Tom Licence

Tom Oliver Licence and a former director of the Centre of East Anglian Studies.

Education Licence attended Westcliff High School for Boys and has an M.A. in history (2002), MPhil in medieval history (2003) and a PhD (2006) from Magdalene College, University of Cambridge.

Career Licence was appointed lecturer at the University of East Anglia in 2009 and became a professor there in 2019. For three years from 2021 he held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, which relieved him from teaching duties, to support him in writing a biography of Harold Godwinson for the Yale English Monarchs series.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Higher Education Academy. The book received broadly positive reviews for its revisionist take on Edward's relationship with the House of Godwin, though historian Marc Morris described it as a "royal disappointment."

Licence's biography of Harold Godwinson, Harold: Warrior King, is due to be published in 2026. On 21 March 2026 Licence published a claim that the English army did not march but sail from the Battle of Stamford Bridge to the Battle of Hastings in 1066; this claim attracted significant media coverage.

While metal detecting in 2024, he discovered a hoard of 18 Iron Age gold coins; these were dated to between 25 BC and AD 10, in the reign of King Dubnovellaunos, ruler of the Trinovantes tribe. The hoard was classed as treasure and was recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme, but was dis-claimed after no museum bought them. The Bury St Edmunds Hoard was sold by auction in March 2026 for £33,200.

Selected publications Hermits and Recluses in English society, 950–1200 (2011, Oxford UP: ) Herman the Archdeacon and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: Miracles of St Edmund, ed. (2014), Clarendon Press Bury St Edmunds and the Norman Conquest (2014, edited, Boydell Press: ) What the Victorians Threw Away (2015, Oxbow book: ) Edward the Confessor: Last of the Royal Blood (2020), Yale University Press,