Daniel Power studied at Selwyn College, Cambridge, from 1987, and held a research fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from 1993. In 1996 he was appointed to a lectureship in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield, where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005 and Reader in 2007. He took up the post of Professor of Medieval History at Swansea University in September 2007.

Current research

Professor Power’s principal current research project is a study of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy between the end of the Anglo-Norman realm in 1204, and the Treaty of Paris in 1259.  This is a crucial phase in the development of French and English identities, as Normandy was absorbed into the realm of the Capetian kings of France, and the cross-Channel ties that had been established by the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 disintegrated. 

In conjunction with this project, he is completing an edition of the acts of the Du Hommet family, constables of Normandy, to be published by the Pipe Roll Society.   This collection of c.350 charters vividly illustrates the dynamics of aristocratic power in the Anglo-Norman realm, and reveals how the various branches of the Du Hommet family attempted to keep their lands on both sides of the English Channel after 1204.

Professor Power is also preparing a study and edition of the unpublished charters of the participants in the Albigensian Crusade (1209-29).  His continuing work concerning medieval frontier societies includes aspects of the history of the Welsh Marches, notably the lords of Gower and their castles at Swansea and Oystermouth, and he is principal investigator for a project concerning the buildings, estates, and surrounding landscape of Neath Abbey, one of Wales’ greatest medieval religious houses.

Books

•  The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).  xxiv + 634 pp., 38 tables, 9 maps. ISBN:  0-521-57172-3 (hb), ISBN-13: 9780521089586 (pb).
• (edited) The Central Middle Ages (Short Oxford History of Europe) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006;  Spanish translation, 2007; Polish translation, 2011)
• (edited with Naomi Standen) Frontiers in Question:  Eurasian Borderlands 700 – 1700 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999)

For full publication list, including book chapters and journal articles please click here

Principal research awards, fellowships, and prizes

• visiting Fellowship, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino CA, USA (May 2009)
• AHRC project funding, for The 'Lands of the Normans' in England (1204-44), 2006–2007