Dyan Elliott

Dyan Elliott (born 1954) is a Canadian medievalist specialising in gender and sexuality studies. She is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of History at Northwestern University, where she teaches the medieval period.

Life Elliott was born in 1954 and was raised Anglican. Although she is no longer religious, she credited her religious upbringing for beginning her interest in church history. In 2024, Elliott spoke on "sexual abuse by clergy in the Middle Ages" at the Pontifical Gregorian University's conference "The Memory of Power and Abuse of Power".

In addition to several academic books, Elliott has also written a historical novel, A Hole in the Heavens (2017).

Awards Source Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999) Proving Woman: Female Mysticism and Inquisitional Practice in Late Medieval Europe (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004) Winner of the 2006 Otto Gründler Award for outstanding contribution to medieval studies, Western Michigan University The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200-1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) The Corrupter of Boys: Sodomy, Scandal, and the Medieval Clergy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) Winner of the 2022 Otto Gründler Book Prize, Western Michigan University

Articles and chapters