Dr. Samuel Cardwell received his PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto in 2023, supported by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. He previously completed an MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and undergraduate degrees in History, Classics and French at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. 

Cardwell’s dissertation studied the development of the idea of evangelisation from the early Church to the eighth century AD. These centuries saw the conversion of the peoples of north-western Europe to Christianity, arguably the single most important historical transformation of the early Middle Ages. However, the intellectual underpinnings of these events – the development of the idea that Christians ought intentionally to go out and convert ‘pagan’ peoples to their faith – had not previously been studied in detail. Cardwell argued that this new idea emerged slowly and fitfully from the fifth to the eighth centuries, finding its first synthesis in the writings of the Venerable Bede (672/3–735). 

Samuel’s research has been published in journals including The Journal of Medieval History, Anglo-Saxon England, Studia Celtica and Parergon. He is currently developing his dissertation into a monograph.