Jeff Fynn-Paul, lecturer at Leiden University’s Institute for History, was recently awarded the European History Quarterly’s 2016 Prize for his article “Occupation, Family, and Inheritance in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona: A Socio-Economic Profile of One of Europe’s Earliest Investing Publics.”

How did free agents in the Dutch Republic react to the creation of colonial monopolies (VOC and WIC) by the States-General? This project answers this question by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of an informal global empire parallel to the institutional empire devised by the…

The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 presents a new perspective on the uses of justice between 1600 and 1900 and confronts prevailing Eurocentric historiography in its examination of how people of this period made use of the law.

What are the origins of the Islamic Empire? And what was daily life like there? Two new Ted Ed animations answer these questions in simple language. Arabists Petra Sijpesteijn and Birte Kristiansen explain what the process of developing the videos was like.

The multiple connections between emblematics and Natural History in the broader perspective of their underlying artistic, literary, political and religious ideologies.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various Dutch cities in the early modern period.

This project is part of a broader research agenda aiming to better understand the relationships between the development of contemporary security concerns and the evolution of forms of security cooperation and crisis governance.

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

Moving Romans offers an analysis of Roman migration by applying general insights, models and theories from the field of migration history.

From 15 augustus 2014 onward, Leonor Álvarez Francés is appointed as PhD student on Raymond Fagels NWO project ‘Facing the Enemy. The Spanish Army Commanders during the First Decade of the Dutch Revolt (1567-1577)’

This project explores themes at the intersection of maritime history and environmental history by looking at the problems Dutch ships encountered in the different climates of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, and the solutions they could provide.

Peyman Jafari defended his thesis on 11 October 2018

This book argues that Dutch Brazil (1624–54) is an integral part of Atlantic history and that it made an impact well beyond colonial and national narratives in the Netherlands and Brazil.

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-‘states’ and peasant ‘republics’ into ‘modern’ states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe…

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

Bringing together the most current research on the relationship between crime and gender in the West between 1600 and 1914, this authoritative volume places female criminality within its everyday context.

Painstaking research in Dutch and Portuguese archive materials, so far poorly assessed on the topic of social relations, reveals intense and intricate associations between different European individuals both in terms of ethnicity and social strata.

Alicia Schrikker doesn't usually get involved in urban history. As a senior lecturer, her research field is generally the colonial history of Asia and partly South Africa. So, the fact that she is going to carry out an urban history research project together with colleagues, is something that even she…

The second authors' conference of the General Labour History of Africa (GLHA) project will be held from 10 to 12 December 2015 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

To what extent was labour-induced migration important to the functioning of the towns and cities of Roman Italy?

This project focuses on urban commercial space in Roman Italy and deals with the impact of economic growth on urban communities in the late Republic and the Imperial period (200 BCE – 300 CE).

Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 provides a comprehensive survey of this complex and varied formative period of European history, covering themes as diverse as barbarian migrations, the impact of Christianisation, the formation of nations and states, the emergence of an expansionist commercial…

On 1 November, Stijn Bussels assumed his role as professor of Art History, especially before 1800 at Leiden University. The chair is located at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS).

Who still remembers that Leiden attracted a lot of reds from Suriname during the 1970s? The exhibition ‘Dynamic Suriname’ offers a number of surprising insights on the links between Leiden University and Suriname, which is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its independence this year.

The Discovery of El Greco: The Nationalization of Culture Versus the Rise of Modern Art (1860-1915)

In The Golden Mean of Languages, Alisa van de Haar sheds new light on the debates regarding the form and status of the vernacular in the early modern Low Countries, where both Dutch and French were local tongues. The fascination with the history, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of Dutch and French…

How did African actors engage with the idea of Eurafrica?

Who had a say in making decisions about the natural world, when, how and to what end? How were rights to natural resources established? How did communities handle environmental crises? And how did dealing with the environment have an impact on the power relations in communities?

Antique wooden oars, hard-fought medals and iconic photos from rowing history. An exhibition at Oude UB spotlights key figures and moments from the 145-year history of Njord Royal Student Rowing Club.

As of 1 September Jan-Bart Gewald has been appointed as Professor of Southern African History in the Leiden Institute for History, in conjunction with the African Studies Centre, Leiden.

Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire by Luuk de Ligt and Laurens E. Tacoma (Eds.)

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

With the aid of the General History of Africa (GHA) series of books, PhD candidate Larissa Schulte Nordholt researched what it meant to decolonise the history of Africa. This proved to be a tricky process, which was hampered by politics and lack of funding. PhD defence on 1 December.

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

When you think of squatting, the picture that comes to mind is of young people occupying derelict buildings in big cities. Leiden also has a history of squatting, and that history is very diverse.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

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This year, the Leiden University Institute for History ranks #29 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. With this, the institute ranks as the second best in The Netherlands for the subject History.

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My current research focuses on criminality and gender interactions in nineteenth-century Europe. This project uses a comparative methodology to explain gender constructions in a criminal and in a court setting.

Fighting for the faith, caring for the sick, and praying for the soul of their benefactors were the main tasks of the military orders, who since the time of the crusades were well represented in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages, including the Frisian lands. Especially the Hospitallers and the Teutonic…

The first objective is to create a catalogue raisonée, i.e. a structured database that will store the main attributes of each town in a standardized format database, which will be freely accessible when completed; the second objective is to exploit theories and methods that can help us to understand…