My research concentrates on the twelfth century, and the intellectual, legal, and political developments associated with the rise of scholasticism and the phenomenon known as the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’. The focus of my work is the connection between theory and practice, between the schools and politics. Or, to put it another way, I ask how twelfth- and thirteenth-century thinkers attempted to understand the Bible and drew on scripture to make sense of, and reform the social and political structures around them. More recently, I have moved into ‘global history’, specifically in relation to Sicily and the Near East, and considering the reception of Arabic traditions of philosophy in medieval Europe.