Department

  • History

    • School

  • School of Arts and Sciences

    • Expertise

  • Medieval Italy
  • Medieval women and gender
  • Religious and cultural history

    • Katherine L. Jansen is a historian specializing in the history of medieval Italy, religious culture, and women and gender. Her most recent book is Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). Since 2000 she has also published Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), co-edited with Frances Andrews and Joanna Drell; Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1500, co-edited with Miri Rubin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); and Center and Periphery: Essays on Power in the Middle Ages in Honor of William Chester Jordan, co-edited with Guy Geltner and Anne E. Lester (Leiden: Brill, 2013). In addition, she is the author of the award-winning book, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Professor Jansen has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, The American Academy in Rome, Villa I Tatti (The Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, among others. She has also been Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University.

    In 2019 she was appointed Editor of Speculum, the leading journal of medieval studies in North America. In 2020 she was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. She is currently at work on a book entitled The Relics of Rome.

    Professor Jansen is no longer accepting new Ph.D. students.

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    Selected Publications

    • Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy

      Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy

      Katherine L. Jansen, Peace and Penance in Late Medieval Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018)

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    • Center and Periphery

      Center and Periphery

      Katherine L. Jansen, G. Geltner and Anne E. Lester, ed., Center and Periphery: Studies on Power in the Medieval World in Honor of William Chester Jordan (Brill, 2013)

       

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    • Charisma and Religious Authority

      Charisma and Religious Authority

      Katherine L. Jansen and Miri Rubin, ed., Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1500 (Brepols, 2010)

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    • Medieval Italy: Texts

      Medieval Italy: Texts

      Katherine L. Jansen, Joanna Drell, and Frances Andrews, ed. Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation  (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009)

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    • The Making of the Magdalen

      The Making of the Magdalen

      Katherine L. Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2000)

      Learn More