David W. Rollason is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and medievalist. He is a Professor in history at Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

. He specialises in the cult of saints, the history of Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

 and in the historical writings of Durham, most notably producing a modern edition and translation of the Libellus de exordio

Libellus de exordio

The Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie , in short Libellus de exordio, is a historical work of marked literary character composed and compiled in the early 12th-century and traditionally attributed to Symeon of Durham...

and co-operating on an edition of the famous Durham Liber Vitae

Durham Liber Vitae

The Durham Liber Vitae is a confraternity book produced in north-eastern England in the Middle Ages. It records the names of visitors to the church of the bishopric of Durham, and its predecessor sees at Lindisfarne and Chester-le-Street...

.

Outside of his academic interests, David Rollason is a keen cyclist, cycling 175 miles from Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 to Seaton Delaval

Seaton Delaval

Seaton Delaval is a village in Northumberland, England, with a population of 4,371. It is the largest of the five villages in Seaton Valley and is the site of Seaton Delaval Hall, the masterpiece completed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1727....

 to raise money to assist the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

in their purchase of Seaton Delaval Hall.

Selected publications

• The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England, (1982)
• ed. with G. Bonner and C. Stancliffe St Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200, (1989)
• Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England, (1989)
• with D. Gore & G. Fellows-Jensen, Sources for York History to AD 1100, (York, 1998)
• ed. & tr. Symeon of Durham. Libellus de exordio atque procursu istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, ecclesie, (Oxford, 2000)
• Bede and Germany, (Jarrow Lecture, 2002)
• Northumbria 500-1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom, (Cambridge, 2003) ISBN 0-521-04102-7.
• ed. with many others, The Durham Liber Vitae. British Library, MS Domitian A.VII, An Edition with Digital Facsimile, and Prosopographical and Linguistic Commentaries, (British Library, 2007)
• (Forthcoming in 2011) Early Medieval Europe 300-1050: The Birth of Western Society