Ian Mortimer (historian)
Encyclopedia
Ian Mortimer is a British historian. He was educated at Eastbourne College
Eastbourne College
Eastbourne College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils aged 13–18, situated on the south coast of England, included in the Tatler list of top public schools. The College's current headmaster is Simon Davies. The College was founded by the Duke of Devonshire...

, the University of Exeter
University of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....

 (BA, PhD, DLitt) and University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (MA). Between 1993 and 2003 he worked for several major research institutions, including the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts
The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts , a UK body, was established in 1869 "to make enquiry as to the places where manuscripts and private papers of historical interest were located and to report on their contents"....

, and the universities of Exeter and Reading. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...

.

He is best known for his book The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, first published in the UK in 2008, which became a Sunday Times bestseller in paperback in 2010. He has also written a sequence of biographies of medieval political leaders: first Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March
Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March
Roger de Mortimer, 3rd Baron Mortimer, 1st Earl of March , was an English nobleman and powerful Marcher lord, who had gained many estates in the Welsh Marches and Ireland following his advantageous marriage to the wealthy heiress Joan de Geneville, 2nd Baroness Geneville. In November 1316, he was...

, then Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...

, Henry IV
Henry IV of England
Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...

 and 1415, a year in the life of Henry V
Henry V of England
Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....

. In particular he is well-known for pioneering the argument that Edward II
Edward II of England
Edward II , called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed by his wife Isabella in January 1327. He was the sixth Plantagenet king, in a line that began with the reign of Henry II...

 did not die in Berkeley castle in 1327 in his first two books and an article in the English Historical Review.

He also has carried out research into the social history of early modern medicine. His essay 'The Triumph of the Doctors' was awarded the 2004 Alexander Prize by the Royal Historical Society
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...

. In this essay he demonstrated that ill and injured people close to death shifted their hopes of physical salvation from an exclusively religious source of healing power (God, or Christ) to a predominantly human one (physicians and surgeons) over the period 1615–70, and argued that this shift of outlook was among the most profound changes western society has ever experienced.

He is the nephew of the British tennis player Angela Mortimer
Angela Mortimer
Florence Angela Margaret Mortimer Barrett is a former World No. 1 British female tennis player. She was born in Plymouth, Devon, England...

. He lives on Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...

, in Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, England.

Historical works (selected)

  • Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies (Continuum, 2010)
  • 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (The Bodley Head, 2009)
  • The Dying and the Doctors: the Medical Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England (The Royal Historical Society, 2009)
  • The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: a Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (The Bodley Head, 2008)
  • 'What isn't History? The Nature and Enjoyment of History in the Twenty-First Century', History, 93, 4 (October 2008), pp. 454–74.
  • 'Beyond the Facts: how true originality in history has fallen foul of postmodernism, research targets and commercial pressure', Times Literary Supplement (26 September 2008), pp. 16–17.
  • The Fears of Henry IV: the Life of England's Self-Made King (Jonathan Cape, 2007)
  • The Perfect King: the Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (Jonathan Cape, 2006)
  • 'The Death of Edward II in Berkeley Castle', The English Historical Review, cxx, 489 (2005), pp. 1175–1214.
  • 'The Triumph of the Doctors: Medical Assistance to the Dying, 1570-1720', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 15 (2005), pp. 97–116.
  • The Greatest Traitor: the Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England 1327-1330 (Jonathan Cape, 2003)
  • Berkshire Probate Accounts, 1583-1712 (Berkshire Record Society, 1999)
  • Berkshire Glebe Terriers, 1634 (Berkshire Record Society, 1995)
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