Associate Professor of History
Office: 407 Carson Hall
Office Phone: (603) 646-2992
Fax: (603) 646-3353
Email: Walter.Simons@Dartmouth.edu
Address:
Growing up in Bruges, one of the most beautiful medieval cities in Europe, Walter Simons never had any doubt in his mind that he wanted to be a medievalist. He was trained as a historian in Belgium and at the Center for Medieval Studies in Poitiers, France, before receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Ghent, Bruges' arch-rival from the Middle Ages. A very medieval academic peregrination brought him from his native Flanders to the United States, which he finds not very medieval but all the more fascinating. He teaches Intellectual and Cultural History of the Middle Ages, Medieval France, Gender in European Society from Antiquity to the Reformation, while collaborating in History 3. His research has centered on the social environment of religious movements in the high and late middle ages, with an additional interest in popular culture, art, and-as a sidestep into the 20th century-the First World War. He has just finished a book about lay women and religion in the medieval Low Countries and is now working on a cultural history of weaving in medieval Europe.
