Alexander Callander Murray

The areas of Professor Murray's research interests are Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, with particular reference to the Late Roman Empire and Merovingian Gaul.

His work largely concerns the social, institutional, and legal history of the period and its medieval and modern historiography. He has written a monograph on kinship, which includes extensive treatment of Lex Salica (1983), edited two books of essays (1998 and 2016) and translated and edited two books of primary source material (2000 and 2006). His articles and chapter-length studies on Merovingian institutions concern the grafio (1986), the centena or hundred (1988), the Edict of Paris and immunity (1994 and 2010), Merovingian diplomas (2005), and the royal placita as alleged records of ‘fictitious trials’ or Scheinprozesse (2011). Two studies deal broadly with the character of the Merovingian State (2001, rpt 2006; and 2016b) and two with the modern construct ‘sacral kingship’ as an alleged attribute of the Merovingian kings (1998 and 2016c). While all these works deal at some length with the historiography of their subjects, dedicated studies on historiography deal with the modern construct of ‘ethnogenesis’ as espoused by Vienna (2002) and the compositional chronology of the Histories of the 6th-century bishop Gregory of Tours (2008 and 2016a). Some early work concerns historical context in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf  (1970 and 1982).

Professor Murray’s publications over the years have appeared under the name Alexander Callander Murray, Alexander C. Murray, and A.C. Murray.

See Professor Murray's full list of publications on his University of Toronto Mississauga profile page.