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Medieval & Renaissance Europe, Germany, England, Historiography, Latin Language & Literature

• Ph.D., European History, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1991
• German Studies, University of Cologne, University of Regensburg, 1988-1989
• M.A., European History, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1985
• M.A., Medieval Studies, The Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, 1984
• B.A., History, Seattle Pacific University, 1982

• Knights, Peasants, and Bandits: A Social History of Medieval England
• Medieval Europe: AD 1000-1500
• Tudor-Stuart England: AD 1400-1700
• Historical Study of Peace
• Research & Reading Seminars: The Crusading Movement, Trial of Joan of Arc, Urban History, Monasticism
• Fundamentals of Latin I and II
• Intermediate Latin (Literature)
• Topics in Latin Literature
• First Year Seminar (Honors Program) -- Reading the Signs: A Cultural History of Early Christian Symbolism

Joseph Huffman is an historian of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.  His research centers on the Rhineland (especially the city of Cologne) and England, with a particular interest in the development of urban institutions and societies and in the inter-regional exchanges between cities.  Dr. Huffman has published books, articles, and reviews in both English and German in Europe as well as in North America.  He teaches courses in Medieval Europe, The Crusading Movement, The Trial of Joan of Arc, Urban History, Medieval England, and Tudor-Stuart England.  He also coordinates the Latin Language and Literature program, and teaches both the foundational Latin courses as well as the third-semester Latin literature course.  In addition to his teaching and research assignments, he has a broad interest in both the humanities as well as in civic outreach, and in this capacity served as the founding Dean of the School of the Humanities and the Director of the Center for Public Humanities. 

Selected Publications

• Medieval Cologne: From Rhineland Metropolis to European City (A.D. 1125-1475) (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg Verlag, 2025).

• “Caritas und die Profitwirtschaft: Hospitalverwaltung und -stiftungspraktiken im mittelalterlichen Köln (ca. 1200-1350),” Geschichte in Köln. Zeitschrift für Stadt- und Regionalgeschichte 71 (2024) 11-53.

• “The Rhenish League of 1254-1257 in Historiographical Perspective,” History Compass 18: 11 (November 2020) 1-12. .

• "Urban Diplomacy: Cologne, the Rhenish League 1254-1257), and the Rhenish Urban League (1381-1389)," in Vincent Baydal and Leonardo Solar, eds., Estructuras institucionales, conflictos y cultura politica en Europa - Institutional Structures, Conflicts, and Political Culture in Europe, 13th -15th Centuries, [Special Issue], Anales de la Universidad de Alicante: Historia Medieval  19 (2015-2016) 193-219.

• "The Donation of Zeno: St. Barnabas and the Origins of the Cypriot Archbishop's Regalia Privileges," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66:2 (April 2015) 1-26.

• "The Medieval Synthesis: Religion, Society, and Culture," in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity eds. Lamin Sanneh and Michael J. McClymond (forthcoming December 2015).

• "Between History and Romance: Teaching Medieval Culture to Undergraduates through Chivalric Biography," Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 17:2 (December 2010) 73-100.

• "Cologne" and "Travel and Mobility," in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages  ed. Robert E. Bjork (Oxford: Oxford University Press, May 2010) I:419; IV: 1650-1651.

• "Freud's Impact on American Culture," in Encyclopedia of Jewish Popular Culture, ed. Jack Fischel (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing, 2008) 150-151.

• "Die sozialen Aspekte der Außenpolitik: Diplomatische Beziehungen zwischen englischen und deutschen Herrschern im 12. Jahrhundert," in Der Weg in eine weitere Welt: Kommunikation und "politisches Handeln" im 12. Jahrhundert ed. Hanna Vollrath [Neue Aspekte der europäischen Mittelalterforschung 2] Münster/Hamburg/Berlin/ Vienna/London: LIT Verlag, 2008) 59-84.

• "Potens et Pauper: Charity and Authority in Jurisdictional Disputes over the Poor in Medieval Cologne," in Plenitude of Power: The Doctrines and Exercise of Authority in the Middle Ages ed. Robert Figueira [Church, Faith, and the Medieval West Series] (Abingdon: Ashgate Publishing, 2006) 107-124.

• The Social Politics of Medieval Diplomacy: Anglo-German Relations (1066-1307) [Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe 7] (University of Michigan Press, 2000).

• Family, Commerce, and Religion in London and Cologne: Anglo-German Emigrants c. 1000- c. 1300 [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, 39] (Cambridge University Press, 1998; Paperback edition: December 2002.

• The Imperial City of Cologne: From Roman Colony to Medieval Metropolis (19 B.C. – A.D. 1125)  [Early Medieval North Atlantic Series] (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018).

Selected Presentations

• “Von der Landesgeschichte zur europäischen Geschichte. Köln im Mittelalter aus einer diasporadeutschen Perspektive in den U.S.A.” at the Historisches Institut: Abteilung für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, University of Cologne, Germany on 8 May 2023.

• “Digitale Geschichtswissenschaft: Einkünfte und Vermögen der mittelalterlichen Kölner Hospitäler durch diachrone Graphik und GPS-Kartierung/Digital History: Income and Assets of Medieval Cologne’s Hospitals Represented through Diachronic Graphs and GPS Mapping” at the Cologne Center for eHumanities, University of Cologne, Germany on 8 May 2023.

• “University Education for Uncertain Times,” keynote address at the opening convocation of the academic year at Messiah University on Tuesday 23 August 2022.

• “History, Memory, and Nostalgia,” at a special session entitled, Approaching Reconciliation through Memory and Method, at the Spring Humanities Symposium at Messiah University on Tuesday 22 February 2022.

• “Pro remedio anime sue: Donations of Women Religious to the Hospital Endowments of Cologne in the Later Middle Ages,” at the 10. Internationale Arbeitskreis geistliche Frauengemeinschaften im europäischen Mittelalter Arbeitstreffen: Aktuelle Forschungsdiskurse und -projekte at Heiligkreuztal Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on 4-6 April 2019.

• “Faith, History, and Race: Messiah College’s Civil Rights Bus Tour,” with Bernardo Michael and Todd Allen at the 31st Biennial Meeting of the Conference on Faith and History at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan on 4-6 October 2018.

• “Homo Viator: Faith on Foot for Those Passing Through the Back Country,” at a special session entitled, Pilgrim’s Progress: Finding Home for Faith through Journeys into History, at the Spring Humanities Symposium at Messiah College on 21 February 2018. “Confession, Identity, and Historiography,” in a roundtable seminar at the 3. Internationale Arbeitskreis geistliche Frauengemeinschaften im europäischen Mittelalter Tagung in Weingarten Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on 22-25 March 2017.

• “Confession, Identity, and Historiography,” in a roundtable seminar at the 3. Internationale Arbeitskreis geistliche Frauengemeinschaften im europäischen Mittelalter Tagung in Weingarten Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on 22-25 March 2017.

• Senior Public Humanities Fellow (Center for the Public Humanities) for the Genetic Ancestry Project (2014-2015) whose results will be presented at the Annual Spring Humanities Symposium at Messiah College on the theme of "Race in America" in February 2015.