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Imogen Corrigan MPhil FRHistS FRSA

My first book was published in 2019. It is ‘Stone on Stone: the Men who built the Cathedrals’ so it’s more about the people than the buildings: how they trained, organised the site, budgeted and how ideas travelled and what sort of people they were. Funnily enough, there was more attention paid to health and safety than one might expect … and so on.

I have recently edited and written a new introduction for Anatole France’s magisterial work on Joan of Arc. It was a mighty task but a real privilege too. It is now available from Flame Tree Publishing: ‘Joan of Arc’.

I recorded an interview on Joan of Arc for History Hits which is a free service (albeit funded by advertisements as is apparent). You can find it at: https://play.acast.com/s/howwhyhistory/joanofarc
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I was in the army for over 19 years and then turned to a life-long interest with the result that in 2004 I graduated from the University of Kent with a 1st class honours degree in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval History and later with an M.Phil from the University of Birmingham and have been studying ever since.

I have been lecturing and running study tours on Anglo-Saxon and Medieval history for some years and I use art – usually church art – as the evidence in my research as much as possible. But  however lovely or bizarre the images might be, it fascinates me to try to get at the people who made them and to hear their voices speaking.  Sometimes, I may say, they speak to us directly and write things such as the Anglo-Saxon scribe who complained at the end of his manuscript that: “three fingers write, but my whole body labours.” I cover 1,000 years of history and I like to take the major events and look at the individuals living through those times to try to understand them. For instance, when we see an image made around 1400, we could be seeing a reaction to the several catastrophes of the C14th, and might be looking at a cry for help, or someone reacting to the situation with sensitivity, superstition or perhaps with humour.

I am an Arts Society accredited lecturer (formerly NADFAS) and I lecture for ACE Cultural Tours, Martin Randall Travel and other specialist travel companies leading study tours which have included ‘A White Garment of Churches’ (French cathedrals), ‘Medieval Pilgrimage’, ‘Medieval Brittany’, ‘The Age of Bede’, ‘An Appointment with Angels’ (Norfolk Churches), ‘Suffolk Seraphims’ (Suffolk Churches), ‘The Churches of Dorset’, ‘First-Millennium Northumbria’, ‘Welsh Marches’ and ‘An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England’. I  lecture on board small ships for Noble Caledonia and I am a speaker for the U3A, Kent Federation of History, East Kent National Trust amongst many others.  I am a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. I have the Freedom of the City of London, being a Freeman of the Company of Communicators. I am the consultant on brasses, monuments and memorials for the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) for Canterbury.

On a different note, I believe that I may be one of only two people who are the third generation of women to serve in the British Army. My maternal grandmother was a driver in the Women’s Legion in WW1 and was in the ATS in WW2.  My mother served in the ATS and WRAC and I was in the WRAC and AG Corps. Not only did we all join the army, but we all changed Corps and so had two cap-badges. I’m always interested to hear if anyone else has the same record.