Freddy Potts

School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

PhD Student (History)

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Thesis title: Problems of Migration and Settlement in the Medieval Eastern Baltic, c.1200-1400

Supervisors: 

Period:

Pre-1500

Thesis abstract:

I aim to study migration into and within medieval Prussia and Livonia during their conquest and Christianisation. I am interested in conceptualising migration and the region’s emergent colonial societies as linked, evolving social phenomena. I further wish to challenge the nationalism-inflected historiographical division of Prussia and Livonia into separate research spheres, and contest the presentation of the Teutonic Order as the sole decisive agent of change in the new societies. To accomplish this I employ and adapt Nils Blomkvist’s model of the Catholic world-system and an array of textual and archaeological evidence from multiple traditions.

Qualifications
  • PhD History, University of Sheffield, October 2022 - present
  • MA Medieval History, University of Sheffield, October 2020 - September 2021
  • BA History, Balliol College, University of Oxford, October 2015 - July 2018
Grants
Teaching activities

2022-23 academic year:

  • HST116: Empire: From the Ancient World to the Middle Ages