Dr Helen Parish

Helen Parish joined Worcester from the University of Reading, where she was Professor in Early Modern History and Head of School in Humanities. Her academic work is focused on the history of belief, broadly understood, including the European Reformations, church and clergy, alongside debates over superstition, magic, witchcraft and the supernatural, and the connections between religion and natural history. As Senior Tutor, she is responsible for the strategic planning and oversight of the College’s academic activities, and for undergraduate admissions.

My research and teaching explore the history of belief, broadly understood, in the late medieval and early modern period. This includes the history of the European Reformations, church and clergy, as well as ideas about magic, witchcraft and the supernatural, and the connections between religion and natural history.

Understanding the multiple lenses through which the world was viewed in this period enables us to ask informed questions of the past, and interrogate the broad range of evidence and ideas that have shaped the world around us today.

My own research is informed by my training as a historian, but also by the multi-disciplinary approaches to the past that have shaped the study of early modern history. Early projects and publications focused on the Reformation in England and Europe, including debates over clerical celibacy and marriage, miracles, the lives of the saints and their relics, and concepts of authority in the post-Reformation churches. Co-editing a collection of essays on ideas about superstition in the era of the Reformation encouraged me to explore further the often permeable boundary between religion and belief, writing on magic and priestcraft, witchcraft and familiars, and the reading and writing of natural history.