Dr Rachael Harkes

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the ERC-UKRI project, MOWLIT: The Medieval March of Wales, 1282-1550: Mapping Literary Geography in a British Border Region. https://blog.mowlit.ac.uk/

I am particularly interested in processes of decision-making and the multifaceted influences that shaped individual actions, and how we might use digital humanities to explore these. 

I am currently working on my first monograph which examines the prevalence of national religious guild membership in late medieval England and Wales. It makes the case that membership of religious fraternities was a vital aspect of medieval life, at once reflecting societal structures such as political bodies, households, and religious institutions, while simultaneously creating new communities that transcended these boundaries. 

I am also working on a number of smaller projects that take advantage of the extensive records of the Palmers’ Guild, located in the market town of Ludlow. These projects explore concepts of gendered membership of religious English guilds and the conceptualization of debt and socio-economic influences on repayment in the Welsh Marches.