Professor Church’s research is primarily focused on the period 1000 to 1300, concentrating on issues surrounding rulership and the exercise of power in the French-speaking world of North-Western Europe. His main publications have been in this area and include two biographies of medieval kings, King John England, Magna Carta, and the Making of a Tyrant (Pan Macmillan, UK, 2015), and Henry III; A Simple and God-Fearing King, (Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2017). Professor Church is a past director of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies and edited the annual journal that emerges from the conference between 2020 and 2024.
Stephen particularly enjoys teaching adult students because they bring a depth of perspective based on lived experience. He likes to use primary sources in his teaching which he uses as the focus of discussion in classes.
