Dr Edmund Wareham Wanitzek - Lecturer in Early Modern European History

I am a social and cultural historian of late medieval and early modern German-speaking Europe and my research explores the effects of religious change on the values and beliefs of ordinary women and men.

I have a particular interest in how nuns navigated the changes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and as part of ‘The Nuns’ Network’ project contributed to the ongoing edition of nearly 1,800 letters written in Latin, Low German and a characteristic mixture of both languages by the Benedictine nuns of Lüne between 1460 and 1555. This built on my doctoral work, a microhistorical study of the Cistercian convent of Günterstal, near Freiburg im Breisgau. I have worked on early print history, including a new edition and translation of the Reformation pamphlet Passional of Christ and Antichrist. I am currently exploring the storming of the monasteries and convents during the German Peasants’ War (1524-6) and Reformation debates about vows and oaths.

At Royal Holloway, I teach a number of courses in medieval and early modern history, including early modern British history in its wider European context.

I undertook undergraduate and graduate studies in History and German at the universities of Oxford, Trier and Freiburg im Breisgau. My research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, the German History Society, the Royal Historical Society and the Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung. I have held library fellowships at the Pitts Theology Library, University of Emory, and the Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel.