Susan Elizabeth Brigden (born 26 June 1951) is a historian and academic specialising in the English Renaissance and Reformation. She was Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lincoln College, before retiring at the end of 2016.
Academic career
Brigden was educated at the University of Manchester (BA) and Clare College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a PhD in 1979. Her doctoral supervisor was the eminent Tudor historian Geoffrey Elton, and her thesis was titled 'The early Reformation in London, 1520-1547: the conflict in the parishes'.
She stated that her interest in Tudor history was "rather accidental". She missed out on her first choice special subject at the University of Manchester and was instead allocated to a paper on the Reformation taught by Christopher Haigh. Her interest in the period grew from there and she wrote her undergraduate thesis on the Pilgrimage of Grace.
In 1980, Brigden was elected the first Darby Fellow in History at Lincoln College. In 1985 she became the first woman to be elected to a Tutorial Fellowship at the college. In 1984 she became a university lecturer in the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. She later became Reader in Early Modern History.
In addition to her teaching duties at Lincoln College, Brigden held a variety of college offices, including Garden Master, Tutor for Women, Fellow for Alumni Relations, Welfare Dean and Sub-Rector.
Prior to arriving at Lincoln Brigden taught at Newcastle University and Durham University.
Among Brigden's former doctoral students are Alexandra Gajda of Jesus College, Oxford and Lucy Wooding, who succeeded Brigden as Lincoln College's early modern history tutor in 2016.
Broadcasting
In May 2024 Brigden appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time discussing the life of Thomas Wyatt alongside Laura Ashe and Brian Cummings.
Honours
Brigden won the Wolfson History Prize in 2013 for her book Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest. In 2014 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. She is also an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).
Personal life
Brigden is married to Jeremy Wormell.
Publications
- London and the Reformation (1989)
- New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603 (2000)
- Thomas Wyatt: the Heart's Forest (2012)
References
