Katie Bugyis

The Rev. John A. O'Brien Associate Professor
Director of Postdoctoral Studies, Concurrent Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Faculty Fellow of the Medieval Institute, Faculty Fellow of the Nanovic Institute

Education

L.M.S. summa cum laude, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, ON

Ph.D. (Philosophy in Medieval Studies), University of Notre Dame

M.M.S. summa cum laude, University of Notre Dame

M.A.R. summa cum laude; Certificate from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music,Yale Divinity School

B.A. (History) summa cum laude, University of Notre Dame

 

 

Research and Teaching Interests

History of Christian theology, liturgical practice, and material culture; communities of religious women; saint-making; literacies of lay and religious women; paleography and codicology of medieval manuscripts

Bio

Katie Bugyis is a historian of Christian theology, liturgical practice, and material culture, who is particularly interested in reconstructing the lived experiences of religious women in the Middle Ages through their documents of practice and other material remains.

Her book, The Care of Nuns: Benedictine Women’s Ministries in England during the Central Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2019) , recovers the liturgical practices of Benedictine nuns in England from 900 to 1225 primarily through detailed analyses of the books their communities produced and used. Integrating methodological approaches yet to be employed in the study of these women—from ritual studies to manuscript archaeology—she demonstrates that they actively participated in the organization, performance, and memorialization of their liturgical practices, including public teaching and preaching, reading the gospel liturgically, hearing confessions, and offering intercessory prayers for others. Care of Nuns was awarded the American Society of Church History's 2020 Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize, which annually honors outstanding scholarship in the history of Christianity by a first-time author.

Bugyis is currently working on two projects. The first is Sibyl Felton, Pastrix of Barking Abbey. The heart of this book is a biography of Sibyl Felton, the abbess of the Benedictine abbey at Barking in Essex, England, from 1393 to 1419. She has often been remembered as a “great abbess,” but her story has yet to be told in full, together with the women who formed her and the community she supported with her expert rule, capacious literacy, and transformative liturgy. Essential to this story are the many books she commissioned, acquired, treasured, read for guidance, applied in worship, and passed on to her fellow nuns. Rooted in her books and the documentary records related to her family and Barking, Sibyl Felton shows that her capable administration preserved the abbey’s properties and privileges, saved the community from financial ruin, promoted the literacies of her sisters to read spiritual writings in English, French, and Latin, and codified their liturgical practices.

The second project, Medieval Liturgy: Tutorials for Students, Teachers, & Researchers, is a collaboration with Margot Fassler. They are developing a website that addresses a frequently expressed need for instruction in medieval liturgical books and fragments. It offers resources—teaching videos, written guides, links to relevant online materials, and more—to teach scholars how to read the surviving liturgical evidence from medieval religious communities and bring these texts and materials to life in well-reasoned and responsible ways. This project received a three-year seed grant from the University of Notre Dame’s Faculty Research Support Program in 2022, a Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2024, and grants from the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good and the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship at Notre Dame in 2025.

Bugyis has published numerous book chapters and articles, in such journals as Speculum, Church History, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of Medieval History, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, Manuscripta, Traditio, and Viator. She also has coedited two volumes, Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages (D.S. Brewer, 2020) and Medieval Cantors and Their Craft: Music, Liturgy, and the Shaping of History (York Medieval Press, 2017). Her research has won grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Medieval Academy of America, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.