Stephen Spencer

Dr Stephen Spencer is an Assistant Professor in Medieval History at Northeastern University London, specializing in central Middle Ages studies with focuses on the crusades, Latin East, history of emotions, cultural memory, and medieval historical writing. Previously, he held positions as Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King’s College London (2019–23) and Past & Present Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London (2017–19). His academic lineage traces to Queen Mary University of London, where he earned BA (2010), MA (2011), and PhD (2015) degrees in History and Islam-West relations.

His research investigates emotional rhetoric in crusading narratives and medieval historiography, blending traditional historiography with modern methodologies. Major outputs include Emotions in a Crusading Context, 1095–1291 (Oxford, 2019), which won the Ronnie Ellenblum Best First Book Award, and an upcoming monograph on Third Crusade historiography with Oxford University Press. He co-edits a forthcoming volume on medieval crusade historiography with Andrew Buck and James Kane.

Teaching focuses include British imperial history, crusades, and medieval power structures. He actively supervises students researching medieval topics like Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations or medieval historiography. Spencer is a Royal Historical Society Fellow and co-founder of the Society for the Study of Medieval Emotions.

• Awards: Ronnie Ellenblum Award, Dionisius Agius Prize, Royal Historical Society Proxime Accessit
• Key Projects: Third Crusade memory formation study, collaborative crusade historiography projects