Christopher Charles Dyer (born 1944) is a Leverhulme

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of Regional and

Local History Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context, often concentrating on a relatively small local community. It incorporates cultural history, cultural and social history, social aspects of history. Local history is not mer ...

and a former director of the Centre for English Local History at the

University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. He was appointed Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Background

Educated at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

where he studied under

Rodney Hilton Rodney Howard Hilton (17 November 1916 – 7 June 2002) was an English Marxist historian of the late medieval period and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Biography Hilton was born in Middleton in Lancashire. His father, John ...

, Dyer has taught at the Universities of Birmingham and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, where he counted amongst his students the former

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

. He came to the University of Leicester in 2001.

Work

Dyer is known as an historian of everyday life. His work examines the

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

and

social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...

of medieval life, with an emphasis on the

English Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefordshi ...

from the

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

period through to the 16th century. He delivered the

Ford Lectures The Ford Lectures or the James Ford Lectures in British History, are an annual series of public lectures held at the University of Oxford on the subject of English or British history. They are usually devoted to a particular historical theme an ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

for 2000–01, titled "''An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages''". On 25 October 2013, Dyer presented his lecture "''Corby, Northamptonshire and Beyond: The History of Industry in the Countryside''" at The Marc Fitch Lectures.

Selected publications

* * ''Making a Living in the Middle Ages: the People of Britain, 850–1520'' (London and New Haven, 2002 (Yale UP); London, 2003 (Penguin); New Haven, 2003 (American paperback, Yale UP), 403 pp. * ''Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England c. 1200–1520'' (Cambridge 1989) 297 pp.ISBN 0 521 25127 3 hardback, ISBN 0 521 27215 7 paperback. * ''Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: the Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540'' (Cambridge 1980) 427 pp. * "The urbanizing of Staffordshire: the first phases", ''Staffordshire Studies'', 14 (2002), pp. 1–31 * (with Jane Laughton), "Seasonal patterns of trade in the later Middle Ages: buying and selling at Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, 1400–1520", ''Nottingham Medieval Studies'', 46 (2002), pp. 162–84. * "Villages and non-villages in the medieval Cotswolds", ''Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society'', 120 (2002), pp. 11–35. * * (with Phillipp R. Schofield), "Estudios recientes sobre la historia agraria y rural medieval britanica", ''Historia Agraria'', 31 (2003), pp. 13–33. * "Birmingham in the Middle Ages", in ''Birmingham: Bibliography of a City'', ed.

Carl Chinn Carl Steven Alfred Chinn (born 6 September 1956) is an English historian, author and radio presenter whose working life has been devoted to the study and popularisation of the city of Birmingham. He broadcast a programme on the BBC News, BBC fr ...

(Birmingham, 2003), pp. 1–14. * "Alternative agriculture: goats in medieval England", in ''People, Landscape and Alternative Agriculture: Essays for Joan Thirsk'', ed. R. W. Hoyle (''Agricultural History Review'' Supplement Series, 3, 2004), pp. 20–38. * (with M. Ciaraldi, R. Cuttler and L. Dingwall), "Medieval tanning and retting at Brewood, Staffordshire: archaeological excavations 1999–2000", ''Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions'', 40 (2004), pp. 1–57. * "The political life of the fifteenth-century English village", ''The Fifteenth Century'', 4 (2004), pp. 135–57. * ''An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages'' (Oxford, 2005) he Ford Lectures for 2001 * "Bishop Wulfstan and his estates", in ''St Wulfstan and his World'', ed. Julia Barrow and Nicholas Brooks (Aldershot 2005), pp. 137–45. *

Footnotes

External links

University of Leicester staff profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dyer, Christopher Alumni of the University of Birmingham English historians Academics of the University of Leicester Academics of the University of Edinburgh 1944 births Living people Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Academy Anglo-Saxon studies scholars