Abigail Firey
Research Interests:
Early Medieval Europe
legal history
Digital Humanities
Manuscript Studies
Education
Ph.D., Toronto, 1995
Research
The Carolingian Canon Law Project (http://ccl.rch.uky.edu)
Scriptorium, a digital environment for collaborative manuscript research
Areas of Specialization: Early Medieval Europe (especially legal history); Carolingian empire; early medieval and late antique religious, intellectual and cultural history; canon law; early medieval biblical exegesis; textual transmission and manuscript studies.
Current Graduate Students:
- Wei-Ting Chen
- Melissa Kapitan
- Kerry Warren
Selected Publications:
- “Between Chaos and Codification: Consensus and the Content of Carolingian Canon Law” in Standardization and the Middle Ages: vol. 2: Europe, edd. Line Cecilie Engh and Kristin Aavitsland (Berline, De Gruyter, 2024) pp. 13-42. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uky.edu/10.1515/9783110987126-002
- "The Paper Chase: The Pursuit of Carolingian Legal Innovations" in Carolingian Experiments, ed. Matthew Gillis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022) pp. 71-121.
- "Early Medieval Canon Law" in The Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law, edd. Anders Winroth and John C. Wei (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) pp. 32-45.
- "Veiled Threats: Constraining Religious Women in the Carolingian Empire" in The Symbolism of Marriage in Early Christianity and the Latin Middle Ages: Images, Impact, Cognition, ed. Line Cecile Engh (Amsterdam University Press, 2019) pp. 155-178.
- “‘Death, Where is Thy Sting?’: Locating Capital Punishment in Early Medieval Debates” in Texts and Contexts in Legal History: Essays in Honor of Charles Donahue, edd. John Witte, Sara McDougall, Anna di Robilant (Berkeley: Robbins Collection Press, 2016) pp. 61-81.
- “Learning Canon Law in the Carolingian Empire” in Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, edd. Joseph Goering, Stephan Dusil, and Andreas Thier. (Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia, 15; Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Vaticana, 2016) pp. 355-368.
- “Canon Law Studies at Corbie” in Fälschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der Neuen Forschung, edd. Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, ser. Studien und Texte, 57; Hannover, 2015), pp.19-79
- “Continuing Recourse to Roman Law in the Carolingian Period: the example of ms Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Helmst. 1062 (Guelf.)” in Rechtshandschriften des deutschen Mittelalters. Produktionsorte und Importwege, edd. Gisela Drossbach and Patrizia Carmassi (ser. Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 29; Wiesbaden 2015) pp. 211-244.
- “Mutating Monsters: Approaches to “Living Texts” of the Carolingian Era” in the digital Proceedings of the Schoenberg Symposium, University of Pennsylvania, “Lex scripta: The Manuscript as Witness to the History of Law” (October 30-31, 2009), available at https://repository.upenn.edu/entities/publication/abc80ae4-1953-429c-82dc-b79b1291a61c
- A Contrite Heart: Prosecution and Redemption in the Carolingian Empire (Brill Academic Publishers, 2009)
- Editor of A New History of Penance (Brill Academic Publishers, 2008).
- "For I was hungry and you fed me': Social Justice and Economic Thought in the Latin Patristic and Medieval Christian Traditions" in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon (Leiden, 1997) pp. 333-370
- "The Letter of the Law: Carolingian Exegetes and the Old Testament" in With Reverence for the Word (Proceedings of the Conference on Medieval Scriptural Interpretation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Toronto, May 1997) ed. Jane McCauliffe (Oxford University Press, 2002)
- “Blushing Before the Judge: Moral Arbitration in the Carolingian Empire” in A New History of Penance (see above) pp. 173-200.
- "Carolingian Ecclesiology and Heresy: a Southern Gallic Juridical Tract against Adoptionism" Sacris erudiri 39 (2000) pp. 253-318.
- "Ghostly Recensions in Early Medieval Canon Law: the Problem of the Collectio Dacheriana and its shades" Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis/Revue de l'Histoire du Droit/Legal History Review 68 (2000) pp. 63-82.
- "Lawyers and Wisdom: The Use of the Bible in the Pseudo-Isidorian Forgeries" in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, edd. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (Brepols, 2003) 189-214.
- “Codices and Contexts: the many destinies of the Capitula Angilramni and the challenges of editing small canon law collections” Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 94 [125] (2008) pp. 88-312.
- William T. Bryan Endowed Professor of History
- University Research Professorship
- Lewis Honors College Faculty Fellow, 2024-
- History
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