Joshua MacRae (MA (Hons) MSt FSAScot)

Thesis title: The Canmores: A Thematic Study of Dynastic Politics in Scotland and Europe, c.1058-1290

Biography

Background

I grew up in a Scotland making increasingly binary choices about its future: on independence and on membership of the European Union. Against the backdrop of polarising debates on what Scotland is or might be, I look to the past – the mid-eleventh to mid-fourteenth centuries, especially – to collect a wider range of perspectives. My intention is not to venerate or condemn the kings and queens I first encountered in a sticker book during my childhood, but to understand how people lived, the possibilities they imagined for themselves and their contemporaries, and how those realities reach me and others through the chance survival of the sources.

I study History, in part because it raises interesting questions about the present. The medieval period – broadly defined – can appear so distant and otherworldly to some observers that assumptions and inequalities taken for granted in the twenty-first century might become more visible in an unfamiliar context. Medieval history can empower its students to suggest alternative futures and to start conversations in and out of universities about processes of change and continuity.

Alongside my research, I am a bookseller at Topping and Company Booksellers. There, I have chaired literary events with world-leading researchers, including Professors Mary Beard, Peter Frankopan and Clare Jackson, as well as more publicly familiar personalities, such as Kathleen Jamie, David Mitchell and Rory Stewart. Away from a book or computer screen, I might be found walking somewhere green, nursing a peppermint tea or ginger beer, or listening to a choral evensong.

I would be glad to hear from those - especially current or prospective students - who share my research interests.

Qualifications

MSt, Medieval History, University of Oxford (2025)

MA (Hons), History and Politics, The University of Edinburgh (2024)

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am a member of the Scottish History Society and Scottish Medievalists, and a Steward at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. 

In 2024, I was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society. 

Additionally, I am Co-Convener of 'Crossing Currents', a hybrid conference for postgraduate researchers in History at Edinburgh (12-13 May 2026): https://hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-events/events/crossing-currents-history-pgr-conference-2026

Research summary

Places:

  • Scotland
  • Britain and Ireland
  • North-West Europe

Themes:

  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Society
  • Religion
  • Gender
  • Global contacts and connections
  • The lifecycle and life course
  • History of emotions

Periods:

  • High Middle Ages (c.1050-c.1350)

Current research interests

My AHRC-funded doctoral research will study the Canmore family as an elite lineage operating in and beyond Scotland. I am interested in problematising the frontier between the public and personal lives of rulers, and the distinctions within and between royal, noble and popular power. Pursuing these interests will allow me to rethink familiar narratives of kingship and polity-formation in Scotland and elsewhere in the Insular and European worlds.

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

The Canmore family and its transnational network and power, c.1034-1292.

Current project grants

SGSAH AHRC DTP2 Scholarship (2025-29)

Organiser

Crossing Currents: History PGR Conference 2026. University of Edinburgh, 12-13 May 2026: https://hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-events/events/crossing-currents-history-pgr-conference-2026 (Co-Convener)

Rituals and Ceremonies: Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2025. University of Oxford, 24-25 April 2025: https://oxgradconf.wixsite.com/omgc/2025-rituals-ceremonies (Committee Member and Treasurer)

Participant

Crossing Currents: History PGR Conference 2026. University of Edinburgh, 12-13 May 2026.

Scotland Within and Outwith: Postgraduate Symposium 2025. Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies, University of Glasgow, 30 April 2025.

Outsiders-Insiders: Medieval History Postgraduate Forum. University of Reading, 2 April 2025.

Papers delivered

‘"[H]e was a king and not a monk": Expectations of Family and the Temptation of Malcolm IV, King of Scots in William of Newburgh’s 'Historia Rerum Anglicarum' (1190s)'. Paper presented at Crossing Currents: History PGR Conference 2026. University of Edinburgh, 12-13 May 2026.

'Scottish Queens and Queens of Scots: Rulership and Identity in Medieval Historical Research'. Paper presented at Scotland Within and Outwith: Postgraduate Symposium 2025. Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies, University of Glasgow, 30 April 2025.

'Queens after Queenship: Royal Widows in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century Scotland'. Paper presented at Outsiders-Insiders: Medieval History Postgraduate Forum. University of Reading, 2 April 2025.

'Material Authorities: Hegemonic Masculinity and the Great Seal of William Rufus, King of England (r.1087-1100)'. Paper presented at Worcester College History Society guest lecture series. Worcester College, Oxford, 22 November 2024.

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