Chris Lay is a temporary Lecturer in Medieval and Tudor studies in the Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, where he is responsible for convening the BA modules 'Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Literature' and 'Pagans, Infidels and Jews', the MA module 'Medieval Narratives', as well as contributing to the teaching of the MA core course in 'Medieval Cultures'.

Chris's research interests concern the literary and material culture of the later Middle Ages in England, and its afterlife in the early-modern period and beyond. He works on the manuscript and print culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the transmission and reception of texts; and the effect of the Renaissance and Reformation upon changes in reading practices, particularly in the evidence provided by annotations, marginalia, and commonplace books. His doctoral thesis uses one particular manuscript, Lambeth Palace Library MS 306, as a case-study to explore all these issues and more. Chris's other interests include medieval and Renaissance palaeography; Tudor antiquarianism and historiography, sixteenth-century chronicles and the rise of the diary; and the dissemination and reception of political verse in all its various material forms in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He has published an article on the notes of John Stow in Lambeth MS 306 in 'English Manuscript Studies 1200-1700', vol. 14 (2008).

Chris studied for his BA at Queen Mary, University of London; his MRes and PhD degrees, both funded by the AHRC, were studied in the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, where he also contributed to teaching on courses ranging from Medieval Literature (2006-7) and Literatures in Time: 8th-16th Centuries (2007-8), to Shakespeare (2006-7) and King Arthur (2007-8). In 2005-6 he also co-taught Beginners' Latin to postgraduate students studying the MRes and MA in Renaissance Studies.

[updated 19/09/08]