Professor Mark Stoyle
Professor of Early Modern History
Having completed my undergraduate studies in History and Archaeology, I went on to undertake a DPhil thesis at St Peter’s College, Oxford. I then held a Scouloudi Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research in London and a British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Exeter before being appointed to my present post at Southampton. I specialise in early modern British history, with particular research interests in the British crisis of the 1640s; witchcraft; urban society; and cultural, ethnic and religious identity in Wales and Cornwall between 1450 and 1700. I have written a score of scholarly articles and seven monographs, including Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English War (Yale University Press, 2005); The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda during the English Civil War (University of Exeter Press, 2011); and Water in the City: The Aqueducts and Underground Passages of Exeter (University of Exeter Press, 2014). I have also appeared on many local and national radio and TV programmes, including: ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’; ‘The World at One’; ‘The Long View’; ‘Making History’; ‘The Great British Story’, ‘Inside Out’; ‘Word of Mouth’ and ‘The Roots of English’. I am a former member of the Council of the Royal Historical Society and I currently sit on the editorial advisory panel of BBC History Magazine. In 2012, I received a Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award in recognition of my outstanding contribution to education at the University of Southampton.
I am currently one of the co-investigators on the major AHRC-funded research project ‘Conflict, Welfare and Memory, 1642-1700’, which explores the human cost of the English Civil Wars.