Dr Marcus Meer
Marcus Meer has been a DFG Fellow at the GHIL since 2025. He is a historian of the later Middle Ages with a particular interest in intersections of economic and cultural history, the communicative construction of identities, institutions, and spaces, and antagonisms and convergences of urban, monastic, and noble culture. He received his PhD from Durham University (in a co-tutelle arrangement with the University of Münster) in 2020, after an MSt at the University of Oxford and a BA at Bielefeld University. Before joining the GHIL, he worked at King’s College London, Durham University, and the University of Münster. He is also currently teaching at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
Research Project
Money, History, and Moral Economies
Communicative Functions of Monetary Information in the Institutional Historiography of the Later Middle Ages (1250–1530)
The experiences of instability and inequality that plague present-day societies spark lively debates on current economic models. Researchers interested in the intersection of culture and economics not only turn to alternative (and supposedly more moral) economies of the past, but also to their own impact on influencing and facilitating the political economies of the present. How societies of the past negotiated and structured the relationship between morality and economy, however, is still poorly understood. This project analyses monetary information in chronicles of cities, monasteries (both men’s and women’s), and courts across north-western Europe as a versatile communicative tool that shaped economic thought and practice, and that was placed in the service of institutional strategies of remembering the past for the needs of the (medieval) present and expressing aspirations around the future of medieval society.
Research Interests
- England and Germany in the later Middle Ages (1300–1530)
- Comparative history of towns and cities in premodern Europe
- Visual communication of identities, institutions, and spaces
- Interactions of texts, images, objects, and rituals
- Intersections between urban and noble culture
Education and Academic Background
| 2023-2024 | Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of London |
| 2020–2024 | Research Fellow in Medieval History at the GHIL |
| 2019–2020 | Graduate Teaching Assistant, King’s College London |
| 2017–2020 | Graduate Teaching Assistant, Durham University |
| 2015–2019 | Ph.D. in History, Durham University, in collaboration with the University of Münster |
| 2014–2015 | Research Assistant on the project ‘Coats of Arms in Practice’ (Die Performanz der Wappen), University of Münster |
| 2013–2014 | MSt in Medieval History, University of Oxford |
| 2010–2013 | BA in History and Linguistics, University of Bielefeld |
Fellowships, Grants, and Scholarships
| 2025–2028 | Principal Investigator for the DFG-funded project ‘Communicative Functions of Monetary Information in the Institutional Historiography of the Later Middle Ages’, German Historical Institute London |
| 2020 | Curriers’ Company London History Essay Prize (proxime accessit) |
| 2015–2018 | Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship at the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture, University of Durham |
Memberships and Affiliations
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Académie internationale d’héraldique
- Centre for Visual Arts and Culture, Durham University
Publications
Monographs and Edited Volumes
Heraldry in Urban Society: Visual Culture and Communication in Late Medieval England and Germany, Oxford Studies in Medieval European History, (Oxford, 2024) (Read more)
with Len Scales, Disfigurements: Images of Power Subverted, Mutilated, and Erased in the European Middle Ages and Beyond, (Woodbridge [under contract])
Articles and Chapters
‘Städtische Wahrnehmungen von Bürgerwappen: Heraldische Kommunikation von symbolischem Kapital in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt’, in Ben Pope, Manfred Waßner und Tjark Wegner (eds.), Tagungsband der 59. Arbeitstagung des Südwestdeutschen Arbeitskreises für Stadtgeschichtsforschung, (Sigmaringen [in press])
‘Pride and Prejudice in Stories of Medieval Travel and Migration: Introduction’, German Historical Institute London Bulletin 45/2 (2023), 3–26 (Read here)
‘Heraldry, Corporate Identity, and the Battle for Symbolic Capital in Late Medieval London’, in The London Journal, 48/1 (2023), 1-29 (Read here)
‘Seeing Proof of Townsmen on the Move: Coats of Arms, Chivalric Badges, and the Visual Communication of Travel in the Later Middle Ages’, Journal of Early Modern History, 25/1-2 (Leiden, 2021), 11-38 (Read here)
with Mario Damen, ‘Heraldry and Territory: Coats of Arms and the Representation and Construction of Authority in Space’, in Mario Damen and Kim Overlaet (eds.), Constructing and Representing Territory in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam, 2021), 245–75 (Read here)
‘Heraldry Topsy-Turvy: Depictions and Performances of Dishonour and Death’, in Ludmilla Jordanova and Florence Grant (eds.), Writing Visual History (London, 2020), 25-44
‘History on the Walls and Windows to the Past: Heraldic Commemoration of Historical Identity in Late Medieval English and German Town Halls’, in Torsten Hiltmann and Miguel Metelo de Seixas (eds.), Heraldry in Medieval State-Rooms (Ostfildern, 2020), 135–52
‘Reversed, Defaced, Replaced: Late Medieval London and the Heraldic Communication of Discontent and Protest’, Journal of Medieval History, 45/4 (2019), 618–45 (Read here)
‘Heraldry, Historiography and Urban Identity in Late Medieval Augsburg: The “Cronographia Augustensium” and the Gossembrot Armorial’, in Lisa Demets, Tineke Van Gassen, and Bram Caers (eds.), Urban History Writing in Northwest Europe (15th–16th Centuries) (Turnhout, 2019), 159–86
Reviews and Miscellaneous Publications
Reviews
Benjamin Müsegades, ‘Heilige in der mittelalterlichen Bischofsstadt. Speyer und Lincoln im Vergleich (11. bis frühes 16. Jahrhundert), (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Bd. 93)’, Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte, 93 (2022), 349-51
Barbara A. Hanawalt, ‘Ceremony and Civility: Civic Culture in Late Medieval London’, Urban History, 46/4 (2019), 768–70
Jan Keupp and Romedio Schmitz-Esser (eds.), ‘Neue alte Sachlichkeit: Studienbuch Materialität des Mittelalters’, German History, 34/4 (2016), 672–73
Blog Posts
mit Stephan Bruhn, ‘Conference Report: The Politics of Iconoclasm in the Middle Ages, 1–2 September 2022’, German Historial Institute London Blog, 15 December 2022 (Read here)
'Workshop on Medieval Germany’, GHIL, 6. Mai 2022, German Historial Institute London Blog, 28 July 2022 (Read here)
'Twelfth Medieval History Seminar’, GHIL, 30 September to 2 October 2021, German Historial Institute London Blog, 11 November 2021 (Read here)
‘Broken Symbols: Display and Destruction during the Attack on the Capitol’, German Historical Institute London Blog, 20 January 2021 (Read here)
‘Heraldry is Vanity! Moral Criticism of Heraldic Commemoration in Germany—A European Phenomenon?’, Heraldica Nova, 24 January 2018, updated 5 July 2018 (Read here)
‘The Heraldry of the Weavers’ Guild of Augsburg: Mythical Origins and Everyday Display of Corporate Heraldry in Clemens Jäger’s “Weberchronik”’, Heraldica Nova, 10 June 2016, updated 25 October 2016 (Read here)
For a complete and up-to-date list of publications, see Marcus Meer's OrcID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7402-7837