Alexandra Sapoznik joined the department in 2012. She previously taught at the University of Cambridge and held a research position at the London School of Economics. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her research has been funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust and UKRI.

From 2018-2021 she was Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme Research Project ‘Bees in the medieval world: Economic, environmental and cultural perspectives’. From 2024 she is Principal Investigator of ‘ECOMEDS: Economic and cultural connections within Mediterranean Ecosystems’, selected by the European Research Council and funded by the UKRI under the Horizon Europe guarantee.

Research interests

• Late medieval economic and social history
• Agricultural and environmental history
• Peasant economic activity
• Landscape, land use and field systems
• Networks of exchange, commodities and trade

Alex’s research interests lie at the intersection of economy, environment, culture and society with a focus on late medieval Britain and Europe. She has published on topics including agricultural productivity, technological innovation, food security and standards of living. She led an expansive study of the economic and cultural role of the honeybee in the Middle Ages, exploring the impact of climate change, religious culture, and the development of networks of exchange across late medieval Europe from the far north to the southern coasts of the Mediterranean. Her current project builds on these themes through a study of commodity trade in the Mediterranean.

Alex welcomes applications from students who wish to work in her research areas.

Click here for full research profile.

Teaching

Alex teaches on topics in late medieval history, often focusing on economic and social history to understand the lived experience of peoples of the past.

Selected publications

• A. Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the medieval Maghreb: Wax, honey and cross-cultural trade in the Western Mediterranean’, Medieval Encounters 27 (2021) 434-455.
• A. Sapoznik, ‘Bees in the medieval economy: Religious observance and the production, trade, and consumption of wax in England, c.1300-1555’, Economic History Review 72 (2019) 1152-1174.
• A. Huang and A. Sapoznik, ‘Fremdes Geld. Auswärtige Kapitalbeziehungen des Braunschweiger Rentenmarktes im 15. Und 16. Jahrhundert // Foreign Capital: Brunswick’s annuity market and its external relations in the 15^th and 16^th centuries’’, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgechichte 106 (2019) 29-66.
• J. Myrdal and A. Sapoznik, ‘Technology, labour, and productivity potential in peasant agriculture: England, c.1000-1348’, Agricultural History Review 65 (2017), 192-212
• A. Sapoznik, ‘The productivity of peasant agriculture: Oakington, Cambridgeshire, 1360-1399’, Economic History Review 66 (2013), 518-544.