Matt McHaffie

Contact: mm795@st-andrews.ac.uk

Biography and Thesis:
Originally from Victoria, B.C. (Canada), I graduated in 2008 with a BA in History from the University of Victoria. I then moved to St Andrews to engage in postgraduate research on the subjects of law, lordship and power, under Professor John Hudson. I am currently finishing a PhD thesis on these subjects. 

My doctoral research examines the relationship between the exercise of lordship and the development of law and legal ideas in Anjou, northwestern France, from ca.987 to ca.1203. I focus on three issues in particular. First is the relationship between power and law: did ideas and expectations of law delimit and restrain the exercise of lordly power? Second is the role of law within a wider disputing context: to what extent was there a normative legal culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries which served to structure and help settle conflicts? Third is the question of what caused these legal ideas; how did they develop; how did they acquire normative force; how were they transmitted across generations; what was the role of lordship in this process? My thesis thus aims to reassess the legal and political culture of the high middle ages, in northwestern France, by emphasising the dynamic role of lordship in establishing the frameworks of legal thought which would anticipate some of the legal developments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Thesis Title: 'Law, Lordship and Legal Conflict in Anjou, ca.987-ca.1203'

Supervisor: Professor John Hudson

Academic Papers:

  • July 2012: 'Alms in Anjou, 987-1151: the Development of a Legal Norm', International Medieval Congress, Leeds.
  • July 2012: 'Property and Lordship in Anjou: the Uses of Warranty, ca.987-ca.1203', Society for the Study of French History Annual Conference, York.
  • May 2012: '"Substantive Legalism" in Anjou: Disputes and Legal Norms, 987-1151', Law and Disputing in the Middle Ages: Carlsberg Academy Conference on Medieval Legal History, Copenhagen.
  • July 2011: 'Consent to Grants of Land in Anjou', International Medieval Congress, Leeds.
  • June 2011: 'Lordship, Power and Dispute: the Case of Le Lion d'Angers', Law, Violence and Social Bonds, St Andrews.

Teaching:
Postgraduate Intermediate Latin: Instructor

Other:
Co-organiser of 'Law, Violence and Social Bonds, c.900-c.1250' at the University of St Andrews, 2011.
Co-organiser of the Postgraduate Seminar Series, University of St Andrews, 2010-2011.