His research primarily focuses on examining the governance of local communities in Europe across the medieval and early modern eras. How did governing structures allow rural communities to organise agriculture, conserve environmental resources, maintain law and order, and manage complex tenurial relations? To what extent did these structures create inequalities in access to political power and economic resources? And how were local governing regimes affected by the decline of direct lordship and the rise of the state? Through an interdisciplinary approach adopting quantitative and qualitative social-science methodologies, he answers these questions by analysing long-runs of manuscript sources to examine communities over the longue-durée.
Additionally, through collaborations with other scholars, he has developed interests in calculating long-run wage series for late medieval England, the resilience of communities to the crises of the early fourteenth century and the management of stray animals.
