Anne Trassenko was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey and attended the University of Durham for her undergraduate degree in English Literature. She then worked for 25 years in publishing before coming to Reading to do an MA in Medieval Studies at the Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, followed by a PhD under the supervision of Dr Anne Lawrence.

Her research interests arise from her doctoral work, which was on the culture of time in Anglo-Saxon England, how people told the time and how time was written and thought about in calendars, computus and prognostics. She is particularly interested in the development from the tenth century onwards of small, local churches which meant that a growing number of priests needed to know how to mark the passage of time. In 2013-4 she is teaching Approaches and Directed Study courses.

Her personal interests, when her large family allow her time, are books, films and football (watching, not playing).

Danielle Park joined the History Department as a sessional teacher in the academic year 2013-14.  She was born in Reading and educated at Royal Holloway, University of London where she completed her AHRC-funded PhD, ‘Under Our Protection, That of the Church and Their Own’- Papal and Secular Protection of the Families and Properties the Crusaders Left Behind, c.1095-1226, supervised by Professor Jonathan Phillips. Dr Park’s research interests are reflected in her teaching. She has taught courses on Medieval Europe 1000-1300, and the Crusades and the Eastern Mediterranean 1095-1291. She contributes to both the MA in Medieval Studies and the MA in Crusader Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Dr Park is particularly interested in what happened on the home-front while the crusaders were away. The crusades to Jerusalem provide the background to this research. Her work focuses on the development of the papal protection privilege granted to crusaders and their families, and extended over their homes and properties. She examines the crusades’ ramifications on the families and lands that the crusaders left behind, and she assesses the papal and secular measures involved in protecting the crusader’s interests.

She has a forthcoming article in the ‘Contextualising the Fifth Crusade’ volume to be published by Ashgate, which explores contributions to the papal protection privilege by Pope Eugenius III, Pope Innocent III and Pope Honorius III. Dr Park has worked extensively on the role of women within the context of the crusades. She is currently working on a monograph that will consider the crusaders’ preparations for their departures, the practicality of the papal protection privilege and the roles of crusaders’ wives and sons as regents. She teaches the Period module Crusading in the High Middle Ages, 1095-1291.