Len Scales studies the political culture of late medieval Europe, particularly the German-speaking lands. His current work is concerned with ideas about ‘German’ identity between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. His recent publications in this area have concentrated upon collective stereotypes (the ‘warrior’ Germans), the relationship between peoplehood and power, and the question of medieval German ‘exceptionalism’. He is also exploring the history of medieval ideas about ethnicity and common identity more broadly, across the whole of the c.500-c.1500 period. His current and forthcoming publications in this field examine medieval ideas about the destruction of peoples. For the future, he plans a comparative investigation of political communication and ‘propaganda’ in the late Middle Ages, concentrating on the development of popular and visual media. He would welcome the opportunity to supervise postgraduate research on late medieval German history, late medieval political culture, and medieval peoplehood and inter-ethnic and inter-cultural relations.

• 2013  Durham University, Department of History: Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor of  Medieval History

• 1996-2013 Durham University, Department of History: Lecturer in Medieval History

• 1994-1996 University of Sheffield, Department of History: British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

• 1992-1994 University of Sheffield, Department of History: Research Associate on the ‘Hundred Rolls Project’, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (project leader: Dr D.R. Roffe)

• 1991-1992 University of Sheffield, Department of History: Temp. Lecturer in Medieval History

• 1987-1991 University of Manchester, Department of History: research for degree of PhD Title of thesis:  ‘Alexander of Roes: Empire and Community in Later Thirteenth-Century Germany’ Degree of PhD: awarded 1993

• 1984-1987 University of Manchester, Honours School of History First Degree: BA History with First Class Honours, 1987

Len Scales wird während seines Aufenthaltes die Arbeit an seiner Monografie zum Thema "The Kaiser Myth: Medieval Emperors and German Memora, CE 900-2000" vorantreiben. Wie der Titel bereits andeutet, geht es hierbei um die Mythologisierung des mittelalterlichen westlichen Kaisertums. Während seiner Zeit in Berlin wird es dabei ausschließlich um die Forschung hierzu sowie die Fertigstellung der ersten fünf Bücher gehen. Diese behandeln vor allem die Vorstellung über das Kaisertum und die Wahrnehmung des westlichen Kaisers während des Mittelalters, hauptsächlich im deutschsprachigen Europa, sowie Quellen über die westlich kaiserliche Lehre in der Antike und christliche bzw. jüdische Denkanstöße.

Authored book

• Scales, Len (2012). The Shaping of German Identity: Authority and Crisis, 1245-1414. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter in book

• Scales, Len (2016). The Empire in translation: English perspectives on imperium and emperors, 1220-1440. In The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453: Proceedings of the 2014 Harlaxton Symposium (Harlaxton Medieval Studies). Crooks, Peter, Green, David & Ormrod, W. Mark Donington: Shaun Tyas. 49-71.
• Scales, Len (2016). The parchment imperialists: texts, scribes, and the medieval western Empire, c.1250-c.1440. In Empire and Bureaucracy in World History: from Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. Crooks, Peter & Parsons, Timothy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 221-249.
• Scales, Len (2015). Purposeful pasts: Godfrey of Viterbo and later medieval imperialist thought. In Godfrey of Viterbo and his Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe. Foerster, Thomas Farnham: Ashgate. 119-144.
• Scales, L. (2010). Central and late medieval Europe. In The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Bloxham, Donald & Moses, A. Dirk Oxford: Oxford University Press. 280-303.
• Scales, L. (2010). The illuminated Reich: memory, crisis and the visibility of monarchy in late medieval Germany. In The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered. Jason Coy, Benjamin Marschke & David Sabean New York Oxford: Berghahn. 73-92.
• Scales, L. E. (2005). Late medieval Germany: an under-Stated nation?. In Power and the Nation in European history. Len Scales & Oliver Zimmer Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 166-191.

Edited book

• Chris Given-Wilson & Ann Kettle (2008). War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150-1500: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich. Woodbridge: Boydell.
• Scales, L.E. & Oliver Zimmer (2005). Power and the Nation in European History. Cambridge University Press.

Journal Article

• Whaley, J. & Scales, L. (2018). Rewriting the history of the Holy Roman Empire. German History 36(3): 1-18.
• Scales, Len (2015). Before and after Nationes: accounting for medieval peoples in twenty-first-century Germany. German History 33(4): 624-645.
• Scales, Len (2012). Re-staging the Reich: the life and times of the Golden Bull (1356). Bulletin of International Medieval Research 17/18: 84-106.
• Len Scales (2009). Rose without thorn, eagle without feathers: nation and power in late medieval England and Germany. German Historical Institute London Bulletin 31(1): 3-35.
• Scales, L. E. (2007). Bread, cheese and genocide: imagining the destruction of peoples in medieval western Europe. History 92(307): 284-300.
• Scales, L. E. (2003). Germen militiae: war and German identity in the later middle ages. Past and Present 180(1): 41-82.
• Scales, L. E. (2001). Monarchy and German identity in the later Middle Ages. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 83(3): 167-200.
• Scales, L.E. (2000). Identifying 'France' and 'Germany': medieval nation-making in some recent publications. Bulletin of International Medieval Research 6: 21-46.
• Scales, L.E. (1999). At the margin of community: Germans in pre-Hussite Bohemia. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 9: 327-352.
• Scales, L.E. (1998). The Cambridgeshire ragman rolls. English Historical Review 113(452): 553-579.
• Scales, L.E. (1995). France and the Empire: the viewpoint of Alexander of Roes. French History 9(4): 394-416.

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• Europe: History & Archaeology: The history of ethnicity and nationhood in the Middle Ages
• Medieval history: The history of ethnicity and nationhood in the Middle Ages
• Politicial, cultural, social history: The history of ethnicity and nationhood in the Middle Ages
• Europe: History & Archaeology: The political and cultural history of medieval Germany and Central Europe
• Medieval history: The political and cultural history of medieval Germany and Central Europe
• Politicial, cultural, social history: The political and cultural history of medieval Germany and Central Europe