Professor Peter Marshall
Contact Information:
Office: Faculty Arts Building 3.65
Telephone: 02476 523452
Email: p.marshall@warwick.ac.uk
Office Hours: Tuesday, 10.00-11.00; Friday 11.00-12.00
Academic Profile
I was born and raised in the Orkney Islands, and educated at Kirkwall Grammar School and University College, Oxford. I've taught at 糖心TV since 1994, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2001, Reader in 2004, and Professor in 2006. Beyond the university, I have been a PhD examiner at the universities of Aberdeen, Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, De Montfort, Exeter, Keele, Kent, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Melbourne, Oxford, Paris, Reading, St Andrews, Sussex and York, and an examiner of taught degrees at the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Oxford, Kent, Lancaster and St Andrews. Other roles include Associate Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, membership of the AHRC Peer Review College, the Committee of the Ecclesiastical History Society, the Council of the Sixteenth Century Studies Society, and the Council and the Editorial Committee of the . I was a founding editor of the Routledge monograph series . I am a Fellow of the , a Fellow of the and a longstanding member of the Irish Research Council's International Advisory Board. Between 2013 and 2022 I co-edited , and I sit on the editorial boards of English Historical Review, British Catholic History and History Today. In 2023-4 I served as President of the . I am a regular book-reviewer for various periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement, The Tablet and The Literary Review.
Undergraduate Modules Taught
Postgraduate Modules Taught
Research
My research interests focus on religious belief and practice in early modern Britain and Europe, particularly the cultural and political impact of the English Reformation (on which I published a general overview in 2003, reissued in a revised second edition in 2012 and a third in 2022: ). I have also attempted a major narrative account and reinterpretation: (2017). My early doctoral work was on the trials and tribulations of the sixteenth-century parish clergy (, 1994), and this fed into a continuing interest in the early evangelical movement, and in conservative resistance to the Henrician Reformation (much of this work is collected in my , 2006). I have also undertaken a series of studies of rituals and beliefs surrounding the dead, with a particular focus on changing perceptions of the afterlife, revenants, forms of commemoration and the enactment of memory (revised versions of a dozen of these essays are reproduced in , 2017). These research interests culminated in the publication of in 2002. Somewhat to my surprise, they also led me to write a micro-historical study of a seventeenth-century Anglo-Irish ghost case, (2007). Writing Mother Leakey strengthened a commitment to bringing the insights of historical research to a wider audience, seen for example in my (2009, and second edition, 2025), (2026) and (2015), as well as a cultural-historical study of Luther and the 95 Theses: . (See also my webpage on Public Engagement.) I have also published a book about my native Orkney; a re-centred history of early modern Britain from the perspective of its island periphery: (2024). Currently, I am writing a new history of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
Research Supervision
I welcome enquiries from potential PhD students in the field of early modern British religious and cultural history. Past and current topics of my doctoral students are: 'The Political Career of Thomas Wriothesley 1505-1550'; 'Commotion Time: the English Risings of 1549'; 'The Compendium Compertorum and the Making of the First Suppression Act'; 'Shakespeare in Purgatory: A Study of the Catholicising Movement in Shakespeare Biography'; 'Aspects of Grief in Early Modern England'; 'The Disenchantment of the World? English Ghost Beliefs 1660-1760'; 'Worship and the Senses in England, 1480-1580'; 'The Career of Arthur Hildersham, Puritan Minister'; 'Angels in English Religious Cultures 1500-1700'; 'Music and Religious Identity in Elizabethan England'; 'The Reformation in Cheshire, 1500-1570'; 'Musicians and Social Status in mid- and late-Tudor England'; 'Faith and Fraternity: The London Livery Companies and the Reformation c.1530-1600'; 'Reimagining the Virgin Mary in Reformation England'; 'Clergy Wives in Elizabethan England'; 'The Early Reformation in Northamptonshire'; 'English Evangelical Theologies of Penance, 1520-1553'; 'The Palatinate of Durham and the Tudor State'; 'Holy Mind, Holy Body in 16th Century English Female Sanctity'; 'Representations of St George in Early Modern England', 'Discourses of Toleration in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England'; 'Elizabeth I, Counsel and Memory in Early Modern England', 'Suicide, Self-Harm and the Supernatural in Britain, 1560-1735', 'Women and the Supernatural: Agency, and Oppression at the Intersection of Gender and Religion in Reformation England'; 'The Book of Homilies and the Making of English Protestantism'; 'Perceptions and Ideals of Female Beauty in England, c. 1550-1700'; 'Disability, Sin and Redemption: The Representation and Experience of Lameness in Reformation England c.1500-1660'
Selected Publications
i) Authored Books:
(Oxford, 2006, paperback, )
(London, 2024, hardback, ; paperback, 2025) [Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize, 2024; shortlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Award, 2025]
(London, 2017)
(Oxford, 2017; audiobook 2018)
(New Haven and London, 2017; paperback, audiobook, 2018) [Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, 2018]
(Oxford, 2009); (Oxford, 2025). German trans. Die Reformation in Europa (Stuttgart, 2014); Korean trans. (Paju, 2017); Finnish trans. Reformaatio (Tampere, 2017); Portuguese trans. Reforma Protestante (Porto Alegre, 2018); Polish trans, Reformacja (Lodz, 2019)
(Oxford, 2007; paperback 2008)
(Aldershot, 2006)
(London, 2003); second edition (London, 2012); third edition (London, 2022)
(Oxford, 2002; paperback 2004) [Shortlisted for the Longman-History Today Prize, 2003]
(Oxford, 1994)
ii) Edited Books:
(with D. Jones and C. Methuen), , Studies in Church History vol. 61 (Cambridge, 2025)
(Oxford, 2015; paperback 2017; revised edition 2022 as )
(with G. Scott), (Aldershot, 2009)
(with A. Walsham), (Cambridge, 2006)
(with A. Ryrie), (Cambridge, 2002)
(with B. Gordon), (Cambridge, 2000)
(London, 1997)
iii) Articles and Essays:
鈥楻eformations in Britain鈥檚 Islands鈥�, Studies in Church History, 61 (2025)
鈥楾he Break with Rome and the Early Reformation鈥�, in J. Kelly and J. McCafferty (eds), The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Volume I (Oxford, 2023)
鈥楰irchenordnungen in England im 16. Jahrhundert鈥�, in M. Beyer, M. Hauger and V. Leppin (eds), Ausstrahlung und Widerschein: Warhrnehmung und Wirkung der Wittenberger Universit盲t im Europa des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 2023)
鈥楾he Conversional Politics of Compliance: Oaths and Autonomy in Henrician England鈥�, in B. Wilson and P. Yachnin (eds), Conversion Machines: Apparatus, Artifice, Body (Edinburgh, 2023)
鈥楥lerical Culture and Island Logic in Early Modern Orkney鈥�, in C. Langley, C, McMillan and R. Newton (eds), The Clergy in Early Modern Scotland (Woodbridge, 2021)
鈥楳artin Luther, the Ninety-Five Theses and the Invention of the Reformation鈥�, in Lukas K. Sosoe (ed.), Luther, l鈥橢urope et la R茅forme (Hildesheim, 2021)
鈥楴ailing the Reformation: Luther and the Wittenberg Door in English Historical Memory鈥�, in A. Walsham, B. Wallace, C. Law and B. Cummings (eds), Memory and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2020)
鈥楻eformation on Scotland鈥檚 Northern Frontier: The Orkney Islands, 1560–c.1700鈥�, in J. Kelly, H. Laugerud and S. Ryan (eds), Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives (London, 2020)
鈥楾he Ministers, the Merchant and his Mother: Politics and Protest in a 17th Century Witchcraft Complaint鈥�, New Orkney Antiquarian Journal, 9 (2020)
鈥楾homas Becket, William Warham and the Crisis of the Early Tudor Church鈥�, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 71 (2020)
鈥楾he Reformation and the Idea of the North鈥�, Nordlit, 43 (2019)
鈥榃as there a Protestant Death?鈥�, in S. Angel, H. Elstad and E. Andersen Oftestad (eds), Were We Ever Protestants? Essays in Honour of Tarald Rasmussen (Berlin, 2019)
'Identifying Heresy in Sixteenth-Century England', The Saint Anselm Journal, 14 (2019)
鈥楾udor Brexit: Catholics and Europe in the British and Irish Reformations鈥�, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 106 (2017/18)
'Luther among the Catholics, 1520-2015' in D. Marmion, S. Ryan and G. Thiessen (eds), Remembering the Reformation: Martin Luther and Catholic Theology (Minneapolis, 2017)
'Settlement Patterns: The Church of England, 1553-1603', in A. Milton (ed.), The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume I: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662 (Oxford, 2017)
'Changing Identities in the English Reformation', in P. Ingesman (ed.), Religion as an Agent of Change (Leiden, 2016)
(with J. Morgan), 'Clerical Conformity and the Elizabethan Settlement Revisited', Historical Journal, 59 (2016) [Winner of the Sixteenth Century Society's Harold Grimm Prize, 2017]
鈥楾he Birthpangs of Protestant England鈥�, History, 100 (2015)
鈥楥atholic Puritanism in Pre-Reformation England鈥�, British Catholic History, 32 (2015)
'After Purgatory: Death and Remembrance in the Reformation World', in T. Rasmussen and J. 脴ygarden Flaeten (eds), Preparing for Death, Remembering the Dead (G枚ttingen, 2015)
鈥楥hoosing Sides and Talking Religion in Shakespeare鈥檚 England鈥�, in D. Loewenstein and M. Whitmore (eds), Shakespeare and Early Modern Religion (Cambridge, 2015)
鈥楤ritain鈥檚 Reformations鈥�, in P. Marshall (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation (Oxford, 2015)
鈥楨thics and Identity in the English and German Reformations鈥�, in D. Wendebourg and A. Ryrie (eds), Sister Reformations II: Reformation and Ethics in Germany and in England (T眉bingen, 2014)
鈥楻eligious Ideology鈥�, in Paulina Kewes, Ian Archer and Felicity Heal (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed鈥檚 Chronicles (Oxford, 2013)
鈥樷�淩ather with Papists than with Turks:鈥� The Battle of Lepanto and the Contours of Elizabethan Christendom鈥�, Reformation, 17 (2012)
鈥楥onfessionalization, Confessionalism and Confusion in the English Reformation鈥�, in Thomas Mayer (ed.), Reforming Reformation (Farnham, 2012), 43-64
鈥楾he Naming of Protestant England鈥�, Past and Present 214 (2012) [Winner of the Sixteenth Century Society's Harold Grimm Prize, 2013]
鈥楥onfessionalization and Community in the Burial of English Catholics, c. 1570-1700鈥�, in N. Lewycky and A. Morton (eds), Getting Along? Religious Identities and Confessional Relations in Early Modern England (Farnham, 2012)
鈥楲ollards and Protestants Revisited鈥�, in M. Bose and P. Hornbeck (eds), Wycliffite Controversies (Turnhout, 2011)
鈥楾he Guardian Angel in Protestant England鈥� , in J. Raymond (ed.), Conversations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100-1700 (Basingstoke, 2011)
'The Last Years', in G. M. Logan (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More (Cambridge, 2011)
鈥楥atholic and Protestant Hells in Later Reformation England鈥�, in I. Moreira and M. Toscano (eds), Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Farnham, 2010)
鈥楾ransformations of the Ghost Story in Post-Reformation England鈥�, in H. Conrad-O鈥橞riain and J. A Stevens (eds), The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (Dublin, 2010)
'John Calvin and the English Catholics, c. 1565-1640', Historical Journal, 53 (2010)
鈥楢nn Jeffries and the Fairies: Folk Belief and the War on Scepticism in Later Stuart England鈥�, in A. McShane and G. Walker (eds), The Extraordinary and the Everyday in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2010)
Faith and Identity in a 糖心TVshire Family: the Throckmortons and the Reformation, Dugdale Society Occasional Paper No. 49 (2010)
鈥楾he Reformation of Hell? Protestant and Catholic Infernalisms in England, c. 1560-1640鈥�, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 61 (2010)
鈥楾he Reformation, Lollardy, and Catholicism鈥�, in K. Cartwright (ed.), A Companion to Tudor Literature (Chichester, 2010)
鈥楬enry VIII and the Modern Historians: The Making of a Twentieth-Century Reputation鈥�, in M. Rankin, C. Highley and J. King (eds), Henry VIII and his Afterlives: Literature, Politics, and Art (Cambridge, 2009)
鈥楥risis of Allegiance: George Throckmorton and Henry Tudor鈥�, in P. Marshall and G. Scott (eds), Catholic Gentry in English Society: The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation (Aldershot, 2009)
鈥楶rotestants and Fairies in Early Modern England鈥�, in S. Dixon, D. Freist and M. Greengrass (eds), Living with Religious Diversity in Early-Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2009)
鈥�(Re)defining the English Reformation鈥�, Journal of British Studies, 48 (2009)
鈥楽aints and Cinemas: A Man for All Seasons鈥�, in S. Doran and T. Freeman (eds.), Tudors and Stuarts on Film: Historical Perspectives (Basingstoke, 2009)
鈥楾he Making of the Tudor Judas: Trust and Betrayal in the English Reformation鈥�, Reformation, 13 (2008)
鈥楤etrayers and Betrayal in the Age of William Tyndale鈥�, The Tyndale Society Journal, 34 (2008)
鈥樷�淭he Greatest Man in Wales:鈥� James ap Gruffydd ap Hywel and the International Opposition to Henry VIII鈥�, Sixteenth Century Journal, 39 (2008)
鈥楨ngland鈥�, in D. M. Whitford (ed.), Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research (Kirksville, MO, 2008)
鈥楻eligious Exiles and the Tudor State鈥�, in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds.), Discipline and Diversity, Studies in Church History, 43 (2007)
'Leaving the World', in P. Matheson (ed.), Reformation Christianity (Minneapolis, 2007)
'Anticlericalism Revested? Expressions of Discontent in Early Tudor England', in C. Burgess and E. Duffy (eds), The Parish in Late Medieval England (Donnington, 2006)
'Angels Around the Deathbed: Variations on a Theme in the English Art of Dying', in P. Marshall and A. Walsham (eds), Angels in the Early Modern World (Cambridge, 2006).
'Piety and Poisoning in Restoration Plymouth', in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds.), Elite and Popular Religion, Studies in Church History, 42 (2006)
'Is the Pope Catholic? Henry VIII and the Semantics of Schism', in E. Shagan (ed.), Catholics and the Protestant Nation: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2005)
'Judgement and Repentance in Tudor Manchester: The Celestial Journey of Ellis Hall', in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds.), Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation, Studies in Church History, 40 (2004)
鈥楩orgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII鈥�, Past and Present, 178 (2003)
鈥楧eceptive Appearances: Ghosts and Reformers in Elizabethan and Jacobean England鈥�, in H. Parish and W. G. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (Manchester, 2002)
鈥楨vangelical Conversion in the Reign of Henry VIII鈥�, in P. Marshall and A. Ryrie (eds.), The Beginnings of English Protestantism (Cambridge, 2002)
鈥楾he Other Black Legend: The Henrician Reformation and the Spanish People鈥�, English Historical Review, 116 (2001)
鈥楳umpsimus and Sumpsimus: The Intellectual Origins of a Henrician Bon Mot鈥�, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 52 (2001)
鈥�"The Map of God鈥檚 Word": Geographies of the Afterlife in Tudor and Early Stuart England鈥�, in B. Gordon and P. Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000)
鈥楾he Company of Heaven: Identity and Sociability in the English Protestant Afterlife, c. 1560-1630鈥�, Historical Reflections / R茅flexions Historiques, 26 (2000)
鈥楧iscord and Stability in an Elizabethan Parish: John Otes and Carnaby 1563-1600鈥�, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 71 (1999)
鈥楶apist as Heretic: the Burning of John Forest 1538鈥�, Historical Journal, 41 (1998)
鈥楩ear, Purgatory and Polemic in Reformation England鈥�, in W.G. Naphy and P. Roberts (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997)
鈥楾he Debate over "Unwritten Verities" in Early Reformation England鈥�, in B. Gordon (ed.), Protestant Identity and History in Sixteenth-Century Europe: Volume I The Medieval Inheritance (Aldershot, 1996)
鈥楾he Dispersal of Monastic Patronage in East Yorkshire, c. 1520-1580鈥�, in B. K眉min (ed.), Reformations Old and New: Essays on the Socio-Economic Impact of Religious Change c.1470-1630 (Aldershot, 1996)
鈥楾he Rood of Boxley, the Blood of Hailes and the Defence of the Henrician Church鈥�, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 46 (1995)
The Face of the Pastoral Ministry in the East Riding, 1525-1595, Borthwick Paper No. 88 (York, 1995)
NEWS
30 Mar 2026: podcast interview on Easter in Shakespeare's England for
26 Nov 2025: podcast interview on the history of Orkney for the
15 Oct 2025: Storm's Edge shortlisted for Prize
3 Oct 2025: speaking on Storm's Edge at
17 Sep 2025: Storm's Edge longlisted for Non-Fiction Award
28 July 2025: podcast interview on 'The Pilgrimage of Grace: When England Fought the Reformation', for
3 May 2025: podcast interview on 'Magic, Witches and the Supernatural in Orkney' for
21 Mar 2025: lecture at Prayer Book Society's annual , University Church, Oxford
3 Feb 2025: podcast interview on career and research for
28 Jan 2025: Storm's Edge long-listed for
11 Dec 2024: podcast interview for '
15 Nov 2024: Storm's Edge named (by Tom Holland) a
21 August 2024: podcast interview for BBC Sounds: ''
20 June 2024: 'in conversation' with Prof. Julian Goodare about at Waterstones Aberdeen.
1 June 2024: interview, on Mother Leakey and the Bishop, with.
10 April 2024: Book launch for Storm's Edge, St Magnus Centre, Kirkwall
31 Mar. 2024: interview with The Sunday Post.
27 Mar. 2024; Storm's Edge named Book of the Month by .
14 Mar. 2024: annual Ecclesiastical History Lecture at , University of Kent, on 'Ecclesiastical History from the Edge: The Church in Early Modern Orkney'.
8 Mar. 2024: talk to A Level students from and neighbouring state schools on 'Making Sense of the English Reformation'.
22 Feb. 2024: interview with Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb on Ghosts and Angels for podcast.
28 Nov. 2023: talk to A Level students at on Henry VIII and the Reformation.
24 Nov. 2023: public lecture at on 'What do we think about Thomas More?'
19 July 2023: election as President of the , and keynote lecture at EHS Conference on 'Margins and Peripheries', University of 糖心TV
31 Aug 2022: opinion piece in on the Reformation and origins of the Union
30 Aug 2022: BBC History Extra podcast on
28 July 2022: keynote lecture at conference on 'Renewal and Division: the Context of Europe's Reformations', Pacific Union College, California
20 July 2022: election as Vice-President and President-Elect of the
18 Feb 2022: for Northern Studies Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands.
6 Dec 2021: talk to Year 13 History students at Stoke Park School, Coventry
13 Nov. 2021: keynote lecture at conference of on 'The Ministry and Magic in Early Modern Orkney'.
11 Nov. 2021: speaker at launch of festschrift for Prof Raymond Gillespie, , Maynooth College, Kildare
1 Oct. 2020: start of Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, 'Culture and Belief in Orkney, 1468-1800'.
18 Feb. 2020: contributor to 'y', BBC 4.
22-23 Nov. 2019: Workshop on 'Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives', University of Bergen.
15 Nov. 2019: , University of Exeter, 'Kirk and Community in Early Modern Orkney'
31 Oct. 2019: (on Heretics and Believers) at Southwark Cathedral.
11 June 2019: interview with Faculti, 'A Brief History of the English Reformation':
13 May 2019: Talk (Impact of the Reformation) to A level students from several Bristol Schools.
14 Feb 2019: Paper to , University of Edinburgh, on 'Clerical Culture in Early Modern Orkney'.
9 Jan 2019: Talk ('Religion in Shakespeare's England') to Hall's Croft Club, Stratford-upon-Avon.
10 December 2018: contributor to (Josh Duhamel).
20 Nov 2018: with Dr David Coast, at Bath Literary Society.
3 Nov 2018: roundtable panel on Heretics and Believers at , Albuquerque, New Mexico.
30 Oct 2018: , Topping's Bookshop, Bath.
22-25 August 2018: participant and commentator at (final) annual , McGill University, Montreal.
19 July 2018: Elected as .
7 June 2018: Seminar paper ('Writing a History of the English Reformation'), Keble College, Oxford.
4 June 2018: Heretics and Believers awarded (; ; )
31 May-2 June 2018: discussant at Reformation Workshop, Yale University.
23 May 2018: on BBC Radio 3.
16 April 2018: Heretics and Believers shortlisted for Wolfson History Prize.
5 April 2018: ('Thomas Becket, William Warham and the Crisis of the Early Tudor Church'), St Anselm's College, Manchester, New Hampshire.
2 April 2018: interview (on writing of Heretics and Believers) with website.
5 March 2018: talk (Luther) to sixth form pupils at .
25 Feb 2018: Lent Address at St Mary's Collegiate Church, 糖心TV, on 'The Bible in the Reformation' ().
8 Feb 2018: article in The Catholic Herald, ''.
5 Feb 2018: at Merton College, Oxford, on early modern Orkney.
2 Jan 2018: interview for blog of Saginaw Valley State University, .
1 Jan 2018: interview for What'shername podcast series, on Catholic martyr, .
12 Dec 2017: at Institute of Historical Research, London, on 'Long Reformation in the Far North: Kirk and Culture in Early Modern Orkney'.
9-10 Nov 2017: Tanner Series Speaker, Utah State University, including and .
6 Nov 2017: , Institute for Advanced Study, University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
2 Nov 2017: keynote speaker, , Andrews University, Michigan.
31 Oct 2017: 'Reformation Day' interviews, BBC Today Programme, World Sevice and .
30 Oct 2017: , Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota.
30 Oct 2017: post on 'The Conversation', .
30 Oct 2017: post on OUP blog, .
27 Oct 2017: at the British Library.
26 Oct 2017: winner (with John Morgan) of the 2017 for best Reformation article, 'Clerical Conformity and the Elizabethan Settlement Revisited', Historical Journal, 59 (2016).
See