The Trustees of the Yorkist History Trust are recognised experts in Yorkist and fifteenth-century studies. Their principal duties are to commission new publications, to see them through publication, and to assess applications from scholars and publishers for financial assistance towards their own research and the expenses of publication.
For further information about our Chairman and Trustees, please click on their names.
Chairman:
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 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.
Trustees:
Julia Boffey is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary, University of London. She works on the production, transmission and reception of late medieval and early sixteenth-century literature, especially poetry. Her publications include an edition of Middle English dream visions, and articles on Middle English lyrics, on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century poetry, on women’s literacy and reading in the Middle Ages, and on early printing in England. Her current projects include a collaborative new edition of the works of Chaucer and a co-edited history of fifteenth-century English verse.
By training, Heather Falvey is an early modern historian: her PhD in History from the University of Warwick focussed on two sets of seventeenth century anti-enclosure riots. However, amongst her various publications are three edited collections of medieval wills, two that she co-edited and one that she edited on her own: Pre-Reformation Wills from Rickmansworth Parish (1409-1539) (2021); English Wills proved in the Prerogative Court of York, 1477-1499 (2013), with Peter Hammond and Lesley Boatwright; and Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1439-1474: Wills from the Register ‘Baldwyne’, Part II: 1461-1474 (2010), with Peter Northeast. She teaches medieval and early modern social history for the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and is the Editorial Assistant for the Economic History Review.
Joanna Laynesmith is a visiting research fellow at the University of Reading. She primarily researches elite women in medieval England. The book of her DPhil thesis – The Last Medieval Queens – was a joint winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year 2005 and her more recent monograph – Cecily Duchess of York – won the Royal Studies Book Prize in 2017. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays on late medieval consorts, with Ellie Woodacre, and is writing a book on the politics of royal adultery in Britain 540-1140.
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.
James Ross is Reader in Late Medieval History at the University of Winchester. He researches and publishes on the nobility of late Medieval England, and on kingship and politics. He has written a biography of John de Vere, Thirteen Earl of Oxford, 1442-1513, a short study of Henry VI for the Penguin English Monarch series, and is working on a study of kingship and political society between 1485 and 1529.
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.
Secretary:
Richard Asquith has recently completed a PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London, 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.
Treasurer:
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.