About

I’m an independent researcher and early medieval historian based in Leeds. My research covers various aspects of cultural continuity and change in the late Merovingian and early Carolingian worlds, focusing particularly on the eighth century and on aspects of identity, community and otherness. I’m especially interested in hagiography and the process of conversion from paganism to Christianity.

Available to review books/articles on these or related topics. Please email me to discuss: rickybroome@hotmail.com

Education

[2010-2014] University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

2014: PhD – History

Thesis title: Approaches to Community and Otherness in the Late Merovingian and Early Carolingian Periods

Available at the White Rose Repository

[2008-2009] Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

2009: Master’s Degree – Historical Research MA (Distinction)

Thesis title: Constructing Authority in a Post-Roman Kingdom: Hagiography and Political Culture in Late Visigothic Spain

[2004-2007] Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

2007: Bachelor’s Degree – Medieval and Renaissance Studies BA, Hons (2.1)

Dissertation title: Civilisation and the Savage: Assessing the Importance of the Barbarians in the Political and Intellectual Culture of the Late Roman World

Other Publications

Contributions to edited volumes

‘Pagans, Rebels and Merovingians: Otherness in the early Carolingian world’, in Clemens Gantner, Rosamond McKitterick and Sven Meeder (eds), The Resources of the Past in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp 155-71. Full volume available from the publisher’s website

‘Approaches to the Frankish Community in the Chronicle of Fredegar and Liber Historiae Francorum’, in Alessandro Gnasso, Emanuele E. Intagliata, Thomas J. MacMaster and Bethan N. Morris (eds), The Long Seventh Century: Continuity and Discontinuity in an Age of Transition (Berne: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2015), pp. 61-85. Full volume available from the publisher’s website

Review articles

Columbanus: Life and Legacy, Peritia, 31 (2020), 273-280. DOI: 10.1484/J.PERIT.5.124479 (Review of: Jonas of Bobbio, Lives (trans. O’Hara and Wood); Alexander O’Hara (ed.), Columbanus and the Peoples of Post-Roman Europe; O’Hara, Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus)

Book reviews

“Skelos 1 Balances the Pulp Tradition and Neo-Pulp”, Review of Skelos: The Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy, Issue 1, Spiral Tower Press (August 2022). Available to read for free online

Christian Cooijmans, Monarchs and Hyrdarchs: The Conceptual Development of Viking Activity across the Frankish Realm (c. 750-940), sehepunkte, 21, Nr 7/8 (2021). Available to read for free on the journal’s website

Matthias Friedrich and James M. Harland (eds), Interrogating the Germanic: A Category and its Uses in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, sehepunkte, 21, Nr 5 (2021). Available to read for free on the journal’s website

Michael Aaij and Shannon Godlove (eds), A Companion to Boniface, sehepunkte, 21, Nr 3 (2021). Available to read for free on the journal’s website

V. Alice Tyrrell, Merovingian Letters and Letter Writers, sehepunkte, 19, Nr 12 (2019). Available to read for free on the journal’s website

Ingrid Rembold, Conquest and Christianization: Saxony and the Carolingian World, 722-888, The Medieaval Journal, 8 (2018), 129-132. DOI:10.1484/J.JMMS.5.119306

Robert Flierman, Saxon Identities, AD 150-900, History, 103 (2018), 845-847. DOI: 10.1111/1468-229X.12700

Rob Meens et al (eds), Religious Franks: Religion and Power in the Frankish Kingdoms: Studies in honour of Mayke de Jong, Early Medieval Europe, 26 (2018), 557-560. DOI: 10.1111/emed.12303

Annemarieke Willemsen and Hanneke Kik (eds), Golden Middle Ages in Europe: New Research into early medieval communities and identities, History, 103 (2018), 638-640. DOI: 10.1111/1468-229X.12672

John Hines and Nelleke IJssennagger (eds), Frisians and their North Sea Neighbours: From the Sixth Century to the Viking Age, sehepunkte, 18, Nr 9 (2018). Available to read for free on the journal’s website

Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (eds), Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe, The Mediaeval Journal, 5 (2015), 129-133. DOI:10.1484/J.TMJ.5.107366

Conference reports

With Tim Barnwell, ‘Cultural Memory and the Resources of the Past, 400-1000 AD’, Networks and Neighbours, 1 (2013), 58-63. Available to download from the N&N journal website

Interviews (as interviewer)

With Tim Barnwell, ‘Interview with James Palmer’, Networks and Neighbours, 2 (2014), 188-197. Available to download from the N&N journal website

Interviews (as interviewee)

‘Dr Richard Broome on Otherness in the early Carolingian World’, with Glenn McDorman for Agnus: The Late Antique, Medieval, and Byzantine Podcast at claytemplemedia.com.

Forthcoming

I am currently editing the following volumes to be published with Kısmet Press:

  • With N. Kıvılcım Yavuz, Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. Wood

  • Creating Communities and Others in Early Medieval Europe (further details to follow), including (by me) ‘Saint Boniface’s Monsters: Interpreting the Missionary Life in the Carolingian World’

Blog Posts

    Projects

    Current research

    I am working on a series of articles about the conquest and conversion of Frisia and its integration into the Carolingian empire in the eighth and early ninth centuries.

    Past research

    As a PhD student I was part of the HERA-funded ‘Cultural Memory and the Resources of the Past’, a joint research project between the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Utrecht, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

    Project website

    Memberships

    I was a founding member of the research group Networks and Neighbours, with which I still work closely.

    I was also a founding partner of the Open Access publisher Kısmet Press, and am now a member of the advisory board.

    Ricky Broome

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