Candidate Details

Candidate Name

Francis Young

Academic degrees, honours etc.

BA Philosophy, Cambridge 2002 MA Classics, Lampeter 2011 PhD History, Cambridge 2014 FRHistS 2014 Lay canon, St Edmundsb

Profession or occupation

Author

Grounds for election

Francis Young is the author of significant monographs in the field of the history of religion and belief, including Silence of the Gods (2025), Twilight of the Godlings (2023) and Magic in Merlin’s Realm (2022) as well as focussed studies of monastic houses such as Athassel Priory and the Cult of St Edmund (2020) and The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds (2016). In addition to monographs, he has edited and translated several collections of documents on the religious history of Suffolk and the Baltic, including The Gages of Hengrave and Suffolk Catholicism (2015), Rookwood Family Papers (2016), Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic (2022) and The Franciscans in Medieval Bury St Edmunds (2024). He was the Catholic Record Society’s volumes editor (2015–17) and edits the series Elements in Folklore for Cambridge University Press. In 2024 he was appointed a Senior Research Associate at Portsmouth University, and he has taught for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education since 2020.

Signatories

The following Fellows have signed this Blue Paper