Prof Caroline Goodson
I joined the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, in 2017, having been a member of the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, University of London, from 2005-2017. Recently, I have served on the editorial board of the major journal of Medieval Studies, Speculum, (2021-2025) and I am currently one of the three series editors of the Oxford Series in the New Medieval History (2020- ), a flagship series at the cutting edge of medieval history. Since 2023, I have been a member of the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters at the British School at Rome.
From September 2024–26, I am the Andrew H. Mellon Professor in Humanities at the American Academy in Rome.
I take a transdisciplinary approach to the rise of early medieval polities in the Western Mediterranean, including North Africa and in particular, Italy. The Western Mediterranean witnessed the emergence of several different political structures in the post-Roman period, ranging from provinces within a larger empire to independent city-states. I focus on the period between c. 500 and c. 1100, taking as my evidence archaeology and material culture as well as a range of texts.
My research concentrates on the nature of power in this part of the early medieval world, looking at how different groups positioned themselves as successors to the Romans’ past glories or as innovators in a new world order. The successes and failures of those groups come down to their ability to manipulate natural resources and legacies of the past in changing cultural contexts. I am particularly interested in how cities facilitated certain forms of social interaction and political authority and how changing religious practices and politics related to day-to-day experiences (and how these have been transmitted to us through material and textual records). My current research moves towards the environmental record and new data which are showing us that early medieval environments were different from what came before, sometimes because of human actions and othertimes despite these. How people experienced these changes, and how they organised themselves in their changing worlds is a question that we need to answer through the integration of material and textual data. I continue to be interested in economies of the early Middle Ages -- urban economies especially, but not only. These varied across the medieval world, and people interacted notwithstanding their different relationships with coined money and long-distance trade.
My work deliberately moves between the disciplines of history and archaeology. I have published extensively on medieval documentary and historical texts, such as chronicles, hagiography, and more recently charters and diplomata. The archaeological record is the only body of early medieval evidence that is presently expanding; consideration of material sources against and alongside textual ones offers new vantage points on how early medieval rulers claimed political and cultural hegemony and how their subjects and the rest of the world might have experienced those claims. In addition to excavation, I use standing buildings archaeology, archaeological archives, and material culture studies in my research.
I am happy to supervise research students working on medieval settlement, environment, economies, cults of saints, and urbanism in the Western Mediterranean.
PhDs Supervised:
Giulia Bellato, Cambridge, AHRC-funded. The intentional destruction of urban architecture in medieval Italy (2022).
Jack Watkins, Birkbeck, ESRC-funded UBEL training programme (1+3), (The Emergence of Rural Communes in Central Italy) (2022).
Peter Harrington, Birkbeck (with Vanessa Harding) (The Roman Church and Papal Authority 476–553) (part time) 2020.
I am currently on Secondment to the American Academy in Rome and am not presently teaching in the Faculty.
Fellow:
Royal Historical Society (since 2010)
Società degli Archeologi Medievisti Italiani (since 2010)
Higher Education Academy (since 2009);
American Academy, Rome (FAAR 2002)
Associazione internazionale di archeologia classica (since 2002)
Faculty of Archaeology, History & Languages, British School at Rome (2023– )
Editorial boards:
Oxford Studies in The New Medieval History (2020– )
Speculum (Medieval Academy of America) (2021–25)
BAR, Archaeological Studies on Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Europe (400-1000 A.D.)
Brepols Series in the Early Middle Ages (2014–2020)
Contact
Tags & Themes
King's College
Cambridge, CB2 1ST UK
Key Publications
A Companion to Rome (c. 400-c.1050), ed. with Julia Hillner, Brill Companions to European History 32 (Leiden: Brill/DeGruyter, 2026).
Cultivating the City in Early Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Reviews:
Historisches Zeitschrift HZ 314/2 (2022)
Medieval Archaeology 66.1 (2022), pp. 192-93
al-Masaq 34.1 (2022), pp. 91-92
Speculum 98.4 (Oct. 2023) pp. 1252-54
American Historical Review 129.1 (2024), pp. 340-41
Early Medieval Europe 32.3 (2024), pp. 438-40.
The Rome of Pope Paschal I (817-824): papal power, urban renovation, church rebuilding and relic translation, Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought 77. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Villa Magna: an Imperial Estate and its Legacies. Excavations 2006–10, ed. with E. Fentress, M. Maiuro, Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome, 22 (London: British School at Rome, 2016), + online database, catalogue, and specialist essays
Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. with Ildar Garipzanov and Henry Maguire, Cursor Mundi, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017).
Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400-1500: Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space, ed. with Anne Lester and Carol Symes (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).
Walls and Memory: The Abbey of San Sebastiano, Alatri (Lazio) from Late Roman Monastery to Renaissance Villa and Beyond, ed. with Elizabeth Fentress, Margaret Laird and Stephanie Leone, Disciplina Monastica 2. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005)
Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
with B. Savill, ‘Papyrus economies and the experience of early medieval papal documents,’ Past & Present, forthcoming 2026. Now out on Early View!
‘Plants and animals in late antique and medieval Rome,’ in A Companion to Rome, c. 400-c. 1050, Brill's Companions to European History, eds C. Goodson and J. Hillner (Leiden: Brill/DeGruyter, 2026), 418-47
‘The peasant mode of production and the early medieval economies of Italy,’ Studia Historica. Historia Medieval 43.2 (2025), 61–78
‘Coins, their Absence, and Household Economies in Early Medieval Italy,’ in Small Change in the Early Middle Ages: New Perspectives on Coined Money c. 400–1100, ed. by Rory Naismith (Turnhout: Brepols, 2025), pp. 135–66
‘Urbanism beyond empire’, in The Cambridge History of Urbanism in Europe, vol. 1, ed. P. Davies and C. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), pp. 227–46
with Chris Loveluck, ‘Cities and complex settlements in Early Medieval Europe, c. 500-1150,’ in The Cambridge History of Urbanism in Europe, vol. 2, ed. P. Lantschner and M. Prak (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), pp. 22–74
with T. Trombley, S. Agarwal, ‘Medieval Mouths in Context: Biocultural considerations for the mouth and the case of late medieval Villamagna, Italy,’ Medieval Archaeology 67 (2023), 187–220
with K. Kinkopf, S. Agarwal, et al. ‘Economic access influences degenerative spine disease outcomes at rural Late Medieval Villamagna (Lazio, IT)’, American journal of physical anthropology 174 (2021), 500–18
'Urbanism as Politics in Ninth-Century Italy,' in After Charlemagne: Carolingian Italy and its Rulers, eds C. Gantner & W. Pohl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 198-218
'Admirable and Delectable Gardens: Viridaria in Early Medieval Italy,' Early Medieval Europe 27.3 (2019), pp. 416–40
'Garden Cities in Early Medieval Italy,' in Italy and Medieval Europe: Papers for Chris Wickham's Birthday, eds Ross Balzaretti, Julia Barrow, Patricia Skinner (Oxford, 2018), pp. 339-55
'Christograms on North African Lamps: Considering Context,' in Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, eds Ildar Garipzanov, Caroline Goodson, Henry Maguire (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), pp. 179–94
‘Topographies of Power in Aghlabid-era Kairouan,’ in The Aghlabids and their Neighbours, eds Glaire Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, Mariam Rosser-Owen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 88–105
‘To be the daughter of Saint Peter: S. Petronilla and forging the Franco-Papal Alliance,’ in Three Empires, Three Cities: Identity, Material Culture and Legitimacy in Venice, Ravenna and Rome, 750-1000, ed. Veronica West-Harling (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 159-82
‘Archaeology and the Cult of Saints in the Early Middle Ages: Accessing the Sacred,’ in Le culte de sainte-Agnès in Agone, Rome, entre Antiquité et Moyen-Âge, ed. C. Sotinel (= Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge 126.1 (2014): 124–48
with E. Fentress, ‘L’eredità di una villa imperiale in epoca bizantina e medievale,’ Archeologia Medievale 29 (2012): 57–86
with John Arnold, ‘Resounding Community: The History and Meaning of Medieval Church Bells,’ Viator 43.1 (January 2012): 99–130
‘Roman Archaeology in Medieval Rome,’ in Rome: Continuing Encounters Between Past and Present, eds Dorigen Caldwell, Lesley Caldwell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 23–45
with Janet Nelson, ‘The Roman Contexts of the ‘Donation of Constantine’ Review Article,’ Early Medieval Europe 18.4 (November 2010): 446–67
‘La cripta anulare di S. Vincenzo Maggiore nel contesto dell’architettura di epoca carolingia,’ in Monasteri in Europa occidentale (secoli VIII-XI): topografia e strutture, eds Federico Marazzi, Flavia de Rubeis (Rome, Viella, 2008), pp. 425–42
‘Building for Bodies: The Architecture of Saint Veneration in Early Medieval Rome,’ in Felix Roma : The Production, Experience and Reflection of Medieval Rome, eds Éamonn Ó Carragain and Carol Neuman de Vegvar (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 51–80
‘Material Memory: Rebuilding the Basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome,’ Early Medieval Europe 15.1 (2007): 20–52
‘The Relic Translations of Paschal I (817–824): Transforming city and cult,’ in Roman Bodies, eds Andrew Hopkins, Maria Wyke (Rome: British School at Rome, 2005, pp. 123–41