Adam Franklin-Lyons

Dr. Adam Franklin-Lyons is interested in almost anything medieval. He first worked in archives in Catalonia and Valencia investigating famines in the Western Mediterranean, resulting in several articles and the monograph, Shortage and Famine in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon (Penn State Press, 2022). This work looks at the social influences and the multi-causal character of late medieval famine using contemporary ideas of complex human disasters (or “Complex Humanitarian Emergencies” in modern disaster relief debates.) Thinking about medieval famines this way brings questions of poverty, poor relief, social desires, and economic power to a medieval debate more often centered around population and land use.

Currently, he participates in the Travelers Lab at Wesleyan University. The lab uses computer-based analysis, especially GIS, to study patterns of mobility and communication. As part of the lab, Dr. Franklin-Lyons has worked on a co-authored volume tentatively titled, History of News in the Middle Ages, under contract with Palgrave Press. His current projects with the lab look at the development of courier communications, methods of coastal surveillance, and their relationship to the administrative state (all still centered on the Crown of Aragon in the 14th century). The lab also invites undergraduates to participate directly in faculty research projects.