Dr Grace Owen

Biography	I am currently a post-doctoral research associate at Durham University on the Leverhulme project 'Modelling the Black Death and Social Connectivity in Medieval England' (https://modellingtheblackdeath.wordpress.com/). Utilising the latest computer modelling developed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, this project will simulate the spread of the Black Death in England in order to test hypotheses about the spread of the disease and about the connectedness of medieval society. Using historical and archaeological sources, we will reconstruct the broad characteristics of the late medieval population on the eve of the Black Death, such as their location, age, sex, and occupation. This is the ‘static’ part of our model. We will then infer their ‘dynamic’ behavioural patterns, such as where they spent their time and whom they encountered in their daily lives. Prior to coming to Durham, I completed my PhD, titled ' A Comparative Study of Rural and Urban Manorial Officialdom in the Later Medieval England, at the University of Birmingham in 2021, with funding from the Midlands4Cities (AHRC) doctoral training partnership. Most recently, I held the Economic History Society's Postan Fellowship, which has focused upon developing a monograph that explores the structure, remuneration, and activities of peasant officers across medieval England. And before this, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the university of Exeter, working on the FORMSofLABOUR project, which investigated the presence and nature of women’s work in manorial records in later medieval England.
Research Interests	My research is primarily focused upon fourteenth century England with a particular interest in the peasantry, manorial officials, gender, the Black Death, and the rural economy.

Biography

I am currently a post-doctoral research associate at Durham University on the Leverhulme project 'Modelling the Black Death and Social Connectivity in Medieval England' (https://modellingtheblackdeath.wordpress.com/). Utilising the latest computer modelling developed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, this project will simulate the spread of the Black Death in England in order to test hypotheses about the spread of the disease and about the connectedness of medieval society. Using historical and archaeological sources, we will reconstruct the broad characteristics of the late medieval population on the eve of the Black Death, such as their location, age, sex, and occupation. This is the ‘static’ part of our model. We will then infer their ‘dynamic’ behavioural patterns, such as where they spent their time and whom they encountered in their daily lives.

Prior to coming to Durham, I completed my PhD, titled ' A Comparative Study of Rural and Urban Manorial Officialdom in the Later Medieval England, at the University of Birmingham in 2021, with funding from the Midlands4Cities (AHRC) doctoral training partnership.

Most recently, I held the Economic History Society's Postan Fellowship, which has focused upon developing a monograph that explores the structure, remuneration, and activities of peasant officers across medieval England. And before this, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the university of Exeter, working on the FORMSofLABOUR project, which investigated the presence and nature of women’s work in manorial records in later medieval England.

Research Interests

My research is primarily focused upon fourteenth century England with a particular interest in the peasantry, manorial officials, gender, the Black Death, and the rural economy.