Matthew Gabriele

Matthew Gabriele is a professor of Medieval History at Virginia Tech, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK). 

His research and teaching generally explore ideas of religion and violence, as well as nostalgia and apocalypse, both during the European Middle Ages and in subsequent periods that remember the medieval world. This includes both political and pop culture invocations of the Middle Ages in the modern world.

He has published several books and nearly two dozen peer-reviewed articles, which have led to invited talks given to universities across the United States, as well as at universities in England, Scotland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. 

In 2010, he was a visiting researcher at Westfälische Wilhelms Universität-Münster, in 2023 he was the Donald J. Bullough Fellow in Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews, UK, and in 2026 he was an affiliated researcher with the Committee on Medieval Studies at Harvard.

His public writing has appeared in such places as The Washington Post, Time, CNN, Slate, Smithsonian Magazine, and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). He has appeared as an expert on the History Channel and NPR, and other interviews with him on radio, podcasts, and TV have aired locally, nationally, and internationally.

With David M. Perry, he co-authored The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (Harper Books, 2021), and Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe (Harper Books, 2024).

His new book, Violence: A Christian History, will be out with WW Norton in late 2027/ early 2028.