Daniel E. Thiery, Ph.D.

Dr. Dan Thiery is Director of the Honors Program, a Professor of Medieval History and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has taught continually in the Honors Program since his arrival in Fall 2003. Thiery specializes in scholarship and courses covering Medieval, Renaissance and Reformation history as well as the history of attitudes toward violence from prehistory to the present. Since its creation in 2004, Thiery’s unique course, The History of Violence, has attracted students from many majors beyond the Humanities.

Daniel E. Thiery, Professor of Medieval History, received his Ph.D. in Medieval Studies in 2003 from the Center for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto. He is author of the study, Polluting the Sacred: Violence, Faith and the 'Civilizing' of Parishioners in Late Medieval England (2009) and co-editor of the collection of essays, "A Great Effusion of Blood'? Interpreting Medieval Violence (2004). Dr. Thiery’s prior research has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Richard III Society and Medieval Academy of America. In 2015, Dr. Thiery was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in recognition of the impact of his scholarship on audiences beyond his immediate scholastic peers. He has taught in the Honors Program since his arrival in Fall 2003. Thiery specializes in scholarship and courses on Medieval, Renaissance and Reformation history as well as the history of attitudes toward violence from prehistory to the present. Since its creation in 2004, Thiery’s unique course, The History of Violence, has attracted students from many majors beyond the Humanities. Dr. Thiery has been researching and writing a book based on this course provisionally titled Heroic Restraint: A History of Violence.  

Thiery also was the founding director of the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona (ITPS), as well as the honored recipient of Faculty Speaker of the Year and the Faculty Senate Senior Faculty Award. An avid runner, he also served as faculty advisor for the Iona Cross Country team from 2003-2015.  

In his free time, Thiery has taken up his longstanding interest in archaeology, analyzing LiDAR  and helping train AI on the initial Deep Time Project, acting as a ‘Mission Leader’ on recent Deep Time Projects, doing field-work at the early medieval monastery of Lindisfarne and completing courses in archaeological practice through the University of Oxford; human osteoarchaeology through the  University of Leiden; and the archaeology of Hadrian’s Wall  through Newcastle University.

Reviews of Polluting the Sacred

"This is a fascinating short work on a large and important subject, the influence of Christian belief on violent behaviour in the Middle Ages...thoughtful scholarship brought imaginatively to bear on sometimes very vivid sources...this is an excellent book which deserves to be widely read." - James Sharpe (Journal of Ecclesiastical History), author of A Fiery and Furious People: A History of Violence in England

"It is clever, learned and current with the literature. For a book that is partly intellectual, theological, cultural and social history, the author certainly had numerous decisions to make concerning coverage of topics and issues. Given the ambitious subject matter, his overall analytical framework coheres nicely...The main body of the work is well-written and the arguments convincing...Thiery has produced an innovative and sophisticated book that draws from many important sources for people doing late medieval English religious and social history..." - Gary Gibbs (Journal of Social History)

"Thiery's book on late medieval English parishioners assigns religion its rightful place in 'the civilizing process'" - Mary Alberi (Pace University), Church History

• HON 150: Cornerstone
• HON 200: Humanities Inquiry I (prehistory to 500 AD)
• HON 250: Humanities Inquiry II (500-1700 AD)
• HON 101: Humanities Seminar- The Ancient World
• HON 102: Humanities Seminar – The Medieval World
• HON 201: Humanities Seminar – The Early Modern Period
• HST 101: The Evolution of Western Civilization
• HST 215: Medieval Europe (formerly HST 343)
• HST 216: History of Violence (formerly HST 345)
• HST 250: The Age of Iona: Celtic Monasticism from its Golden Age through the
  Viking Age
• HST 290 or HST 491: Special topics in history: (usually “Medieval England”)
• HST 301: The Study of History
• HST 346: Renaissance and Reformation History
• HST 491: Special topics in history
• HST 497: Capstone in History

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