Dr Brigid Ehrmantraut
Associate Lecturer in Latin and in the History of the British Isles, c.1100-1500
Biography
Brigid Ehrmantraut received her PhD from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge in 2023. She also holds an MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from Cambridge (2019) and an AB in Classics from Princeton University (2018). Before joining the School of History at St Andrews, she was a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge (2023–25).
Teaching
Undergraduate:
The Kingdom of the Scots, c. 900–1707 (ME1006)
Postgraduate:
Latin (HE5108–9/MS5125–6)
Contributions to Approaches to Medieval Studies 1 and 2 (MS5103–4)
MLitt Special Topics (HE5206–7) and Directed Reading (MS5033–4)
Research areas
Brigid Ehrmantraut is a philologist and cultural and intellectual historian of medieval Britian and Ireland. Her research and teaching interests include medieval Irish (Gaelic) and Welsh language, literature, and history; Celtic philology; classical and medeival Latin; classical reception and textual transmission; translation studies; mythography and pseudohistory; magic and the supernatural; and landscape and cultural memory studies. Her first monograph, Classical Myth in Medieval Ireland (D. S. Brewer, 2025), examined the reception and translation of classical mythology in medieval Ireland. She is currently working on the intersection of classical learning, vercanular translation, and Irish accounts of battles between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.
Brigid is also interested in outreach and in making the Middle Ages more accessible to a wider audience. Her trade book Celtic Magic: A Practitioner's Guide (Thames & Hudson, 2026) introduces ancient and medieval magical texts and practices from Celtic-speaking areas to a general readership.
PhD supervision
- Gwenffrewi Morgan
Selected publications
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Celtic magic: a practitioner's guide
Ehrmantraut, B., Feb 2026, Thames and Hudson Ltd. 208 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Classical myth in medieval Ireland
Ehrmantraut, B., 9 Sept 2025, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. 206 p. (Studies in Celtic History ; no. 49)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
How Samson slew the Gesteda
Ehrmantraut, B., 11 Jul 2024, Classical antiquity and medieval Ireland: an anthology of medieval Irish texts and interpretations. Clarke, M., Poppe, E. & Torrance, I. (eds.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 221–228 8 p. (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception ).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Open access
In Cath Catharda “The Civil War”: the prologue
Ehrmantraut, B., 11 Jul 2024, Classical antiquity and medieval Ireland: an anthology of medieval Irish texts and interpretations. Clarke, M., E. P. & Torrance, I. (eds.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, p. 181-192 13 p. (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Review: The book of Uí Mhaine, Ruairí Ó hUiginn and Elizabeth Boyle (Eds.), Codices Hibernenses Eximii 3 (Royal Irish Academy, 2023)
Ehrmantraut, B., 1 Sept 2024, In: Studia Hibernica. 50, p. 204–206Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
A wrong turn on the way to Troy: Samson and the classical tradition in medieval Ireland
Ehrmantraut, B., 1 Dec 2022, In: Celtica. 34, p. 39–59Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Review: History and salvation in medieval Ireland, Elizabeth Boyle, Studies in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland (Routledge, 2021)
Ehrmantraut, B., 11 Apr 2022, Kelten, 90.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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Of mice and mounds: prehistoric monuments in the literature of medieval Wales
Ehrmantraut, B., 1 Jul 2021, In: Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies . 81, p. 93–112Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Review: Medieval Welsh medical texts volume I: the recipes, Diana Luft (Ed.) (University of Wales Press, 2020)
Ehrmantraut, B., 3 May 2021, Kelten, 87.Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
In similtudinem fertae: Mythologization of Burial Mounds in Early Medieval Irish and Hiberno-Latin Literature
Ehrmantraut, B., 2019, In: Quaestio Insularis. 20, p. 72–90Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review