Professor of Later Medieval English Literature, University of Toronto
Awards
Morton W. Bloomfield Fellowship, Harvard University (2022); Visiting Fellowship, Magdalen College, University of Oxford (2021); H.P. Kraus Fellowship in Early Books and Manuscripts, Yale University (2019); Visiting Fellowship, All Souls College, University of Oxford (2016); John Hurt Fisher Prize, John Gower Society (2016); Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library (2015); Professorship of Old Germanic (by courtesy), University of Groningen (2011)
Sebastian Sobecki (born 1973) is a medievalist specialising in English literature, history, and manuscript studies.
Biography
Sobecki is Professor of Later Medieval English Literature at the
University of Toronto. Prior to that, he was Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture at the
University of Groningen, the oldest chair (founded in 1886) for English literature in the
Netherlands.[1] At Groningen he also held by courtesy the Professorship of Old Germanic, established in 1881. Having received his education at the
University of Cambridge, Sobecki became an Assistant Professor at
McGill University before being appointed at Groningen. He works on late medieval English literature, particularly on literary history; handwriting, archives, and manuscripts; authorship and literary culture; law and literature; political writing and intellectual history; and travel and global medieval literature. Sobecki was awarded the John Hurt Fisher Prize by the John Gower Society and has held fellowships from Harvard University, Yale University, All Souls College Oxford, Magdalen College Oxford, and the Huntington Library.[2][3]
He has made a number of important archival discoveries, such as identifying
John Gower's autograph hand,[7] finding a letter written for
Margery Kempe's son,[8] locating rebels linked to Piers Plowman,[9] revealing the author (
John Peyton) of the earliest English description of Poland,[10][11] and demonstrating connections between tax records and the
General Prologue to
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.[12] Together with Euan Roger of the UK's National Archives, he published two new life records that show that
Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne were not on opposing sides of the law in the spring of 1380 but co-defendants in a labour dispute.[13] Sobecki is also the voice behind the popular video recording of
John Skelton's 'Speke Parott'.[14][15]
Selected publications
The Case of Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne: New Evidence, issue of Chaucer Review 57:4 (2022) (with Euan Roger)
An Edition of Miles Hogarde's A Mirroure of Myserie (New York: Punctum, 2021)
ISBN9781953035530
Last Words: The Public Self and the Social Author in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019
ISBN9780198790785,
9780198790778
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) (with Candace Barrington)
ISBN9781316632345
Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) (with Anthony Bale)
ISBN9780192848604,
9780198733782
A Critical Companion to John Skelton (Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2018) (with John Scattergood)
ISBN9781843845133
Our Sea of Islands: New Approaches to British Insularity in the Late Middle Ages, issue of Postmedieval 7:4 (2016) (with Matthew Boyd Goldie)
Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463-1549, ReFormations: Medieval and Early Modern (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015)
ISBN9780268041458
The Sea and Englishness in the Middle Ages: Maritime Narratives, Identity, and Culture (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011)
ISBN9781843842767
The Sea and Medieval English Literature, Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Brewer, 2008)
ISBN9781843841371