Dr Iain MacInnes

Biography content

Biography

Senior Lecturer

Man wearing a flat cap and peacoat smiling at the camera

tel: 01847 889 629

I completed my PhD at the University of Aberdeen in the summer of 2008. Having completed my MA and MPhil at the University of Glasgow, my research at Aberdeen focussed on the period of the Second Scottish Wars of Independence (1332-1357), with particular interest in the conduct and behaviour of Scottish and English forces at war. I joined the Centre for History in January 2009 and have taken on roles as module leader and programme leader at various times for both undergraduate and postgraduate modules and programmes, and supervise three PhD students. I am also currently Associate Dean for Humanities and Applied Social Science with Gaelic

Research content

Research

Research

My research is focused on medieval Scottish political and military history. My first monograph and subsequent research have focused largely on the Second Scottish Wars of Independence (1332-1357), although I have also written about the First War of Independence, and am now expanding my research into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as I examine the treatment of rebels and traitors in medieval Scotland. Areas of research interest within which I am happy to oversee PhD students include the above, as well as the following:

  • Anglo-Scottish Relations
  • The Scottish Wars of Independence
  • The Hundred Years’ War
  • Medieval Warfare and Military History
  • Chivalry and Conduct in War
  • Revolt and Rebellion in medieval Scotland and England
  • Modern Popular Culture and the Depiction of 'the medieval'
Publications content

Publications

Publications

(with Morvern French)  ‘Another Damsel in Distress? Katherine Beaumont, a Disinherited noblewoman in fourteenth-century Scotland’, in Gender in Scotland, 1200-1800: Place, Faith and Politics, ed. Janay Nugent, Cathryn Spence and Mairi Cowan (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), 179-192.

(with Morvern French) ‘Katherine Beaumont, Countess of Atholl, and the Second Scottish War of Independence (c. 1327–c. 1336)’, Scottish Historical Review, 102(3) (2023), pp. 333-366

‘‘Be at peace with God and me’: Violence, War and Royal Responses to Insurrection in Medieval Scotland, c.1100-1286’, in Peacemaking and the Restraint of Violence in Medieval Europe (1100-1300), ed. Simon Lebouteiller and Louisa Taylor (Routledge, 2023), pp. 65-85

‘The world as it was/could have been? The depiction and (re)interpretation of medieval history in “Jour J”’, in Drawing the Past, Volume 2: Comics and the Historical Imagination in the World, edited by Dorian Alexander, Michael Goodrum, and Philip Smith (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2022).

"Scotland's Second War of Indpendence (1332-1357)", History Scotland (2021)

  • Part 1: Two Kings in One Kingdom (January/February 2021), pp. 10-15.
  • Part 2: Intensification and Insurrection, 1333-1337 (March/April 2021), pp. 40-45.
  • Part 3: Recovering the Kingdom, 1337-1341 (May/June 2021), pp. 48-52.
  • Part 4: The Return of the King (1341-1346) (September/October 2021) 
  • Part 5: In the Shadow of Neville's Cross (1346-1357) (November/December 2021)

‘“A somewhat too cruel vengeance was taken for the blood of the slain”: Royal Punishment of Rebels, Traitors, and Political Enemies in Medieval Scotland, c.1100–c.1250’, in Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame, ed. Larissa Tracy (Leiden: Brill, 2019).

'"All I ever wanted was to fight for a lord I believed in. But the good lords are dead and the rest are monsters." Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and the Chivalric ‘Other’', in Queenship and the Women of Westeros: Female Agency and Advice in ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, ed. Zita E. Rohr and Lisa Benz (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

'"I can piss on Calais from Dover": Adaptation and Medievalism in Graphic Novel Depictions of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453)', in From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past, ed. Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), pp. 154-70.

‘“A clash of arms to be eternally remembered”: The depiction of war and chivalry during the Hundred Years War in “Le Trône d'Argile” and “Crécy”’, in Cultures of War in Graphic Novels, ed. T. Prorokova and N. Tal (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018), pp. 23-40

‘‘For He Bestirred Himself to Protect the Land from the Moors’: Depicting the Medieval Reconquista in Modern Spanish Graphic Novels’, European Comic Art, 11(1) (2018), pp. 48-65. Reprinted in Spanish Comics: Historical and Cultural Perspectives, ed. Anne Magnussen (New York: Bergahn, 2020), pp. 125-142.

‘(Not) Learning the Lessons of War? The Scottish Experience of Conflict in the Second War of Independence (1332-1357)’, Estonian Yearbook of Military History, 7(13) (2017), pp. 36-59.

‘“One man slashes, one slays, one warns, one wounds”: Injury and Death in Anglo-Scottish Combat, c.1296-c.1403’ in Killing and Being Killed: Bodies in Battle: Perspectives on Fighters in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Rogge (Bielefeld: Verlag, 2017), pp. 59-75.

Scotland's Second War of Independence, 1332-1357 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016).

‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes: Injury and death in Anglo-Scottish combat, c.1296- c.1403’, in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. L. Tracy and K. DeVries (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 102-27.

‘“A fine great company of good men, well armed and equipped”: Barbour's description of Scottish Arms and Armour in The Bruce’, in Battles and Bloodshed: Representations of War in the Middles Ages, ed. L. Bleach, K. Borrill and K. Närä (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).

‘‘To subject the north of the country to his rule’: Edward III and the ‘Lochindorb chevauchée’ of 1336’, Northern Scotland, 3 (2012), pp. 16-31.

‘Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Bruce? Balliol Scots and ‘English Scots’ during the Second Scottish War of Independence’, in The Soldier Experience in the Fourteenth Century, ed. A.R. Bell, A. Curry, A. Chapman, A. King and D. Simpkin (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2011), pp. 129-44.

‘To be annexed forever to the English Crown’: The English Occupation of Southern Scotland, c.1334-37, in England and Scotland at War: New Perspectives, ed. A. King and D. Simpkin (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 183-201.

‘Shock and Awe:  The use of terror as a psychological weapon during the Bruce-Balliol Civil War, 1332-38’ in A. King and M. Penman, eds., England and Scotland in the Fourteenth Century: New Perspectives (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), pp. 40-59.

Teaching content

Teaching

Teaching

I have developed materials for and teach on the following undergraduate and postgraduate modules, many of which relate directly to my own areas of research interest and expertise:

  • Scottish History, 1066-1603 (1st year)
  • The Middle Age? Europe, c.1100-c.1500 (1st year)
  • Scotland, the North Sea and the Baltic (2nd year)
  • Crown-Magnate Relations in Later Medieval Northern Scotland (3rd year)
  • War and Chivalry in Later Medieval Britain and France (3rd year)
  • A clash of civilisations: The Crusades, c.1096-1198 (3rd year)
  • A Society at War? Scotland, 1100-1400 (3rd year)
  • War cruel and sharp: A military history of the Hundred Years' War (4th year)
  • Noble, Rebel, King: Robert Bruce and Medieval Scotland (4th year)
  • Scotland’s Second War of Independence, 1332-1357 (4th year)
  • Through a glass darkly: The medieval in film (4th year)
  • The Lordship of the Isles (Masters)
Additional activities content

Additional activities

Additional activities

I am a member of the Society of Scottish Medievalists. I am also on the board of trustees of the academic peer-reviewed journal Northern Scotland, and a former member of the board of trustees for the Scottish Historical Review Trust.

Podcasts