Positionality in 12th Century Historians: Authors and Ӕthelflӕd

UCalgary History Undergraduate student, Julianna Holmes, was recipient of a PURE Award in summer 2025. PURE is an exceptional undergraduate research experience that empowers UCalgary students to gain mentorship and learn valuable skills for their future. It provides funding for undergraduate students in all disciplines to embark on an eight-, 12- or 16-week summer research project with a supervisor in a field they are passionate about.

Julianna was supervised by Dr. Courtnay Konshuh, and this is the blog post she she wrote about her project:

My historical PURE research that took place over the summer of 2025, which I speak of in my podcast, “Positionality in 12^th Century Historians: Authors and Ӕthelflӕd”, explores the importance of understanding the positionality of Medieval English historians before attempting to extract ideas from their works. In my podcast, I delve into the lives of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and of Ӕthelflӕd, Lady of the Mercians. It may be confusing, how a ruler from the 10^th century connecst to historians in the 12^th. William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, the two historians that I focus on, were prolific and influential historians, with their works still being used for information today, and one of the people they both wrote about was Ӕthelflӕd. 

Ӕthelflӕd ruled Mercia independently as Lady of the Mercians from 911-918 CE, with her reign being full of military conquests and battles with Vikings. In my podcast I look at how Ӕthelflӕd was depicted in William and Henry’s writings about her and how this shows their positionality as historians and writers. What actually shapes a person’s positionality, though? Things such as political affiliations, ethnic identity, religious beliefs, gender, race, and class all shape one’s positionality. Not only was I looking at William and Henry’s positionality, but I was also identifying my own at the same time. 

While positionality can lead to biases, they are not the same thing. Positionality is the way we see the world based on life experiences, while bias is a prejudice against or for certain people or things that grow when we fail to recognize our positionality. This is an important distinction and one I had to understand very early on in my research. I was not looking at the biases that William and Henry held, although they are touched on occasionally throughout my podcast. I was looking at and trying to understand their positionality so that I can understand why they wrote Ӕthelflӕd and other women the way that they did. My case study on William, Henry and Ӕthelflӕd not only shows the positionality of these historians, but it illuminates the importance of understanding the positionality of an author of any piece of writing that we use. During my first semester of classes, I had the misconception that history books were only ever objective, when in actuality, the positionality of people who lived a thousand years ago still colours how we learn history today. 

In my podcast “Positionality in 12^th Century Historians: Authors and Ӕthelflӕd” I cover all this and more, including some amusing anecdotes as well. I was interviewed by a colleague in the Department of English, Bella Reyes.