Clementine Pursey

I am a first-year PhD candidate funded by the Learning Anglo-French project, working on women’s contribution to French language instruction in England between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

My thesis focuses on female teachers and students of French in the multilingual landscape of post-Conquest England, with the intention of establishing a better understanding of their notoriously elusive experience of education. This research considers informal methods of teaching in the home in tandem with the education provided by female monastics and the cyclical nature of language acquisition.

Other research interests include female agency in legendary histories, and the intersection between “deviant” bodies in medieval literary texts and modern critical disability theory.

Before I joined Exeter, I completed a BA in French and History at Aberystwyth University (2019-23), and an MLitt in Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews (2023-24).