Alice Rio

Professor Alice Rio is a leading scholar in medieval history, specializing in early medieval Europe (6th–10th centuries). She holds a professorship at King’s College London’s Department of History, within the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. Previously, she was a Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford, and a Fellow/Lecturer at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her work focuses on Frankish legal practices, slavery, gender history, and medieval legal cultures. She co-edits the journal Past & Present since 2011 and has held editorial roles for several academic series. Her research explores migration experiences of early medieval women, legal formulae, and socio-economic structures. She supervises PhD students on early medieval Western Europe topics and co-hosts the podcast Medieval History For Fun And Profit.

Education: PhD from King’s College London (under Jinty Nelson), followed by fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge.

Research Interests: Frankish kingdoms (Merovingian/Carolingian periods), slavery, legal culture, women’s history, and medieval literature. Her monographs include Slavery After Rome, c. 500–1100 (Oxford, 2017) and Legal Practice and the Written Word (Cambridge, 2009).

Publications Trends: Recent work addresses elite status through slaving, Carolingian legal practices, and debt systems in early medieval Europe. Articles often analyze legal texts (e.g., formulae) and their socio-political implications.

Awards: None explicitly listed, though her editorial roles and frequent peer-reviewed publications reflect scholarly recognition.

Advising & Grants: Open to supervising PhD students on early medieval topics. Engages in interdisciplinary research through King’s Research Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies and the Medieval History Research Hub.

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with interdisciplinary groups at King’s, focusing on late antique and medieval history across Eurasia and Africa.