Sebastian Sobecki

Sobecki is professor of later medieval English literature at the University of Toronto. Prior to that, he was professor of medieval English literature and culture at the University of Groningen, the oldest chair (founded in 1886) for English literature in the Netherlands.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fV3w7EOWUQkC&q=1886|title=One Hundred Years of English Studies in Dutch Universities: Seventeen Papers Read at the Centenary Conference, Groningen, 15-16 January 1986|last=Bunt|first=Gerrit|date=1986|publisher=Rodopi|access-date=2018-09-22|isbn=978-9062037896}} At Groningen he also held by courtesy the Professorship of Old Germanic, established in 1881. Having received his education at the University of Cambridge, Sobecki became an assistant professor at McGill University before being appointed at Groningen. He works on late medieval English literature, particularly on literary history; handwriting, archives, and manuscripts; authorship and literary culture; law and literature; political writing and intellectual history; and travel and global medieval literature. Sobecki was awarded the John Hurt Fisher Prize by the John Gower Society and has held fellowships from Harvard University, Yale University, All Souls College Oxford, Magdalen College Oxford, and the Huntington Library.{{Cite web|url=https://www.rug.nl/staff/s.i.sobecki/|title=Department of English, University of Groningen|access-date=2018-09-22}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.wcu.edu/johngower/FisherPrize/index.html|title=John Hurt Fisher Prize|access-date=2018-09-24}}

Sobecki has written widely on medieval and early modern topics, and his articles have appeared in leading journals, including Speculum, English Literary History, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Renaissance Studies, The English Historical Review, The Chaucer Review, The Library, New Medieval Literatures, and The Review of English Studies.{{Cite web|url=https://www.rug.nl/staff/s.i.sobecki/research/publications.html|title=Department of English, University of Groningen, Sobecki, Publications|access-date=2018-09-22}} Together with Michelle Karnes (University of Notre Dame), Sobecki is the editor of the periodical Studies in the Age of Chaucer.{{Cite web|url=http://newchaucersociety.org/pages/entry/sac|title=Studies in the Age of Chaucer (SAC)|access-date=2019-01-04}} Sobecki is also editing Medieval Travel Writing: A Global History (Cambridge University Press).{{Cite web|url=https://www.rug.nl/staff/s.i.sobecki/projects|title=Department of English, University of Groningen, Sobecki, Projects|access-date=2018-09-22}}

He has made a number of important archival discoveries, such as identifying John Gower's autograph hand,{{Cite web|url=http://www.medievalists.net/2015/10/john-gowers-handwriting-identified/|title=John Gower's Handwriting identified|date=2015-10-22|access-date=2018-09-22}} finding a letter written for Margery Kempe's son,{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/08/archive-find-shows-medieval-mystic-margery-kempes-autobiography-doesnt-lie|title=Archive find shows medieval mystic Margery Kempe's autobiography 'doesn't lie'|last=Flood|first=Alison|date=2015-05-08|website=The Guardian|access-date=2018-09-22}} locating rebels linked to Piers Plowman,{{Cite web|url=https://blog.oup.com/2018/02/poaching-piers-plowman/|title=Poaching with Piers Plowman|date=2018-02-09|access-date=2018-09-22}} revealing the author (John Peyton) of the earliest English description of Poland,{{Cite web|url=http://www.newhistorian.com/espionage-in-early-modern-central-europe-revealed/4013/|title=Espionage in Early Modern Central Europe Revealed|last=Thake|first=Adam Steedman|date=2015-06-09|access-date=2018-09-22}}{{Cite web|url=http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/european/2015/05/how-the-spy-john-peyton-put-poland-on-the-map.html|title=How the spy John Peyton put Poland on the map (to keep King James on the throne)|date=2015-05-29|website=British Library|access-date=2018-09-22}} and demonstrating connections between tax records and the General Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.{{Cite web|url=http://www.medievalists.net/2018/06/six-degrees-of-chaucer-how-southwark-shaped-the-canterbury-tales/|title=Six Degrees of Chaucer: How Southwark Shaped The Canterbury Tales|last=Cybulskie|first=Danièle|date=2018-06-04|access-date=2018-09-22}} Together with Euan Roger of the UK's National Archives, he published two new life records that show that Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne were not on opposing sides of the law in the spring of 1380 but co-defendants in a labour dispute.{{Cite journal |last1=Roger |first1=Euan |last2=Sobecki |first2=Sebastian |date=2022 |title=Geoffrey Chaucer, Cecily Chaumpaigne, and the Statute of Laborers: New Records and Old Evidence Reconsidered |url=https://doi.org/10.5325/chaucerrev.57.4.0407 |journal=Chaucer Review |volume=57 |issue=4 |pages=407–437|doi=10.5325/chaucerrev.57.4.0407 |s2cid=252866367 |doi-access=free }} Sobecki is also the voice behind the popular video recording of John Skelton's 'Speke Parott'.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-29536411|title=#BBCtrending: The 500-year-old poem that captivated Reddit|date=2014-10-08|work=BBC News|access-date=2018-09-22}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.indy100.com/article/heres-what-the-english-language-sounded-like-500-years-ago--b1leV6aXmLg|title=Here's what the English language sounded like 500 years ago|last=Stewart|first=Ellen|date=2015|work=The Independent|access-date=2018-09-22}}

• The Case of Geoffrey Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne: New Evidence, issue of Chaucer Review 57:4 (2022) (with Euan Roger)
• An Edition of Miles Hogarde's A Mirroure of Myserie (New York: Punctum, 2021) {{ISBN|9781953035530}}
• Last Words: The Public Self and the Social Author in Late Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019 {{ISBN|9780198790785|9780198790778}}
• The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) (with Candace Barrington) {{ISBN|9781316632345}}
• Medieval English Travel: A Critical Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) (with Anthony Bale) {{ISBN|9780192848604|9780198733782}}
• A Critical Companion to John Skelton (Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2018) (with John Scattergood) {{ISBN|9781843845133}}
• Our Sea of Islands: New Approaches to British Insularity in the Late Middle Ages, issue of Postmedieval 7:4 (2016) (with Matthew Boyd Goldie)
• Unwritten Verities: The Making of England’s Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463-1549, ReFormations: Medieval and Early Modern (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015) {{ISBN|9780268041458}}
• The Sea and Englishness in the Middle Ages: Maritime Narratives, Identity, and Culture (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011) {{ISBN|9781843842767}}
• The Sea and Medieval English Literature, Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Brewer, 2008) {{ISBN|9781843841371}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Sobecki |first=Sebastian |author-mask=2 |date=2024-07-01 |title=Quo vadis , Adam Pinkhurst? Scripts, Scribes, and the Limits of Paleography: A Response Essay |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/730765 |journal=Speculum |language=en |volume=99 |issue=3 |pages=780–804 |doi=10.1086/730765 |issn=0038-7134}}

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• {{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCckcTHWqKw |title=John Skelton's "Speke Parott" |date=2014-10-07 |last=The Skelton Project |access-date=2024-06-27 |via=YouTube}}

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Category:Living people

Category:1973 births

Category:British historians

Category:Literary scholars

Category:Medievalists

Category:Chaucer scholars