The Royal Historical Society begins its 2026 programme of lectures on Friday 6 February when Professor Charles West (University of Edinburgh) will speak on ‘”Alike in Appearance but not in Scope”: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe’.
Whereas medieval kings tended to rule in the same place they were born, queens were routinely foreigners within their own realm.
Charles’s lecture starts from this simple observation to reconsider the position of queens in the ‘making’ of post-Carolingian Europe, alongside that of the knights and clerics on whom historical attention has often focused. Through a set of case studies, the lecture looks at the role played by queens as cultural ambassadors in creating, both deliberately and unwittingly, a human network that transcended political borders.
In-person and online booking for this lecture, which takes place at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, is now available.
On Tuesday 10 February the Society partners with the German Historical Institute, London, to host its 2026 Global History Lecture. Our speaker is Professor Vinita Damodaran (University of Sussex) whose subject is: ‘Decolonising the Natural History Collections of Empire’.
Vinita’s lecture, with a focus on India, seeks to understand this important archive of knowledge of the natural world collected and organised in the context of the empire in the light of recent historiography on botany and empire. It highlights the importance of creating an inventory and digitally repatriating botanical specimens held primarily in British institutions, and highlights efforts for cultural remediation.
The lecture will examine neglected literature and networks in the imperial scientific network, which were crucial to what was a prodigious scientific renaissance in natural history and environmental understanding in the imperial context from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.
In-person and online booking for this lecture, which takes place at Mary Ward House, London, is now available.
On Wednesday 18 February, the Society hosts the first of its 2026 Visits to historians in universities across the UK. February’s visit, to Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield, includes a public lecture by Professor David Stack (University of Reading) on ‘Well-being: a Historian’s Perspective’.
David’s lecture considers how historians might engage with contemporary discussions of well-being? What does history have to tell us about the term and its use? Does the study of history contribute to or detract from well-being?
This lecture argues that history can and should make a unique contribution, both to the concept and the practice of well-being. The study of history can deepen our understanding of the structural forces that shape well-being, and, by self-consciously integrating a well-being agenda into our research and teaching, we can simultaneously enhance the well-being of ourselves and our students and demonstrate the relevance of history to one of the most important public policy debates of our time.
This public lecture is part of the Society’s visit to historians at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield.
In-person booking for this lecture, which takes place at Sheffield Hallam, is now available.
Other Royal Historical Society lectures to be held later in 2026 include:
- ‘The Haunting at the Rectory: Ghost Stories and Women’s Lives in Early Modern England’, with Professor Sasha Handley (University of Manchester), on Friday 1 May 2026, at the University of Warwick
- ‘The Last Voyage of the Santiago: A Ship and its World in the Age of Revolution’, with Professor Rebecca Earle FBA (University of Warwick), on Wednesday 1 July 2026
- ‘In All Our Footsteps: Rights of Way and Access to the Land in England and Wales since 1949’, with Professor Glen O’Hara (Oxford Brookes University), on Friday 25 September 2026
- ‘From Cabaret Star to Gaullist Spy: Josephine Baker’s Secret War’, with Professor Hanna Diamond (Cardiff University), on Friday 27 November 2026
For more on these and other Royal Historical Society events in 2026, please see here.
HEADER IMAGE: Surrey Institution, plate 81 (detail) from ‘Microcosm of London’: various artists/makers, 1809, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.