Past and present

Frans Camphuijsen (1987) finished a Bachelor's degree (2009; cum laude ) and a Research Master's degree (2011; cum laude ) in History at the University of Amsterdam. Between 2011 and 2016 Frans was employed as both a lecturer and PhD-candidate at the section of Medieval History of the same university. In the context of his PhD research he has spent prolonged periods of time abroad, both as visiting PhD student at the Center for Medieval Studies of the University of York and as hôte scientifique at the Parisian École normale supérieure. He has furthermore held a teaching position in Medieval History at Leiden University in 2016/2017. Frans currently works as lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Amsterdam.

Research

In January 2017, Frans succesfully defended his PhD-thesis entitled: Scripting justice: legal practice and communication in the late medieval law courts of Utrecht, York and Paris. On the basis of records of judicial practice, the thesis presents a comparative history of the communicative practices of three diverse late medieval law courts: the Council of Utrecht, the Consistory Court of York and the Parlement of Paris. By considering these institutions from various angles (eg. as spatial entities, as places of operation, as text-producers and as socio-legal communities) it tries to explain their success in claiming a dominant role in societies' understandings of justice as well as the implications thereof for historians' views of the premodern period.

Teaching

As lecturer Frans teaches courses in the BA and MA in History. Subjects taught include:

- General medieval history

- Source criticism

- Minorities and marginality

- Premodern urban history

- History of (public) punishment

- Crusading

- World history

- History of Science/Historiography

Center for Medieval Studies Amsterdam

The Center for Medieval Studies Amsterdam (CMSA) was founded in 2010 as a platform for collaboration among medievalist across different fields at the University of Amsterdam . To read more follow the link below.