Brigitte Englisch

Brigitte Englisch serves as Professor of Medieval History at Paderborn University's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, where she is affiliated with the Department of Medieval History within the Institute of History. Her office is located at Pohlweg 55, Room N4.308, in Paderborn, Germany, where she maintains regular telephone office hours on Wednesdays from 12:00-13:30. Professor Englisch teaches a comprehensive curriculum covering medieval history, cartography, and worldview concepts, including courses such as 'What Holds the World Together - Cartography and Worldview of the Middle Ages' and 'Paderborn in the Middle Ages.' Her academic profile demonstrates deep engagement with how medieval societies conceptualized time, space, and knowledge through both theoretical frameworks and primary source analysis.

Professor Englisch's research spans multiple critical areas of medieval studies. Her primary interests include the history of Spain during the Early and High Middle Ages, the history of Germanic successor kingdoms (particularly the Franks, Visigoths, and Anglo-Saxons), medieval worldview and cartography, computistics and chronology, medieval mental history, the history of natural sciences and technology, educational and intellectual history of the Middle Ages, and Gender History. She approaches these topics through interdisciplinary methodologies that bridge historical analysis with geographical and scientific perspectives, examining how medieval societies structured their understanding of the world through maps, timekeeping systems, and scholarly traditions.

Her current research projects reflect this scholarly breadth, including 'Orbis mediaevalis – Media-based exploration of places in the medieval world,' studies on Victorius of Aquitaine and early medieval Easter calculation, investigations into Werl's position between autonomy and territorial power, analysis of the St. Gall monastery plan, and research on medieval cartography and geographical knowledge evolution from Christian worldview to reality-oriented representations. These projects demonstrate her commitment to understanding the complex interplay between religious frameworks and empirical observation in medieval contexts.

Professor Englisch's publications reveal a consistent scholarly trajectory examining medieval visualization of the world across five decades of research. Her work spans from the early medieval period (5th-9th centuries) through the high medieval era, with particular attention to how knowledge was preserved, transformed, and transmitted from antiquity. A recurring theme across her publications is the intersection of religious worldview and practical scientific understanding, showing how theological frameworks coexisted with empirical observation and calculation in medieval contexts.

Professor Englisch maintains active supervision of Bachelor's and Master's theses, which students may submit digitally. Her teaching portfolio is exceptionally comprehensive, covering general medieval history, the Crusades, Germanic successor kingdoms, Charlemagne's empire, Ottonian through Staufer periods, French and English history, Westphalia in the Middle Ages, historical auxiliary sciences, medieval script and documents, cartography, the history of science, time and space concepts, natural sciences and technology history, mathematics history, mental history aspects including wealth and poverty, childhood and death, environmental history, monastic culture, heretics and saints' veneration, women and power, cultural contacts between Arabic and Western cultures, and memory culture. She also leads specialized excursions throughout Europe focusing on specific medieval themes.