Joshua Rice

Joshua completed a BA in History (First Class Honours) from Royal Holloway in 2018 and remained to do an MA in Medieval Studies (Distinction). Joshua is currently the Amy Buller Scholar at Cumberland Lodge, an educational charity that aims to build more peaceful, open, and inclusive societies. On top of this, he teaches the history of political thought on the University of London’s E-degree. 

Joshua’s PhD research is titled “Heresy, Power and Identity: An Examination of Public Debates in Southern France” and focuses on public debates held between Church officials and alleged heretics in southern France in the periods before and after the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229). During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Church sought to eradicate heresy through a variety of different methods such as crusade, inquisition, public execution, and public debates.  

A central question within Joshua’s research is the need to understand why a period of seemingly free discussion, and apparent toleration, was interrupted by a crusade that witnessed horrific acts of violence such as the massacre at Beziers (1209) and the burning of men and women because they were accused of holding unorthodox religious beliefs.