Trustees

Christian Steer has been interested in the Yorkist Age for over 30 years. His appreciation of the fifteenth century was enlightened as an undergraduate by the late Prof. J. L. Bolton in his special paper devoted to the ‘Fifteenth Century’ in the former federal system of the University of London. His M.A. was awarded by the University of York in 1997. Dr Steer’s PhD thesis was on ‘Burial and Commemoration in Medieval London, c.1140-1540’, under the supervision of Prof. Caroline M. Barron and Prof. Nigel Saul at Royal Holloway, University of London (2013), and he has lectured and published on the lost commemorative landscape of the city for many years. He is best known for locating the burial of Katherine Plantagenet, countess of Huntingdon, illegitimate daughter of Richard III, in the city of London parish of St James Garlickhithe (The Ricardian, vol. 24 (2014)). With Caroline Barron, he guest edited the 2023 volume of The Ricardian, a special edition entitled Yorkist People: Essays in Memory of Anne F. Sutton. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and also Hon. Visiting Fellow in the Dept. of History at the University of York. He has been a trustee of the Yorkist History Trust since 2016 and has been Chairman since 2021.

Anne Curry is Emeritus Professor at the University of Southampton where she was previously Professor of Medieval History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, after holding posts at Teesside Polytechnic, where she also studied for a doctorate on Military Organization in Lancastrian Normandy, and at the University of Reading. Anne took her BA and MA by research (Henry V and the Earldom of Chester 1399-1422, published in extended form by the Chetham Society in 2024) at the University of Manchester. She has published extensively in English and French on the Hundred Years War, as well as leading online projects on ‘The Gascon Rolls 1307-1467’, ‘The Norman Rolls of Henry V’, and ‘The Soldier in Later Medieval England’. She has a particular interest in medieval armies as well as late medieval battles, especially Agincourt, being heavily involved in the 600th anniversary in 2015, and Bosworth, where she co-authored Bosworth 1485. A Battlefield Rediscovered, the book leading out of the HLF project to locate the field. She has served as a Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society, President of the Historical Association and Chair of the Battlefields Trust, and is also Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Fletchers as well as Arundel Herald Extraordinary.

Maryanne Kowaleski is Joseph Fitzpatrick S.J. Distinguished Professor Emerita of History and Medieval Studies at Fordham University in New York city. Her research and publications focus on late medieval English economic history, especially towns, the maritime world, women, and demography. More recently she has focused on digital projects, such as Medieval Londoners, the Medieval England Maritime Project, and the Online Medieval Sources Bibliography. Other current projects include a survey of medieval historical demography and a translation for the London Record Society of TNA and The London Archives accounts that deal with working on the medieval waterfront.

Joanna Laynesmith was awarded her MA and DPhil by the University of York and has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Reading and Huddersfield as well as for the WEA. Her publications include The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 (2004), Cecily Duchess of York (2017), and Later Plantagenet and the Wars of the Roses Consorts (2023) which she co-edited with Ellie Woodacre. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Editor of The Ricardian.

Philip Muijtjens is a postdoctoral researcher at Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, focusing on the relation between the built environment of cities and questions of good governance in late medieval Europe. Philip was awarded his PhD from the University of Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on the social culture around funerary monuments in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In addition, Philip has published in, among others, Simiolus, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, the Burlington Magazine, and a number of edited volumes. He is currently preparing an edition of the late medieval archives preserved in the Venerable English College in Rome

Lynda Pidgeon was awarded her PhD from the University of Southampton in 2012 on ‘The Wydeviles 1066-1503: A Reassessment’. This was published in 2019 as ‘Brought up of Nought: A History of the Woodvile Family’. She has published several articles on members of the Woodvile family: ‘Antony Wydevile, Family Friends and Affinity Part 1’, The Ricardian, vol. 15 (2005), ‘Part 2’, The Ricardian, vol. 16 (2006), ‘A Family “Made by Maryage”: Sir Richard Wydevile and Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, no. 62 (2009); ‘A Strange Marriage: Jacquetta Wydevile and John Lord Strange’, The Ricardian, vol. 27 (2017) and ‘An Aristocratic Brass in Late Fifteenth-Century England’, Monumental Brass Society, vol. 19, pt. 4 (2017). From 2005-2009 she was Secretary of the Trust, and has been a Trustee since 2009.

Livia Visser-Fuchs is an independent scholar. She read classical languages and history at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht and received a PhD from University College, London, for a thesis on Anglo-Burgundian cultural and literary relations in the Yorkist period. She has worked with Anne F. Sutton since 1986 on the manuscripts of Richard III and on many related subjects, from London chronicles to the cult of angels in the fifteenth century. Together they have published the results of their research in books and articles; the books include The Hours of Richard III (1990), The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England: John Vale’s Book (1995), The Reburial of Richard, Duke of York (1996), Richard III’s Books (1997), and The Book of Privileges of the Merchant Adventurers of England (2009). Dr Visser-Fuch’s own publications mainly concern Anglo-Burgundian relations, culminating in a study of the life and work of the Burgundian nobleman, Jean de Wavrin, in 2018: History as Pastime: Jean de Wavrin and His Collection of Chronicles of England.

Richard Asquith is company archivist at the Vintners’ Company, London, and a research assistant on the new edition of The Complete Peerage. He completed a PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2022 and holds an MSt in Medieval History from Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis was entitled ‘Piety and Trust: Testators and Executors in Pre-Reformation London’. He was awarded the Richard III Society Bursary from the Institute of Historical Research in 2021 and won the Curriers’ Company London History Essay Prize in 2023. His publications include articles in The Ricardian, vol. 28 (2018), on political discourse, treason, and documentary culture in the Wars of the Roses, and vol. 33 (2023) on the funeral and obsequies of Sir Ralph Verney. With Christian Steer, he co-edited ‘Loyalty Binds Me’: Yorkist Studies for Peter and Carolyn Hammond.

David Wells and his wife Susan are former joint secretaries of the Trust and the Richard III Society. He was also Deputy Chairman of the Society for four years. His interest in medieval history originated with the Tudors but he soon ‘saw the light’!

He looks forward to his renewed connection with the Trust through his rôle as Treasurer. During his career he spent over forty years in Local Government administration and finance, followed by a three year spell in the NHS, and is still actively working as a business and training consultant in both the UK and overseas.