Rebecca Rist

Professor Rebecca Rist is a distinguished scholar of Medieval History at the University of Reading, where she serves as Director of the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS). She previously held the position of School Director for Teaching and Learning in the School of Humanities from 2012-2016. Her academic leadership extends to organizing panels for the Leeds International Medieval Congress and the GCMS Summer Symposium, as well as serving on the Steering Committee of History UK.

Professor Rist's research focuses on the complex interplay between religious authority and political power in the medieval world, with particular expertise in the papacy, crusades, Jewish-Christian relations, and heresy and dissent. Her work demonstrates how medieval popes navigated the delicate balance between spiritual authority and temporal power, particularly in their authorization of crusades against both external enemies and internal religious dissenters. She explores how religious minorities, especially Jewish communities in Western Europe, experienced and responded to papal policies throughout the High and Late Middle Ages (eleventh-fifteenth centuries).

Analysis of her extensive publication record reveals consistent engagement with themes of religious authority, medieval political theology, and the intersection of faith and power. Her scholarship demonstrates remarkable breadth across chronological periods while maintaining deep expertise in specific areas like the Albigensian Crusade and papal-Jewish relations. Recent work shows increasing interest in the cultural dimensions of medieval religion, including devotional practices and the representation of religious figures in literature.

• Faculty of Arts and Humanities Research Endowment Trust Fund prize for Best Early Career Research Output (2010) for 'The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198-1245'
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Professor Rist actively supervises doctoral research, currently guiding two PhD students working on Dominican activities in the Holy Land and devotion to St Christopher in medieval England. She has successfully supervised four PhD completions on diverse topics including the Cathar heresy, medieval poverty debates, canon law implementation in Livonia, and the reign of Philip I of France. Her teaching spans undergraduate and postgraduate levels, covering medieval antisemitism, crusades, heresy, and papal politics. She also contributes to public scholarship through media appearances, including BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time' on papal infallibility and multiple podcasts on crusade history.