Dr Matthew Firth

Matthew is Research Fellow in Medieval History, supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award: 'Contesting Conquest: Pre-Modern Attempts to come to Terms with the Past' (DE250100116). Matthew is also a Travelling Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (AAH) (2024), and an Early Career Fellow of both the Australian Historical Association (AHA) (2024) and the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS) (2023).

Matthew's research focuses on historiography, cultural memory, and the transmission of historical narrative across time and place. With research specialities in the history of early medieval England and its reception, as well as in Icelandic saga literature, he has published numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of society, culture and historiography in England and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, and their intersections.

Matthew's first monograph, Early English Queens, 850–1000: Potestas Reginae, is a biographical study of English royal women in the years 850-1000 that explores the development of queenship at a critical juncture in the history of early medieval England. It was published in Routledge's Lives of Royal Women series in 2024. His second monograph, Remembering England: Cultural Memory in the Sagas of Icelanders, examines depictions of Viking Age England in the Sagas of Icelanders and their utility as historical sources. It was published in Routledge's Studies in Medieval History and Culture series in 2025. Matthew's edited collection, Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception: Writing England's Past, brings together a collection of essays from notable scholars at various career stages who examine the reception of England's pre-Conquest past in the histories of later medieval commentators. It was published in 2025 in the York Medieval Press series, Writing History in the Middle Ages.

Matthew is assistant editor of the Brepols published series East Central Europe, 476–1795, reviews editor for the Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association (AEMA), and Communications Officer for ANZAMEMS.

Most recent articles:

Matthew Firth, ‘"Cesare splendidior:" Anglo-Norman Memories of Æthelflæd of Mercia', in Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception: Writing England's Past, ed. Matthew Firth (York Medieval Press, 2025), 192–211.

Matthew Firth, 'What's in a Name? Tracing the Origins of Alfred's "the Great"', The English Historical Review 139 (2024), 1–32).

Matthew Firth, 'Eadwig’s Coronation Scandal: Sexuality, Rhetoric and the Vulnerability of Reputation', in Premodern Ruling Sexualities: Representation, Identity, and Power, ed. Gabrielle Storey and Zita Eva Rohr (Manchester University Press, 2024), 49–70.

• Cultural Memory & Exchange
• Early Medieval England (Anglo-Saxons)
• Early Medieval Monarchy
• Icelandic Sagas
• Medieval Iceland
• Medieval Literature
• Pre-Modern English Queenship
• The Middle Ages
• Vikings and Viking Age History