Legal history professor elected to British Academy

An expert in legal history and medieval studies has been elected to the British Academy.

Professor John Hudson of the University of St Andrews has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

The British Academy is the premier national body representing the humanities and the social sciences, the counterpart of the Royal Society for the natural sciences.

An expert in both mediaeval studies and legal history, Professor Hudson’s work focuses on 9th to 13th-century England. His research also spans mediaeval historical writing and late 19th-century study of mediaeval England. At the University of St Andrews, he is founding director of the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research, and he has a visiting position as William W. Cook Global law professor at the University of Michigan.

Professor Hudson is already a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has given invited research lectures around the world, is general editor of the series Medieval Law and its Practice (Brill), and is currently on the editorial board for The Mediaeval Journal.

He said: “I am delighted and honoured to be elected to the British Academy. I am particularly pleased to be elected in the fields both of Mediaeval studies and of law. The University of St Andrews has a long-held reputation as one of the top centres in the world for the study of Mediaeval history and is now establishing one in that of law through the Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research.

“I owe more than can be said to my colleagues in St Andrews over the years, taking particular pleasure in collaborative work with postgraduate and post-doctoral scholars here in recent times, and with established colleagues in Europe and North America. I hope that my fellowship of the British Academy will allow me to extend such collaborative work in the future.”