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Dr Eyal Poleg

Eyal

Professor of Material History

Email: e.poleg@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7882 8366
Room Number: ArtsTwo 3.33
Office Hours: (Summer Term): http://doodle.com/poll/ybximg3xgpzd26zg

Profile

I am a historian of objects and faith. In 2024-6 I lead a major AHRC research project — Hidden in Plain Sight: Historical And Scientific Analysis Of Premodern Sacred Books (https://projects.history.qmul.ac.uk/inplainsight). This project brings together historians, scientists, curators and conservators in developing new technologies for studying historical books and objects. It employs a range of technologies, from micro-CT scanning to aDNA analysis, to learn how books and amulets were used, mutilated and worshipped.

My work has explored the ways objects can inform us on the history of medieval and early modern religion. This combination first arose from a BA in history and photography and an MA in Comparative Religion (Jerusalem), followed by a doctorate in history (London) and a subsequent British Academy postdoctoral fellowship in Edinburgh.

 

 

Teaching

HST6770 

Research

Research Interests:

My early work has explored the Crusading mythology of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Since then, I have unearthed the ways in which Bibles were made, used, and recalled in late medieval and early modern England and Scotland. This has uncovered the hesitant course of reform in England, and the gradual impact of print on English religion.
My research has followed these key themes:
  • Material Culture and religious history
  • The Bible in the Middle Ages and early modernity
  • Book history and manuscript studies
  • The scientific analysis of historical objects
  • Re-assessing technological innovation and scientific teleologies
I have developed several innovative projects, in which MA and PhD students have developed digital technologies for the analysis of medieval books and objects. Supported by the European Research Council, Digital Editing of Medieval Manuscripts brought together students from across Europe to train and study medieval manuscripts. Currently, Hands:on is a unique collaboration between QMUL and Cambridge University Library in which advanced students develop innovative prototypes for consulting objects and manuscripts online.

Publications

Select publications

Books

A Material History of the Bible, England 1200-1553 (link is external) (OUP for the British Academy, 2020)

Approaching the Bible in Medieval England (link is external) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013)

(ed. with Laura Light) Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible (link is external), Library of the Written Word: The Manuscript World, Leiden: Brill, 2013

Articles

“On the Books of Maccabees: An Unpublished Poem by Geoffrey, Prior of the Templum Domini”, Crusades (link is external) 9 (2010), pp. 13-56

“‘A ladder set up on the earth’: The Bible in Medieval Sermons”, The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception, and Performance in Western Christianity (link is external), ed. Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, pp. 205-227

Farkas Gábor Kiss, Eyal Poleg, Lucie Doležalová, Rafał Wójcik, “Old Light on New Media: Medieval Practices in a Digital Ages”, Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures (link is external)  2.1 (Spring 2013), 16–34

“Wycliffite Bibles as Orthodoxy”, Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit and Awakening the Passion. Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages (link is external) (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy), ed. Sabrina Corbellini, Turnhout:Brepols, 2013, pp. 71-91

“The Mother and Seven Brothers in Two Very Different Crusading Narratives”, Jewish-non-Jewish Relations: An Online Teaching Resource (link is external) ed. Maria Diemling and Hannah Holtschneider

Paola Ricciardi, Eyal Poleg, 'How Thomas Cromwell used cut and paste to insert himself into Henry VIII’s Great Bible', The Conversation 

 

Reviews

Jeremy Cohen, “Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade”, Jewish Culture and History (link is external) 10:1 (Summer 2008), 115-17

Supervision

I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in the following areas:

  • Material Culture
  • Scientific Analysis of historical books and objects
  • Medieval and Early Modern Religious History (1100-1600)
  • The Medieval or Early Modern Bible 

I currently lead two LAHP Collaborative Doctoral Awards:

  • With the Museum of London on The Shrine and the Marketplace: religious materiality in London during the long fifteenth century (1370-1530). 
  • With the Cambridge Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology on Beyond Magic: Contextual and Material Study of Islamic Amulets 

I am always happy to consider applicants for collaborative or cross institutional projects.

Public Engagement

My work uses scientific analysis to make new discoveries in premodern religion and politics. It has featured prominently in Channel Five, The Times, The Conversation, BBC Radio 4, Church Times, The Telegraph and CBS.

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