Dr Miles Pattenden
About
Dr Miles Pattenden is an historian of the Catholic Church with particular interests in its politics, institutions, cultural impact and attitudes to gender and sexuality.
He has written two monographs and published over 30 articles and book chapters on aspects of Catholic history.
Dr Pattenden has been associated with Oxford for 20 years and currently works as Programme Director at The Europaeum. He also teaches a range of courses for the Faculty of History.
Dr Pattenden holds a DPhil from Oxford and a Bachelor of Divinity from the University of Cambridge. He is editor of The Journal of Religious History.
Expertise
- The Catholic Church: its history, teachings, modes of governance, role in global societies, and with a special expertise in papal elections
- LGBTQ+ history
- History of Italy
- History of Spain and the Spanish-speaking world
Selected publications
- The Cambridge History of the Papacy, ed. with Melodie Eichbauer, Joëlle Rollo-Koster, and Robert Ventresca, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025)
- "The cult of gay relics and queer medievalism in 1980s Sydney" (with Michael D. Barbezat), Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies 269 (2025), first view online
- "Dressing Pope Francis: his public costume between pontifical, Jesuit, and Franciscan traditions," Journal of Jesuit Studies 11 (2024): 185–203.
- "Priests and their Wigs in Eighteenth-Century Rome," Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 93 (2024), first view online
- "Priests and their Bodies after Trent: (Dis)abilities, Masculinities, Sexualities," The Journal of Religious History 48 (2024), 215–27.
- "The Papal Tiara in Sacred Historiography," The Catholic Historical Review 110 (2024): 630–55.
- Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)
- Pius IV and the Fall of the Carafa: Nepotism and Papal Authority in Counter-Reformation Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
Media experience
Dr Miles Pattenden has extensive media experience having appeared more than 100 times on television, radio and podcasts.
He has been interviewed about his research expertise by The New York Times, Politico, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, The Guardian, BBC News, France24, and many others.
Dr Pattenden has written for publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Globe & Mail, Literary Review, Times Literary Supplement, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
See 'Recent media work' for further examples of experience in broadcast media.
Recent media work
- Pope Francis lies in state at the Vatican (Fox News, 2025)
- How Pope Francis will be remembered as "The People's Pope" (CBS News, 2025)
- After newly released allegations of abuse, does the Anglican Church have a future? (ABC Radio National, 2024)
- Religious outrage at the 2024 Paris Olympics (ABC Radio National, 2024)
- Scottish politician Kate Forbes and the role of personal faith in politics (ABC Radio National, 2023)
- Convent life gone wrong: Paul Verhoeven’s titillating new film (The ABR Podcast, 2022)
- ‘Papal Infallibility’, In Our Time (BBC Radio 4, 2019)
Languages
English, Italian, Spanish