Dr Stephen Bates

I am a historian of late medieval and early modern culture, with specific interests in theology, lay piety and gender. My broad research gaze stretches from the social transformations of mid-thirteenth century Europe, to the late seventeenth-century's slide away from religious wars and witch trials, and towards 'toleration'. My specialism, however, focuses on the impact of changes in Tudor England wrought by the arrival of print and the Reformation.

Formerly Lecturer in History at Warwick, I have been the main carer for my two amazing daughters (now aged 5 and 9) since 2016. During this time, the support of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance has been crucial in allowing me to retain institutional affiliation and continue researching and writing. Having held part-time posts as a Visiting Lecturer at Newman University and an Associate Lecturer at Northampton University, I am now a Departmental Tutor at the University of Oxford. I remain very active in the Centre, where I am one of the judges for the Greg Wells undergraduate prize, and where I convene the reading group.

I have published a number of essays and review articles, and I am currently working to complete a monograph on the changing place of the Virgin Mary in sixteenth-century England.

email: s.m.j.bates@warwick.ac.uk

Academic Employment

2021-present: Departmental Tutor, University of Oxford
2019-2020: Associate Lecturer, University of Northampton
2017-2018: Visiting Lecturer, Newman University
2016-present: Tutor, Oxford Science Studies
2014-2015: Tutor/Course Designer, University of York
2010-2015: Lecturer in History, University of Warwick

Fellowships and Awards

2015-present: Associate Fellow of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick
2015: Visiting Research Fellow, the Newberry Library, Chicago
2015: Leverhulme International Network Grant: Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice
2013: Fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Academy for Advanced Study in the Renaissance
2012: Newberry Renaissance Consortium Grant, the Newberry Library, Chicago
2012: Callum MacDonald Memorial Bursary, University of Warwick
2012: Dr Joan Lane Social History Bursary, University of Warwick
2011: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, 'Forms of Conversion' Research Associate

Publications

‘The Virgin, Aniconism and Early Elizabethan Identity’, in Salvador Ryan, Samantha Smith & Laura Skinnebach (eds), Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of the Reformations (Leuven: Peeters, 2022), pp.15-50
‘Preparations for a Christian Death - the Later Middle Ages’, in Philip Booth & Elizabeth Tingle (eds), Christian Tradition on Death and Remembrance (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 72-105
‘The Virgin Mary and the Reformation in the Midlands’, Midland History, 44 (2019), pp. 159-175
‘Review of Queen of Heaven, by Lilla Grindlay’, British Catholic History, 34 (2019), pp. 658-660
‘Mary and Gender in the English Reformation’, in Chris Maunder (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 409-422
‘Weaving Vernacular Garlands: Devotions to the Virgin in English, 1525-1537’, in Jonas Carlquist & Virginia Langum (eds), Words and Matter: The Virgin Mary in Late Medieval Parish Life (Stockholm: Runica et Mediaevalia, 2015), pp. 168-180
‘Salvatrix Mundi? Rejecting the Redemptive Role of the Virgin Mary’, in Jonathan Willis (ed.), Sin and Salvation in Reformation England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 139-156
‘Review of Nicholas Orme, The Church in Devon, 400-1560 (Exeter, 2013)’, The English Historical Review, 130 (2015), pp. 428-29
‘Turning “wyne into water”: the Erasmian Re-imagination of the Virgin Mary’, in Laura Aydelotte (ed.), Proceedings of the 2012 Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies Graduate Student Conference (Chicago: Newberry Library, 2012), pp. 5-18