Catherine Nall

Catherine Nall is a British scholar of medieval literature and history whose research concentrates on fifteenth-century England, particularly the relationship between literature, politics, warfare and chivalric culture. She studied English and History at the University of York before completing an MA in Medieval Studies and a PhD there. After teaching at York and holding a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, she joined Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is Associate Professor in Medieval Literature. Her research examines how medieval texts responded to the political and military circumstances in which they were written and read, with particular interests in manuscript culture, John Lydgate, Sir Thomas Malory, military writing and the representation of violence.

Nall's major study, Reading and War in Fifteenth-Century England: From Lydgate to Malory (2012), explores the ways warfare shaped the literature and intellectual culture of late medieval England. She has also written extensively on Malory's Morte Darthur, political literature and medieval military manuals, and with Daniel Wakelin edited William Worcester's The Boke of Noblesse and the English Texts from its Codicil (2023), an important source for understanding English political and military thought during the Wars of the Roses. Nall is also the author of a forthcoming biography of Henry IV for the Penguin Monarchs series, scheduled for publication in June 2027. The book reassesses the first Lancastrian king, examining the deposition of Richard II, rebellion, royal finances, Parliament and the political difficulties that accompanied Henry's seizure and retention of the English throne.