Who am I?
It depends whom you ask, where you ask, and when you ask. I am a professor of medieval history. I write mostly on events which happened in England and western and northern France between the years 800 and 1215. My special interests have been law before and after the Norman conquest and translation–its practice, method, and results–done from or to any of the dozen or so languages used in England and France. I am an editor of Latin legal texts of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin eras. I work on a grand project based in London to edit or re-edit and translate all early English laws produced before Magna Carta. I am a teacher, and offer courses in classical and medieval history at the University of Mary Washington. I occasionally venture out into public and share my thoughts on this or that historical subject with wider audiences, sometimes in person, sometimes as mere audio or video. I also create things. I have recreated some times and places of the medieval world as part of fictional work for adults and, perhaps soon, for young adults. When I am not doing any of those historical or fictional things, I make furniture. For fun.
I have put together this site to show some of these things. It is a work in progress.
Department of History and American Studies
University of Mary Washington
1301 College Avenue
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
bobrien (at) umw (dot) edu
