Robin Briggs, FRSL, FRHistS, FBA (born 26 May 1942) is an English historian who has spent his entire academic career at All Souls College, Oxford.

Robin Briggs
Born (1942-05-26) 26 May 1942 (age 82)
NationalityEnglish
Occupation(s)Historian and academic
SpouseDaphne Nash
Children3
Academic background
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
Sub-discipline
InstitutionsAll Souls College, Oxford
Doctoral studentsSuzannah Lipscomb

Early life and education

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Born in Braintree to Donald Frederick and Kathleen Ann Briggs, he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1961 and graduated with a first-class modern history Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964.[1][2]

Academic career

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He was appointed a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, that year, after passing its examination; he was then appointed a junior research fellow there in 1971 and then senior research fellow seven years later. Briggs remained in that post until retiring and being appointed an emeritus fellow at All Souls in 2009. From 1976 to 2009, he also lectured for the University of Oxford, and was junior proctor in the 1972–73 year.[1][2]

His research interests include the history of witchcraft in Europe and other aspects of early modern European history (especially politics, society and religion, and the history of early modern France and the French Catholic Church).[1][2][3]

Honours

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Briggs was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1969, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2009 (the latter being the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences).[1][3]

Personal life

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Briggs had three sons with his first wife Julia.[4] He later married the archaeologist Daphne Nash.[5]

Selected publications

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  • The Witches of Lorraine (Oxford University Press, 2007).
  • Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (Harper Collins, 1996).
  • "The Académie Royale des Sciences and the pursuit of utility", Past and Present, vol. 131 (1991), pp. 38–88.
  • Communities of Belief: Social and Cultural Tensions in Early Modern France (Oxford University Press, 1989).
  • Early Modern France, 1560–1715 (Oxford University Press, 1977).

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Briggs, Robin", Who's Who (online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2017). Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  2. ^ a b c "Robin Briggs", All Souls College, Oxford. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  3. ^ a b "Mr Robin Briggs", British Academy. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  4. ^ Briggs, Robin (1989). Communities of Belief: Cultural and Social Tensions in Early Modern France. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. vii. ISBN 0198219814.
  5. ^ Briggs, Robin (2007). The Witches of Lorraine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. viii. ISBN 9780198225829.