Marcombe, David 1947–

PERSONAL:

Born September 28, 1947.

ADDRESSES:

Office—School of Education, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Rm. C88 Dearing, Wollaton Rd., Nottingham NG8 1BB, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, director, Centre for Local History. Centre for Applied Research in Teacher Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy (CARTECP), staff member.

MEMBER:

Spital Chantry Trust of St. Edmund (founding member).

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Last Principality: Politics, Religion, and Society in the Bishopric of Durham, 1494-1660, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 1987.

(Editor, with C.S. Knighton) Close Encounters: English Cathedrals and Society since 1540, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 1991.

English Small Town Life: Retford, 1520-1642, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 1993.

Sounding Boards: Oral Testimony and the Local Historian, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 1997.

(With Ann Borrill) Newark's Riverside Heritage: Millgate, a Guided Walk, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 1997.

Leper Knights: The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, c. 1150-1544, Boydell Press (Rochester, NY), 2003.

Contributor to Mender of Disorders: Court and Community in the Archdeaconry of Nottingham, 1560-1756, University of Nottingham (Nottingham, England), 2004; John Foxe at Home and Abroad, Ashgate (London, England), 2004; International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Travelling on Christ's Business, University of Wales Press (Cardiff, Wales), 2006; Dictionnaire des Ordres Militaires en Europe au Moyen Age, 2007. Contributor to Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. Editor, East Midland Historian.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Marcombe's book Leper Knights: The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, c. 1150-1544 examines the origins of the military Order of St. Lazarus, founded in the Holy Land by crusading knights who suffered from leprosy. They founded a hospital in the Kingdom of Jerusalem to help disease victims, and when the city of Acre fell in 1291, the order migrated to England. Roger of Mowbray opened a hospital in Burton Lazars, a village in England's East Midlands that still exists today, which became the headquarters of the Order. It gradually underwent a shift in its intent and became more of a ceremonial guard—far removed from its origins as a charitable organization for lepers. The order lasted until 1544, making it one of the last holdouts to Henry VIII's Reformation that outlawed all monasteries. Nevertheless, in a skeletal form, the order survived until the late eighteenth century. The order was formally revived in the early twentieth century and continues its charitable missions throughout Eastern Europe and Russia.

Reviewers welcomed Marcombe's account for shedding light on this lesser-known order; the book is "very thorough" wrote Malcolm Barber in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and makes "extensive use of both archival and printed sources." Marcombe conducted research in conjunction with the Burton Lazars Research Group, and together their "reconstruction of the Order's history in England is no mean achievement, the result of extensive quarrying for sources," wrote R.N. Swanson in Albion.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, summer, 2004, R.N. Swanson, review of Leper Knights: The Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, c. 1150-1544, p. 282.

American Historical Review, December, 2004, Michael Gervers, review of Leper Knights, p. 1625.

Choice, October, 1994, review of English Small Town Life: Retford, 1520-1642, p. 354.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, July, 1995, David Hey, review of English Small Town Life, p. 565; January, 2005, Malcolm Barber, review of Leper Knights, p. 137.

Social History, October, 1994, Peter Edwards, review of English Small Town Life, p. 426.

Times Literary Supplement, March 11, 1994, review of English Small Town Life, p. 32.