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My twitter bio says “Tattooed Renaissance Historian”. It’s me all over, really.

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After studying history through GCSE and A-Level, I decided I wanted to be an archaeologist. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I have met both Mick Aston and Phil Harding of Time Team fame. Both of them are completely top blokes. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After completing my A-Levels, I toddled off to University where I studied for my BA in archaeology. They were the best three years of my life, although I wish that I’d decided to carry on with Joint honours archaeology/history. Alas, I decided when it came to my second year that archaeology was my calling. During that time, I began to specialise in the battlefield archaeology of the Seventeenth Century. It became somewhat of an obsession, so much so that I even joined the Sealed Knot re-enactment society. It meant I got to play with replica muskets, and was even in the middle of a pike block after a particularly heavy night of drinking. Anyway, I digress. Despite the fact that I decided to concentrate on Archaeology, it was during these years at University that my interest in the Renaissance grew to a massive extent.

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I was in the Uni library one day and found myself in the section relating to the Italian Renaissance. My eye was immediately drawn to “Cesare Borgia: His Life & Times” by Sarah Bradford. An obsession was born.

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After graduating University, I became the proud owner of a job in commercial archaeology. This was a massive thing for me, having only participated in research digs before I now found myself in the middle of massive building sites. It was the best job I ever had. Sadly, all things must come to an end. And as I was between jobs I began to pick my history books back up again.

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And they pulled me right back in.

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I’ve always been interested in Renaissance history. Picking those books back up reminded me how much I loved it – the corruption, the art, the religion. I’d long been interested in the Borgia family, and picking those books back up again reminded me how much I missed learning about such a vilified family. And so my research started again. I’m sure you’ve all noticed how much I blather on about Cesare Borgia – the man is a hero of mine. But since then my interests have widened. It should be expected when one is researching a family whose head was the Pope. For the past few years I have begun researching the history of the Roman Catholic church, drawn in by the corruption, power and greed of the early papacy. It’s certainly not all religion, that’s for sure.

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I can either be found writing, with my nose stuck in a book or at a gig. Not just any old gig, though. The heavier the better. Or I can be found sipping a glass (or three – not all at once!) of wine.