Alan V. Murray

Alan V. Murray is a Scottish historian and philologist specializing in the history of the Crusades, the Baltic region in the Middle Ages, medieval warfare and tournaments, and Middle High German language and literature. He is Professor of Medieval European History at the University of Leeds and a former Director of the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB).

Education Murray grew up in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, where he attended Galashiels Academy. He studied Ancient, Medieval and Modern History and German Language and Literature at the University of St Andrews, He developed his interests in the history of the crusades and Outremer with Hugh Kennedy and in medieval German literature with Jeffrey Ashcroft During his doctoral research, Murray spent 1984–1986 studying History, German and Folk Studies at the University of Freiburg in Germany. gaining promotion in 1990 to Assistant Editor. With his colleague Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis he oversaw its digitisation, alongside ongoing print publication, initially for publication on CD-ROM (a project completed in 2000), followed by publication online (first published 2002). In 2007 he was appointed as director of the IMB, retiring from this position in 2024. In 1995, Murray founded the journal Bulletin of International Medieval Research. It later merged with Leeds Studies in English to become Leeds Medieval Studies, of which Murray was also an editor; the first volume of the new journal was published in 2021.

Alongside his bibliographic and editorial work at Leeds, Murray developed his role as a teacher and researcher. He first appears in the University of Leeds Calendar on the board of studies of the Leeds Centre for Medieval Studies (now Institute for Medieval Studies) for the academic year 1990–91. He became Lecturer in Medieval Studies in 2004, and becoming Professor of Medieval European History in 2023. In collaboration with the Royal Armouries, he led development of teaching and research on medieval tournaments at Leeds.

Research Murray's earliest research was on the composition of the First Crusade (1096–1099) and the early history of the Frankish principalities of Outremer, and was especially informed by prosopographical and pragmatic approaches. He later became interested in the history of the Baltic region, and edited three collections of essays bringing together work by historians in Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the U.S.A., and Canada. In 2011, he received the Vilis Vitols Award, bestowed annually by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies for the best article published in the Journal of Baltic Studies. His biography of Baldwin of Bourcq, count of Edessa and king of Jerusalem (published 2022), won the J. F. Verbruggen Prize, awarded by De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History "for the best book on medieval military history published within the prior three years". He writes in English and German; several of his publications have also been translated into Estonian, Dutch, Slovene, Spanish and Turkish.

Major works Author

Editor

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