Morgan McMinn, West Virginia University

The American Branch is pleased to announce the winner of the 2024 Schallek Fellowship, Morgan McMinn of West Virginia University.

Morgan attended West Virginia University as an undergraduate where she majored in history and is currently studying for her Ph.D. As a freshman, she took an upper-level history course with Dr. Kate Staples on late medieval England. Inspired by Dr. Staples’s enthusiasm and the subject matter, she changed her major to history and never looked back. In her free time, Morgan enjoys reading, embroidering, and watching her chickens

“My Ph.D. dissertation, “Community: A Study of the Interpersonal Relationships of Monks and Nuns in the Late Medieval Diocese of Lincoln,” explores the interdependencies of monks and nuns in six religious houses across the Lincoln Diocese in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: Catesby, Godstow, Legbourn, Croyland, Peterborough, Ramsey. My dissertation examines how the religious’ social network influenced interclaustral bonds. Analyzing these monastic relations with lay society and episcopal administration enables us to better comprehend the nuances of religious daily life and the forces acting upon it. I investigate these connections through close textual analysis balanced with distant reading methods facilitated by a prosopographical database that I am building on the Lincoln diocese. My dissertation adds to our understanding of the intricacies of monastic life, the actors within it, and their ties to each other, the laity, and the episcopacy.”