Qianyu Wang is a historian of the Central Middle Ages. Originally from China, he completed his Master’s thesis at Peking University in 2022, which explored the Benedictines’ ideology of property and poverty in the Historia ecclesiastica of Orderic Vitalis. In November 2022, Qianyu Wang joined Ghent University as a PhD researcher under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Steven Vanderputten. His research aims to examine the development of the Benedictines’ discourse of property and poverty in eleventh- and twelfth-century Normandy from a bottom-up perspective. While traditional research attributes these changes to Cistercian criticism, this project will focus on the impact of four other contemporary trends related to local bishops, aristocratic structure, monastic networks, and the legal nature of property. Currently Qianyu is working on an article about the changing liturgy of abbatial profession of obedience to local bishops in eleventh-century France, which will be presented at IMC Leeds 2023.
