Cecilia Gaposchkin
Professor
Appointments
Charles A. and Elfriede A. Collis Professor in History
Area of Expertise
Medieval cultural history,
French history,
Saints and sanctity,
Visual culture,
Liturgy,
Crusades, the History of the Crusades, and the Latin East,
Kingship,
Relics,
Paris,
The Abbey of St.-Denis
Biography
Cecilia Gaposchkin received her Ph.D. from Berkeley in 2001. She works on late medieval cultural history, and has published on the crusades, on the Capetian kings of France (987-1328), on kingship, and on liturgy. Her most recent book is Vexilla Regis: Liturgy and Relics at the Sainte Chapelle in the Thirteenth Century (CNRS: 2022). She is also the author of Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Cornell UP, 2017), The Making of Saint Louis (IX) of France: Kingship, Sanctity and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (Cornell UP, 2008), Blessed Louis, The Most Glorious of Kings: Texts relating to the Cult of Saint Louis of France (Notre Dame: 2012; translations done with Phyllis Katz), and, with Sean Field and Larry Field, The Sanctity of Louis IX: Early Lives of Saint Louis by Geoffrey of Beaulieu and William of Chartres (Cornell UP: 2014), and The Deeds of Philip Augustus : An English Translation of Rigord's "Gesta Phillipi Augusti" (Cornell UP: 2022). Sh co-edits, with Anne Lester (Cornell University Press) the Medieval Religions, Societies, and Cultures series at Cornell University Press. She is also one of the coeditors for the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Crusades (3 volumes). She has won the support of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), the National Humanities Foundation, and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center (Princeton University), among others. She is currently working on the relics of St.-Denis, on liturgy and ceremony in thirteenth-century Paris, and on the long history of the Cross Invincible.
Education
B.A. University of Michigan (1992)
M.A. University of California at Berkeley (1996)
Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley (2001)
Taught Courses
Publications
"Notre Dame of Paris, Ansel's True Cross of 1120, and the Power of Relic Narratives." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 76 (2025), 723-759.
"St.-Denis, the Capetians, Religion, and Political Culture." Journal of Medieval History 50 (2025), 452-465.
"La couronne d'épines et le royaume de France." Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance 97 (2023), 29-67.
"Louis IX and the Triumphal Cross of Constantine." French Historical Studies 46/1 (2023), 3-35.
With Sean Field and Larry Field. The Deeds of Philip Augustus : An English Translation of Rigord's "Gesta Phillipi Augusti" (2022).
Vexilla Regis Glorie: Liturgy and Relics at the Sainte Chapelle in the Thirteenth Century. Sources d'histoire médievale 46. CNRS éditions. Paris: 2022.
"Nivelon of Quierzy, the Cathedral of Soissons, and the relics of 1205: Liturgy and Devotion in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade," Speculum 95/4 (October 2020), pp. 1087-1129. On-line appendixes for Speculum 95/4 article found at: https://doi.org/10.1086/710547, pp. 1-38.
Between Historical Narration and Liturgical Celebrations: Gautier Cornut and the Reception of the Crown of Thorns in France, Revue Mabillon n.s. 30 (=v. 91), 2019, 90-145.
With Iris Shagrir, edited., Liturgy and Devotion in the Crusader States. London: Routledge (2019).
Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (2017)
"From Pilgrimage to Crusade: The Liturgy of Departure, 1095-1300." Speculum 88.1 (2013), 44-91.
With Sean Field and Larry Field. The Sanctity of Louis IX: Early Lives of Saint Louis by Geoffrey of Beaulieu and Louis IX (2014).
Blessed Louis, Most Glorious of Kings: Texts Relating to the Cult of Saint Louis of France (2012). Translation with Phyllis Katz.
The Role of the Crusades in the Sanctification of Louis IX of France. In Crusades: Medieval Words in Conflict. T. Madden (ed.), (2010) 195-209.
The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Late Middle Ages (2008, pbk 2010).
"Portals, Pilgrimage, Processions and Piety: Saints Firmin and Honoré at Amiens," in The Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage, S Blick and R Tepikke (eds.), (2004) 218-242.
"The King of France and the Queen of Heaven: the Iconography of the Porte Rouge of Notre-Dame of Paris." Gesta 39:1 (2000) 58-72.
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