Professor Francesca Tinti
Francesca Tinti is Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country, which she joined in 2009 after holding positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Bologna.
A historian of the early medieval period, she has published extensively on church organization and pastoral care, with a particular focus on England. She has also written on charters and cartularies, especially interactions between Latin and vernacular languages in the documentary practices of early medieval England and the eastern Frankish territories. More recently, her research has expanded to explore relations between Britain and the Continent during the same period, addressing themes such as travel, trade, diplomacy, religious missions, and perceptions of Britain’s place in Europe.
Francesca Tinti sits on the editorial board of several academic journals, including Early Medieval England and its Neighbours, Quaderni di Storia Religiosa Medievale, and Studi di Storia Medioevale e di Diplomatica, and is Coordinating Editor of Early Medieval Europe. She has received funding for numerous research projects from agencies in Italy, Spain and the UK.
Her current project examines long-distance travel from England. Drawing on a range of historical, literary, and material sources, it investigates how early medieval people experienced foreign environments and how these encounters shaped their identities. The project focuses on the period between the seventh and mid-eleventh centuries, when long-distance journeys from England are relatively well attested. Destinations included Ireland, Scandinavia, Rome, the Frankish realms, Byzantium, and the Holy Land. Routes to these and other places exposed travellers to unfamiliar environments, where identities were often challenged, lost, or transformed. Special attention is paid to the value of accurate communication and the risks of miscommunication. By focusing on communicative challenges and identity negotiation, the project sheds light on how mobility shaped early medieval people’s sense of self and interactions with the wider world.
Select publications
- Francesca Tinti, ‘La production de cartulaires dans les cathédrales monastique anglo-normandes de Worcester et Cantorbéry’, in Ecrire à l’ombre des cathédrales, ed. by Gregory Combalbert and Chantal Senséby (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2024), pp. 279-95
- Francesca Tinti, ‘Anglo-Saxon Travellers and their Books’, in Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections, ed. by Joanna Story and Claire Breay (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2021), pp. 168–77
- Francesca Tinti, Europe and the Anglo-Saxons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)
- The Languages of Early Medieval Charters: Latin, Germanic Vernaculars and the Written Word, ed. by Robert Gallagher, Edward Roberts and Francesca Tinti (Leiden: Brill, 2021)
- Francesca Tinti, ‘The Pallium Privilege of Pope Nicholas II for Archbishop Ealdred of York’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 70 (2019), pp. 708-30
- Rory Naismith and Francesca Tinti, ‘The Origins of Peter’s Pence’, The English Historical Review 134 (2019), pp. 521-52
- Francesca Tinti, ‘Benedictine Reform and Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Early Medieval Europe 23.2 (2015), pp. 229-51
- Francesca Tinti, Sustaining Belief. The Church of Worcester from c.870 to c.1100 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010)
Select awards
- Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford (Trinity Term 2021)
- Winner of the Prize for Best Article awarded by the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England to ‘The Origins of Peter’s Pence’ (see Select publications)
- Winner of the Best First Book Prize awarded by the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists to Sustaining Belief (see Select publications)
Further links
https://www.ikerbasque.net/es/francesca-tinti
