Many of the Department of History's funded research projects produce publicly accessible online resources for research and education purposes. Very often these resources are produced in collaboration with King’s Digital Lab or other higher education institutions. Please explore some of the Department's digital resources below:
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 The Magna Carta Project website contains a wealth of public resources, from classroom material for school teachers, to a translation and commentary on the Magna Carta for different audiences. The site also provides a database of King John’s charters, and King John’s diary and itinerary, that help put the Magna Carta into context.
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 The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe (768-814) produced a database of charters searchable by agents and geographical location for research into elites and political relationships, the economic and social foundations of Charlemagne’s empire, religious institutions, the development of archival strategies and the written word, and much more.
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 The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) started as a database on the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to late eleventh century, from chronicles, saints’ Lives, charters, libri vitae, inscriptions, Domesday Book and coins. The current edition, published in 2010, offers improved access to the database and a new dataset to facilitate the identification of English landholders in the Domesday Book.
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The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835 has been online since 2005 as a result of Arts and Humanities Research Council funding. This database brings together evidence about clerical careers from all 27 dioceses of England and Wales (plus the short-lived diocese of Westminster), and contains information relating to clergy who served overseas.
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 The Georgian Papers Programme is a ten-year interdisciplinary project to digitise, conserve, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and disseminate 425,000 pages or 65,000 items in the Royal Archives and Royal Library relating to the Georgian period, 1714-1837. It is a partnership between Royal Collection Trust and King’s College London and is joined by primary U.S. partners the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture and William & Mary, with the participation of other U.S. institutions.
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 The Redress of the Past: Historical pageants in Britain is the only dedicated port-of-call for all things related to historical pageants. This AHRC-funded project reveals the stories that communities and institutions told about themselves through historical pageantry, an immensely popular and all too often overlooked way in which may people engaged with their pasts.
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 African Kingdoms King’s historians, with support from the AHRC, have also developed a series of resources for teaching African history:
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The OCR A level option ‘African Kingdoms’ makes precolonial African history available to A level students for the first time.
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WASSCE History Textbook offers a free textbook for secondary schools in West Africa, written by historians based in Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the US and the UK.
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Dr Vincent Hiribarren also writes for Africa4, a blog for the French newspaper Libération with more than 2 million unique views, and has created a series of maps for visualising African history.
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 Racism and Citizenship explores the tension between racism and citizenship in Portugal and the colonial world over more than five centuries. This virtual exhibition uses visual culture to encourage the public to question past and present relations between peoples.
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Popularizing Palaeontology: Current & Historical Perspectives (#PopPalaeo) is an interdisciplinary network exploring the cultural and public role of palaeontology, both in the past and today. Consisting of scientists, artists, humanities and social science scholars, museum professionals and science communicators, we think about why palaeontology has been such a high-profile subject, and what meanings, agendas and messages have been attached to it.
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History & Policy
The Department encourages its researchers to expand the impact of their work through engagement with History & Policy, a network of over 500 academic historians promoting the improvement of public policy through a greater understanding of history.
Working closely with History & Policy, the Department runs a Historians in Residence scheme for PhD students to create stronger relationships between historians and the worlds of policy and public life. This places historians with people and institutions taking a leading role in public life – from think-tanks to NGOs, museums to government departments – in residencies which last between 3 and 12 months.
Public Engagement
King’s History Department has a strong record of expanding the impact of historical research through public engagement, and our research projects are a testament to this.
The Magna Carta Project, for example, was at the heart of the national conversation about the Magna Carta’s legacy during the 800 year anniversary celebrations, and is still ongoing. Public engagement activities associated with this project and investigator Prof. David Carpenter have included:
- The launch of the Magna Carta Project website containing a Research Blog, Classroom materials for Key Stages 2 and 3, and other learning tools.
- A public exhibition at the British Library to coincide with the anniversary.
- The publication of a major new book, Magna Carta, by Penguin Classics.
- Involvement in the Speaker’s Advisory Committee which advised parliament on how to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and 750th anniversary of the 1265 parliament.
- Numerous appearances on TV and radio, the production of Youtube content, and articles published in the national press.
- Talks throughout Britain, including at the Welsh National Assembly.
- Participation in a theatrical recreation of the trial of the Magna Carta barons held at Westminster Hall, and produced for the anniversary celebrations (below).
Images: (Left) Prof. David Carpenter with international delegates at a talk about Magna Carta and the development of Law sponsored by Thomson Reuters (Right) Prof. David Carpenter with Dame Rosemary Butler at a Magna Carta event
Curriculum Development
We collaborate with teachers through the King’s History Teachers’ Network. Many of our research projects also contribute to curriculum development.
For example, the AHRC-funded project, Money, Slavery, and Political Change in Precolonial West Africa, developed a series of resources for teaching African history at schools in the UK and West Africa. Dr Toby Green wrote the textbook for the OCR A level option African Kingdoms, which includes an accompanying series of electronic resources. Dr Vincent Hiribarren designed WASSCE History Textbook, which offers a free textbook written by historians based in Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the US and the UK, to match the History syllabus for secondary school children in West African countries where English is the language of instruction.
Related impacts have included:
- A summer school to train teachers in the delivery of the A level African history option.
- A plenary lecture on African history resources at the Schools History Project Conference in Leeds Trinity University.
- Two webinars and podcasts delivered through The Historical Association.
- Writing workshops in Sierra Leone and The Gambia, funded by the British Academy and delivered as part of the WASSCE textbook-writing process, where early career academics received mentoring from editors on the academic writing process and how to publish academic articles in global journals.
- A teacher training workshop delivered in collaboration with the Ghana History Teachers' Association, Ashanti region.
- Extensive media coverage, including BBC News, THES, The Voice, Africa4, and a television interview on Good Morning Gambia.
Image: Dr Vincent Hiribarren and Dr Toby Green with attendees at a writing workshop at the University of Sierra Leone, Freetown.