Dr Bart Lambert
Bart Lambert is Associate Professor of Medieval History and Director of the Social History of Capitalism (SHOC) Research Group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He joined VUB in 2018 after earning his PhD in History at Ghent University (2011) and working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of York (2012–14, 2016–18) and a lecturer at Durham University (2014–16). He has also held the Van Dyck Chair at UCLA, the Belgian Chair at Birkbeck College and visiting fellowships at the universities of Florence and Genoa.
Bart’s research focuses on migration and mobility in medieval Europe, challenging the long-standing assumption that the late Middle Ages (12th–15th centuries) were characterized by isolation and limited movement. His work has demonstrated, for example, that large-scale migration was a defining feature of this period in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He has published four books with leading academic presses, including Immigrant England, 1300–1550 (with W. M. Ormrod and J. Mackman, 2019), the first comprehensive study of migration in late medieval England. His articles have appeared in journals such as English Historical Review and History Workshop Journal. Bart also co-developed www.englandsimmigrants.com, a public database documenting over 65,000 individuals who migrated from continental Europe to fifteenth-century England, which has attracted more than 1.8 million views since 2015.
As a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Bart will examine the roots of anti-immigrant sentiment in fifteenth-century England. His research focuses on complaints from craft guilds that foreign artisans were taking away custom and driving their members out of business. To assess the market share of immigrant producers, he will analyze household and institutional accounts detailing consumer expenditure, with particular attention to the fifteenth-century accounts of the Cambridge Colleges.
Select publications
- Bart Lambert and Joshua Ravenhill, ‘“Bawd, Traitor, Fleming, Thief and Other Horrible Names”: Immigration and Nationality-Based Insults in Late Medieval and Early Tudor London’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 112:1, 2025, pp. 3-38.
- Bart Lambert, ‘Citizenry and Nationality: The Participation of Immigrants in Urban Politics in Later Medieval England’, History Workshop Journal, 90, 2020, pp. 52-73.
- Bart Lambert, ‘Double Disadvantage or Golden Age? Migration, Gender and Economic Opportunity in Later Medieval England’, Gender & History, 31:3, 2019, pp. 545-564.
- W. Mark Ormrod, Bart Lambert and Jonathan Mackman, Immigrant England, 1300-1550, Manchester University Press, 2019 (Manchester Medieval Studies).
- Bart Lambert and Milan Pajic, ‘Immigration and the Common Profit: Native Cloth Workers, Flemish Exiles, and Royal Policy in Fourteenth-Century London’, Journal of British Studies, 55:4, 2016, pp. 633-657.
- Bart Lambert and W. Mark Ormrod, ‘A Matter of Trust: The Royal Regulation of England’s French Residents during Wartime, 1294-1377’, Historical Research, 89:244, 2016, pp. 208-226.
- Bart Lambert and W. Mark Ormrod, ‘Friendly Foreigners: International Warfare, Resident Aliens and the Early History of Denization in England, c. 1250- c. 1400’, English Historical Review, 130:542, 2015, pp. 1-24.
- Bart Lambert and Milan Pajic, ‘Drapery in Exile: Edward III, Colchester and the Flemings, 1351-1366’, History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 99: 338, 2014, pp. 733-753.
Select awards
- 2022-2023 – Invited Lectureship in the Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence
- 2021-2022 – Anton Van Dyck Chair at University of California, Los Angeles, awarded by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) and the University of California, Los Angeles
- 2019-2020 – Belgian Chair at Birkbeck College, University of London, awarded by the Belgian Embassy in London
Further links
Dr Lambert’s profile on the Vrije Universiteit Brussel website: https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/bart-lambert/
