: London, 2020)
- , with Antonia Fitzpatrick, in Fitzpatrick and Sabapathy (ed.), Individuals and Institutions in Medieval Scholasticism, pp. 1-48
- , in Fitzpatrick and Sabapathy (ed.), Individuals and Institutions in Medieval Scholasticism, pp. 197-214
- âSome difficulties in forming persecuting societies before Lateran IV canon 8: Robert of Courson thinks about communities and inquisitionâ, in Gert Melville and Johannes Helmrath (ed.), The Fourth Lateran Council: Institutional Reform and Spiritual Renewal (Didymos-Verlag, 2017), pp. 175-200
- , Thirteenth-Century England 15, Authority and Resistance in the Age of Magna Carta. Proceedings of the Aberystwyth and Lampeter Conference, 2013 (Boydell and Brewer, 2015), pp. 115â136
- (Oxford University Press, 2014)
For a full list of publications, see .
Projects and fellowships
- Directeur dâĂ©tudes invitĂ©, EHESS, Centre Alexandre-KoyrĂ©, (April 2022)
- Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow, âThe institutionalization of Europe in the thirteenth centuryâ (2018â2019)
- Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2019)
- Working Group Member, âHistory of Bureaucratic Knowledgeâ, Department II, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (2018-2019)
- MyAV·¶-Oxford University project âIndividuals and institutions in Medieval Scholasticismâ, CO-PI with Dr Antonia Fitzpatrick (formerly Oxford University).
MediaÌę
- Contributor to MyAV·¶ podcast, âCOVID-19 â the whole storyâ on the history of epidemics, 2020
- âInquests and accountability: on the Iraq Inquiryâ, History Today, (5th July 2016)
- on parallels between the 'gig' (e.g. Uber/Deliveroo) and 'feudal' economies, 2016
- Wrote and presented marking the 2012 millennium of St Alfege's Church, Greenwich (St Alfege/Ălfheah was an archbishop of Canterbury, possibly martyred in 1012 by being battered to death by ox bones at a drunken Viking banquet)
Teaching
- Anthropocene Studies (GEOG0183, final year 1 term UG module, on offer from 2024)
- Gaia's Ancestors: Approaches to Medieval Ecologies and Environments (HIST0905 MA 1 term module, on offer from 2024)
- The First European Union? Christendom 1187â1321 (HIST0033, undergraduate 1stâsecond year survey module)
- Emergency History: A Natural History of Humanity for the Present (HIST0399, undergraduate 2ndâfinal year thematic module)
- COVID-19 in Social and Historical Perspective (ANTH0212, final year 1 term cross-Faculty module)
- The Invention of the Question: A History of European Thinking, 1100â1400 (MDVL0054, MA 1 term module)
- Between Rome & Avignon: Antichrists, heretics, princes & the papacy 1294â1334 (final year undergraduate special subject, not on offer 2020-1)
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