Christopher Haigh

Christopher Haigh
Born (1944-08-28) 28 August 1944 (age 82)
OccupationsHistorian and academic
SpouseAlison Wall
Children2
Academic background
EducationChurchill College, Cambridge
Victoria University of Manchester
InfluencesGeoffrey Elton
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
Sub-discipline
InstitutionsUniversity of Manchester
Christ Church, Oxford

Christopher A. Haigh FRHistS (born 28 August 1944) is a British historian specialising in religion and politics around the English Reformation. Until his retirement in 2009, he was Student and Tutor in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford and University Lecturer at Oxford University. He was educated at Churchill College, Cambridge and the Victoria University of Manchester. Haigh was a very influential revisionist in Tudor historiography and on the English Reformation. Haigh's writings mostly demonstrated that, contrary to orthodox understandings of the English Reformation, religious reform was extremely complex and varied considerably at a parish level. Haigh has also been noted for his work in diminishing the significance attributed to anticlericalism prior to 1530. His revisionism formed part of a broader wave in Tudor historiography with other historians such as Eamon Duffy and also formed the basis for the theory of the long reformation.

Personal life

Haigh is married to fellow historian Alison Wall.

Works

References

  1. ↑ Christopher Haigh (2007). The Plain Man's Pathways to Heaven: Kinds of Christianity in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199216505. p. v: I didn't see myself as another Geoffrey Elton, but as I had been taught and much influenced by him it seemed obvious to tackle the job of writing as he did.
  2. ↑ "List of Fellows (February 2024)" (PDF). Royal Historical Society. Retrieved 23 April 2025.
  3. ↑ Tom Betteridge (2003) Recent English Reformation Historiography: People, Places and Processes, Reformation, 8:1, 199-211, 199.
  4. ↑ Tom Betteridge (2003) Recent English Reformation Historiography: People, Places and Processes, Reformation, 8:1, 199-211, 200
  5. ↑ HAIGH, CHRISTOPHER. "ANTICLERICALISM AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION." History 68, no. 224 (1983): 391-407. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24417597.
  6. ↑ Taylor, Stephen (2025). "The long Reformation: conceptualisation and periodisation in English religious history between the 16th and 18th centuries" (PDF). East Asian Journal of British History. 9: 102.
  7. ↑ Christopher Haigh (2007). The Plain Man's Pathways to Heaven: Kinds of Christianity in Post-Reformation England, 1570-1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. vii. ISBN 9780199216505.