Professor Mark Ormrod (History) and Professor Elizabeth Tyler (English and Related Literature), along with Professor Joanna Story (University of Leicester), will co-host a major conference on Aliens, Foreigners and Strangers in Medieval England, c. AD 500-1500 to be held at the British Academy in London on 26-27 March 2015.
Immigration, its causes and its consequences, is a contentious topic with profound political, social, economic and cultural effects for individual migrants and for host and donor communities. This conference will examine the phenomenon in relation to medieval England, with contributions from specialists in history, language and literature, archaeology and genetics. It will provide deep historical and cultural context to contemporary discussions among policy-makers and the general public about ethnicity, multiculturalism and the evolution of national identity in modern Britain.
The conference will profile three major current projects at York and Leicester:
- England’s Immigrants, 1330-1550: Resident Aliens in the Later Middle Ages, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council;
- The Impact of Diaspora on the Making of Britain: Evidence, Memories, Inventions, funded by the Leverhulme Trust;
- The Centre for Medieval Literature, funded by the Danish National Research Foundation
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Medieval Studies at York 