Chris Given-Wilson

Chris Given-Wilson is a British medieval historian and Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. His principal research interests are the political and social history of England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly kingship, the nobility, royal government and the writing of history in medieval chronicles. He received his PhD from St Andrews and has become a leading authority on later medieval England. His scholarship is especially valuable for its close use of chronicles, parliamentary records and other contemporary sources to reconstruct the workings of royal government and aristocratic politics. He was also general editor of the monumental Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275–1504, an important modern edition of the surviving records of the medieval English Parliament.

Given-Wilson has written a number of important works on medieval England. The Royal Household and the King's Affinity examines the political importance of the royal household during the later fourteenth century, while The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages explores the structure and behaviour of England's aristocratic elite. In Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England, he investigates how medieval chroniclers understood and recorded their past, providing insight into the sources on which much of our knowledge of the Middle Ages depends. His major biography Henry IV presents the first Lancastrian king as a more capable and complex ruler than his traditional reputation suggests, examining his seizure of Richard II's throne, the rebellions that followed and the consolidation of Lancastrian government. More recently, Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker examines Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his central role in the turbulent politics surrounding Richard II and Henry IV.