Michael Hahn

I am a theologian, church historian and medievalist working on late-medieval spirituality, primarily in Franciscan contexts. My work thus far has concerned, and continues to focus on, Francis of Assisi, Clare of Assisi and Bonaventure, but I am particularly interested in Angela of Foligno in terms of her mystical theology, sources, reception history, and her status and identity as a lay penitent aligning herself to the Franciscan movement. I also research late-medieval pilgrimage, medieval poverty, and theologies of love.

I am currently Programme Leader in Postgraduate Programmes in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College in Salisbury (UK), where I organise and co-teach a range of modules on Christian spirituality, including those which are more historically based and those which have a more-modern focus. I am also Tutor in the History of Christianity for the University of London's distance-learning degree in theology. I have previously taught at St Andrews, York St John and Toronto, and recently finished working as an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto.

My present research is developing work based on my doctoral research into the early Franciscan mystical tradition, most notably in my forthcoming book "Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno and Late Medieval Mystical Theologies: Annihilation, Hierarchization and the Spiritualities of Franciscans." My two new (overlapping) research projects focus on late-medieval and early-modern reception history of medieval mystical texts. Firstly, this concerns  Angela of Foligno's medieval and early-modern reception history, with a particular focus on the development of her reputation as a theological teacher, working up to 1624 when Angela was first called "Magistra Theologorum" ("Teacher of Theologians") by the Dutch Jesuit Maximilian van der Sandt. Secondly, I am working on the 15th-century Camoldolese theologian John-Jerome of Prague's reception and adaptation of mystical texts.

In January 2020 I completed a PhD at St Andrews for a thesis examining the distinctively-Franciscan flavour of Bonaventure and Angela of Foligno's mystical theologies (in comparison with non-Franciscan contemporaries such as Hadewijch, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart). Prior to that, I gained a master's degree in Ecclesiastical History from Oxford and an undergraduate degree in Theological Studies from St Andrews.