Peter Marshall

Peter Marshall is Professor of History at the University of Warwick, where he has been a faculty member since 1994. He is a leading scholar in early modern British religious history, with a focus on the English Reformation, religious identities, and the cultural history of death and the supernatural. He has held significant editorial roles, including co-editor of The English Historical Review (2013–2022), and served as President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (2023–2024). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, and a member of the Irish Research Council's International Advisory Board.

Marshall’s research centers on the religious and cultural transformations of early modern Britain and Europe. He has published extensively on the English Reformation, including the influential Reformation England 1480–1642 and the prize-winning Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation. His work also explores the supernatural, as seen in Mother Leakey and the Bishop and Invisible Worlds, and more recently, in Storm’s Edge, a re-centered history of early modern Britain from the perspective of Orkney. His research interests include religious conversion, martyrdom, clerical culture, and the afterlife.

His 15 most recent publications reflect a consistent focus on the Reformation’s impact across Britain and Ireland, with increasing attention to peripheries and islands. Themes include religious identity, memory, the supernatural, and transnational perspectives. His work often bridges academic and public history, engaging with memory, myth, and the legacy of the Reformation.

• Wolfson History Prize (2018)
• Harold J. Grimm Prize (twice)
• Longlisted, Highland Book Prize (2024)
• Shortlisted, Longman-History Today Prize (2003)
• Fellow, British Academy
• Fellow, Royal Historical Society

Marshall has supervised numerous PhD students on topics in early modern religious history and is actively involved in public engagement, frequently contributing to the Times Literary Supplement, The Tablet, and History Today. He is currently on research leave (2024–2025), holding a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship for a project on 'Culture and Belief in Orkney, 1468–1800'.

He is associated with several scholarly organizations, including the Ecclesiastical History Society, the Sixteenth Century Studies Society, and the Dugdale Society. He has also served on the AHRC Peer Review College and editorial boards of major journals.