David d'Avray

Academic career

D'Avray was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing before beginning his undergraduate studies at St John's College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1970. He completed his doctoral studies at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1976, where his supervisor was Richard William Hunt. He then spent a year as the Michael Foster Memorial Scholar at LMU Munich.

In 1977, d'Avray joined University College London as a lecturer in history. He was promoted to reader in history in 1993 and appointed professor of history in 1996, retiring in 2019. He returned to the University of Oxford as a supernumerary fellow in history at Jesus College in 2022.

Research

D'Avray's early publications focused on medieval preaching as a form of mass communication and as evidence for popular attitudes to monarchy, death and marriage. The next defining theme of his research was the practical influence of symbolism on the social and legal history of marriage in the medieval period. He then moved on to exploring rationalities in history, comparatively and with reference to the Middle Ages, and his most recent published works have focused on the relationship between royal marriage and papal government.

Since 2003 d'Avray has served as a general editor of the Oxford Medieval Texts series at Oxford University Press, which aims to produce scholarly editions of Latin works of significance to medieval European culture. From 1996–2004 he was a member of the editorial board of the journal Reviews in History and has been a member of the editorial advisory board of German History since 2003. He chaired the Medieval Studies section of the British Academy from 2012–2014 and was a member of the editorial committee of its Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi (Medieval British Authors) series from 2005–2016.

Media work

D'Avray has previously written for The Guardian and The Spectator.