Kirsi
Salonen
Degree Programme in Digital Culture, Landscape and Cultural Heritage
Professor, PhD, LLD
Links
Areas of expertise
Medieval history
ecclesiastical history
history of law
criminality
Biography
I graduated in general history in 1997, defended my PhD in 2001 and was granted the tile of Docent in 2004, all at the University of Tampere, Finland. In 2012 I finished my doctoral degree in law, and I was appointed as Associated professor (tenure track) at the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies at the University of Turku, and in 2017 my appointment was confirmed as full professor in European and World History in the University of Turku. Since 2021 autumn, I work only part time due to appointment at the University of Bergen.
Teaching
I supervise masteral students in European and World History (both masteral seminars and gradu-afternoons).
Research
My main research interest concern medieval papacy and ecclesiastical history but also sins, crimes, law and everyday life. Therefore, I have spent over a decade in the Vatican Secret Archives. I have published various books and articles for example about the "papal tribunal of conscience" (the Apostolic Penitentiary) and the highest ecclesiastical tribunal, the Sacra Romana Rota. In addition to institutional history, the papal source material has offered interesting glimpses of everyday life such as the story of the broken thumb of the provost of Turku, Paulus Scheel, or of the illegitimate children of Turku canons. At the moment I am leading a 4-year research project financed by the Academy of Finland, "Strategies of survival: The papal curia and ecclesiastical institutions of
Rome in the Great Western Schism (1378-1417)” (2019-2023).
In addition to the Middle Ages, I have also been studying the inter-war period, more precisely, the papal diplomacy during the pontificates of Benedict XV and Pius IX. My main figure here has been Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), who was papal nuncius in Germany in 1917-29. This interest was part of a research project financed by the Academy of Finland, Religion, Politics, and Nationalism: The Vatican's Foreign Policy and Nationalistic Tensions in Inter-War Europe (2010-2013).
Rome in the Great Western Schism (1378-1417)” (2019-2023).
In addition to the Middle Ages, I have also been studying the inter-war period, more precisely, the papal diplomacy during the pontificates of Benedict XV and Pius IX. My main figure here has been Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), who was papal nuncius in Germany in 1917-29. This interest was part of a research project financed by the Academy of Finland, Religion, Politics, and Nationalism: The Vatican's Foreign Policy and Nationalistic Tensions in Inter-War Europe (2010-2013).
Publications
Pappeja ja pappien poikia keskiajalla (2016)
Kritiikki
(Artikkeli ammattilehdessä tai kirjoitus ammatillisessa blogissa (D1))
Sara E. Ellis Nilsson, Creating Holy People and Places on the Periphery. A Study of the Emergences of Cults of Native Saints in the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Lund and Uppsala from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries, Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg 2015 (2016)
Journal of Northern Studies
(Kirjoitus tai data-artikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä (B1))
The Holy See and the New Map of Europe after the First World War (2016)
(Vertaisarvioitu artikkeli kokoomateoksessa (A3))Vatican Testimony of a German-Oriented Diocese of Schleswig (2016)
(Vertaisarvioitu artikkeli kokoomateoksessa (A3))Reconsidering the Sacra Romana Rota in the Late Middle Ages (2016)
International Congress of Medieval Canon Law
(Vertaisarvioimaton konferenssijulkaisu (B3))