Dr. Hope Williard

B.A., Brown University, 2011;
MPhil, University of Cambridge, 2012;
Ph.D., University of Leeds, 2017.

Dr. Williard's research focuses on the social and cultural history of the late Roman and early medieval Mediterranean world between the fourth and eighth centuries. Her published work has explored letter writing and literary culture during a time of great change, exploring how late antique people used the former to cope with the latter. Ongoing research focuses on epistolary culture and the materiality of texts, late antique textiles, and the pedagogy of digital history.

The medieval Mediterranean world, premodern global literatures and cultures, medieval manuscripts, the Viking Age

Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries (Leeds: ARC Humanities Press, 2022).

Letters and their Users in the Early Medieval Mediterranean World, co-edited with Robert Flierman. (Brepols, in preparation).

“Has geminas artes: Textiles and Poetry in the World of Attusia Lucana Sabina,” in Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Studies from Western Europe and North Africa, ed. Maijastina Kahlos and Eric Fournier (Turnhout: Brepols, 2025): 51-68.

“Letters, Gifts, and Messengers: the Epistolary Strategies of St Radegund,” with Robert Flierman, Early Medieval Europe 33:3 (2025), pp. 309-340. https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12776

“Letter Carriers and the Scale of Communication in the Epistolae of Sidonius Apollinaris,” in Scale and the Study of Late Antiquity ed. Tina Sessa and Kevin Uhalde (Bari: Edipuglia, 2023): 153-167.

“Social Annotation to Support Students’ Online Reading Skills,” with Jamie Wood and Matt East in Designing Courses with Digital Technologies ed. Stefan Hrastinski (London: Routledge, 2021): 66-71.

“Friendship and Diplomacy in the Histories of Gregory of Tours,” in The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World, eds. Stefan Esders, Yitzhak Hen, Pia Lucas and Tamar Rotman, (London: Bloomsbury, 2019): 41-54 

“Letter-Writing and Literary Culture in Merovingian Gaul,” European Review of History 21:5 (2014), pp. 691-710. https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2014.949223

2026 Lindsay Young Regional Visiting Faculty Fellowship, Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

2022-2023 Professional Practice Fellowship, Arts and Humanities Research Council and Research Libraries UK

2020-2021 Humfrey Wanley Visiting Fellowship, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

2017 Visiting Early Career Fellowship,  John Rylands Library

2012-2015 International Research Scholarship, University of Leeds

2011-2012 Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholarship