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Dr Simon Pulleyn, DPhil, FRHistS

1st April 2015

read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford in the 1980s and took a doctorate in the field of ancient Greek religion. He has published numerous articles and reviews about Greek and Latin language and literature. He has written two books: a monograph entitled Prayer in Greek Religion (OUP, 1997) and an edition with commentary of Homer, Iliad Book I (OUP, 2000). Having taught Classics in the University of Oxford for about ten years, he studied law, qualified as a solicitor and practised in the City of London for five years. He then turned to teaching academic law and has written articles about legal history, land law and the law of charities. He then decided to bring together his interests in history, languages, law and religion by taking a master’s degree in Canon Law at the University of Cardiff. His dissertation, supervised by Professor Norman Doe, concentrated on the exemptions granted to monastic houses from the general canon law in medieval Europe from the earliest times to the Reformation. He presented a paper on Animals in Western Christian Canon Law at the first Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School on Religion and Animal Protection in July 2014. This is due to be published in the forthcoming Handbook of Religion and Animal Protection. Simon is interested in the ways in which historical studies can not only throw light on the past but also explain why people think and act towards animals as they do today.