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I’m Dr Christopher Monk. I’m a specialist consultant in medieval culture and texts, working freelance in the heritage sector and with creative professionals.

Here’s a little more about me, my work, and my project Monk’s Modern Medieval Cuisine:

Before establishing my consultancy business, I taught medieval literature and culture at the University of Manchester (2010-14), which is where I also received my PhD (2012).

My work is varied: I’ve worked with a TV producer, a video games company, a rock musician and composer, a children’s book publisher, and a cathedral, among others.

I’ve translated numerous Old English and medieval Latin texts, which you can find here; have published an e-book, journal articles, and book chapters; and am still working as an independent scholar (I have a couple of book chapters coming out 2020). My publications are listed on LinkedIn.

Outside of academia, I’ve published magazine and newspaper features usually with a historical or cultural bent.

Modern Medieval Cuisine

This project, Monk’s Modern Medieval Cuisine, utilises my skills as a researcher and translator and marries them to my abiding love of food. Its primary aim is to write and publish a book about King Richard II’s cookery book: find out more here.

But I also hope to cook as many of the dishes from that book as possible, and either report on my experiments via my blog or video the final ‘perfected’ dishes and make these available for downloading.

Additionally, a lot of my musings on the blog will provide readers with insight into my research process, so you will see posts about the ‘Language of cookery’, for example, or ones about the medieval context of the food or plants that I come across during my readings.

I can lay claim to some sort of culinary training, though it goes back to my high school days when I studied O Level cookery (Home Economics, as it was called back in the late 70s). Since then, I’ve been an enthusiastic and experimental cook and baker.

I’m also a keen gardener, and though my garden is quite small, I manage to grow a range of fruits, vegetables and herbs (as well as flowers), some of which I use in my modern medieval cuisine.

Please enjoy the website, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. And if you wish, you can keep up to date with all posts by subscribing here:

_{All images Copyrighted © Christopher Monk 2020.}