Emma-Catherine Wilson

Thesis title: Confessors of Arms: Heralds and their Texts in Late Medieval Chivalric Culture

Supervisor: Laura Ashe

Research Interests: Heralds, Chivalry, Tournaments, Romances, Book Culture, Cultural History and Exchange, Subjectivity, Confession

Doctoral Research: My thesis explores the multifaceted world of English, French, and Burgundian heralds from c. 1350 to 1550 and demonstrates that the study of heraldic texts can provide insightful new perspectives on contemporary chivalric culture and literature. By combining manuscript studies with literary analysis and cultural history, I establish a nuanced view of heralds’ practical and ideological roles within late medieval noble communities. My research is supervised by Professor Laura Ashe and is co-funded by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP, the Clarendon Fund, and All Souls College.

Publications: 

• 'Heralds as Conduits of International Exchange: Two Further Chivalric Letters from London, College of Arms, MS. L6.' Forthcoming in Medium Ævum in 2026. Accepted for publication on 29 November 2023 [20 pages]. 

• 'The Henrician Tournament Letters of London, College of Arms, MS. L6 and the Role of Heralds in the Preservation of an Older English Tournament Tradition.' Forthcoming in Medium Ævum in 2025. Accepted for publication on 29 November 2023 [20 pages].

• 'An Unedited Version of the Medieval French Heraldic Oath,' Notes and Queries, vol. 71, no. 4 (2024): pp. 386-89. https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjae122  

• 'Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon, Translatio Studii et Imperii, and the Anglo-French Cultural Politics of the Fourteenth Century,' New Medieval Literatures, vol. 24 (2024): pp. 133-67. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.6380568.10 

• 'Heraldic Handbooks and the Discourse of Chivalric Allegory: The Case of the Eltham Challenge Letters of 1400,' Florilegium, vol. 37 (2024): pp. 112-50. https://doi.org/10.3138/flor-2021-0005 

Teaching Experience: 

• External Tutor, Worcester College, University of Oxford: January 2025 - March 2025
  • In Hilary Term 2025, I taught the course “Arthurian Romance,” a major second-year tutorial for a visiting student. This paper charted the development of Arthurian romance from Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot up to Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and explored how various authors writing between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries in England and France reshaped Arthurian legend in service of their own cultural ideals.
• Lecturer, Department of English Literature, University of Reading: October 2024 - February 2025
  • In this role, I lectured and lead four weekly seminar discussions for the course EN2MLR: Myth, Legend, and Romance, covering medieval English texts ranging from Beowulf to The Canterbury Tales and Arthurian romances.
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Faculty of English, University of Oxford: October 2024 - November 2024 
  • In Michaelmas Term 2024, I was a graduate teaching assistant on the Faculty of English's FHS Paper 6 course "Tragedy." This transhistorical course explored tragedy from ancient Greek drama up to twenty-first century postcolonial novels.
• External Tutor, Worcester College, University of Oxford: January 2024 - March 2024
  • In Hilary Term 2024, I taught the undergraduate FHS Paper 2 course on literature in English written between 1350 and 1550. I was responsible for teaching commentary sessions on Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and tutorials with pairs of students on their choice of texts from the period, including Chaucer’s corpus, the works of the Gawain-Poet, early Tudor poetry, and the mystical writings of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich.
• Dissertation Supervisor, Mansfield College, University of Oxford: October 2023 - February 2024
  • I supervised an undergraduate dissertation on the anxieties of chivalry betrayed in Sir Thomas Malory's characterization of Lancelot in Le Morte Darthur.
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of Ottawa: September 2020 - April 2022
  • I assisted teaching, lead discussion groups, and marked papers for the courses ‘Workshop in Essay Writing’ (ENG 1100), ‘Business English’ (ENG 1131), and ‘Technical Report Writing’ (ENG 1112).