Judith Jesch
Judith Jesch (born 1954) is a British scholar of Old Norse language and literature, runology, and the Viking Age. She was Professor of Viking Age Studies at the University of Nottingham until 2025. She chairs the international Runic Advisory Group and is president of the English Place-Name Society.
She studied at Durham University and University College London. While a student at Durham in 1973, she co-wrote an article for Palatinate arguing that Durham did not attract a diverse range of candidates and that the university was seen as a finishing school for the socially privileged.
Her research looks at how language, texts and contexts interact in the Viking Age and medieval Scandinavia, with a focus on runic inscriptions, skaldic verse, and historical sagas. She also studies orality and literacy, geography, migration and diaspora, and the links between Scandinavia and the British Isles.
She gave the keynote at the 2015 Norse in the North Conference and directs the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age (CSVA). She is a fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), and the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) and Scotland (FSA Scot).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:22 (CET).