PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

Rachel Koopmans, the Institute's 2014 York Fellow, received her doctorate from Notre Dame and has taught at York University since 2006, where she is currently Associate Professor of History. Her book, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (2011), was awarded the Margaret Wade Labarge Prize for 2012 by the Canadian Society of Medievalists. That same year, she was also awarded a prestigious Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for her work on the “miracle windows” depicting Thomas Becket in the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral. The resulting study, accepted for the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, to be published by the British Academy and Oxford University Press, promises to be the first major detailed analysis of the subject. Her recent essays include studies of Christina of Markyate and of the testimonial letters associated with the cult of Thomas Becket, among other subjects. She is also preparing a modern English translation of Benedict of Peterborough's Miracles of Thomas Becket.