Grzegorz Pac, the PI of the project and coordinator of the whole research team, is Associate Professor at the Faculty of History of the University of Warsaw.
Pac completed his PhD (2011) and habilitation (2020) in history at the University of Warsaw. He has published extensively in the field of women’s history and the cult of saints in Early and High Middle Ages. His PhD thesis on the social role of wives and daughters in the Piast dynasty introduced the women’s history perspective into the research field on the early and high medieval Polish history. The thesis received the Prime Minister’s Award and was published in the prestigious series curated by the Foundation for Polish Science (Women in the dynasty of Piasts. The Social Role of Wives and Daughters in the Piast Dynasty before c. 1150. Comparative Study, 2013 – the English version of the book is forthcoming). This perspective was continued in Pac’s research project on Queen Richeza and the problem of widowhood in medieval Europe.
His research interests include the social role of women, queenship, hagiography and the cult of saints, as well as the ideology of power.
As a member of the ELITES team, he focuses on various elements of medieval political and religious culture in the context of legitimization of elites in Poland and Norway in the High Middle Ages.