About

My research focuses on political culture and thought in the context of 13th-14th c. English royal administration and its domestic and diplomatic interlocutors. I am also interested in the question of women’s power, and especially their participation in diplomatic exchange. I have published on the design and deployment of rhetoric for political effect, informal diplomacy, and the unique republicanism of Franciscan thinker and diplomat, John of Wales. In collaboration with Prof. Constant Mews, I recently completed a three-year Australian Research Council-funded project on the relationship between concepts of justice/injustice and political and moral complaint/advice in the Middle Ages, through the lens of the seventh-century Irish text De duodecim abusiuis saeculi and its reception. I am developing a major new project on secrecy, espionage and diplomacy in the later middle ages, working with partners Prof. Barbara Bombi (Kent) and Dr Jenny Benham (Cardiff). I also currently co-lead a collaborative initiative between the Universities of Monash, Australia, and Padova, Italy, on Feeling the Middle Ages: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Devotional Practice, with A. Prof. Zuleika Murat. In addition, I write and think a lot about questions and challenges in tertiary education in the humanities.

Cover image: Lincolnshire County Archive BNLW 1/1/55/1, c.1230-1250 (image, K. Neal).

Education

PhD (History), Monash University. 2014.

PhD (Physiology, Anatomy & Cell Biology), The University of Melbourne. 2008.

MSt Historical Research (Medieval), Oxford University. 2002.

BSc/BA (Hons), The University of Melbourne. 2000.

Mastodon Feed

Join me and Jenny Benham at #IMC2024 #MedSpies (2023-07-26 ↗)


Blog Posts

    Publications

    Books

    Neal, Kathleen B., The Letters of Edward I: Political Communication in the Thirteenth Century. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2021.

    Edited Books

    Addressing Injustice in the Medieval Body Politic. Eds. Constant J. Mews and Kathleen B. Neal. Crossing Boundaries: Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 13. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023.

    Journal Articles

    Neal, Kathleen B., and Nicholas Ferns. “Primary Sources, Pedagogy and the Politics of Tertiary History in Australia.” History Australia 19, no. 2 (2022), 363–380.

    Neal, Kathleen. “Royal Women and Intra-Familial Diplomacy in Late Thirteenth-Century Anglo-French Relations.” Women’s History Review 30.5 (2021), 790-804. DOI 10.1080/09612025.2020.1827736

    Neal, Kathleen B., et al. “A Team-Based ‘Public History’ Assessment for Undergraduates: Rationale, Design and Implementation in a Medieval History Course.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 30.2 (2018): 334–349.

    Neal, Kathleen, Andrew Lynch, and David Headon. “Magna Carta: Personal Encounters, Popular Culture and Australian Links.” Papers on Parliament 65 (2016): 85-115.

    Neal, Kathleen. “Words as Weapons in the Correspondence of Edward I with Llywelyn Ap Gruffydd.” Parergon 30.1 (2013): 51–71.

    Book Chapters

    Neal, Kathleen B. “Accounts concerning Elizabeth, Countess of Holland (1282–1316).” English Medieval Government and Administration: Essays in Honour of J.R. Maddicott, Eds. N. Saul and N. Vincent. Publications of the Pipe Rolls Society, n.s. 65. Woodbridge: Boydell for the Pipe Rolls Society, 2023, 317–330.

    Mews, Constant J. and Kathleen B. Neal. “Justice and Its Abuse in the Medieval Body Politic.” Addressing Injustice in the Medieval Body Politic, 15–34.

    Neal, Kathleen B. “Preaching the Body Politic: John of Wales and Franciscan Political Thought in the Late Thirteenth Century.” Addressing Injustice in the Medieval Body Politic, 201–231.

    Neal, Kathleen. “Letters and Political Discourse under Edward I.” Edward I: New Interpretations. Eds. King, Andy and Andrew M. Spencer. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020, 143-62.

    Neal, Kathleen. “From Letters to Loyalty: Aline la Despenser and the Meaning(s) of a Noblewoman’s Correspondence in Thirteenth-Century England.” Authority, Gender and Emotion in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. Ed. Broomhall, Susan. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015. 18–33.

    Encyclopedia and Dictionary Entries

    Neal, Kathleen B. “Letters and the Exercise of Power.” Eds. Chris Jones and Hannele Klemettilä. Routledge Resources Online – Medieval Studies. London: Routledge, 2022–, doi: 10.4324/9780415791182-RMEO207-1.

    Neal, Kathleen B. “Elizabeth, countess of Holland and Hereford (1282–1316)” Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Biography, Online edn. Oxford: OUP, 2004–.

    Public History

    BBC History Extra Podcast: The Letters of Edward I. February 3, 2021.

    Neal, Kathleen. “The Excommunication of King John.” Medieval Lego. Ed. Beights, Greyson. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2015. 31-33.

    —. “The First Parliament, Held 1265.” Medieval Lego. Ed. Beights, Greyson. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2015. 58-60.

    —. “The Signing (sic) of Magna Carta.” Medieval Lego. Ed. Beights, Greyson. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2015. 42-44.

    Reviews

    Neal, Kathleen. Rev. of Louise Wilkinson (ed.), “The Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, 1265: British Library, Additional MS 8877″, AMARC Newsletter, 76 (2021): 32-33.

    —. Chris Jones (ed.), “John of Paris: Beyond Royal and Papal Power”, Parergon 37:1 (2020), 263-264.

    —. Rev. of McDougall, Sara, “Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy 800-1230” (Oxford, 2017). HistSex List, H-Net (2017). Web.

    —. Rev. of “Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English Society, 1200-1250”, Eds. Carlin, Martha and David Crouch (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). Eras 16.2 (2015): 122-24. Web.

    —. Rev. of Barthélemy, Dominique, “The Serf, the Knight and the Historian”. Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association 6 (2010): 117-20.

    —. Rev. of Arnold, John H., “What is Medieval History?”. Parergon 27.1 (2010): 185-86.

    —. Rev. of Schulte, Petra, Marco Mostert and Irene van Renswoude, (eds), “Strategies of Writing: Studies on Text and Trust in the Middle Ages”. Parergon 27.1 (2010): 248-50.

    —. Rev. of Thomas, H. M. “The Norman Conquest” / Harper-Bill, C. & van Houts E. (eds), “Companion to the Anglo-Norman World”. Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association 5 (2009): 217-20.

    —. Rev. of Clanchy, M. T., “England and its Rulers: 1066-1305”, 3rd Ed. Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association 4 (2008): 233.

    —. Rev. of Keen, E., “The Journey of a Book: Bartholomew the Englishman and the Properties of Things”. Parergon 25.2 (2008): 166-68.

    —. Rev. of Hourihane, C. (ed.), “Time in the Medieval World: Occupations of the months & signs of the zodiac in the Index of Christian Art”. Parergon 25.2 (2008): 164-66.

    —. Rev. of Chinca, M., Young, C. (eds) “Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages”. Parergon 24.2 (2007): 174-76.

    —. Rev. of Arlinghaus, F. J., Ostermann, M., Plessow, O., Tscherpel, G. (eds) “Tranforming the Medieval World: Uses of Pragmatic Literacy in the Middle Ages”
    Parergon 24.2 (2007): 163-65.

    Murray, Elizabeth, and Kathleen B. Neal. Rev. of Exhibition, “The Medieval Imagination—Illuminated manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand”, State Library of Victoria. The Melbourne Historical Journal 36 (2008): 91-4.

    Neal, Kathleen B., and Anne Holloway. Rev. of O’Sullivan, D., “Marian Devotion in Thirteenth-Century French Lyric”. Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association 3 (2007): 233.

    Scientific Work

    Neal, K. B., L. J. Parry, and J. C. Bornstein. “Strain-Specific Genetics, Anatomy and Function of Enteric Neural Serotonergic Pathways in Inbred Mice.” Journal of Physiology-London 587.3 (2009): 567-86.

    Neal, K. B., and J. C. Bornstein. “Mapping 5-Ht Inputs to Enteric Neurons of the Guinea-Pig Small Intestine.” Neuroscience 145.2 (2007): 556-67.

    —. “Serotonergic Receptors in Therapeutic Approaches to Gastrointestinal Disorders.” Current Opinion in Pharmacology 6.6 (2006): 547-52.

    Projects

    Feeling the Middle Ages: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Devotional Practice. Monash-University of Padova Strategic Initiative Scheme. 2024. [with A. Prof. Zuleika Murat]

    Addressing Injustice in the Medieval Body Politic. Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2019-21. [with Prof. Constant Mews]

    Memberships

    AEMA

    ANZAMEMS (Secretary, 2022 –)

    British Records Association

    Haskins Society

    History Council of Victoria (Board member, 2017–20)

    MAA

    Pipe Rolls Society (Council member, 2018–)

    Royal Studies Network (Royal Studies Journal, Advisory board, 2013–)

    Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship

    Kathleen B. Neal

    Profile picture of Kathleen B. Neal

    @kneal

    Active 1 year, 8 months ago