James Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He has learned the craft of historical research and the art of communication from some of the best known British historians of the past half-century: Geoffrey Elton, Maurice Keen, Ronald Hutton, Diarmaid MacCulloch and David Cannadine. For twenty-five years he has been pursuing traces of Europe’s monastic culture across the world, in Europe from Iceland to Russia to the Vatican Library and in the USA coast-to-coast from the Morgan Library to the Huntington in San Marino CA. His knowledge is sought-after in the heritage world and he has been employed as an expert in the UK by the National Trust and the Wolfson Foundation, and internationally by the International Council for Heritage Conservation.
He is a regular contributor to broadcast and print media. His first role was as Medieval History Consultant for Walt Disney Co. Imagineering in Milan. He was series consultant and on-camera contributor to BBC TV’s Tudor Monastery Farm and to the Starz mini-series, The White Princess. For two decades he has contributed to documentaries on medieval and Tudor history including Channel 4’s History of Christianity and Channel 5’s series on Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. He has featured on podcasts including History Hit’s Not just the Tudors and Travels through Time. His research has been the subject of news stories in the broadsheet press including The Guardian (UK), The Daily Telegraph and The Times. His articles are published by BBC History, History Today, Medieval Worlds & Cultures, National Trust Cultural Heritage Magazine.
His book The Dissolution of the Monasteries was published by Yale University Press in 2021 to wide critical acclaim.